In the latest adventure of Landon Snow And the Island of Arcanum, Landon, once again visits his grandparents in Button Up, Minnesota. If your familiar with the first two books, Landon Snow and the Auctor's Riddle, and Landon Snow and The Shadows of Malus Quidam, you'll know that Landon's adventures always start at the Library in Button Up.
This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is posting about Calm, Cool, and Adjusted by Kristin Billerbeck.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Best friends since Johnny Depp wore scissors for hands, "The Spa Girls" live very separate lives, but stay in touch with routine visits to California's Spa Del Mar.
The third novel in the Spa Girls Series focuses on Silicon Valley chiropractor Poppy Clayton, who is as calm, cool and adjusted as they come. Or is she? Known for her bad fashion sense, a love for all things natural and the inability to get a second date, Poppy is beginning to wonder if she might be misaligned herself. Her route to self discovery will be an unnatural one - a plastic surgeon, a dilapidated house in Santa Cruz, a flirtatious client, and a blind date from the dark side.
It's all enough to send a girl - and her gal pals - running for the comfort zone of their spa.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kristin Billerbeck was born in Redwood City, California. She went to San Jose State University and majored in Advertising, then worked at the Fairmont Hotel in PR, a small ad agency as an account exec, and then, she was thrust into the exciting world of shopping mall marketing. She got married, had four kids, and started writing romance novels until she found her passion: Chick Lit.
| Found this on Google and had to share. I get this song stuck on my head all the time. Sadly enough, it's actually very me. My nephew played it for me first and I realized that I am this song. From the Happy Days theme song to the ren fest and the slams on blogs for your dog. Enjoy, A. P.S. I don't have my name in my underware. Thought you should know. | |
haunting, and Robert is just 13! He's got a great musical future ahead of him. You can download this song for free when you go to his website. Or get the whole album, it's available now.
July 2005. In the Pyrenees mountains near Carcassonne, Alice, a volunteer at an archaeological dig stumbles into a cave and makes a startling discovery-two crumbling skeletons, strange writings on the walls, and the pattern of a labyrinth; between the skeletons, a stone ring, and a small leather bag.
Thankfully, I've had some really great music today to combat that jingle. We just got Josh Groban's new cd Awake.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
"I wanna take a picture of it." I'm thinking, Ugh, I don't want a picture of a snake on my camera. But he insisted, and then I thought, Well, I might as well share it on my blog . So here it is.
Landon Snow is back in his third adventure into the realm of Wonderwood. This time, Landon Snow finds himself on a wild adventure at sea. When a huge, ark-like vessel emerges, Landon - and his sisters - join a quest to find the Island of Arcanum, where the animals of Wonderwood are imprisoned. With the help of his old friends-a horse named Melech, elfish valley folk, a girl named Ditty, and the poet/prophet Vates-Landon seeks to unlock the island's dark secrets and escape with the animals. But he must battle storms and the villainous Arcans-pirates who hoard animals as treasure. Will Landon ever make it back to Wonderwood alive?
CFBA: The book of the moment is The Cubicle Next Door by Siri L. Mitchell. Read an interview with the author at Relz Reviewsz.
November is Projecting A's first birthday!
Can you believe it? It's been a whole year and you're still here reading me. Just for that you deserve something special. For all you loyal readers out there (and the occasional readers) I've got a present for you.
For anyone that clicks the bananas and emails me their snail mail address, you'll be entered into a drawing to win a Projecting A 2007 Calendar Magnet! They're 5.5 x 4.25 inches and are great for home or office.
I have 8 of these gifts to give away. I'm taking enteries until November 30th, 2007. On December 1st I'll put all enteries into a hat and draw 8 winners.
You can email me by clicking the link below or use the one in the side bar.
Click the bananas & email your entry to win!
I can see the legitimacy of one. For the safety of everyone, it makes sense if your dog is not fenced or inside any kind of an enclosure, then they should be leashed or tethered to a skyline.
I've never really cared too much in the past if this law was followed by those around me or not. I love animals, so it doesn't bother me to see a pet loose in the yard with his owner. However, my neighbor up the street is quickly changing my mind.
My street is kind of wonky. It jogs from the connecting road on the opposite side of our cross street, it's a dead end and people line the street on both sides with their cars. It can get a little crowded.
About six months ago, Angel, Lindz and I were coming back home around 9 p.m. from a movie. It was dark and as we were going down my street, when something came flying out from between the parked cars and went under our tires before we even knew what had happened. We heard the thud and I got out to check it out. The guy that lives at that house comes running out of his garage screaming and cussing a blue streak. He scoops up a pug dog off the street and carries him over to lay him on the trunk of one of six cars in his driveway. (not guests, there are always that many.) I approached him to see if he was okay and he just cussed me out, claimed we were flying down the street (we weren't). He took the dog, jumped into his car and sped off.
To the best of my knowledge the dog lived. We all felt horrible, but his dog was running loose, it was small, and in the dark there was no warning for us. You'd think he would have learned his lesson and quit letting them run loose.
NOPE.
Three times since then, I've had to hit my breaks because one of his dogs is running across the street in front of my car. Luckily, I'm overly cautious now and I watch really close for the dogs. But who else does? How many people know to watch the cars in front of his house to see if a fur ball is loose?
If he really cared about his dogs, he'd keep them safe. Obviously they don't stay in his yard and they don't come at his command. It makes me so angry that he would continue to risk their safety like that. He doesn't deserve to have dogs if he can't take care of them properly. All it would take is a leash and he'd never have to fear their getting hit.
*Sigh*
And that concludes the public service announcement for the day... .
Wentworth Miller & Dominic Purcell
I love Prison Break. Plus it has the absolutely fabulous Dominic Purcell. Ahh, now there's a fine speciman. I cast him as my model for the lead male in my current novel. If it ever makes it to publication, then on to the silver screen, I'm lobbying for Dominic to play the role. I don't care how old he is when the time comes.
A.
Don't forget to enter the FIRST contest to win a free copy of Nancy Jo Jenkins Coldwater Revival. Just leave a comment HERE.
So I had big plans for this weekend. Errand running and all that, but instead I was a lazy bum and didn't leave my house all day Saturday. I watched movies and played no risk Texas hold'em poker with my sister and nephew. Surprisingly enough I do okay at poker, but I think that's only because we're not using real money. If real debt was at risk, I'd fail miserably.
I watched way too much TV this weekend. I thought I'd play movie critic for a day for those interested.
Started off with a 1942 B&W movie from TMC called Cat People.
When the naval construction designer Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) meets the Serbian Irena Dubrovna Reed (Simone Simon) in the zoo, he flirts with her and they sooner fall in love and marry each other. However, Irena is afraid of an ancient course of her town that women can not be touched by a man, otherwise she will transform in a panther, and the couple does not consummate their marriage. Irena is sent for treatment with the psychiatrist Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway), while Oliver looks for "consolation" with his colleague Alice Moore (Jane Randolph). When Irena sees that she is losing Oliver to Alice, she becomes jealous and hateful, leading to a tragic end.
It was interesting, but a little overly dramatic. It's hard to say though, it's an old film, so what I would consider overly dramatic or cheesy now - may have been much more the norm in '42. I think the story could have been a little more detailed. I wanted to know more about her as a cat. The suspense was good, and you could see that she worried about whether she was a cat person or not, but you didn't really get WHY she worried. Whether it was just a general fear or if she had real reasons to wonder. There were some general clues, like animals fearing her, but other than that, it seemed kind of vague. Maybe too simplistic. I still enjoyed it though.
Next was The Visitation
The Visitation reveals a small town torn apart by supernatural events involving a mysterious stranger and his unsolved past.
This one was based on Frank Perretti's book of the same name. It dealt with the end times theme of false prophets and the anti-christ. I read the book when it first came out and loved it, but it's been long enough it was hard to remember how closely the movie stuck the novel. I enjoyed the movie, but I remember liking the book better. That could just be me though. I almost always prefer the book. It was just scary enough for me to be a little creeped out, but not too bad. I don't usually do horror, but Frank Perretti's work is an exception because his work deals with the topic from a Christian perspective.
I re-watched Teen Wolf.
Teen discovers that puberty for him means he turns into a werewolf. One of the beneficial side effects is that it also turns him into a top-notch basketball player. But will his notoriety cost him his friends and can he find true love?
I think this was at least the fourth time I've seen this one, but I haven't watched it in years. I love Michael J Fox's work. This movie falls into the cheesy teen movie category, but it's so much fun. It's a good brainless late night watch.
I tried to watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
A noir send-up. A narrator introduces himself at a Hollywood party: he's Harry Lockhart, a thief from New York, in L.A. for a screen test. He meets Gay Perry, a glitzy private eye who's to school him for his role; there's Harmony Lane, a wannabe actress whose time has passed; the host is an aging actor who starred in detective movies, plus his daughter, with starlet looks and a choppy past. The next day, Gay and Harry stake out a house where Gay is to take surreptitious photographs for a client - what they find is a corpse. From there, twists and connections abound and bodies pile up. Who's double-crossing whom? And, has Harry found Harmony too late to save himself from misery?
A co-worker recommended this one. The previews did look funny and he claimed it was very clever and humerous. I managed to get through the first 20 minutes before giving it up as crap. The language was really bad, it wasn't funny and it was BORING. I don't recommend this one.
The last one was a 1934 B&W mystery called The Thin Man.
Young Dorothy Wynant approaches amateur sleuth Nick Charles when her inventor father appears to be a major suspect in a murder case. In fact, Dorothy is so worried about her father's guilt that she tries to convince Nick that she did it. Nick's wife Nora wants him on the case so that she can experience some of the excitement herself. However, Nick is reluctant to get involved until he sees that police Lt. Guild is coming to the wrong conclusions. Nick decides that the best way to clear up the case is to invite all the suspects to dinner with Lt. Guild and see what happens...
This was probably the best one I watched all weekend. I loved it! It was so funny and clever and I didn't figure out who-done-it until the very end. The husband and wife team have a great relationship and there are a lot of one liners and zingers. I wish Nick hadn't been such a lush. He's done up as such a laughable, easy going drinker that never really comes across as drunk, that it's hard to dislike the drinking. Plus for the era the movie was made it comes across as very normal. So other than that I HIGHLY recommend this one.
That does it for the weekend movie review. The rest was just miscellaneous TV shows here and there that I had taped. Like reruns of Galactica 1980. Hence the song stuck on my head...
Don't forget that you can still enter the FIRST contest to win a copy of Nancy Jo Jenkin's Coldwater Revival. Just leave a comment HERE.
A.
I'm so glad it's Friday. I've been deaf in one ear all day. My phone ear none the less. I feel quite a bit like that picture looks.
My weekend looks to be full of errand running. I broke my unbreakable glasses on Wedensday just by wiping them off. Not the lenses mind you, but the titanium bridge in the middle. Snapped right in half. First time I've ever broken a pair of glasses in my life and I've been wearing them for 19 years.
So much for unbreakable.
Then, joy of all joys, I get to return jeans that were mis-marked to the store and start the hunt for clothes that fit all over again. After that, who knows. If I'm not completely depressed and despondent after trying on clothes, I might splurge and go see a movie.
Have a great weekend everyone,
A.
P.S. Don't forget to register to win a copy of Coldwater Revival by Nancy Jo Jenkins. To enter, leave a comment here.
P.P.S. Flo's still taking questions for next weeks column. Click her button on the right to send your questions.
It is November 1st, time for the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and their latest book's FIRST chapter!
This blog is featuring a contest to win a copy of Nancy's new book, Coldwater Revival. Just put in a comment and you may be the winner!
Just three weeks before her wedding, Emma Grace Falin has returned to her hometown of Coldwater, Texas, consumed by a single, burning desire. She must confront the guilt and shame of a devastating event that has haunted her since childhood.
