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Dinner party a la Grey??

Thanks for Writing Award Nomination

After doing some research on the blog award nominations I’ve discovered that I have lacked in giving thanks to The Literary Tiger for nominating my blog, mom305, for the Thanks for Writing award.

Thank you for the lovely nomination. As a new blogger, it is very cool to have someone who has such a great blog nominate newbie little me. I started following The Literary Tiger probably on the first day I created my blog. I’m truly thankful that she thought of my blog. Since it was my first nomination, I wasn’t exactly sure of what the rules entailed. Now I am well versed in the subject (I think) and wanted to not only thank The Literary Tiger but apologize for taking this long in posting back.

Please check out The Literary Tiger’s blog for some honest book reviews and very cool fantasy pics/thoughts.

7 random snippets from mom305:

1. My 4 lb. chihuahua, Maddie, goes on hunger strikes when I’m away from her. She has separation anxiety. Luckily I get to take her to work with me everyday. This she absolutely loves. There are 4 other tiny breed doggies at work and she gets to play and run with them all day.
2. I like to run and sign up for most local 5k’s. Usually they are in support of a great cause – bonus! My next run will be for fun though. The Color Run is coming to my hometown and I’m very excited to run while I’m being splashed in neon chalk (is it chalk? IDK) colors. I will definitely wear all white and the oldest running shoes I own. Just in case the colors do not wash off easily.
3.  Last November I took cake decorating classes. I learned a lot and am proud to say I can make a pretty decent cake. It’s for fun and I have no intention of making a living from baking/decorating cakes. But just knowing I can actually make something tasty and pretty makes me feel pretty darn cool.
4. I seriously obsess over the books I read. Twilight was huge, then Hunger Games, Fifty Shades (of course), now it’s A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night. The list is much longer but when I’m immersed in my reading, it’s like I’m part of that world. I’m always very sad when the series ends and happy again when I hear the movies is in the works.
5. I absolutely love the beach. If I had to move somewhere that was more than a 30 minute car ride to the beach I would be a very sad woman.
6. There is no house chore I hate more than having to wash the dishes. Rules in the house are I cook, the hubby washes up.

7. My favorite vitamins are the gummy kind. They are yummy and sugary like a candy except it’s good for me. See mom, there is such a thing!

There are also some rules that are followed once you have linked back to the nominating blogger and thanked them. There are many different versions of these rules out there so I gathered them as best I could. Seems like they change from blog to blog. I hope I understood this right. Please correct me if anything.

The rules (or my version of them):

1. Include the award logo in your post or on your blog
2. Say 7 random things about yourself that the readers don’t know yet
3.  Nominate 5 – 10 other blogs you usually follow
4. Let the nominees know that they are nominated & include their blog-links
5. Link the person who nominated you

My nominations for the Thanks for Writing award go to:

1. Hardcoversandheroines
2. Reluctantmom
3. Canadiancinephile
4. Bookworm1204
5. 2gliterarygirls

Thank you all for reading and writing and for your great blogs!

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Double Rainbow Happiness Cake

I tried this fun recipe. It is time consuming, unless you have several pans that you can use. My end result wasn’t as vibrant. Next time I will tweak my colors to have brighter baked cakes.

Anyone have any fun summer cake ideas?

Double Rainbow Happiness Cake.

Moms Can Balance Work and Family

This article on parents.com caught my attention, especially on a day like today, when I am about to leave home for a work conference and leave behind my 15 months old for the first time. Not only is it the first time I’m traveling for work since I’ve had my little angel, but the first time I’ve left her overnight. Anxiety kicked in since last night while I finished packing up my luggage. Several times I looked around my bedroom and told my husband I felt like I was forgetting something. He just smiled at me and reassured me that I was fine, my list was all checked off, and I should try to get some sleep so I was well rested.

Finding the work/family balance was easy for me. I was back to work in no time and juggling life, work, the hubby, and new baby with ease. Leaving the baby at the babysitter was no big deal either, they are my family after all and I have peace of mind knowing that they take excellent care of her just like they did with me when I was younger. She does a happy dance when I drop her off and runs into my grandma’s arms every morning. I leave to work worry free; she is in great hands and there is nothing for me to worry about.

Turns out the feeling that I’ve forgotten something has gotten worse as the morning has progressed. I have this heavy weight on my chest and every now and then I find myself taking unnecessarily long breaths. I cried a little on the way to work. My husband drove me and held my hand, in silent company, the whole way. Leaving the state for three nights has me jittery and wanting to run to the bathroom to splash my face with water. I remind myself that my career is a part of me and I can do this. My husband is more than capable of taking care of her for a few nights without my support. Nevertheless, at times like these I honestly wish I was able to split myself in half so I was able to go on my work trip as well as stay with my family. 🙂

Thanks to my amazing-superdaddy-husband I am able to leave my little family behind for a few days and do something for my career.

10 Ways Moms Can Balance Work and Family.

Kill Of The Night: Supernatural Craze

Supernatural books are my thing now but in all honesty they’ve been my thing since I first read the Goosebumps books back in elementary school. I haven’t stopped reading them since and my fascination for the genre has just grown exponentially since those days. Right now that’s all the fad, too. Everywhere you look there’s either a book or movie or TV series that has supernatural beings. This craze for all things that go bump in the night just feeds my enthrallment.

Lately, thanks to my handy ereader, I can purchase most supernatural books for free or fairly cheap so I can read more for less; which is a great thing because I read several books a month. I sometimes put off buying the regular books, from known bestsellers, because for the same price I can buy two or three of the cheaper ones. Let me clarify what I mean by “regular”: when I pay full ereader price for books, which in many cases is the same or just a little less than buying the physical book. I recently purchased A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah E Harkness (I’ll post a review when I’m done with it). That one, for example, was a full priced ereader purchase I had put off because I could buy similar books, like First Bitten, by Samantha Towle, for far less.

From the less known authors, it all starts with the first book in the series offered at a very low price. Now I know this is a fantastic scheme to get me hooked because the author always make these supernatural books a series. Most supernatural characters live forever or have very long lives. So of course I understand why authors make trilogies and series and so forth. If (and when) I write a supernatural book, I’ll leave a nice cliffhanger ending setup for some potential follow-up stories too. If my characters can live forever or close to it, believe me I’d have them all returning for more adventures. In no way am I blaming the authors for having more than one book. I’m grateful actually, because there’s so much material out there these days that my reading queue is always full.

One downside to all these new stories popping up in the vamp/were/Fae/shifter/witches/zombies, etc. genre (there are so many, did I miss any breed?) is that after the first three or four books, the stories just aren’t the same. One example of this is the Charlaine Harries books, the Southern Vampire Series with Sookie Stackhouse. These are the books that started the True Blood phenomenon on HBO. The stories are still good but after a while they became detached from the original story lines and are more like standalone books. Sort of like what has happened with the TV series versus the book series. Which is fine, I get that after several books the authors have to change things up to keep the audience interested. Either way, at that point I’m too invested to give up on the series so I keep on reading. I’m a masochist for my book cravings and I read on even after knowing the material is not the same. The really great part about supernatural beings in literature is that they can be or do whatever your imagination wants them to; there are no limits.

One very positive gain: through this clever scheme of the authors and their low-priced books, I’ve come to learn of some fantastic (and new) paranormal authors that I would have not picked up otherwise. Some of these writers are very talented, although not widely known, and I’m grateful they have self published their books and made them available for my reading delight. Many props to them, their never-ending imaginations and great writing skills; please keep them coming.

Here is a small list of books/series I’ve read recently in this genre and enjoyed.

1. First Bitten & Original Sin (The Alexandra Jones Series) by Samantha Towle
   
2. The Alexa O’Brien Series by Trina M. Lee
3. Feral Sins (The Phoenix Pack) and Here Be Sexist Vampires by Suzanne Wright
4. Shifters Series (Faythe Sanders) by Rachel Vincent
5. The Accidentals Series by Dakota Cassidy

Fun music link for your listening pleasure: Gin Wigmore – Kill Of The Night – YouTube. This is my favorite song right now.  ❤ Thank you to Teen Wolf for putting me on to this singer. When I hear Gin Wigmore, I’m reminded that there’s so much new talent out there and my ears have some fun exploring to do. I like to have a few good songs on my playlist to listen to while I search my ereader, trying to decide what book to read next.

Anyone have any new/up-and-coming authors of paranormal books they want to recommend? I’m always looking for fun/new material to add to my reading queue. I prefer the more romance oriented stories but any good paranormal story has my attention.

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