Reading Round Up #2 - week 19

Last week I read 2 books but both I didn't finish. Mainly because they had to be back at the library and I couldn't renew them. Do you know those times when you have books on hold and none come through for weeks, and then suddenly they all came through at once? Well that is what happened here and I just couldn't keep up. Which books did I read?

First I read Everybody has Everything by Katrina Onstad. I came across this book on a blog, but I can't remember which one. Normally it wouldn't been have a book what I would have picked up, but the review sounded interesting and made me curious. Ana and James seem to have the perfect life but then their best friends have a car accident, leaving Marcus dead and Sarah in a coma. Unexpectedly they become the legal guardians of their 2.5 year old son Finn.

The book tells the story now, and sometimes in flashbacks of the past through memories. Both Ana and James have voices in the book. They switch regularly so you get both point of views. While James loves parenthood, and seems to do it all natural, it is more difficult for Ana. The book is mainly about her struggle and insecurity about parenthood, and the question if she wants to have children at all. The book is interesting enough, but sometimes a bit slow, yet I kept going back to it. I couldn't finish it fast enough though, and because the book is a bit predictable, I do not really mind. I would have finished it with enough time, but I don't think I will borrow it again just to finish it. Read more about it on Goodreads.

De Bijbel Voor Ongelovigen (the bible for non-believers) by Guus Kuijer, was one that I had on hold for a long while. The title says it all, it are the stories from the bible, told in such a way that people who wouldn't pick up a regular bible would read this. The book starts strong, the story of Adam and Eve is told in a humorous way, and I enjoyed it. There were discussions between Adam and God which had me laugh out loud. Sadly the humor didn't really last throughout the other stories. However I noticed that the stories are told in a modern way and there was room to criticize God, people did openly in the stories. Yet it is all done in a respectful way. There are persons in the book, who strongly believe in God and there are persons who questions them and that made a nice balance. It was also the cause of most conflicts in the book of course.

Why didn't I finish it? Again time plays a factor here. These aren't stories that I want to finish in on go. It is slow reading and that left me about half way in when I needed to return it. But what I read, I did enjoy. And because it are all separate stories, the chance is bigger that I will pick this one up again, if I come across it. Also more information about this book can be found on Goodreads.

Challenges: Library Challenge and Ik Lees Nederlands Challenge.
Currently I am reading The Handsmaid's Daughter. More on that next time :)

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WOYWW - Some weeks of snail mail

A while ago I came across a creative meme that is called What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. It is all about showing what is going on on your workdesk and is hosted by Julia from Stamping Ground. I really like participating, because it is an easy way to show you what I have been working on, and it is fun to visit some other participants :) I have not participated for a few weeks, but during that time I did work on things.

Today I will show you some things I sent to my pen pals. I have been doing things for school as well, but I will save that for another time. Those pictures need to be branded and I haven't been motivated to do that yet. The pictures of my snail mail have been made just with my phone, and because they are just of the things I made to send out, I don't care so much if they are copied. With the pictures I did for school lately, that is a different case.

I have been inspired by nature lately. It must be because I am spending lots of time outside in nature. So I am really enjoying making mail packages with a theme lately. Ducks are always fun, I think :)

I also wanted to make a fox themed envelope to go with the awesome stamps I have. And I found a cute card with it too.

I also made this spring themed one from magazine clippings. In the bags are little seeds :)

A home made card that fits nicely with the envelope. Look at the stamp again :) I love to make matching envelopes with the stamps I have.

Another spring themed one, thise time with only yellow and green colors. On top there is already a sneak peek from my work in nature ;)

I made this blue bird mail, for a bird lover. Again from magazine clippings :) I love how these all go so well together :)

Lastly this is a bird and flower themed ATC that I made for a swap. I love working in this mini collage style.
Well that is it for this time :) I think I showed quite a lot :) Hopefully I find the motivation to work on the pictures some time next week, but I won't guarantee it. I am still in my "I do whatever I feel like" phase blog wise. I find it very relaxing this way :)

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Reading Roundup #1 - week 18

I am going to try something new on the blog. A new way of writing reviews. Shorter and easier to get myself writing again on something bookish, I hope. In these posts I will write about what I have read in the past week. Some weeks there won't be a post because I might not have been reading. Let's see if a shorter format will work for me. And who knows, if it does, I might even be able to post about some books I read but haven't written about yet.

In the past week I have read 2 books. Both are Dutch covers from my library books.

The first book is Through the Ever Night by Veronica Rossi. It is the 2nd part in a Dystopia series. The sky is full of lightning storms which makes it dangerous to live outside. So there are people who live in giant domes and they spend their life in a virtual reality, and live mostly online lives. For the people who live outside, life is harsh. In the first book we get to know Aria, who lives in a dome and Perry who lives outside. I found the first book in this series very strong, and was looking forward to reading this book. It didn't disappoint. Aria and Perry are both strong characters and both of their stories are interesting ones. I often dislike a book that tells stories from 2 views because usually one story is a stronger one than the other. But that is not the case with this book. I know I keep things kind of vague, but I don't want to give too much away. I can say that this book doesn't have the 2nd book syndrome and the story is packed with action and keeps moving forward. Look at goodreads for all the info on this book.

Openhartig is a true story (Dutch only) about living with a serious heart condition. Fighting to get the right treatment, even going abroad to America to do so and raise money to make it possible, are the big themes in this book. However, they are switched up with fragments of day to day life. How to raise a son with this disease and how it effects him when he grows older. This book is one with highs and lows, even people who destroy her disability car, but it is mainly upbeat but without withholding the frustrations and the many difficulties that come with such a disease. It left quite an impression on me. For the Dutch readers: this book is also on Goodreads.

Challenges these books are part of are the Library challenge, wishlist challenge and ik lees Nederlands (I read Dutch) challenge.

Currently I am reading: the bible for non-believers, a Dutch book. And the perks of being a wallflower. Both aren't really pulling me in yet. But who knows :)

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WOYWW - new stuff, teacups and tulips

A few weeks ago I came across a creative meme that is called What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. It is all about showing what is going on on your workdesk and is hosted by Julia from Stamping Ground. I really like participating, because it is an easy way to show you what I have been working on, and it is fun to visit some other participants :)

This week I have some random bits and pieces and I will show you what I made at school last week.

I added some new bits and pieces to my snailmail stash. I went for the owl washi tape, but also ordered some new address labels, stickers and gift bags. They were too cute to pass. I bought these at Vlinders in je buik.

This is a part of a tea cup and pot related swap I made this week. I really liked making these tea related goodies :) I always love how nice mail turns out when it is all in one theme :)

This is the work I made at school last week. It is in the zen theme and made with pastels. There were tables in the middle of the classroom with flowers and other nature pieces on there. The assignment was not about painting the perfect flowers, but to look at the colors and work from there. Look where it is dark, where it is light and work from there. The next step was to bring something abstract into the piece to make it more interesting. I thought it was a very fun assignment :) I love working with pastels, and from all the materials I work with, I am best with these. All though acrylics are also fun, as is working with clay. As you can see my desk is quite messy, but I had to shove my things to the sides to make room for the piece so I could take the picture :)

I am currently working on assignments away from the desk. Because we have to work outside this time, but more on that next week :)

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WOYWW - Homework and Snailmail

Last week I came across a creative meme that is called What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. It is all about showing what is going on on your workdesk and is hosted by Stamping Ground. Last week I showed my homework in progress and this is the finished result:

I surely could have done a bit more, but I am not supposed to work hours and hours on one piece. (all though sometimes I do) BTW: I just had the wonderful news yesterday that I can continue to the 3rd study year :) Which I think is amazing. I worked very hard to get there :)

Other than that I worked on some labels for Snail mail this week. I like to recycle magazines and I use the little scraps to make some labels. I usually attach them to my letters :)

Lastly I am also working on a themed Snail mail package, that has the theme snails. It is not finished yet, but this is a little sneak peek :)

Well that was it for this week :) Hopefully I will be able to update the blog a bit more often :) But I am also glad that I am posting again at all :) I need to plan something bookish though, so stick around :)

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WOYWW - Homework

The changes that will happen on my blog that I talked about during Bloggiesta last weekend..? Well they might be happening sooner than I thought. One of the things that I want to change is that I want to go back to the origins for this blog, which is creating. Now though this post by Create with Joy, I came across a creative meme that is called What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. It is all about showing what is going on on your workdesk and this sounded like fun to me, so I decided to use the break I am taking from making my homework, to show what I am working on. I also hope to visit some of the participants later to see what nice blogs are out there :) WOYWW is hosted by Stamping Ground.

I am working on a landscape in pastels this week. I am totally not finished yet. Working on the sky right now. Actually the whole right side of the drawing has not been worked on much. I just started out with random colors, but apparently I have some fire inside me atm that wants to come out. I didn't plan on it, but it just happen to go that way.

It seems that the cats wanted in too and they must have walked over my work last night.... I obviously should have covered it up. Anyway! Back to work!

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#Bloggiesta Finish Line

I have been part of the Bloggiesta party for most of the weekend, and while I started out with the plan to focus mainly on writing posts, things didn't turn out that way and I spend way more time on doing those typical Bloggiesta things. I did wrote a total of 6 posts though, and one of them was published by accident ;)

Anyway here is the stuff I did manage to do on my 2 blogs, this one and She Likes Bento:

Small Stuff:
- Back up blogs
- Remove cookbook challenge button (SLB) from sidebar and clean up sidebars
- Add favicons
- Install English spelling control in my browser (only had Dutch, but it seems you can't have both on at the same time)
- Make a bloggiesta grocery list
- Update copyright notices
- Update UC review page for 2013
- Update review policy

Larger things:
- Think what I want to do with this blog (make it more personal, so I will update more often..? You can read the outcome of that here.
- Make a "She Likes Bento" map on Pinterest and pin all the recipes from my blog.
- Go through my bloglovin'. Read some of those over 1600 posts, and sort out which blogs I still want to follow.
- Clean out my inbox - Still In Progress. I started out with about 750 mails, about 400 remain.

And something I did not plan on was making About me pages for my blogs. In the twitter chat this Saturday, everyone said About pages is the first thing a visitor looks for and a big part of the choice to follow a blog or not. I never knew that! Because honestly I don't. I look if I like what I person writes about first and get to know a person second. So I never realised that what I am reading blogs isn't how the majority of the people do it. Anyway, I have an About me page now!

Write posts:
- Lemonies recipe (SLB)
- Review "Pompoenenboekje" plus recipe pumpkin lasagna (SLB)
- Tomato Clafoutis recipe (SLB)
- Mexican Spoonbread recipe (SLB)
- Book review: Speechless (UC)

Mini Challenges:
- Through a visitors eye - Part one is good to go - and that is all I did ;)
- StumbleUpon

I didn't do so well on the mini challenges, all though technically I decluttered my sidebars too, but that was part of my original plan. It was not that they were not interesting, but it is is all about the fact that I didn't want to create much extra work for myself at this point in time. That is why I decided not to participate in the Book Depository Affiliate challenge or the review in many place challenge.

I also joined the twitterchat on Saturday and I might join the Sunday one that is still need to happen, but that one starts 10PM my time, so I am not sure.

Anyway, I am quite happy about what I did this Bloggiesta but a bit sad that I wasn't as focussed as on my previous ones so that I still have a lot of posts to write. But I guess that is just the way it is ;) I had fun though and maybe I will see you tonight while chatting, and if not, hopefully I will see you around ;)

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Blogging my way! (Blog Brainstorm for #Bloggiesta)

One of my tasks and maybe even THE task of this Bloggiesta is to figure out, there do I want to go from here? I haven't been very active since the fall Bloggiesta. Around December everything fell kinda apart blog wise and I just didn't have the time to pick it up.

I have a lot going on in my life atm, and I have been pushed over my limits for a few months straight. Now I finally put a stop to that but it takes me longer to recover than I would like. I haven't been feeling like reading and knowing that I "have to" write reviews only puts more pressure on reading. I haven't been able to focus on just any book for some time now. If a book doesn't sweep me off my feet at this point, I am not likely to finish it, even though otherwise it would be fine book to me. I am currently more into watching series, movies and playing video games because it seems to relax me more at this point.

So because of this a Blogging brainstorm is in order. I found out that I need to give myself permission that it is okay to do whatever I want to do. Blog about the usual subjects? Great! Blog about personal stuff? That is allowed too. Want to talk about a movie I just saw? Awesome! Want to blog about any subject that makes my heart happy and causes that little spark of inspiration? Go for it! And if nothing comes and you don't blog for weeks or even months? That is fine too, you will be back when the time is right. It is all about giving permission. Even if that means letting go for a while.

Another big thing is that writing long posts is something that I seem to not be able to so easily at this point. The solution is to stop doing it. A short impression is fine too! If that keeps the reviews going. I don't have to write out all the info, because that is what Goodreads is for. A link will do. If this is what it takes to start me to read again and share it in the process, then that is totally fine. I don't have to live up to certain standards. I don't get paid for this. Blogging is not my job, but my hobby. So I can say as much or as little as I like.

I know that Bloggiesta is all about making your blogs better, and that is not a bad thing, it's a good thing. My blogs got better. The quality of my posts went up. My layout got more together, and of course I will still keep all those benefits. But for now all those quality standards are stopping me from doing what I like. I use to love blogging! And I want to start loving it again! And in order to do that I need to do it my way. And if that means not having a blogging schedule so that people know I will always post each Wednesday and Saturday, then that is okay. Normally I love to have those schedules but now is not that time. So for now I am just going to toss all those unwritten blogging rules out of the window and just be me. And that just has to be good enough, because why wouldn't it be? :)

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#Bloggiesta starting post

It is that time again! And of course I have to start with the same speech about how I have neglected my blogs. But I am not going to do that. This weekend (mainly tomorrow and Sunday) I am going to spend time working on my blogs. So let's get this Bloggiesta party started and do join in if you can.

I have 2 blogs, this one and She Likes Bento. I am focussing mainly on the latter one this time around because I feel more motivated to do that.

Small Stuff:
- Back up blogs
- Remove cookbook challenge button from sidebar and clean up sidebars (SLB)
- Add favicons
- Install English spelling control in my browser (only have Dutch now)
- Make a bloggiesta grocery list
- Update copyright notices
- Update UC review page for 2013
- Update review policy

Larger things:
- Think what I want to do with this blog (make it more personal, so I will update more often..? I am still in a reading and blogging slump)
- Making a "She Likes Bento" map on Pinterest and start pinning the recipes from my blog.
- Go through my bloglovin'. Read some of those over 1600 posts, and sort out which blogs you still want to follow. (and of course add the new wonderful blogs I will find during Bloggiesta)
- Clean out my inbox - In Progress
- Make About pages for both blogs

Write posts:
- Lemonies recipe (SLB)
- Review "Pompoenenboekje" plus recipe pumpkin lasagna (SLB)
- Tomato Clafoutis recipe (SLB)
- Buttercake with apple recipe (SLB)
- Date squares recipe (SLB)
- Vegan cheese sauce recipe (SLB)
- Review Happy Herbivore Abroad + vegetable masala recipe (SLB)
- Spinaci con uovi recipe (SLB)
- Review D'lish Deviled Eggs + recipe (SLB)
- Red cabbage with pear and feta recipe (SLB)
- Mexican Spoonbread recipe (SLB)
- Vegetarian Moussaka recipe (SLB)
- How I won a month free vegs and fruits (SLB)
- Book review: Speechless (UC)
- Book review: Paaz (UC)
- Book review: Grenzeloos (UC)
- Book review: Alice Bliss (UC)
- Book review: The Kitchen House (UC)
- Book review: Thirteen reasons why (UC)
- Book review: Chocolat (UC)
- Book review: Shelter (UC)
- Book review: Shatter me (UC)
- Book review: Zoet als zure kersen (UC)
- Backlog 365 posts (UC)

(I have even more recipes and reviews)

Mini Challenges:
- Through a visitors eye - Part one is good to go
- Reviewing in many places - Decided not to do this, because I want to destress - not add more work ;)
- Getting to know you
- StumbleUpon

 Maybe more mini challenges as I come across them.

- Join the Twitterchat on Saturday

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Book Review: Speechless by Hannah Harrington

Title: Speechless
Author: Hannah Harrington
Genre: YA
Subject: Friendship, Coming of age
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release date: August 2012
Length: 288 pages
I got this book: from the publisher for review through NetGalley.

Summary:
From Goodreads:
"Everyone knows that Chelsea Knot can't keep a secret.
Until now. Because the last secret she shared turned her into a social outcast—and nearly got someone killed.
Now Chelsea has taken a vow of silence—to learn to keep her mouth shut, and to stop hurting anyone else. And if she thinks keeping secrets is hard, not speaking up when she's ignored, ridiculed and even attacked is worse.
But there's strength in silence, and in the new friends who are, shockingly, coming her way—people she never noticed before; a boy she might even fall for. If only her new friends can forgive what she's done. If only she can forgive herself."

Personal opinion:
At first I thought this was a typical YA novel. But the silence vow makes it different and a bit more fresh. Sure, there are typical high school themes going on. Learning the consequences of your actions, gossip, bullying, popularity and finding out what really matters. But somehow it didn't feel like just another high school story and that is really done well. It did remind me a bit of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson though. It has some of the same elements but Chelsea is a lot more outgoing, a bit too much than is good for her and not likeable at all. She would have been one of the kids I hated in my high school time. But when she is tosses into the other side of the popularity scale, she starts to change and I grew to like her. I enjoyed reading about the journey she goes through and even though it would be unlikely that she ends up where she did if it wasn't a story, it was done well and didn't come off as too unbelievable to me.

Purchase links: The Book Depository
Challenges: E-book challenge
Other reviews: Bart's Bookshelf,
If you have reviewed this book and want your link here, please leave a comment with the link, and I will add it :)

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