So Many Books, So Little Time

 Happy Sunday!  We have had a lazy, relaxing weekend and it has been wonderful! I have a light mailbox this week but I'm okay with that.  I used some more of my settlement credit to get some books and also got some fun book mail (book mail is the best kind!). Purchased (for nook): 12 Years A Slave by Solomon Northup Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown For Review (from author/publisher): Duty to the Crown by Aimie K. Runyan This is the second book in the Daughters of New France series.  I really liked the first book and can't wait to read this one. I hope you all have a great week! 

#FitReaders is hosted by The Geeky Blogger and That's What I'm Talking About. Hey y'all.  I have had a really good two weeks when it comes to my fitness goals.  Last week I finished Couch 2 5K which was great!  The last run was 30 minutes straight and it was hard but I did it.  It was worth it to do the program again because I feel so much better about running.  I'm glad to be done with it because I like to be able to structure my runs around how I am feeling so I have more flexibility now that I'm done with the program.    Last week I also started the week 2 workout on my Ripped in 30 DVD.  It is super hard but after two weeks I'm starting to feel better about it.  I love that it has really good ab workouts included; week 1's ab workouts weren't very good.  I don't love all the plank exercises.  This week's workout has a ton of plank workouts and my arms feel like jell-o afterwards and I kind of want to cuss out Jilli...

Hello and happy Thursday!  I am linking up with Bookish (and Not So Bookish Thoughts) over at Bookishly Boisterous. 1.) UGH.  I just started the next level of my Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 DVD and I hate it!  It's really hard and some of the moves feel impossible for an uncoordinated person like myself.  I try my hardest but it's a good thing nobody can see me because I'm sure I look ridiculous. 2.) I've been reading a lot of WWII era historical fiction lately and while I love it, I think I'm going to have to take a break from it.  I need to find something really cheerful to read for a change.  Suggestions are welcome! 3.) My mom is visiting this weekend so I've been doing a lot of extra cleaning around the house.  I really wish I wasn't the kind of person who cares about having a clean house because I just don't want to do it anymore.  I used to really like cleaning but now it just feels like one more thing I have to make time f...

See Me For Who I Am edited by David Chrisinger I stumbled across this book when I was just messing around on Amazon and I am so glad that I found it.  I work in higher education and in my role, I'm working with more student veterans so this was a must read.  My brother is also an Iraq war vet so this hit close to home.  It was absolutely fascinating.  It is a book of essays written by student veterans in a first seminar course and the stories are so profound.  Some of the essays go into detail about deployments while others discuss reintegrating into civilian life and some are just about major moments in the student veterans' lives.  Each essay is very different as each veteran had a different experience during their time in the military.  I feel like I learned a lot from this book and I really think that it's a must read for anyone in higher ed and for anyone who is interested in the veteran experience. 5 stars. A Court of Thorns a...

It's been a weird week as my husband went from working graveyard shifts to day shifts this week.  He has worked graveyard shift for over a year so it's been a bigger adjustment than expected.  Now we're all just trying to get into a new routine.   I went a little library crazy this week with my mailbox!  I already have a bunch of library books I need to read but I stopped by to pick up a DVD for my daughter and couldn't resist picking up a few books too. From the Library (ebooks):   A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas This book has been kind of slow to start but I'm definitely intrigued enough to keep going From the Library: The Widow by Fiona Barton Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica   I really need a good thriller in my life these days.  Both of these have been on my TBR list for a while so I couldn't help myself when I saw them available at the library. For Work: See Me For Who I Am: Stud...

#FitReaders is hosted by Jen at That's What I'm Talking About and Felicia at Geeky Blogger's Book Blog . Hey y'all!  The last two weeks have been excellent with regard to exercise.  I have worked out five days per week for the past two weeks.  I am still doing Couch 2 5K which is three runs per week and I just finished week 7.  Week 7 is the second to last week and it is hard.  All of the runs are 25 minutes long with zero breaks; in a past life (pre-Julia), that would have been no big deal but it feels like a huge feat for me now.  I'm pretty happy that I was able to run the whole time.  I'll start week 8 tomorrow and I know the runs are even longer so I'm hoping that will go okay.   The other two days per week I am doing the Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 DVD.  I'm still on the week 1 work out but I plan to start week 2 next week.  Because I only do these workouts two days per week, I like to make sure I'm comfortable...

From Goodreads:  Anna Dahlberg grew up eating dinner under her father’s war-trophy portrait of Eva Braun. Fifty years after the war, she discovers what he never did—that her mother and Hitler’s mistress were friends. The secret surfaces with a mysterious monogrammed handkerchief, and a man, Hannes Ritter, whose Third Reich family history is entwined with Anna’s. Plunged into the world of the “ordinary” Munich girl who was her mother’s confidante—and a tyrant’s lover—Anna finds her every belief about right and wrong challenged. With Hannes’s help, she retraces the path of two women who met as teenagers, shared a friendship that spanned the years that Eva Braun was Hitler’s mistress, yet never knew that the men they loved had opposing ambitions. Eva’s story reveals that she never joined the Nazi party, had Jewish friends, and was credited at the Nuremberg Trials with saving 35,000 Allied lives. As Anna's journey leads back through the treacherous years in wartime Ger...

  The Obsession by Nora Roberts I really like Nora Roberts; her books are a little cheesy but they're nice, light, fun reads.  However, this one didn't really do it for me.  It had a creepy mystery at the beginning but the story kind of fell flat from there.  The middle was slow and full of non-stop home renovation descriptions and the big mystery was SO obvious.  I figured it out at the very beginning and I never figure that kind of stuff out.  And it felt like I was watching an episode of Criminal Minds complete with the BAU agents (I love that show but it just made the big seem unoriginal).  I did love the characters and the setting; I really want to live in that town and have everyone be my friend.   3 stars. The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner I have been wanting to read this book for a long time and I'm so glad I finally got around it to it.  It was riveting and heart-breaking and made me so mad all at the sa...

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!  It's time for another Mailbox Monday post! I received a little over $9 in the Apple settlement to use for Nook books so I'm carefully and slowly rationing it out.  Barnes & Noble had a few really great deals that I couldn't resist so I had to pick up a couple books with some of the settlement money. Purchased (for Nook):     The Diplomat's Wife by Pam Jenoff This book is the sequel to The Kommandant's Girl, which I loved, so I couldn't resist that it was only 99 cents!  I've been really into reading about World War II since I took a class on the Holocaust this spring so I'm really looking forward to this one.   My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me by Jennifer Teege     This book sounds absolutely fascinating.  I recently picked up a documentary about this woman's mother which I'm eager to watch.  It will be interesting to hear the stories of both mother and ...

I know it isn't book related but I have to post about it anyway.  We celebrated my sweet baby Julia's 3rd birthday last week and it was so much fun.  I can't believe that she is three already, time has flown by! Over the weekend, we had a huge family party; it was really hot so we had all kinds of water fun for the kids and they had a blast.  Her actual birthday was last Tuesday and we had a nice quiet family evening with her. I know soon she's going to be too old for birthday shirts but I couldn't stop myself from getting her one this year.  I found this glittery iron on 'three' on Etsy and it turned out so cute. We did kind of a sprinkle theme for her party because it was nice and simple so I decided to make her a sprinkle cake.  It was super easy!  I used a tutorial I found on pinterest and basically just rolled the frosted cake in the sprinkles. I had sprinkles all over my kitchen but the cake was a huge hit. For her big gift we got her t...

June is over and now onto July!  We survived Julia's birthday and now hopefully we can relax for a while.   Not too long ago, I was sure that June would be my worst reading month for the year.  I hit a major slump for the first half of the month and just wasn't loving anything I was reading.  Surprisingly enough, I managed to read 8 books this month which I'm super happy about!  My reading goals for the month were to read two books I own and two non-fiction books; I didn't read anything I own but I did manage to read two non-fiction books so I'm feeling good about that.  I also wanted to try to post on the blog at least once a week and I managed to get that done as well.  So overall June hasn't been too bad. For the year, I am at 34 books completed and my goal is 52.  I'm sure I'll exceed that goal but by how much, I'm not sure.  Some of the books on my TBR list for the rest of the year are pretty long so we'll see how it goes....

Time for another Mailbox Monday post. I hope everyone is having a great weekend!  I don't have to go back to work until Wednesday so I'm going to enjoy every minute! I feel pretty lucky to have such a full mailbox this week.  My husband and I are doing a 'no spend' month so I won't be buying any more books at least until August.  I have a little bit to spend on books from the Apple settlement but otherwise, it's going to be all library books or ones I already own from here on out. From the Library:   Saving Sophie by Ronald H. Balson Once We Were Brothers by Ronald H. Balson Sacred Sins by Nora Roberts I read a book by Ronald Balson and loved it so much that I ran out and got his other two books!  Kindle First freebies (June and July): The Daughter of Union County by Francine Thomas Howard The Last Woman Standing by Thelma Adams I forgot to look at the June Kindle Firsts offerings and managed to grab it right before ...

#FitReaders is hosted by That's What I'm Talking About and the Geeky Blogger's Book Blog . Ugh!  This has been a bad week for me when it comes to exercise.  I am doing a check in for the last weeks; last week was great, this week not so much.  Last week, I got in 5 workouts- 3 runs (about 30 minutes each) and 2 sessions of 'Ripped in 30'.  This week my daughter started having sleep issues and we're trying to get ready for company so I only got in 3 30 minute runs.  I did finish week 5 of Couch 2 5K and the last run was HARD but I am proud of myself for doing it.  I had to run for 20 minutes straight; this used to be nothing for me but since I'm pretty much out of shape, it was super rough. I'm hoping to get back on track next week with at least 5 workouts (preferably 6) per week and get back to using My Fitness Pal to track what I'm eating.  My clothes are getting tight so I really need to get on top of monitoring my food intake. ...