30 Day Blog Challenge

Pffff, pffff.

That's the sound of me blowing away the cobwebs on my blog ^_^; Obviously, my resolution to figure a balance between curling and blogging didn't work out as I wished. Although I have to say this year, curling was really all-consuming... but more on that later :)

The bright side is I've been reading, especially now that the curling season is over... and I've been debating for a few weeks whether to give the blog another go. I really dislike dropping off the side of the earth and then, making a comeback. Just how many comebacks can one make? This time around, I really considered calling it quits... but this blog and the community were such a huge part of my life once upon a time, that I'm not ready to turn my back completely yet. So let's try one more time!

So I was talking with Ames earlier this week and she wishes to blog more consistently as well. She's come up with a challenge for herself: 30 Day Blog Challenge. So I'm going to jump in with her. I think perhaps a way to have me blog more consistently, even throughout the curling season, is perhaps changing the direction of this blog. I've never been shy to blog about my life, but I always tried to keep it very book-related... but perhaps do half-half now? Anyway, I guess I'll figure it out! Especially if I'm to blog everyday now :)

So here we go for the next 30 days! Well technically, 31 days in May! And I'll up the ante and try to throw in a review and another book-related post a week :)

9th Blogiversary!

Hi everyone!

how are you doing? I've been meaning to pop in and write a post for a while and today, June 26th, I realized it was my blog's 9th Blogiversary... Although I don't know if writing a handful of posts in the past two years can still count as blogging ^_^; Still, I've been around blogland for 9 years!! Kind of hard to believe :)

So, let see what's new since I last posted... Not much really :P My parents went to Cuba for a week and came back brown caramel ^_^; And that's with sunscreen!! We took the opportunity to paint the guest bedroom/office during their absence. It needed it as you can see from the pictures LOL. It was initially my sister's room when she was young and she chose the color and pattern more than 15 years ago. Let just say my parents are enjoying the new color :)

Otherwise, I've been kind of in a slump. Reading, but always having difficulty picking the next book. Well except when Shards of Hope by Nalini Singh came out. That one was an easy pick :) And I ended up really enjoying Shards of Hope. I'm also excited for her new story arc. By the way, what do you think of a book with a regular Psy? Someone that wouldn't be powerful in the Psy society nor super strong psychically? I'd be curious to see how a mid-level Psy with a regular life adapts to the new era. Anyway, just an idea.

I've also realized that I'm burned-out on contemporary romance... which is a problem since it's the genre I usually gravitate towards. Perhaps not every contemporary romance books, but for sure this particular trope: heroine escaped her hometown and for whatever reason - family, career implosion, etc. - has to come home and of course, faces her ex-boyfriend/husband or the crush that ignored her. I was actually updating my calendar for new releases and while reading blurbs, there were just soooo many books with that trope. It seems also that sport romance is on the rise... and those can go either way. I don't know, is it too much to ask for main characters that are happy with their lives and jobs? I'm also looking for romantic suspense books with cops and FBI agents, so if you guys have suggestions. Still a bit tired of military RS ^_^; As for UF, I don't know which new series I should dive into. On the very bright side, I just read Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway and had a smile almost all throughout the read. Perhaps that's what I should do right now, YA....

So what keeps me occupy lately? Well Masterchef Australia. I really love that show... I like the camaraderie between the contestants and witnessing their growth. This season has been pretty good :) I've also been trying to scrapbook. My parents are celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary this year and my sister and I wanted to do something nice. Except that we keep butting heads on ideas and stuff ^_^; Hopefully, we'll get it done in time... and of course, there's my constant struggle with my room. It's gotten a bit out of hand, especially with the scrapbooking. I really want to purge my room, but the reality is that I don't have the time and space to do it. We are having guests starting next week and guess where I am going at the end of July?...

Yep, I'm going to RWA again!! I can't wait!! Who's going?! I can't wait to see everyone :) I have a few friends tagging along as well, so this time around, I'm going to try to explore NYC. So much fun ahead!

So that's it with me for now. What about you?

Seven years of blogging!!...

Hi everyone :)

Yes, I'm alive LOL. Still plagued by the blogging blues ^_^; However, today is a special day and blues or not, I had to put up a post... because it's my blogiversary! Yay! Hard to believe it, but I have been blogging for seven years! Seven!! Jeez, how time flies :P

There's definitively been ups and downs in the past seven years, but that's to be expected. That's life :) What blogging has brought to me - friendships, a sense of accomplishments, sharing my love of books - is invaluable and had made my life richer :) And that's why despite a miserable year, I'm not ready to give it up :) And I know what I need to do! Just stop complaining and plow through the blues! LOL.

Anyway, what I really want to say is thank you to everyone who is following my blog :) You're the one that made this such a big part of my life! Thanks!

Hiatus is over :)

Hello everyone! I'm back :)

First, I'd like to thank everyone who commented or sent me emails to share their sympathy with me regarding my aunt's death or just to inquire how I was doing. I was really touched and it once again shows why I love blogland so much, because we care and support each others :) I also want to apologize if I have not replied to you individually to thank you. See, the reason I put my blog on hiatus is because we traveled to Germany for the funerals and I knew I wouldn't have internet access over there or very limited access. We left on December 29 and just came back last Sunday. We decided to stay two weeks for the funerals, but also to help my uncle go through this tough time. My uncle was very dependent on my aunt in his day to day life, not in the sense that he needed assistance in his daily life, but more like my aunt did everyone: laundry, ironing, cooking, etc. She took care of all the domestic chores in the house. Furthermore, my uncle has some weird, specific eating habits, so that complicates things. So we are quite concerned about him for his future and hope he'll be able to adapt and adjust. In addition, well, my aunt was a bit of a hoarder... nothing as bad as what you see in the TLC shows - thank God! - but she kept a lot of stuff and it made the house cramped... So my parents and uncle from Quebec City spent a lot of time sorting things out. Just an example, my cousin found a tofu powder box dating from... 1981 ^_^; Like older than him and me! Also, the first day, I opened the utensils drawer to set the table and for the life of me, could not find more than 3 forks... The next day, after cleaning out the drawer, it turns out it had at least 10!

My aunt's death was very sudden and unexpected. We think she died of a heart attack, but we'll never really know as we declined to do an autopsy. We got the news the night between December 26 and 27 and it was quite a shock. It's my cousin who contacted us and I really thought he got the wrong words as English is not his first language. Afterwards, we had to move pretty fast to make it to Germany. It did not help we had a major snowstorm on the 27 ^_^; In addition, we were 5 traveling and elected to take the plane to Paris and then, the train to Germany. The problem is that we had to split into two flights and therefore, weren't sure we would all make it on the same train... but it worked out okay :) After that, well there was the issue that my aunt passed away during the holidays, so a lot of establishments were closed. Also, in Germany, everything - really everything - is closed on Sundays. So even when we arrived, we didn't have an exact date for the funeral, just a vague plan for January 3rd. Once that was confirmed, we had to contact my aunt's friends to let them know, as my uncle was too in shock and hadn't done it. Calling people on New Year's Eve and New Year to share the news was not exactly ideal, but the only option we had.

However, despite the short notice time, a lot of people came and that was very heart-warming. We think there was more than 200 persons who came to the ceremony. In Germany, the funerals are a bit different than in North America. There are no real exposition period. It's basically a ceremony, so people can come a bit early and say they goodbyes and after the ceremony, my aunt was buried right away. The whole thing lasted perhaps two to three hours... So to have everyone being able to come - and a lot of them drove two or three hours - it was great.

And now, I'm home :) I missed home a lot during the past two weeks. The trip overall was good... I mean, you never want to travel under such circumstances, but most everything went without a hitch, so that's good. And there were some really good moments... furthermore, I think it was great that we spent so much time as a family. Still, on the other hand, there was some periods where time seemed to go by excruciatingly slowly ^_^; But now it's all over and I think it's really hitting me... that my aunt passed away and that we traveled for her funerals. Sigh.

So all to say that the hiatus on this blog is over, yay! :) I think it might take me a few days to get back into a routine. There are so many good books that I read back in November and that I wanted to review and didn't get the chance. I'm not sure if I'll be able to go back to them all though :( Also, I'm not sure I'll be making 2012 recaps... Have to tell you, it hasn't compute in my mind that we're in 2013 yet, just because of the strange way we spent New Year... but you never know. Perhaps I will :)

All in all, it's good to be home :)

On a short Hiatus...

Wow, so this is not the way I envisioned ending 2012 or starting 2013. When I started the holidays vacation, my plans were to read and blog. However, both didn't really happen. I got busy running around and then, on Christmas day, I started a cold. Bleh. It's already a lot better, but you know how it is. You don't really feel like doing anything :(

Unfortunately, the reason I'm going on hiatus is that we received a sad news this morning. My aunt, my mom's sister, passed away last night T_T It was very sudden and totally unexpected. And therefore, in the coming days, I'll be busy helping out with the funerals and so on. As such, I don't think I'll be much in the mood of blogging and has decided to put the blog on a short hiatus. However, rest assured, I will be back soon!!

To everyone, Happy New Year! May 2013 brings you happiness, health and good books :) See you all very soon :)

nath

6th Blogiversary!

Yes, you've read the title right. It's my 6th Blogiversary!! Wooohooo! Well actually, I'm a few days late ^_^; I always thought it was the 26th, but turns out it's really the 20th. I'll try to remember it for next year LOL. In any case, it only means I've had this blog for more than 6 years :) Definitively something worth to celebrate! It's funny because I just re-read my first post ever and in it, I mention I didn't know how long I'd be blogging. Now, I can't imagine my life without it and I know that as long as I'll be reading, I'll be blogging :)

Seriously, these past 6 years have been amazing! It has brought so much to me. When I started, I never imagined meeting authors, going to books conventions or even receiving ARCs. The experiences and the books are great, but more important is the friends I've made!! People who share my passion, whom I can discuss with. Really, I could not imagine my life without my blogger friends! You've made my life so much richer! And for that, I am so very grateful :)

So to celebrate my 6th Blogiversary, I've decided to host a giveaway! Yay! There is three parts to the giveaway :) First, there are three autographed books that I've got at last year's RWA.

 Second is your choice of book among four new releases in July that I am soooo looking forward to :) It can be either print or ebook.

 And finally, an e-book gift certificate of 15$ at your choice of e-store :)

The rules to the giveaway are simple :) The giveaway is open to everyone from everywhere. Just leave a comment before noon (Eastern time) this Saturday (June 30). In you comment, please specify which draw you'd like to be in: the autographed books, the book of your choice, the gift certificate or all of them :) Also, make sure that I have your email address so I can contact you. And voila!

Good luck everyone!

New template...

Hey people :)

As you can see, I changed my template :) I really liked the previous one, but long story short, I had to change it mainly because of the background, but I also think it was time :)

So what do you think? I really like the background, but the font and accent colors were hard to choose  ^_^; I also changed a bit the layout of things - as in, changed codes. I hope everything is fine! Do you think the font colors are okay?

Please let me know what you think :) and if there's any modifications I should make or if there is something that is not working! Thank you!!

Review: Truly, Madly by Heather Webber

Did you notice something different about the blog? LOL, it's not something big, but it's something I'm proud of. Last Friday, I was bored so I spent time cleaning up my labels :P I went from 401 to 345 labels! Seriously, I don't know what I was thinking making labels for things such as: pain, injury, gas, traffic jam (traffic jam!!) and so on. There are still a lot of posts back in 2007 and 2008 that haven't been labeled, but I don't think I have the courage to go back and label them on... Although, thanks to Ames, I now know that I can do it in the Edit Posts section with the Label Actions instead of going into each post and making the changes ^_^;

I also took away labels such as vampires, werewolves, magic, witch, wizard, etc. I was using them mostly to sub-categorize the paranormal romance and urban fantasy books, but I realized I wasn't consistently using them. Plus, you can find more than one of the supernatural species in the book, so there were too many labels... I figured if you wanted to look for werewolves books, you'd simply click urban fantasy or paranormal romance and go through my posts :P

In the meantime, I still have books from February left to review :D One of them is Truly, Madly by Heather Webber. This book first caught my attention on Kris' blog. It sounded like a cute story, plus it has psychics, so I wanted to give it a try :)


Truly, Madly by Heather Webber
published by St. Martin's Press in February 2010

Lucy Valentine is as smart as can be, as single as you can get, and so not qualified to run a matchmaking service. But when her parents temporarily step down from the family business, Valentine, Inc., it’s Lucy’s turn to step up and help out—in the name of love.

Plus, her rent is due.

Here’s the problem: Lucy doesn’t have the knack for matchmaking. According to family legend, every Valentine has been blessed by Cupid with the ability to read “auras” and pair up perfect couples. But not Lucy. Her skills were zapped away years ago in an electrical surge, and now all she can do is find lost objects. What good is that in the matchmaking world? You’d be surprised. In a city like Boston, everyone’s looking for something. So when Lucy locates a missing engagement ring—on a dead body—she asks the sexy private eye who works upstairs to help her solve the perfect crime. And who knows? Maybe she’ll find the perfect love while she’s at it...

Genre: paranormal romance - psychic
Series: Lucy Valentine, Book #1

The Story: Generations of Valentine have been blessed with the ability to read auras - except their own - and thus, have been very successful in the matchmaking business. Lucy wishes she could join her father in the business Valentine, Inc.; however, she doesn't feel "worthy" - having lost her ability to read auras and gained the ability to find lost objects. Only, things change when Lucy's father has a heart attack on the beach in company of his mistress. Going away to recover while the bad publicity quiets down sounds like the perfect solution and thus, Oscar leaves Valentine, Inc. in the hands of Lucy. She doesn't want to, but what choice does she have? Plus, she needs the job.

Everything goes well till a young man walks in and upon contact, Lucy "sees" his grandmother's heirloom engagement ring that he has given to his ex-fiancée on the finger of a skeleton... Wanting to find out answers, Lucy decides to ask help to SD investigations, the PI agency located in the same building as Valentine, Inc. Instead of meeting with the owner, she meets Sean Donahue - the brother... who triggers the kind of visions Lucy never had before...

My Opinion: I enjoy books with psychic characters and this one sounded different and lighter, so I wanted to give it a try.  Truly, Madly turned out to be a good choice, as it was a light, fluffy and fun read. What surprised me most was despite the fluffiness, the mystery thread had depth and I thought the plot was very well constructed.

Lucy was a very lovable heroine with a head on her shoulder. While no fault of her, she feels bad having lost her ability to read auras and let say, she hasn't come to term with her new ability either because it makes her different than her family. As a result, Lucy has declined entering in Valentine, Inc., but also using her trust fund. Instead, she's been taking odd jobs and paying rent to her grandmother. It's clear that for Lucy, the ability to read auras is very important and is part of her identity. Not having that ability anymore, Lucy is looking for herself, exploring and trying to see if she can make it by herself. A lot of characters in books try to make something of themselves, not wanting to be like their parents, but it's the opposite for Lucy. She's always wanted to be part of the family business, but until she finds herself, she can't. In a way, Truly, Madly is in part Lucy's journey to finding herself and I really liked the resolution of it.

Aside from Lucy, Truly, Madly has a colorful cast of secondary characters. There's Lucy's family: her parents - while they lead separate lives, they are still very good friends, and her grandmother LOL. There's also Emma and Marisol, Lucy's two best friends since childhood, Raphael, the family chauffeur, and of course, Sean. All of the characters are quite interesting and have a role in the story, they're not just playing filler or there to provide comedy-relief. They're Lucy's entourage and obviously, very important to her.

As I mentioned, there's also a mystery to Truly, Madly. I was quite happy with it and thought it was well constructed. It was logical which allowed the readers to guess who did it and what happened, but at least, it wasn't obvious. Know what I mean? More importantly, I thought it really blended well with the other storylines. I thought Ms Webber did a great job balancing everything in Truly, Madly. I mean, there was a lot of characters and a lot going on, but it never felt too much and Ms Webber was able to keep it light.

My only complaint would be that the romance between Lucy and Sean was very light. However, this is the first book of a series, and it seems Ms Webber was setting things up. I'm sure - or at least, I hope, that Lucy and Sean's relationship will be explored further in the next book :)

My Grade: B+. Truly, Madly was a fast and very enjoyable read to me. It was cute and light and cheered me up :) I'm definitively looking forward to the next book, Deeply, Desperately, coming out in August :)

New blogger... Tabitha!

I know today is the TBR challenge and hopefully, I'll have time tonight to write my review... in the meantime, I'll like to welcome a new blogger. She's been around blogland for quite a while and been visiting different blogs and leaving messages... but now, we get to know more about her because she has her own blog!!! Youppi!!

Welcome to blogland

TABITHA

New Look

Hello everyone!!

How are you doing? I've been scarce the past 2 days, because I've been working on this :) Yes, another new look!! :)

I don't know, I really liked the previous one... when I did it. However, I think the colors were a little too bright and in your face, don't you think? Or perhaps I wanted summer to come very fast LOL :P Anyway, got tired of it pretty fast. It was just, hmmm, too much. Too much of everything - the colors, the header, the bottom. I needed something simpler, so here it is :)

Of course, I was also influenced by Ames and Breezing Through. I hope everyone likes it :) Let me know if there are stuff I forgot to change or some that don't work anymore. It shouldn't though since I didn't touch much of the body... Just the background and colors.

So what have everyone been up to?

Confessions of a Book Slut

I'm stealing Tracy's post title... but I thought it was appropriate...

Remember the 58 books I brought home from my trip to Toronto?

Did I tell you that I bought 10 books this week?

Guess what I did this evening? Guess who brought home 26 books from the UBS and 6 shiny new books from Chapters?

Yeah, me ^_^;

Will I be excused if I say I'm celebrating my 3rd blogversary?

Books and Blogs

Ugh, I'm soooo out of the loop T_T

I've been writing this post for a few days already!!! I keep starting it and then, I end up doing something else ^_^; Sigh, things have just been... not hectic, but how to say... out of order. My routine is all messed up by lack of sleep, watching Bones and stuff. I hate it when my routine is disrupted, grrr. If at least, it was because I was reading... sigh.

Let see if we can get it done today...


So last week, I posted pictures of the trip and more specifically, of the books I got LOL :) I'm pretty happy with what I got, especially with my UBS finds. I love going to new UBS. Personally, I think there is more chance for you to find treasures in UBS that you've never been to or that you don't frequently go to. The logic behind it is once you've visited a UBS, you need to wait till someone brings something new/interesting. That's okay if you're looking for newest releases, but old ones - well you need to wait till someone does a purge and that's rare. When you go to a new UBS, then you don't know what they have and that makes it exciting and more likely that you find treasures :)

Let see... I mentioned two of my finds in a previous post: Calder's Rose by Kate Angell and Deadline by Metsy Hingle. I've been looking for Kate Angell's backlist for a while and the only one still missing was Calder's Rose. So I'm really glad I found it :)

Other good finds were the Suzann Ledbetter's books. It's a series and the first 4 books are based on the directions: West, East, South and North. I had South in my TBR pile and was considering giving it away, just because I couldn't find the other 3 books and make sense of it. Now I have them :D

The Jane Goodger were also good finds! I really enjoyed When There is Hope and her most recent book, Marry Christmas. I really wanted to read more of her, but most of her backlist is out of print... so to find 3 books?!? Major score!! It was actually funny. I found one at the first UBS near Kristie's place... and then, at the second UBS, the books were shelved by genres... I was in the contemporary section and I reminded myself to look up for Jane Goodger's books. Then, when I was in the historical section, I was like: "Kristie!! Who am I supposed to look up for in the historical section!!" LOL :P

I was glad to find Years by Lavyrle Spencer because I remembered Jill liked it :) Stardust of Yesterday by Lynn Kurland was a good find also, especially since I've recently read Till There Was You and the characters of Stardust of Yesterday are mentioned in that book... Before my trip to Toronto, I've decided to finally cave and give a try to Suzanne Enoch's new historical series. I blame Rowena for that! LOL :) She kept saying in her reviews how she loved them... I almost bought them at the bookstore, but then, decided to be a good girl and wait till I hit the UBS... because perhaps, just perhaps I would find them... and I did!! During my trip, I discovered Carolyn Jewel and Rosie kept praising the author... I was actually looking for The Spare which Rosie has recently reviewed... but found Lord Ruin instead. Oh well, beggers can't be choosers, right? So Lord Ruin it is :) One of the books I was on the look-out for was Night in Eden by Candice Proctor because my dear host, Kristie, had just made an author spotlight and said that was her favorite.

Oh and one of the best find was... Down by the River by Robyn Carr. See, two years ago when we had our first Canadian Blogger Meet, Down by the River is one of the book I was looking for... In all the bookstores we went to, I would look for that book... and I didn't find it. And sure, the whole trilogy was re-printed back in October 2008... but to find an original copy! Yeah, I wasn't going to pass over that book! and it just brought memories... so I bought it :)

LOL, do you see how blogland has influenced me? :P See, most of my purchases were all justified!! I have to say, there's only one or two books I actually picked up because of the cover and blurb... Otherwise, most of them were all books that I've heard through blogland, authors that I've read and enjoyed and wanted to read more... or recommendations from Kristie (Jill Marie Landis, Lucky's Lady by Tami Hoag, etc.) :D And of course, there are the books I got from Kristie and Cindy or the books I bought new :) Lots of good stuff among them as well :) I mean, Yay for duplicate!! That's how I got Connor's Way by Laura Lee Guhrke from Kristie... Again, this book is really hard to find and is Kristie's favorite by Ms Guhrke, so I wanted to give it a try. I was going to borrow it only, but Kristie had a duplicate... so Yay!! :) I also bought another copy of The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner... I was looking for the mass market copy so it would fit with my copies of The Thief and The Queen of Attolia... but the hardcover was on sale... 2$!!! Forget the mass market copy then!

So how is it that after coming back home with 58 books... I want to buy more? My TBB list has actually grown, especially jotting down the books I have to be on the look-out next time I go to a UBS... The Lynn Michaels, When She's Bad by Leanne Banks, Kathleen Kane - a new author I've discovered through Cindy, etc. The list is just growing... Then add in the specials that the bookstores are having: Buy 3, get the 4th free, 5$ off on a purchase over 35$, 20% off a book on a purchase over 35$... I mean, these are just too tempting!! Want to hear some of my recent adventures? On Monday, I went to two bookstores to buy Hot in Here by Sophie Renwick and couldn't find it... Two!! So what did I do? I went to another bookstore at 9am the next day LOL :) Bought 4 trade-size - Buy 3, get the 4th free, gotta love this special :P In the afternoon, I went to another bookstore and got my hand on the new Julia Quinn, Susan Mallery, Susan Andersen and Larger than Life by Kay Hooper. I almost went to the bookstore again today... but decided against it. The Buy 3, get the 4th free promotion is still going on... so I think I'll be doing a nice booking adventure this week-end... There's the bookstore that is on the opposite side of Montreal and it has a good UBS close-by. Do it around 10am on Sunday when there's no traffic and only Chapters is open :)

Am I crazy buying so many books?!? Tracy had a post yesterday about TBR pile. After reading her post... I started wondering, does it matter how many books there is in the pile? :P I mean, that hasn't stopped me from buying books in the past... As long as I have the room and the money, right?

Ouf, so I think I've talked enough about books :D Onto blogs now :) If you look on my sidebar, I've added a couple of new links :) I've decided to de-lurk... or is it un-lurk? In the past few months, I've seen a lot of names I wasn't familiar with... and they kept showing up in other blogs that I visited... Barbara from Happily Ever After, Leontine, VampFanGirl to name a few. It just seemed like a good time to open my horizon, start making new friends, update my sidebar :)

It's strange how I resisted branching out ^_^; Again, I don't know how this will reflect my personality... but for a while, I resisted because... I felt a sense of proprietary. You know how you have these friends and they are YOUR friends... you want them to only be yours... and when newcomers come and befriended them, you feel left out a little :( You feel like you're losing them... or that they like the newcomers more than you... I guess that deep down, even on the net, I feel a little bit unsecured ^_^; Anyway, the best way in that case is not to cling and close down, but to befriend the new ones and be part of the group... So there, I'm making the big step. I realized that many are not newcomers... that they've been blogging for a while, but I've just never visited their blogs routinely... I'd dropped by every couple of weeks or months. Well not anymore... Of course, that means my blog-hopping will take more time, but hey, that's okay :P

Okie dokie... that's it for tonight :) I'll try to have a review up for tomorrow :D Slowly getting back in my routine... Yay :P

Re-Read Challenge Reminder and New Layout

Hi everyone!!

How have you been? Let's start with the obvious :P I did some changes to the layout, mainly the colors :) Does feel more spring-y/summer-y right? :) Have to admit though, I don't know how long I'll be keeping it ^_^; The colors are very bright, LOL :) But it's good for now. I think I changed everything, but if there's something that's not working or seems odd, please let me know :)

Actually, I already have two questions for those who are design-savvy and would be willing to take a look at my html codes (yeah, I know, I'm asking for a lot ^_^;)

1) If you're going to post comments, you'll see that the link "Post a Comment" is very close to the main body... How do I do to space it out?

2) My sidebar... it's not a problem in the main page and I guess not many will care or notice, but if you go to specific post, you'll see that my sidebar is very long and goes over the bottom at the end... If I add some padding or something, will it be okay?

Thanks a bunch!

Okay, onto the more important news... the end of the month is around the corner already! So this is a reminder for you to re-read a book if you still haven't done so :) So Thursday is the official date to post review, but as usual, I'll put up the Review Post on Wednesday so people who are already done can post their reviews :) I'll accept post till Friday, May 1st - midnight Easter time and will draw the name for the 10$ certificate winner on Saturday morning :) Sounds good?

Now, let me see if I can get a couple of reviews ready for this week :P

Later!

Meme and blog award!!!

New tab up there with REVIEWS written on it :P As you can easily guess, that is my archive of reviews :P Just click on it and it'll bring you to some kind of index :) Hope it'll be of use ;P


All right, so I've been tagged for a few meme in the past weeks and I'm getting to them :)

The latest meme going around is the "grab your book" kind and I've been tagged by Ames :)

Here are the rules: Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your journal/blog along with these instructions. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the closest. Tag five other people to do the same.

It's funny, because I still haven't reached p. 56, but who cares?

She supposed she'd have to attend a hockey game soon, just to keep the relationship thing looking realistic. She'd been careful not to dress too provocatively, showing just enough to entice but not so much she'd be surrounded by drooling men who thought her body began below the neck. She was surprised to find herself battling a mild case of nerves.

So what do you think, sounds good or bad? I have to say, those sentences were long! LOL :) Care to guess what book it is?


I have another meme to work on... This time, I've actually enrolled myself in this one... Blame it on insanity of the moment. Of course, it didn't help that Kristie kindly gave me "W".... Ugh, W peeps! I'm thinking of looking for 5 different Williams... but yeah, I'm still looking... So Kristie, I'm still working on it and I'm not giving up... but W was evol!!


Finally, I've been gift with the I Love Your Blog award from two different persons this week-end, Wendy and Brie! Thanks a lot ladies!!!

The rules for this award are that you need to: 1) Add the logo of the award to your blog 2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you 3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs 4) Add links to those blogs on your blog 5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs!

It's unfortunate that I have to nominate 7 other blogs and cannot nominate Brie and Wendy again :( So here is my nominations:

Ames of Thrifty Reader
Rosie of Nobody Asked Me...
Jill of Romance Rookie
Kris of The Reading Spot
Chantal of Reading is Sexy
Isabel of All About Me
Cindy of Nocturnal Wonderings
Holly of What Were You Expecting
Li of Book Daze
Dev of Good Reads
Jennie of Jennie's B[ook]log
Kristie of Ramblings about Romance, etc.
Samantha of Book Minx

LOL, I just realized that it says at least 7 blogs :P

Picky...

Hi everyone!

If you're visiting in the next few hours, my template might be different or acting weird... that's because I'm choosing a new one :) However, I'm very picky with the colors ^_^;; So might take a while before I settled...

as you can notice, i've already lost my links... I really hate those widgets. Ugh.


EDIT: So what do you all think? It wasn't as bad as I imagine... I chose a template, but ended up re-doing the banner and changing the whole color scheme, LOL :) But I like it now :) So in the next couple of days, if you find a bug or you have difficulty reading or something, just let me know :)

Oh, and anyone knows how the tabs works? (the HOME, EDIT, etc?)


EDIT 2: Yes!! I think I got it for the tabs - the words appearing correctly :) Now, I just need to figure out how they work... Holly?

Also, anyone knows how to change the words at the end of the blog so they could show Previous and Next instead of "Postagens" blabla?

I'll do better!!

I'm still alive!! Yes, I'm still alive and I've been a bad blogger :(

I'm sooo sorry! I can still say that work is kicking my butt, which is partly true... but seriously, it's becoming ridiculous :( I hate being a bad blogger :( On the other hand, LOL, I guess it shows that I used to do most of my blogging at work before! :) Anyway, I'll try really hard to do better in the few coming weeks!!

Work is going a bit better, mainly because we haven't done RNA extraction from urine :P Instead, we've been doing other stuff and that's going well. I do feel like the prof is relaxing a bit in my presence. Even my friend has remarked on it. Hopefully, it's a good sign. I'm still a bit anxious every time we view the results though... wishing, please, please, please that there are no contamination LOL :P

So I haven't been blogging, but I've been blog-hopping... Although it's been quiet. If I haven't commented, I'm sorry... but be assured that I've read the posts :P I know what it's going, because like Rosie, I'm too afraid to be missing out to not read my Google Reader at least 3 times a day :) Also, I'll try to be updating my sidebars and so on shortly :)

So definitively look forward to some reviews (finally!!) in the future and some changes :) and LOL, just to be actually talking about books and romance... guess what I got my hands on this week-end?

Oh yay!!!

Change of look...

So as you can see, I got tired of my old layout and found this one :D It's still is not perfect :( but I'm tired for now and it does look decent/presentable.

If you find anything odd or not working or it got changed when I chanted the layout, please let me know. For those who are good with codes and layout, I have a few questions...

1) I'd like for my archives to be like the ones at Ames and Book Binge blogs. With the little arrows and you can select the month and then the posts will appear when you click on the little arrow. I have the code I think, but do I have to add something to it? because when I simply copy paste, it doesn't work.

2) I'd like for my sidebar to be continuous ^_^; right now, it's cut into some sections... it's not really important though... I can probably figure it out.

3) I'd like that when you click on the title of the post, you get the post only... and same thing with the banner... I don't know if I'm explaining it well...

so if you can help me, I'd be very grateful :)

Tada!

Good morning girls (it's 3 am)!

So what do you think? First, I'd like to say something to Mailyn: I'm sorry I didn't ask your permission first to use one of your template. I hope you don't mind tho (I bet you aren't, but still, it's better that I apologize first)... I put your name in the credits and all and if you really do mind, then I'll take it down and wait for you to make me a new one :D

So, as you can guess, I didn't manage to do this new layout from scratch in only a couple of hours. Instead, I based myself on the Twisted Kingdom blog that Mailyn designed and did a few twitch. Whew... Still, it wasn't easy, so kudos to Mailyn who does it so often.

As you've probably guessed, blue is my fav. color :D Does the color palette look too childish or girly? I couldn't think up of any other color and after a few attempts, I just give up trying to match them. I made the banner myself tho (well almost... the art was from a friend of mine, I scanned it). My first attempt at photoshop. Unfortunately, I have no funny story to tell like Kristie. All I can say is that I wanted to pull my hair out a couple of time.

anyway, I'm going to sleep now (if my dad catches me, I'm dead ^^; )
It is highly possible that there might be a few glitches here and there, so please let me know :D

As for book, I finished Lord of Scoundrels :D So you guys can expect a review this week-end.

Ha! Side bar updated

Hey girls...

look on your right! What do you see? Yes, different covers! it actually looks quite nice :D Hmmm, I've been wanting to change the look of my blog lately (after all, everyone has been changing it - well almost everyone). I wanted a banner with plenty of Natuschan (the lil dumpling), but my friend who draw them is in China at the moment - having fun (How dare you Yeti! Without me!!!) Still, I might try to do some changes on my own and later, have a layout designed specifically to match the banner... anyway, I'm going to try for something with a wider blog space (I mean, have smaller margins).

Anyway, not sure it's going to happen, but it's something I'd like to do...

Enough for tonight :D Night night everyone!

Testing...

Just testing, it seems my blog is acting weirdly... sigh...

nath