I’ve decided to join Andi this week and do my very own ABC’s list. If you want to know how this blog feature works, click here and it will take you to her original post where it all started.
I recently saw this bag and I decided that I want it. I own two other Giani Bernini Hangbags and I love them. This one to me though screams “Power Suit” or “Professional Woman” which is exactly the type of bag I’ve been looking for. Oh and one that actually fits all of my stuff.
Book
Into The Still Blue is a book I’ve been anticipating for a while now, and it finally came out yesterday. And as you probably would have guessed, I pre ordered it. If you haven’t read the Under The Never Sky series, I suggest you do so.
You probably don’t know that I am obsessed with leather jackets. I only own two. A black one and a plum colored one. I was going through the Guess website and I saw this beauty. I’ve been looking for a leather jacket that is fitted. The black one I currently own is not. It’s more of a biker leather jacket. Boxy one could even say.
The publisher will be mailing you out the book soon! Congratulations!
Side-note:One thing makes me sad guys. One of the rules was to leave a quick roommate story down in the comments below and no one that filled out the form left a comment. Everyone should be disqualified for not following the rules, but since not one person that filled out the form did, I decided to count those entries anyways.
I have so many roommate stories… mostly bad ones. My last year of University I had a wonderful roommate, one of my close friends, and we were great together. Just to make this interesting I’ll give you my roommate story of my first year of college which scarred me for life.
I went to a small private university in California. Everyone raved about the close-knit environment and how everyone got along. Boy, was that totally not my experience. My freshman dorm was a old building which was the farthest from the main campus and housed about 250 students. I was stuck in a triple (one room for three girls) and the room was already small to begin with. One of my roommates was hispanic (like myself) and the other was Japanese-hawaiian. Need less to say, the hispanic roommate was out of our room within two weeks of school starting. Why? Because she was impossible to live with.
We had all talked before school started and she didn’t seem that bad, but when she came to the dorm with her parents, I had a bad feeling which turned out to be true. Let’s call her Maria for the purpose of the story. Anyways, Maria was such a snob. Her parents drove a Mercedes and she was all about flaunting what she had. When she saw my mom bought me an iTouch, she was filled with rage. She was like you’re so lucky, but her tone was anything but sweet. Once I came from class and my bed looked like someone had jumped all over it and there was dirt on it. My other roommate was with me in the previous class so the only one who could have done that was her. She denied it of course. Also, when she saw my dad bought me a new car, she was so mad. She just left the room. Also, she had to have her afternoon nap and since she was a light sleeper, we couldn’t even go into the room or we would wake her up and she would be pissed. She kept having a bad attitude about everything until one day I went to the RD and said, either she leaves or I do, but I’m not living with her anymore. Let’s just say she left.
Now, to the GIVEAWAY part of this post where I tell you how you can win a copy of Roomies!
Giveaway Rules:
Must have a US Street Address, No PO Box’s please.
Must share a quick story about a roommate situation (It can be camp, college, etc.) in the comment section below.
Giveaway Ends January 13, 2013 by midnight PST.
Must fill out this form (Asking for your email address and US address)
Sara and Tara’s confirmed tour dates:
January 12, 2014 – New York, NY: McNally Jackson [venue link]
January 15, 2014 – Salt Lake City, UT: The King’s English [venue link]
January 16, 2014 – Provo, UT: Provo Library [venue link]
February 4, 2014 – San Francisco, CA: Books Inc, Opera Plaza [venue link]
February 5, 2015 – Petaluma, CA: Copperfield’s Books [venue link]
This is all possible thanks to the Little, Brown Books for Young Readers who are kind enough to let me host a giveaway!
Today I have a very special guest on my blog, Ms. Jamie Baywood. She recently published a memoir of her recent travels to New Zealand. If you would like to know more about her and her memoir, don’t hesitate to read her own words below.
Jamie Baywood and the Red Hat
It was always my dream to live abroad when I was growing up in California. I had bad dating experiences in California and read in a New Zealand tour book that the country’s population at 100,000 fewer men than women. I wanted to have some me time and an adventure. New Zealand seemed like a good place to do so. Although I intended to have a solo adventure I ended up meeting my husband a Scottish man in New Zealand.
I consider myself an accidental author. I didn’t go to New Zealand with the intentions of writing a book about my experiences there. I had funny experiences that I had trouble believing were true. I wrote the stories down to stay sane. I wrote situations down that were happening around me and shared them with friends. The stories made people laugh so I decided to organize the stories into a book and publish in the hopes to make others laugh too.
One of the first people I meet was Colin Mathura-Jeffree from New Zealand’s Next Top Model. I had no idea who he was or that he was on TV when I meet him. He is friends with my former flatmate. We had a steep staircase that I kept falling down. Colin taught me to walk like a model so I wouldn’t fall down the stairs.
In New Zealand, I had a lot of culture shock. One of the most memorable moments was learning the meaning of the Kiwi slang word “rooted.” One night I was brushing my teeth with my flatmate and I said, ‘I’m really excited to live in this house because I have been travelling a lot and I just need to settle down, stop traveling and get rooted’. He was choking on his toothbrush and asked me if I knew what that meant because it had a completely different meaning New Zealand than it does in the States.
I had the opportunity to write and perform for Thomas Sainsbury the most prolific playwright in New Zealand. I performed a monologue about my jobs in the Basement Theatre in Auckland. The funny thing about that experience was Tom kept me separated from the other performers until it was time to perform. I was under the impression that all the performers were foreigners giving their experiences in New Zealand. All of the other performers were professional actors telling stories that weren’t their own. At first I was mortified, but the audience seemed to enjoy my “performance,” laughing their way through my monologue. After the shows we would go out and mingle with the audience. People would ask me how long I had been acting. I would tell them, “I wasn’t acting; I have to go to work tomorrow and sit next to the girl wearing her dead dog’s collar around her neck.”
I love making people laugh more than anything else. I feel very grateful when readers understand my sense of humor. I plan to divide my books by the countries I’ve lived in. My next book will be about attempting to settle in Scotland.
About the book Getting Rooted in New Zealand:
Craving change and lacking logic, at 26, Jamie, a cute and quirky Californian, impulsively moves to New Zealand to avoid dating after reading that the country’s population has 100,000 fewer men. In her journal, she captures a hysterically honest look at herself, her past and her new wonderfully weird world filled with curious characters and slapstick situations in unbelievably bizarre jobs. It takes a zany jaunt to the end of the Earth and a serendipitous meeting with a fellow traveler before Jamie learns what it really means to get rooted.
About the author Jamie Baywood:
Jamie Baywood grew up in Petaluma, California. In 2010, she made the most impulsive decision of her life by moving to New Zealand. Getting Rooted in New Zealand is her first book about her experiences living there. Jamie is now married and living happily ever after in the United Kingdom. She is working on her second book.
Today is the last day of this 16 day blogging journey and I’m sad. I had so much fun doing this. At first I thought to myself “what did I do?!” when I had signed up, but now I wish it was longer.
Now, onto today’s topic. I’m pretty sure we all have many books in our 2014 TBR list, but these are the books that I’m super excited about.
What are some of the books you just can’t wait to get your hands on in 2014?
I’m writing this post on my iPhone so I apologize for the lack of pictures.
There is always talk about the best book to movie adaptations and opinions vary. These are my favorite book to movie adaptations as of now.
A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks
If you start to think about it, the movie made the book better (and was better. The movie had that spark that the book was missing.)
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
I’ve seen this movie twice already and both times I thought it was flawless. One of the best adaptations yet.
One I hope will be good adaptation is Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
It comes it February 14, 2014.
I don’t own a lot of bookish things. I don’t collect journals, necklaces, posters, scarf, etc. There is one bookish thing that I do fall for and buy when I see them. That would be bookish mugs. So far I only have 3… well 2 if I was super picky, but one of the mugs I did buy at Barnes and Noble. Here is my collection of bookish mugs! (If you are curious as to wear you can buy these, leave me a comment and I’ll let you know where you can!)
Today I show you my life outside books. The biggest “thing” in my life for the past four years was College. I went to Biola University and obtained a BA in Communication Studies and got a minor in Theology/Bible Studies. I graduated May of 2013. Now, 6 months after graduation, I’ve interned at a Movie Marketing Company and I’ve worked at a Finance Institution. Don’t know what the future holds for me, but that’s a little glimpse into my complete world.
Oh and in the picture below, the girls with the black hair and the red sash on the screen… THAT’S ME!
I’m not really a resolution type of person. I never really do resolutions. For the sake of this post and for my reading I will give myself a reading goal. My goal is to read 50 books in 2014. We all know I can read way more, but I don’t want to pressure myself. I like doable goals. One’s that can make me feel accomplished and at the same time, push me to do more.
Which book character would you like to spend NYE with?
Oh my, Oh My… This is a very HARD question. I can choose from so many characters that I don’t even know where to begin. I sat here for a minute and it hit me. The character I would like to spend New Year’s Everwith would be ADRIAN IVASHKOV.
He is sweet, sensitive, funny, the life of the party, and unbelievable sexy. I would be crazy if I wouldn’t want to spend NYE with this beautiful boy.
Isn’t Andi’s ABC’s banner cute? I thought so too.
The Talking Bookworm 