GOOD 2019 EVERYONE!!

I've been busy for the last few months. The real life job has been full of books, books, and more books.

I had to use up the money from (I think) three grants before they expired. That meant A LOT of processing.  The good thing is that our public library now has a decent manga collection that I feed with my regular funds. 

The cool thing is that the stats for the collection was astounding. It had super high stats for the year.  It did better that some of our other collections. Woot!

Image from Playway.com

And it was not only books. There were a ton of playaways. Those are audio books. Tiny, portable, and can go just about anywhere.  They run on a AAA battery. 

I had two major projects in the works that had to be done. A major weeding of my Juvenile and YA sections.

Other than that, life has been going on. We were sadden to lose one of our fur babies. She was 17.

We were all depressed.

A month later, my brother brought home an impy little turd named Reba. She is a tiny 7 lb. bundle of Speedy Gonzalez energy. She has two motions stop and light speed.  She is also a sand worm from Dune. She burrows under the covers like one.  Nothing like getting a frigid nose butting your arm at 3 a.m. so she can bury herself under the covers.

I have decided to do the Popsugar Reading Challenge again. 

I know, I know. I tried in 2015 and didn't finish. This time I've planned ahead and found books to fit the categories ahead of time. So now I just have to read them.  Plus, I decided to do a reading log to go with it.

I've labeled the reading log with each of the Popsugar challenge categories ahead of time. Now I just fill in the pages with the books I choose.

I've also decided to pledge a set number of books in the Goodreads reading challenge, which I've never ever done before. I officially read 300 books (okay, mostly manga) last year. This year I said 250.

Sounds like a lot, but it's not really.

I also want to downsize my billions of books. So I'm bound and determined to read them and get rid of the ones I don't want anymore. 

So how has your January treated you?

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 10 OLDE BROOKLYN RED HOOK RASPBERRY

My next soda looked hot pink in the light. It was a pretty color really. The soda is called Olde Brooklyn Red Hook Raspberry.

I popped the top and sniffed.  Surprisingly, it didn't have a strong smell. Only a hint of raspberry tickled my nose.

The taste was also mellow.  It was mostly cane sugar sweet with the raspberry flavoring hitting my taste buds in the aftertaste.  Long lasting and not too strong, it was sort of pleasant to have it linger.

I've noticed a difference in taste between high fructose corn syrup and cane sugar.  How do I describe it?  I want to say its the difference between cheap maple syrup and molasses.  High fructose has a thinner sweet quality than cane.  Cane, for me, feels like it coats my mouth more.
Anyway, the raspberry taste was subtle, and the soda wasn't too sweet either.  I did like this one quite a bit.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 9 CHEERWINE

So this one was one of the funkiest so far.  It was dark like a cola.  That is until I held it up to the light. Then it turned a beautiful blood-red burgundy.

From the bottle, I could tell it was wild cherry flavor.

The smell hinted of the cherry flavor.

The taste was not there.  I didn't get a cherry flavor at all.  I was expecting something like that of a Cherry Coke, where the taste is in-your-face.  There wasn't much flavor at all.  It was more tart/acidy than anything else.

Who knows.  Maybe my tastes buds were off that day. My disappointment knows no bounds on this one.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 8 VANILLA ROOT BEER

Frostie Vanilla Root Beer was the second choice my sister made when she was here for 4th of July weekend.  The first being Coco Fizz.(What can I say? She's a chocoholic.)

So this one smelled like root beer with a hint of vanilla.  It was very promising.

I poured all three of us some.  My mom thought it was too sweet.  My sister approved.  I thought it tasted as if it was a root beer float.

The vanilla flavor was big enough to make it seem as if there was a scoop of vanilla ice cream hanging out in the bottle.

My only complaint about this soda was that the root beer part lacked bite. I prefer my root beer to stab my tongue with its flavor.  This particular root beer was a palid version. The flavor was there, but not like it is with Barq's.

My mom thought it was okay but not great.  My sister liked it a lot.  I thought that it was pretty much a winner.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 7 COCO FIZZ

So now we are about half way or more through the sodas.

How can you go wrong with chocolate soda.  Hmm, chocolate soda.  Yep.

Upon opening the bottle, the scent of Toosie Roll is pungent. I didn't even have to put the bottle to my nose to smell it.

Pouring it, it is brown as you would expect. If I rememeber correctly, it was about the color of a Toosie Roll as well.  Maybe even a bit lighter.

My sister and mom both hated it. They made the lemon juice squishy, gag-a-maggot, yucky-poo face.

To me, it literally tasted like I was drinking a Toosie Roll in soda form.  It was a bit too much for me, but it definitely was better than Big Red.

I say it was on a low like scale.  I don't mind it, but I would not go out of my way to buy it again.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 6 CARAMEL CREME

Okay, this one is going to be fun.  The this one is called Caramel Creme.

Oh My Goodness! The smell was just like if you opened up a jar of caramel topping for ice cream. It was that strong. 

It literally made my jaw ache when I smelled it. It was almost nauseatingly sweet.

The taste wasn't bad.  I don't like creamsicles to begin with but this one wasn't too bad.  It had that creamsicle aftertaste. It was pretty sweet in flavor as well. 

This isn't one I would do again.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 5 AJ STEPHANS BIRCH BEER

A J Stephans Birch Beer is the next soda on my list.  It came with a simple brown bottle with a label as unassuming as it can be.

I opened the bottle and the smell was okay.  It was sort of like root beer.

Much to my suprise the soda itself was transparent like 7UP or Sprite, but it did have a tinge of brown to it that i would call it a very pale tan.

As for the taste, the only way I can describe it is that it tastes like root beer without the root.  I have no idea if that makes sense.  I guess it has the basic flavor of root beer, but it doesn't have the bite that root beer has.

My mother's eloquent comment was that it tasted like furniture polish.

It was an okay soda. It came up to the mid I liked it scale.  Not the greatest but definitely not the worst tasting thing out there.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 4 BIG RED

Number four is Big Red.  I had no idea what to expect because there is no flavor labeling unlike Route 66.

I assumed it was a cherry, strawberry, or some other fruit flavor.  I was right.

This soda was cherry flavored.  Only this cherry flavor reminded me of the flavor you get from cherrry flavored cough syrup.  Well, minus the medicine taste you get with it.  Or it's kind of like the syrup for snow cones because it had that same bitter aftertaste that snow cone syrup leaves.

My mother could not even finish the sip she had of this soda, which was about three tablespoons at most.

I was dissappointed and not impressed with this soda.  Definitely not a winner in my book.

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 3 FITZ'S HIP HOP POP

So my third soda looked like it had come from the 50s with it's decoration in my opinion.

The color is unassuming with its normal cola brown.

I totally thought this was going to be a regular cola soda.  Nope, they fooled me.

This one tasted like a cherry cola.  Surprise!

Its cherry flavor is not overwhelming.  Nor does it have as strong an acidic burn as some other colas.  It had great flavor without being too much of anything.

My mom nearly gagged a maggot because she hates this type of soda. Give her a regular cola.

The ingredient label reads like any other cola label.  No nasty artificial sweeteners, but it does have caffiene, caramel and other colorings, and other nonmentioned flavorings.

I definitely enjoyed this one.  Cherry colas are one of my favorites. 

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- # 2 ROUTE 66

My second soda was so out-of-this-world in color that I had to try it next.  It is an amazing non-natural color that it reminded me of Slimer from Ghostbusters.

This is Route 66 Lime Soda.

Again, the picture does not do this soda justice. For me, this soda almost glowed from the awesomeness of the color.

I must admit I did have a bit of danish before drinking this so my taste buds were a bit off.

Anyway, the soda was more tart and less sweet (maybe because of the danish) than Shirley Temple.  I liked it, but was disappointed that I didn't get a burst of lime flavor.  The smell was outrageous with lime, but the flavor was lacking. Minus a point for that.

Even my mother agreed that it did not have as much flavor. (Yep, she's trying them too. She's the 'taster' in the family.)

There was no artificial sweeteners in this one. Yay!

So flavor aside, a more tart soda that makes Mountain Dew look almost normal.  

MY TOTALLY BIASED REVIEW OF (FUNKY FOR MY HOMETOWN) SODAS -- #1 SHIRLEY TEMPLE

Okay, this should tell you how utterly boring my life happens to be.  When sodas are interesting enough to blog about, you know its bad.

And now the back story first.  I had to go to the local hardware store to get a surge protector.  I've only been in this store maybe three times since it moved into the building when it's predecessor folded.

On that day, since it was already in the mid 80 degree range at 9:30 in the morning, I noticed the store had a drink fridge.  So call me oblivious the other times I was there.

The fridge had all these cool-looking bottles. I wandered over and took a gander.  My little junk food loving heart skipped a beat as I saw soda flavors and names I have never heard of before.  So, later, I ended up buying them.

Now, onto the review of the first soda, pop, fizzy drink, or whatever you want to call it.

The first one I opened was called Shirley Temple.  

Love the color of the soda.  The picture cannot do it justice.  

Anyway, so I took my first drink.  The only flavor I can name that this soda tastes like is grenadine.  Of course, that depends on the brand of grenadine you get.  I'm not a drinker so I've only tasted pure grenadine once, but it is a distinctive flavor. 

I even asked my mom to taste the soda and she agreed with me.  

It wasn't bad, I must say, but it did leave an aftertaste because of the aspartame.  Minus one for that.  It was a sweet soda too. Maybe a bit too sweet. 

All in all, I did enjoy the soda.

LIFE, THE WORLD, AND OTHER THINGS STRANGE AND UNUSUAL

And so it has come to pass that half a year has flown by in a blur.  I don't know where the time went.

Last Tuesday, I did my first session of Summer Reading Program.  I thought it went well.  I think the kids were receptive to it.  I hope I get some repeaters.  We made poetry where you take a page and circle words that jump out then block out the rest.  Then I had a huge pile of poetry lines in strips and they made poems from them.

Bless public domain websites like Project Gutenburg. They have a host of works that are free to download and read and use.  52,000+ books in multiple languages.

So it will be on to next Tuesday and the next session with the Theme of Art.  du du dun!

Au revoir, mes amis.  Okay, I don't speak French, but I like the language.

I HAVE NOT DISAPPEARED. . . THOUGH IT SEEMS THAT WAY

Hi all!

I know that I've been lax in my posting since -- Um, let me go check that -- August 11th, but much of that was from real world drama.  Not my own mostly but family stuff (both blood and those I consider blood).

My own drama comes with my new job as Children's Librarian at the public library.  I started at the end of August and have been playing learn and catch up on things since then.

  I'm doing a lot of the same things I did before but with more piled on top of the rest.  The best part is I get to be Goddess of Books!  Muhahahaha!!!!

In other words (that are not so obnoxiously demented), I buy all the Easy, Juvenile, and Young Adult books now.

 How is that for sick and twisted?  Book junkie with free reign despite the budget.

I just have to keep in mind the girly girl juvenile stuff as well as the ya romancy ones too.  Sigh.

Writing and blogging have been set aside pretty much until I can get my computer fixed.  I've basically been blogging from the library when I had desk hours as a volunteer.  Not anymore because there is more work now than time I have.

The iPad is great but not conducive to effective blogging.  Pages sometimes freeze at certain points.

So that's my update in a nutshell.

Hope to blog again soon.

REFLECTIONS A TO Z 2015 . . . SAME ONLY DIFFERENT . . . AND A BIT OF GEEKING AT THE END

Okay, this is where I gush my little heart out about the awesomeness of surviving and finding new blogs to read.

So . . . I DID IT!  I FINISHED ALL MY POSTS! YAY, ME!!

Ahem, now that is out of my system,  I will tell you all the trials and tribulations that nearly did my A to Z in.

To start off with, I was in way better shape than last year.  I only had to M scheduled when April came about last year.  This year I had up to Q or R (But not N.  Nope, N was being a pest.) scheduled along with Z and Y.  Anyway, I was finishing up my remaining posts when --- WHAM! I got sick --- again.   On Friday the 3rd I came down with some scavy disease that killed me for a week.  Joy!

Cough syrup and fake NyQuil déjà vu time!  With doses of Halls and Vitamin C lozenges.

Last year it happened at the end of the month.  I think it was a similar bug because I ran an almost identical course.

This put me behind my finishing the incomplete posts.  Since I don't have a computer at home anymore (Wah! Want my lappy fixed!), I used my work computer.  The iPad works, but it freezes too much and it is a freaking impossible to put a picture in the blog.

Then, I finally get well and go back to working on my posts when --- WOO HOO! -- the internet goes down all blipping day.  A fiber-optic line had been cut deliberately --OOO! Sabotage! -- and that put the kibosh on any attempt to finish the last three.

So I finally get my V and X post done.  Let's say the X post was done only the day before it was due.

Now, I will totally gush about my awesome people that came back over and over again.

Sara -- She had some fantastic story pieces that had to do with trees.  She was with me all 26 letters!

Natasha -- She wandered the lore of books, movies, and TV to find some of the coolest demons and gods from them.

A Tarkabarka Hölgy -- She delved into Hungarian history for the strangest ways to die on her blog Mopdog and Epics from around the world on her other blog, Multicolored Diary.

Patricia -- She had some gorgeous stories that ranged from dark to funny with awesome words for prompts.

There are others that are noteworthy to mention: Nick Wilford, J. H. Moncrieff, and S. L. Hennessy and probably more that I'm forgetting.

Visit all of them because they all have wonderful A to Z posts and are just cool peeps!

So I thank everyone who visited!




And now the whiny bits.  The only real beef I had was when I could not follow a blog through email.  I don't have google+ or bloglovin' or any of that (nor do I want it).  I really don't mind capcha so that wasn't a problem.  The other big problem was when I went to look for the A to Z posts and they are hidden or nonexistent on a page.  I really don't want to hunt and peck through a bunch of stuff to find it  Other than that, I had a blast finding new and unusual blogs.

Now that is over I have just one more thing to say:

Congratulations on finishing A to Z. See you all next year!

TREE OF LIFE -- CELEBRATING A LIFE

Tree of Life

In the celebration of a life that has touched the lives of so many bloggers from around the globe, Samantha Redstreake Geary is creating a tribute to the life of Tina Downey.

This ebook is the collaborated efforts of 26 authors Tina included.  Each individual work from Tree of Life: Branching Out is connected to one of the beautiful pieces music from Audiomachine's album Tree of Life.

The stunning cover was created by Ryo Ishido.

The ebooks's proceeds will go to an education fund for her two boys.

I will add links when the book is available.  Let's celebrate this wonderful life together.

O.L.L.E. HOW I LOVE THEE!!!

Today my family went to the park.  Not an unusual occurrence, true, but this weekend is special.  Today is the annual Frontier Days weekend.  There all various booths from out of town and local selling things  Community parade, games, competitions, and all sorts of things.

Every year,  for I don't know how long, my family waits for this event because of our favorite booth: the O.L.L.E. stand.

What is an O.L.L.E.? you ask.

It is a drink.  It's a combination of lemon, lime, orange juice (fresh from the fruit) with ice and maraschino cherries.  Or mana from heaven.

 With the sun beating down and the temp at 90+ degrees Fahrenheit (32+ Celsius), it is the most fantastic tasting thing.  So refreshing.

I drool thinking about it.

What's great is that they have cups that you can buy and then reuse every year.  It drops the price of a large drink by a dollar fifty.

Also, they have plain lemon, lime, or orange ades.  And you can get them sans cherries too for a more  tangy flavor.

Well, all I can say is that I'm dosed up on vitamin C.

And I can't wait to do it again next year!

AND NOW A BIT OF RANDOM BORINGNESS

Hello everyone.

It's been a while since I posted anything.  So I'm going to bore you do death today.

Right now, I'm listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as I contemplate.

So what I am working on?  I have a Christmas present that's turning out to be very, very late as well as an early birthday present.  I'm nearly done though.  Yay.  It didn't help that I got sick twice while trying to finish it.  Two weeks in November and two weeks in January.  Le sigh.

I'm also working on my A to Z Challenge project.  I've finished A-F (Evil F.  Bad F).  I'm currently working on G.  So only 20 more letters to get through before April 1st.  When it's all said and done, I'll post the entire thing on it's own page here.

 I thought I would be able to get through my Goodreads books in December.  Nope.  I read through one.  It was Dreamwalker by C. S. Friedman.  Good book.  Has one of my favorite plot devices: Alternate Worlds.  Actually I use them quite a bit now that I think about it.  Heh.  Heh.

So that's what's going on of note other than regular life ups and downs.  

WHAT A WAY TO BEGIN THE NEW YEAR BUT IT'S GETTING BETTER

Do you know how much it sucks to wake up on the first day of the new year sick?  Bleh!  I can't believe that's how my new year started.  So I've been sick for the last 14 days. 

Horrible, nasty head cold.  Sans Nyquil or decongestant.

I know. I know.  I'm such a whiny brat.

Now, I'm back at work and have a huge stack of books to read!

I have 17 days and counting for the final Reuts list for their anthology.  I can't wait.  Sigh.

So now I have a new challenge to keep me occupied.  Figment, which Random House has taken over, has come out with a new contest.  I have a deadline of the 30th to turn it in. It gives me something else to think about.

Other than that, life is good and boring, which is wonderful.

MEETING AGAIN

I know everyone has that one friend that you lose track of and then find again, that is if you're lucky enough.

For me, I have a friend, whom I had a serious crush on when I was younger (not that he knew), that I lost track of, met up with him again, lost track of, and finally in this last two weeks found him again.

Maybe this time, I won't lose him this time around.

He's the one that makes me laugh at myself and just makes me laugh.  He teases and flirts outrageously with me.  It's not any guy that I will let say what he says to me and get away with it.  I would be such a mess psychologically without his friendship at a time in my life when I hated myself.

Hell, I'm still screwed up but not as much as I could have been.

He got me through a trauma I don't think he realized really happened.  I wrote it out in a short story and gave it to him to read. 

And, now that I've met up with him again, it's as if time hasn't passed.  We've aged, of course, but that's it.  We still make naughty references to each other just like when we were teens.

I'm glad that I found him.  My life was dull without him.  Now, it's a flirt fest an a half with as many laughs.

GHOSTLY ENCOUNTERS

In my old house, we had a ghost.  A poltergeist to be more exact.  We called him Fred, and he used to steal things sometimes he would throw things too.

One time, my mother, sister, and I were watching a movie.  I had gotten up to get a drink of water in the kitchen.  When  I returned to the living room, I nearly freaked out and dropped my glass.

On the wall across from me, we had five pictures and a plaque.  Two of the pictures were oval-framed silhouettes.  One was of me and one was of my brothers.  They were from our trips to the Spruce Goose and the Queen Mary.

Anyway, my silhouette was swing back and forth like a pendulum.  I'm not talking tiny swings either.  I'm talking like the bottom of the frame was going from 6 o'clock to 8 and to 4.  It did this for five minutes straight.

Nothing else on that wall or the adjacent wall was moving.  When it was over, I stood in awe and my mother and I exchanged looks, and a minute later, I tested the silhouette myself.  I lifted it up and let it go, but it only swung three times before stopping.  I did it once more with the same result.

♫ Twilight Zone Theme Song ♫

Another time, we had six people standing beside the pellet stove as we were gabbing and having a good time.  In front of us was the gun cabinet with two hats on top of it.   All of a sudden the cowboy hat jumped forward about three inches.  Let's just say that our guests freaked a little.  Even my brother was shocked, considering it was his hat.

Everyone was at least a foot away from the cabinet, no one was moving other than subtle bodily shifts, and the top of the cabinet is about six feet in height.  Let's just say that my brother picked up his hat to see if there was anything under it like a mouse.  (We were surrounded by farmland.  Field mice were notorious.)

♫ Ghost Hunt Opening Theme Music ♫

My third major encounter was when I was all alone in the house.  It was summer time and I was reading in the chair by the window before bed.  All of a sudden, an ice cold hand caressed my cheek.  I wasn't expecting it and gasped.

At first, I thought it was the draft from the window, but that was on the wrong side.  Then I thought it was the air conditioner, but when I gazed up at the curtain by the duct, it wasn't moving.  I had shut it off earlier.   So, I said hello to whomever it was and went to bed.

Needless to say, I believe there is something more out there than what we can see.