Category Archive: The Big 40
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My reading secret – The unfinished books
I love books and I love reading. That much is pretty obvious when you visit our house. There are loads of them EVERYWHERE – What started with a couple of shelves of books has quickly grown into a cupboard, then more cupboards, then rooms – now we have little piles of books in practically every room (including a couple at the bottom of the stairs that I can’t bring myself to move – You know, just in case I’m ever stuck at the bottom of the stairs with nothing to do ) I have developed a bit of a problem though. I had a reading drought last year. Reading and Pregnancy do not work well together for me – I felt sick and just could not concentrate. Unfortunately though, Pregnancy and Buying Books work really well together for me. I only have to hear a conversation about a book and immediately I NEED to read it and that’s where the problem lies. I started tons of books but became easily distracted by the other books on my To Read list. I now have loads of books that I got part way through but can’t remember if I stopped reading them more »
Book Review – Marian Keyes – The Brightest Star in the Sky – Book 3 of 100 before I’m 40
Hurray – finally I have completed number 3 in my list of books to read before I am 40! At this rate I might be better off reading 40 books before I am 100. No, I will plod on … I am a massive fan of Marian Keyes both reading her books and seeing her on chat shows etc. I never want to get that feeling of being disappointed in one of her books but have to admit that about a quarter of the way through this one, I started to feel a bit jaded. No need to panic though. the book definitely got better as it went on. The brightest star in the sky is a long book at 612 pages and I do feel like I have been reading it for ages – If I had one request it would be that the book be a little shorter. The stories are set in a Georgian house that has been turned into flats. I did take a while to get to know the characters in each flat as it was very ‘short story-ish’. My favourite characters were Matt & Maeve that I thought were really well thought through and more »
Reasons to be cheerful – There’s going to be a baby!
That got your attention didn’t it? No, not me… blimey I’ve got my hands more than full with these 3 but there is going to be a baby… Reason to be cheerful 1: I’m going to be an Auntie again My youngest sister is going to have a baby (eek!) in December – so excited! Rachel has asked if she was going to be mentioned in my Reasons to be cheerful list – hell yes! Ray is even planning on starting a blog about her baby journey – She has even shown me work in progress so far and it looks fab. Another cousin for my girls – We already have 9 nieces and nephews (good catholic family and all that!) but another one is just as exciting. My mum will have doubled her grandchildren to 6 in the space of 12 months – Christmas is going to be interesting this year! Reason to be cheerful 2: Another wonderful niece My eldest niece found out this week that she is going to be Head Girl in her school next year. We already knew that she had been nominated in the last 5 out of 200+ but she really did not more »
Book Review – Sweet Valley Confidential
I love the idea of this book – revisiting what the twins, Elizabeth and Jessica are up to 10 years on. There are so many books that I would love to adopt this principle – Gone with the wind for one. I loved the Sweet Valley High books when I was a teen (much to my mum’s disgust – they hardly helped with my GCSE’s!) I think I wanted to be Jessica (the outgoing, party-going and a bit mean twin) as opposed to Elizabeth (the studious, calm twin). As soon as I opened the book the writing was familiar – I half expected a comment about how beautiful they were with their peaches and cream skin! I was also slightly disappointed straightaway though – I had wanted the writing to have grown up with me. Yes, the characters were now adults and yes there was swearing from time to time but the book did not feel like it was written for an adult. I won’t give away too much about the story as I suspect there will be a lot of thirty somethings wanting to read this book – it was very easy to work out how it would end more »
There are so many Reasons to be Cheerful
Week 3 of joining in Michelle from Mummy From The Heart‘s blog hop and I’m loving it. However small, when something nice happens during the week I automatically think, there’s a reason to be cheerful. Try it, you might like it! Reasons To Be Cheerful 1: A bit of a recap We did it – we went on our first caravan trip as a family of 5 and it was a huge success. I wrote about it here. Reason to be Cheerful 2: Half Term & Time with the children I decided to embrace the time off with my children rather than thinking, ‘Oh my god, how am I going to keep the 2 older girls entertained and look after Baby T’ – so far so good! We had a spur of the moment trip to see my sister in Leeds yesterday which felt rather brave as we live 50 miles away but it was great. The girls love seeing their cousins and we arrived back home at 11pm after a lovely afternoon (and a good feed!) My MIL looked after Baby T this afternoon while I took M & V to the cinema to watch Hop – They loved more »
Countdown to 40!
Eagle-Eyed regular readers of the blog may have noticed the countdown to 40 icon on the right. This is something I’ve been meaning to address for ages now – not because I am desperate to turn 40 but because I see it as time to cross a LOT of things off my to do list. There are a lot of blogs who have done similar lists before a significant birthday – the first one I came across is by Janette Jones, whose list of 40 items to complete before she is 40 terrifies me. So this is the plan of what I’m to do before the Big 4 0. I plan on doing regular updates of how the list is coming along – more items may be added if I have forgotten anything. My list is in no particular order – some items may require another one to be completed first. 1. Sing Karaoke I am probably one of only a handful of people on the planet who have not sung at Karaoke (slight exaggeration I know!) This has become such a big thing now with so many people knowing that I have yet to do it that I don’t more »
