Book Awards

For those of you non-library, non-youth book award folks, Monday was a day I have been looking forward to since last year: the American Library Association's Book & Media Awards. These awards are announced annually at the ALA Mid-Winter Conference. It is my dream someday to serve on a committee to help determine one of these award winning books and subsequent honor books. To practice (and because I just can't help myself!) I have started a Mock Printz discussion group as a part of my Young @ Heart book club at the library, and coordinate a Mock Newbery discussion group amongst a few of my co-workers. This is the second year of both, and we were horribly incorrect last year, but it was still a ton of fun!

The Young @ Heart book club read books from March to January to determine who the winner of our Mock Printz should be. Unfortunately, our meeting was cancelled due to snow, so we had to vote via email ballot. The winner of our Mock Printz was:















We Were Liars

The actual Printz awards went to:















I'll Give You the Sun

My personal picks were:
Printz Award: Belzhar*
Printz Honors Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, Grasshopper Jungle, We Were Liars.
*I didn't get a chance to read I'll Give You the Sun until Friday night, after I had cast my vote, but it surely would've gotten my vote. Review to come shortly!

For the Mock Newbery, we never officially voted, but my personal picks were:

Newbery: The Crossover
Honor Books: Rain Reign, Brown Girl Dreaming, Nightingale's Nest, El Deafo.

And the winner:














The Crossover


And the honors:

El Deafo


Brown Girl Dreaming

And in Caldecott news, I buy my nephew and nieces books for Christmas (shocker) and I try to include my pick for the Caldecott. Last year they got Flora and the Flamingo which took the Newbery honor. Guess what they got for one of their books this year?




The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend 

I called for the win back in May, and I'm pretty proud of that.

So I went three for three this year, nbd. Where's my invite to be on a committee already?!?!

Houston Trip Part 2

After a rough morning,  it seemed appropriate to sit on the patio to enjoy a beer barefoot.

 

Look world, we're friends! <3 So fun to spend a couple of days with you!

En route to finding a sports bar to watch the Packers playoff game.

When I still had all the hope in the world and Super Bowl visions were dancing in my head.

Inching our way into OT? Yes please!

Trying to imitate one of my fave emojis, accurately, leading into OT.

Friends help friends feel better after toss losses.

Weekly Reads: On the Rocks

On the Rocks was my latest "pretend you're on the beach reading a nice fluffy read while in the dead of winter" read. I expected it to be a super fluffy, predictable, women's fiction novel, but it was actually much more than that! The setting was light and fun, but the issues the women were dealing with were anything but, and predictable it wasn't. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a light read that doesn't cause brain cell loss as some chick lit tends to.

My rating: 3.5/4 stars.

Summary from goodreads:

A heartwarming novel about friendship, family, and finding love in the Facebook Age-the perils, pitfalls, and dubious pleasures of being a modern young single woman—from Erin Duffy, the author of Bond Girl

Six months ago, Abby's life fell apart for all the world to see. Her longtime boyfriend-turned-fiancé, Ben, unceremoniously dumped her—on Facebook—while she was trying on dresses for the big day.

When the usual remedies—pints of Ben & Jerry's, sweatpants, and a comfy couch—fail to work their magic, her best friend, Grace, devises a plan to get Abby back on her game. She and Abby are going to spend the summer in Newport, in a quaint cottage by the sea, enjoying cool breezes, cocktails, and a crowd of gorgeous men.

But no matter how far away they go, Abby and Grace discover that in the era of social media—when everyone is preserving every little detail of their lives online—there is no real escape. Dating has never been easy. But now that the rules are more blurred than ever, how will they find true love? And even if they do, can romance stand a chance when a girl's every word and move can go viral with a single click?

Weekly Training Recap

Monday I slept in like a true champion, missing my favorite gentle vinyasa class.

Tuesday I went to Barre in the middle of the day, because I worked a random split shift at the library. I love that my muscles can shake and quake for 60 minutes and I can head back to work without showering. Considering I'm a sweat monster, this is amazing.

Wednesday it was gorgeous out, so I headed to my favorite running store for a group run. This marked my first run in 8 weeks. Whoa. That's the longest break from running I've had since 2008. :| It was a gorgeous night for running, and we ran data free and it drove me nuts. My garmin is being an a-hole and I'm less than pleased considering I bought it in April and it has less than 500 miles ran on it. Grrrrr. I'd estimate we ran somewhere in the area of 2.5-3 miles.

 

Saturday I went to the yoga studio for power vinyasa yoga. It was a great flow. I was able to hold side crow the longest ever. We even got to play with some handstands. I stuck around for yoga sculpt after, and when some of the yogis told me I was crazy, I told them that power vinyasa is fun play time and sculpt is the workout. Since I had some time in between classes, I worked on side crow more and was able to extend my legs out on one of the sides. I was pumped.

Sculpt was hard but awesome. I'm definitely going to try to fit classes in to my weekly schedule 2-3x/week.

Sunday I had big plans to go to power vinyasa and a barre bootcamp class, but blizzard conditions had me staying how on my couch. I even contemplated walking the mile to the studio but Kyle told me I couldn't because it was -15 out. Lame.

No Spend February

This month, I'm going to attempt a No Spending challenge in an effort to save some money and encourage myself to cook more and plan out meal times instead of going the easy (and bad for me BUT SO DELIICOUS) route of eating out. I actually started a couple of days before the 1st, so I won't even get to benefit from the short 28 day month. Derp.

My self-imposed rules for the month are to only spend money on necessities: rent, electricity, bills, gas, car repairs, etc. But I will be limiting any shopping (no Jerbear, you don't NEED another pair of yoga pants, promise), going out to eat, and coffee trips (I do have one $5 gift card that was given as a gift that I will savor on an emergency day).

Kyle suggested that every time I want to go out to eat and don't, I automatically put what I would've spent (estimate) into my savings, and I think that'll be a good way for me to see how much I saved and hopefully motivate me to continue.

I also have a fully stocked refrigerator, so I'll be limiting grocery trips to staple items and fresh produce.

Who's with me? Has anyone done this challenge before? Any suggestions?

Image borrowed from http://theladyprefers2save.com

Houston Trip Part 1

The sun was shining for the first time in ages as I was awaiting my flight to Houston. Go figure.

Jenn was super duper clever and brought this instead of a sign baring my name to the airport. Loved  it!

And upon arriving at their place I had this adorable sign waiting for me, along with some delicious beers. #mrskenyonhosts

Luckily for me, we were reasonable adults and went to bed early this night. And solely this night.

Three cheers for a dinner full of burger and carb deliciousness. So necessary.

And then things started to get out of hand.

But in a deliciously bubbly way!

And then, as if by magic, this gal showed up around midnight! And then we failed to go to bed until 4am. [insert death emoji here plz]

Weekly Training Recap

After a weekend of excess, it didn't take much for Jenn to convince me to come with her to back to back classes. And then we got yelled at for Jenn signing me up for an intermediate class, when a certain amount of intro classes are required. That did not help me being concerned about dying. Luckily I did survive.

And then we went to a power vinyasa class. I was super ready for food when we were done.

  

 Tuesday she tried to kill me again, and took me to another double, this time a barre class, followed by another rev class. The cycling class was easier and only 45 minutes, but my legs were still super tired from the night before.

 Wednesday morning, Jenn and I practiced our handstands and headstands at her place.

I got home Thursday night, and was excited to head back to my yoga studio on Friday for a power vinyasa class. It felt super hard, and my body felt dead and weak. Blech.

Sunday I went to a power vinyasa class before work. I felt a little stronger than Friday, but my body still feels all out of whack.