Giveaway Winner!!!! (and a little life)

There's talent... and then there's talent. Me, I've got the latter. This morning for breakfast I made a smoothie and there was spinach in it so it ends up kind of looking like puke, which doesn't bother me. However, when I'm "talented" enough to dump it on my white scrub top... well...
I didn't let that dampen my absolutely amazing day at nursing clinicals today though. I got to watch my very first birth via C-section today and it was an absolutely magical experience! Today was the best clinical day I have had yet. I'll even admit I almost cried several times today. Hearing a baby's first cry just about did it.
However, I'm sure you're far more interested in the winner of the giveaway for a handmade beach bag! So I'm very excited to announce that Andrea Stoeckle!!!! and I recommend you check it out. I'll be contacting Andrea and she'll soon be getting her handcrafted bag. :)
Thank you to everyone who participate and I hope to do another giveaway sometime in the near future. The weather is amazing right now in Kansas and I hope you are enjoying equally splendid weather. Have a great day and God bless! :)

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Top Ten Tuesday: All Time Favorite Books in the Fantasy Genre

The link up for today at The Broke and the Bookish was "All time favorite books in X genre". I chose fantasy as that's probably my favorite reading genre. :) While it is my favorite genre I haven't actually read tons of books in that genre so we'll see if I get a list of ten. And these are in no way in any order, though LOTR is definitely number one.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (duh)
2. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
4. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
5. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
6. Redwall series by Brian Jacques
7. Eragon by Christopher Paolini (first one is good but I don't really care for the others)
8. The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
9. The Wizard of Oz series by L. Frank Baum
10. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll

We'll I did come up with ten, though I wasn't exactly consistent with how I listed them (some I listed series, some I listed single titles). I'm so afraid I missed something obvious but who knows. I went scrolling through lists of fantasy books which jogged my memory. I almost forgot certain books/series were fantasy. :)

P.S. I know I said I'd announce the winners for my giveaway today. Please know I haven't forgotten... I am going to post it later on today. :)

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It's Monday! Getting in the Reading Swing!

I think I'm finally back into the swing of reading. You know how it is, one day you're reading like crazy the next you're taking it easy. Or maybe that's just me. :)
Note: DON'T FORGET!!! There is still time to sign up for my giveaway. Don't forget to do so! :)

Last week I FINALLY finished War of the Worlds and you can read my review here. 

Goodreads synopsis of The War of the Worlds: Man had not yet learned to fly when H.G. Wells conceived this story of a Martian attack on England. Giant cylinders crash to Earth, disgorging huge, unearthly creatures armed with heat-rays and fighting machines. Amid the boundless destruction they cause, it looks as if the end of the world has come.

I'm also still current listening to on audio book Anthony Trollope's The Warden and I am now a little over halfway through it. 

Goodreads synopsis of The Warden: The book centers on the character of Mr. Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity, whose charitable income far exceeds the purpose for which it was intended. Young John Bold turns his reforming zeal to exposing what he considers to be an abuse of privilege, despite being in love with Mr. Harding's daughter Eleanor. The novel was highly topical as a case regarding the misapplication of church funds was the scandalous subject of contemporary debate. But Trollope uses this specific case to explore and illuminate the universal complexities of human motivation and social morality. 

Early last week I started Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey. So far I am enjoying it, finding it a very intriguing and though provoking book.

Goodreads synopsis of The Picture of Dorian Grey: The tale of a youth whose features, year after year, retain the same appearance of innocent beauty while the shame of his abhorrent vices becomes mirrored on the features of his portrait.

Later in the week I started J.R.R. Tolkien's The Children of Húrin, which I am enjoying. Pretty much it is for us Tolkien geeks and probably no one else would appreciate it. :)

Goodreads synopsis of The Children of Húrin: Painstakingly restored from Tolkien's manuscripts and presented for the first time as a fully continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of The Children of Hurin will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, dragons and Dwarves, eagles and Orcs, and the rich landscape and characters unique to Tolkien. There are tales of Middle-earth from times long before The Lord of the Rings, and the story told in this book is set in the great country that lay beyond the Grey Havens in the West: lands where Treebeard once walked, but which were drowned in the great cataclysm that ended the First Age of the World. In that remote time Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in the vast fortress of Angband, the Hells of Iron, in the North; and the tragedy of Turin and his sister Nienor unfolded within the shadow of the fear of Angband and the war waged by Morgoth against the lands and secret cities of the Elves. Their brief and passionate lives were dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bore them as the children of Hurin, the man who had dared to defy and to scorn him to his face. Against them he sent his most formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire. Into this story of brutal conquest and flight, of forest hiding-places and pursuit, of resistance with lessening hope, the Dark Lord and the Dragon enter in direly articulate form. Sardonic and mocking, Glaurung manipulated the fates of Turin and Nienor by lies of diabolic cunning and guile, and the curse of Morgoth was fulfilled. The earliest versions of this story by J.R.R. Tolkien go back to the end of the First World War and the years that followed; but long afterwards, when The Lord of the Rings was finished, he wrote it anew and greatly enlarged it in complexities of motive and character: it became the dominant story in his later work on Middle-earth. But he could not bring it to a final and finished form. In this book Christopher Tolkien has constructed, after long study of the manuscripts, a coherent narrative without any editorial invention.

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Book Review-The War of the Worlds

For my reading challenges I need to write reviews of the books I read. I don't consider myself very good at literary analysis (maybe a little better at film reviews) but as I have to, here goes.... My review of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds.
Prior to reading the book I was only familiar with the old film version. Now that I have finished the book I'm going to try out the more recent film version with Tom Cruise.
The War of the Worlds, I'm given to understand was fairly revolutionary for its time, and you have to keep that in mind when reading it. It was a slow paced book but quite intriguing. The contemplations of the main character are fascinating as he goes between despair and hope and watches others around him succumb to insanity in the wake of the terror. The science part of it was good, but as I read it in this time period and not in the time in which it was written, some of its wonder is probably lost on me. Overall though I enjoyed it. I gave it three stars on Goodreads, meaning to me that it was good but I probably won't ever re-read it.

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Something Summery (giveaway!)

I know what you're thinking.... "Lois has finally lost it... she thinks it's summer." Wrong! I lost it years ago. ;) So why "something summer"? Sheila at Book Journey is calling an emergency Summer-Cation, asking people to write a post about a great summer experience. I am honestly thrilled about this because as you all know, I hate the cold and I am much looking forward to warmer weather. I am also doing a giveaway to go along with this. I will be crocheting and giving away a mesh beach bag! Now I have your attention! ;) You can enter by commenting with what you are most looking forward to this summer! Like the blog on Facebook and you get another entry (link in sidebar). Follow my blog and you get another entry yet! Follow me on Bloglovin and you'll get ANOTHER entry (link at bottom of post or in sidebar) and finally, become my friend on Goodreads and you'll get another entry. Just comment and let me know which ones you did. This is open until Monday at midnight. I'll announce the winner next Tuesday (and contact you) and as soon as I get the bag made (hopefully sooner not later as you guys know my crazy school schedule) then I'll get it sent to you.

So back a few years ago, my family had a Japanese exchange student staying at our house for the summer. To give him the true Kansas experience, we took him for a tour of the flint hills. Not the nice highway 177 scenic route that's clearly marked. No... we took the real scenic route.... gravel roads, no signs, truly out in the boonies. It is gorgeous out there. Pictures just don't capture it. There is nothing for miles but the rolling grassy hills, oil pumps, and cattle. We spent quite some time driving along out there, stopping every once and awhile to snap a picture. It was quite awhile before we realized that we had not clue where we were. Did I mention we were in the middle of nowhere? No houses, I'm not sure about cellphone coverage (I don't think anyone tried that option at least), no GPS, nada. My Dad, who knows the area more as his grandparents had lived in the area, took the wheel and started driving. He was trying to make light of the situation as he didn't want us to get worried, especially not our exchange student. We drove for quite awhile longer before he finally said, "I recognize this place!" Oh my were we excited! It still took us a length of time to get into an area where we really knew we where and then finally we made it home.

The moral of this story is not don't go visit the Flint Hills and it isn't even don't take the real scenic route. No, the moral of the story is take some sort of GPS system so if you get lost you can find your way out of there. However, if I was going to get lost anywhere, I'd want it to be out in the Flint Hills.

Note: None of these pictures are mine... I found them off the internet but I felt they captured as well as it could possibly be captured, the beauty of the Flint Hills.

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Bookish and not so Bookish Thoughts ( Non-tired edition)

Time again for bookish and not so bookish thoughts, hopefully this week my tiredness won't get in the way of my writing. :)

My new haircut!

1. I had my first clinical rotation for OB this week but my patient didn't give birth before I left. :( I'm sure it isn't just me that would have been happier if the baby had come sooner. Next time... Next time! 
2. I finally finished The War of the Worlds. I enjoyed it and there should be a review coming (relatively) soon. Be sure to check out my reading challenges progress in the sidebar or in the reading challenges tab. With finishing War of the Worlds I got points for two different challenges (Back to the Classics and To Be Read Pile challenge).
3. I started reading Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and I'm surprisingly enjoying it so far. I'm actually highlighting in it, which is something I never do with fiction books.... Of course that could also something to do with the fact that I am using the iBooks app to read it. :) 
4. I got a haircut... the shortest I've ever had it yet. It's the style that is shorter in the back, which is a big change. I have so much less hair now that it's taking some getting used to. 
5. We got a random snow day this week, which I actually didn't expect them to call. It was nice though to relax and get caught up on school work and then I also got my taxes and FAFSA done. 
6. I did a little more listening with The Warden earlier this week but in general I haven't been really diligent about listening to it. When it comes to audiobooks, I tend to just listen to them here and there when the opportunity arises. If it was warmer I would go on walks and then I would listen to it then. It needs to be warmer. 
7. I had a great time at my church's women's retreat this past weekend. There was a lot of great teaching and fellowship.
8. I had to have another photo shoot as the first one's photos didn't work out. If you didn't see my past post about that, I had photos taken of me for my college's quarterly magazine. The needed a nursing student and through mutual acquaintances they alighted on me. :)
9. I was going to start reading Tolkien's Children of Húrin last evening but by the time I got around to it, it was too late and I highly value my sleep time. Maybe I can start it today. 
10. I bought some grapefruit juice earlier this week and it is SO good! I have been eating grapefruit but they're kind of a pain to cut up and rather messy so I thought I'd try the juice. I don't think I'll ever go back now. It is DELICIOUS! :)

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Favorite Classic Literary Period

This is a link up for the Classics Club March meme.
Do I get two? I want two favorites because it's really not fair that Jane Austen and Charles Dickens are in two separate periods. So I guess my TWO favorite periods are the Romantic Period and the Victorian Period. This choice is completely due to those two authors, though I do enjoy other authors from the Victorian periods such as Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre).
So there's my answer plain and simple. :)

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Top Ten Tuesday: Popular Authors I've Never Read

This is so easy because there are a lot of modern books I haven't read but working in a library, I am familiar with all of them. :)

1. Stephen King
2. Suzanne Collins
3. Stephanie Meyer
4. Neil Gaiman
5. Veronica Roth 
6. Jodi Piccoult 
7. James Patterson
8. George R.R. Martin
9. Janet Evanovich
10. Lee Child

Probably I'll never read any of those authors, though perhaps someday I will read one of Stephen King's books just for the experience. 

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Fitting Reading in with School

I need a zap or something. The reading zap. I actually need as studying zap more but a reading zap would be more fun.
In other words, busy with school and other various activities (which are limited due to school), I did not finish a single book this week. However, I did do some reading on War of the Worlds, but I'm not done with it yet. So I'm going to continue on reading that and listening to the audiobook of The Warden. Hopefully, hopefully, HOPEFULLY, for the third week in a row, I'll start Children of Húrin this week. School is really busy and this last week I've come to realize that I need to put even more time yet into it so it isn't going to get any better. I'm planing to take some time though to relax this week and sneak in some reading or listen to an audiobook. How much I'll get done though really depends.
In more fun news, and by fun I mean more fun relative to school, we've had lots of snow and ice here in Kansas and I'm currently having to stay at my parents so I don't get snowed in out in the middle of nowhere. I'm also getting my first OB rotation tomorrow for nursing school, which I have high hopes for. :) Agh! I'm back to school! It never escapes me. :(
Linking up with Book Journey.

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Monthly Resolutions- March 2014

This month I've made a momentous decision. Let me explain.
I first started doing these monthly resolutions and report card posts to link up with Kelli from She Learns as She Goes. When she stopped doing them, I just kept on going because I found they kept me more accountable. This month, I've decided to host the link up. I am in no way trying to replace what Kelli did just trying to carry it on until she may or may not decide to start it up again (which I would love it if she did!). :) So be sure to make your own post with monthly resolutions and link up below and at the end of the month I'll have a Report Card link up so we can all see how we did on our resolutions. It's all just fun so no real pressure. Enjoy! :)

Read or re-read five books

I fell behind one book last month but I'll pick that one up this summer instead of trying to layer that one on right now while I'm in the midst of school. Hopefully this month I'll finish up listening to the audiobook of The Warden, finish reading the ebook of The War of the Worlds, finally start The Children of Húrin and get some other fun reading in. :)

Memorize Psalm 31:5-6

To go along with my year's resolution of memorizing Psalm 31

Pray Daily

It has become far more of a habit now, which is great, but that doesn't mean I get to slack off now! Quite the opposite!

Do one Crochet project

Hopefully I can slip this in somewhere. When I got a new coat last month I bought some yarn to make a hat and scarf to match but I never got around to making them... maybe that should be my next project.

Read a Psalm a day

I realized a little late that I forgot to include that in my resolutions last month but I still did it. This month I plan to continue on with that. 

At least two blog posts per week

I know I overdid it last month and I'll probably over do it again this month but better safe then sorry.

No Netflix

A new goal this month. I've been using my brother's account and he's discontinuing it anyways so there shouldn't be anything too hard about that. However, my sister and I are probably going to start up our own and go fifty-fifty on it so I'll still have to resist. I feel I could be better spending my time reading or studying. 

Study, study study!

I've got to be a more diligent student. This semester of nursing school is a killer and I am going to have to work as hard as I can to pass it. It is traditionally the hardest semester and it is not uncommon for people to fail it. I really don't want to do that. So study! :)

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