Bucket Lists: Guest post by Jo Sparkes, author of The Agben School

by Carol6 Comments
Today, I'm happy to welcome Jo Sparkes, author of The Agben School. She's talking about bucket lists, a fun topic. You can actually find my list here. Bucket Lists by Jo Sparkes   Now life, for me, is full of mysteries.  Why didn’t the U.S.A. – Germany World Cup Soccer Game end sooner? Or a perfectly clean ten year old boy be sent to his spotless room for twenty minutes and return with grimy hands? How can a husband expert in making computers stand on their ear not know how to turn on a coffee pot? But this bucket list concept was a huge mystery. Trying again, I was sharing my latest with Carol. Carol’s the type of friend who’ll laugh at you to your face, and defend you behind your back. A true friend. She was laughing now. “You’ve got ‘finish your novel’ and ‘repaint the garage’.” Now I was truly confused. After all, Carol had write a novel on her list. That’s where I got it...
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Fitness Tuesday

by Carol8 Comments
Here's my plan, more or less. Since last check-in, I finished Week 1 and am starting Week 2. I switched Tuesday and Wednesday. I went swimming on Tuesday for about half an hour. Wednesday I went out to the gym and did some of the weight machines, concentrating on my legs. Thursday I ran the 2 miles. Saturday I ran 2 miles, give or take. I was running on the sidewalk on Main Street and a guy on a Segway pulled out of one of the parking lots right in front of me. he was taking up the whole sidewalk and was going just the wrong speed, too fast to pass easily and get comfortably in front of, and too slow for him to get some distance between us. I ended up turning around an taking another route, but my watch wasn't charged, so I can't actually say for sure how far I went, but based on my usual route, I'm guessing...
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Thursday’s Tale: How the Monkey Became a Trickster

by Carol6 Comments
Today's story comes from Brazil and it's another story about monkeys. "How the Monkey Became a Trickster" was retold by Elsie Spicer Eells in Fairy Tales from Brazil, 1917. Once there was a beautiful garden where all kind of fruits grew.  A wide variety of animals lived in the garden and they were allowed to eat any of the fruit they wanted, as long as they followed a couple of rules. First they always had to be respectful and ask politely, calling the tree by name. For example, when they wanted an orange they had to say, "O, orange tree, O, orange tree, please give me a taste of your fruit." It was also important not to be greedy and to leave plenty of fruit for the other animals and for the tree to keep and furnish seed so other trees could grow. In the corner of the garden grew the most beautiful tree of all and it had tempting, rosy-cheeked fruit,...
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The Problem with Audiobooks

by Carol13 Comments
I'm an unrepentant end-reader. I will get partially into a book and just have to read the end, see who survives, who the killer was, if the couple finally gets together. I still read the rest of the book, but I feel better knowing how it all turns out. I don't like the stress inherent in not knowing. Yes, I realize that for many that's one of the draws of reading, but not for me so much. I'm also a skimmer. Sometimes I skim through a page, getting what I need to but skipping over some of the details. Both of those are quiet easy with traditional books And that's the problem with audiobooks. I can't skip ahead to the end, at least on my player, because I'll lose my spot. I can't skim over any bits because I'm stuck with the narrator's pace, probably a good thing actually, although with some books where there is a lot of repetition it can...
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Fitness Tuesday

by Carol4 Comments
Every week, Joy hosts the Readers' Workouts at Joy's Book Blog. Usually I just leave a comment with how I've doing with exercising or eating or whatever, but if I want to finish a 10-mile trail challenge in November, I need to actually get serious. Here's my plan, more or less. I'm starting at Week 1. I'm already a little off track, but not bad. Yesterday I ran 3 miles, a mile over the target, but skipped the strength train/stretch. I did take the dog for a mile walk, though, so maybe it's a trade off? This plan is for a 13.1 miles and I'm not going that far, but a trail run is a bit tougher, I think, than a street one. Here's my run from yesterday evening. Yes, I'm slow, but I'm okay with that. It was hot and muggy, but I did pretty well. Today is 30-min Strength Train and Stretch. I think I'll try to head out to the gym for a bit,...
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