RYBSAT!

Tomorrow start RYBSAT! For those who may not know, it stand for Read Your Book Shelf A Thon. It's where you pick a point on your shelf to start and then you read as many books from that point on down the line as you can. Its a great way to knock out your TBR pile that may be ever growing!

Now, I really don't own a lot of books that I haven't read and those that I do have, I am currently reading them already. Actually, looking at my currently reading shelf on Goodreads, it's gotten quite out of hand. My solution? Going off of my Currently Reading "shelf" on Goodreads instead of my own personal shelf! Genius, right!?

Here is a link to my Currently Reading shelf so you can see what I will be working on this week!

Now, three of the books are library books, two of which are currently in my possession. They are The Martian by Andy Weir and Six Of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, so I will be focusing on these two first since I will have to eventually return them. The other library on there is Ten Thousand Skies Above by Claudia Gray which, unfortunately I don't have right now. I will have to order it from the library again and there is no telling when I would get it. Depends if I have to put a hold on it or not. Even if I could get it right away, I more than likely wouldn't be getting it this week for the read a thon any way. So I will just finish it when I can :) Even without it, I still have 8 other books to read! So I definitely will not run out of stuff to read. Specially since three of those books are monsters O.o

In case any of you are wanting to check out this wonderful read a thon, here are their links. It starts tomorrow, May 1st and goes through May 8th!
Twitter
Goodreads

It is a lot of fun and I highly encourage you to join in if you can, if you haven't already :) If you have or are going to, let me know what you will be reading! I love hearing about all the books!

First Hiking Trip Of 2016!

I am late on posting this but, I had a major lack of motivation on top of needing to get the pictures uploaded to my computer. Its been crazy busy around here!

So, a couple weeks ago, we took our kids out for their first hiking trip ever! We had sooooo much fun and the kiddos did amazing! Of course we had to take pictures before starting our first trail :) I don't know why most of these turned out to be little videos when I was only taking pictures but, hopefully you guys can still see them all right.

The pictures (above) is my wonderful hubby, beautiful kiddos, and I am in there too :) We are in front of the bell that goes to the historical school that was beside us. The trail surrounding this is a nature trail that was specifically designed for kids. The park holds different events here for kids that teaches them about the different plants and wildlife that they can see on the trail.

Here we are, starting the trail! The kiddos were raring to go :) We will have to take them back when the leaves all come in on the trees. I absolutely love this park! It is beautiful no matter what time of year it is :)

The first thing we saw was a family of 5 turtles soaking up some sun on a log down in the pond below us. They were just like us and taking advantage of the beautiful weather that day!

Continuing on our journey until......

We come up on the beaver damn! They weren't out this time around which was kind of a bummer but, maybe next time they will be!

We didn't make it far past the damn when my daughter squealed and ran back to us. It turned out she almost stepped on this little guy! Its just a harmless snake and we were finding them everywhere!

We had finished the nature trail and were all up for going on another trail so, we picked the one that is right by the cabin that the hubby, me, and our friends rent every year for our D&D weekend. The kids loved getting to see the cabin where we stay at every year! We couldn't go in obviously, but they were just as happy looking at them. 

We got a lot of nature on this trail too! My son had almost stepped on this little guy who was just chilling in the middle of the trail. Lol! This trail had changed a lot since last September. We had been hit by several large storms and a lot of rain and it showed. There were parts of the trail that were so unrecognizable that, if I hadn't been on that trail a million times, I would have thought we took a wrong turn. The dock down by our cabin was broken in half! They had everything tied off with ropes so that the one part wouldn't float away. There were sooooo many trees that had been knocked down and some had to be cut because they fell over the trail. Normally downed trees are left alone, letting nature take its course. The rangers only intervene when peoples safety is compromised. Towards the end of the trail, there are these very steep stairs that you have to climb and half of that was destroyed by a downed tree. They had to go as far as making a turn in the stair case instead of it being straight like normal because part of the tree was still in the way. Other than the trees, you could see how high the water had gotten with the flood. There were parts where it had looked like it came almost up to the trail! And there is quite a bit of distance between the trail and the lake normally. Nature is absolutely amazing!

These are the mugs my hubby and I got to remember this amazing family trip! I am so happy we went and I look forward to going again! Definitely a trip to remember :)

Well, I am still chugging along on my books. My main focus is How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran since that is our group read for the Our Shared Shelf group on Goodreads. I will be honest and say that it is proving difficult to get through this book. I am not saying it's a bad book at all. I am not far enough along to be able to judge the book at all yet. It's proving hard simply because it is non fiction and, to me, that's not exactly "fun" reading. It is something I want to learn more about for sure which is why I am still going on with it but, I just can't seem to fight this........ block, that keeps me wanting to put this book down and pick up my YA books again. I honestly wonder if this is all because I am still kind of in a reading slump. The only time I have had this much trouble is when I had hated a book and like I just said before, I am not far enough in to determine if I hate the book or not so, that's not it. Frustrating but, I will get there!

Besides that, we have been experiencing some absolutely CRAZY weather! Anyone else having crazy weather where your from? We have gone from sunny and high 50s temps to blizzard like conditions and 30s temps in a matter of 24 hours! Luckily the ground was too warm so none of the snow stuck but the weather has been going back and forth like this for the last couple of weeks and my allergies and sinuses are just going haywire because of it.

Today it is cold and rainy. Tomorrow its supposed to be about the same temperature wise but we are getting a wintry mix. Oh joy. I can't wait for it to warm up again. Only a few more days of this crap! Cold and rainy weather seems to depress me a lot. Which isn't helping me at all while I am trying to get some motivation to get shit done. I need to finish the books I am reading and I also need to get some writing done. Which brings me to another of the many things I have going on right now....

I am doing Camp NaNoWriMo, which is going on all this month. I am just working on my story that I did for NaNo back in November. It isn't finished yet and at this rate, it still wont be finished this month. For all I know though, it wouldn't have been to begin with. I honestly think that there is probably a lot more that could happen in this story and I just don't know where it's going to go yet. I am trying to just let the story flow but, I am not happy with it thus far. It has potential but, I think I am going to rewrite it using the Three Act Structure that I saw another book and writing lover use. It sounds like something that would work really well for me so I want to give it a shot whether it is for this story or another one I have in mind. I will just have to wait and see.

Well, that's all I for now. I will talk to you all again soon!

Thanks for reading!!!!

Crazy Week and More Ahead!

So, Bloggiesta was last week (March 21-27) and it was a success for me! I got everything done that I wanted to and am even still very motivated to keep going. The chats that I participated in were also a ton of fun and I was so relieved that I wasn't the only one out there who had certain problems with things that I thought I should probably know. For example, I am not the only one who had trouble with Wordpress or has no idea how to design my own website from scratch. I have just had a blast with Bloggiesta and have built more confidence with my blogging. Overall great experience!

This week has been incredibly busy. It started off stressful and aggravating but has gotten better. I went to the library twice this week which is always a lot of fun! I had two books that I had been waiting for come in so I had to go get those but I always take my kids with me. They got some books as well and played for a bit. I tell you what, I am sooooo happy that my kids love to read too! It makes me so happy to see them reading or looking at books and they always want me or daddy to read to them. It's great and warms my heart <3

And since you guys will probably be wondering, the two books I got were "My Life On The Road" by Gloria Steinem. I have heard good things about it and it was also Januarys read for Emma Watsons Goodreads group, Our Shared Shelf. The second book is actually this months read for the same group. It's "How To Be A Woman" by Caitlin Moran. I have heard mixed reviews about this book. Everyone seems to either love it or hate it so, I am going to read it and form my own opinion. I have been wanting to expand my horizons when it came to the types of books I read and this is definitely different for me. Not only are these non fiction, they are about feminism. I don't call myself a feminist because, to be completely honest, I know nothing about feminism. From what I have read so far about what it is though, I am pretty damn close, if not a feminist. I am not calling myself one until I learn more about it though. With my love of learning about new things however, I am definitely looking forward to learning more.

We have also had my daughters softball meeting this week and she starts practice on Monday. She is going to have practice twice a week and then, in May, she will have her two practices a week and then also two GAMES a week! And that's just for her! I am going to be hearing from a coach for my son who is also going to be playing tee ball and that is going to be starting in a couple weeks! I am beginning to wonder if I am in over my head here and I am not sure how I am going to be able to handle all this. We have only one car and my husband usually works during the week so we are going to have to walk to everything. Thank god we live in a small town! At least the kids are happy. That's all that matters to me :)

So, obviously, it has been a crazy week and I have several more heading my way! I hope I can get through this without losing my mind! Probably not but, I am going to try! Haha!

Talk to you all soon! Thanks for reading!