this little life of mine

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 
This week I started another book off my TBR list called If I Stay by Gayle Forman. So far it's a really fascinating read! Check this out:

Right now, in surgery, the doctors have to remove my spleen, insert a new tube to drain my collapsed lung, and stanch whatever else might be causing the internal bleeding. There isn't a lot they can do for my brain.

I came across this new challenge at The Story Siren and thought it sounded kinda fun. I'm planning to read 12 debut authors next year - one new release per month. So far I have titles for the first three months of 2011:

1.  Timeless by Alexandra Monir (1/11/10)

2.  The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney (2/8/11)

3.  Human.4 by Mike Landcaster (3/8/11)

I will update this list as I add new books. Cheers!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
   My teaser this week comes from one of my long-ago spontaneously purchased TBRs: Unwind by Neal Shusterman. The concept is interesting in a really scary way: Sometime in the future, all human life is deemed sacred and protected from the moment of conception. However, between the ages of 13 and 18, parents (or the state, if the child is a ward of the state) can choose to "unwind" their child, whereby the child's organs will be donated to others, so technically the child doesn't really "die", but will live on in others. Creepy, right?  Anyway, I'm just about a quarter of the way through it, and am really enjoying it! Here's my teasers from page 166: 

   And then Hayden says, At least dying's better than being unwound. Or is it? Let's take a poll - would you rather die, or be unwound?"

   Happy Tuesday and Happy Thanksgiving to all those readers in the States!

Tonight's dinner was a super yummy pizza with chicken sausage, spinach and tomatoes. The recipe is from the March/April 2009 issue of Cleam Eating magazine. I'm pretty sure I've made this before but I didn't remember until I started making it. It was very quick and easy and it turned out beautifully:

 
Clean Eating magazine has dozens of great recipes just like this one in every issue. It is by far one of my favourite magazines (with Lucky being a close second and Rubberstamp Madness third, in case you care), and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for healthy, easy, delicious food.

Cheers!

To remind you of the way this works, here’s how to play:

First — post your list of New Years’ Resolutions in a post at your blog (or in the comments here, if you don’t have a blog).

Second — every week, on Wednesday, write a new post about how you’re doing with each of your goals … you’ll have to list them, again, each week, as people won’t remember what you’re working towards, otherwise. Be brief in your updates, as there may be several blogs to visit! ((come give a quick update here at Should Be Reading, if you don’t have a blog)).

Third — after you’ve written your update, come back to Should Be Reading, and share your link so that we –the other New Beginnings participants– can stop by your blog and encourage you!

Important! … It would be absolutely great if you could visit at least ONE other participant’s blog  on Wednesdays and leave a comment on their post to share some encouragement for their efforts! Show your support! That’s what this event is all about — standing by each other to finally reach our goals!

NOTE: Only two months left in the year! I can't believe it! I've narrowed my NB goals down again since there are only a few things that I even have time to attempt before 2011.
1. Health and Fitness
o   Get down to size 14. To heck with this one, I'm just going to try to maintain my current weight loss through the end of the year. 
o   Try three new recipes per month (one of which will be vegetarian). I made a really delicious vegetarian Black-Eyed Pea Stew this past weekend which I was very happy about! 
o   Hit the gym four days per week. I've been back on track with this since recovering from a head cold and feel better than I have in several months!

2. Writing

Write a(nother) complete novel during NaNoWriMo. Nanowrimo began on Monday and so far I'm getting at least one hour of writing time in per day!

3. Photography 
Skipping all the previous photo "goals". I will be participating in November's 26 Things Photographic Scavenger Hunt, but it will be a a bigger challenge than usual this time since I destroyed my camera over the weekend. grr!

4. Homefront
o   Organize stuff. My stuff is pretty well organized right now, but who knows how long that will last.  
o   Reduce clutter. Sold a few more things on eBay lately, but will probably not add anything more until the beginning of next year.   

5. Fun Stuff Deleted this one because I made it to the beach a couple times this year and gave up on the tattoo idea completely.

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teaser comes from Murder at Cuyamaca Beach by Sue McGinty. Sue is a local author whom I've met a time or two at the Central Coast Writer's Conference. I really enjoyed her previous book Murder in Los Lobos and was really excited to get this one! Here's the teasers:

The first day of the week found me in the midst of an attack of the Chronicle crazies. The Grim Reaper had a busy three days and I was on deadline to write and edit several obituaties.

What a way to make a living.

Oh, and yes this is an autographed copy:

 
My collection of autographed books has sure grown since I've been attending the Writer's Conferences! It's always so inspiring to meet such amazingly creative people!