More About Me

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. It was my full intention to post this yesterday. But after typing like a madwoman for two days straight during the Bloggiesta, my body decided to punish me. My carpal tunnel flared up really bad yesterday, and my left hand was pretty much numb the whole day. So no blogging yesterday. :-(

But today I am feeling much better! So here we go. And really, this post should have been up ages ago. Let me explain. Perhaps you remember the post in February where I asked you what questions you had about me? Yeah, totally forgot about it. So when I found those questions again during the Bloggiesta (funny what you find when you're cleaning things out) I wanted to finally get around to posting them.

So here's the answer to your questions about me. Thank you to everyone who sent them in! And if you have follow-up questions, leave 'em in the comments below. Maybe I'll do a post like this again. And I won't wait four months this time (hopefully).

From Erika Lynn:
I am always curious where people are blogging from so where do you live?- Right now I'm in Northern California, where I grew up. However, in the past three years that I've been blogging I've done so from my school in Eastern Idaho, and I had a three-month stint in Orlando, Florida while I worked for the Walt Disney World Resort.

From donnas:
What made you want to start blogging?- I'd been doing reviews for a Young Adult website for about 8 months before I started my own blog. Through the forums of that site I had become friends with Jocelyn over at Teen Book Review. She had posted one day that she started a blog, and I went "Hey, I can do that!" So here I am, almost 3 years (and a whole lot less free time) later.

And what is your favorite color?- Pink! I know, I'm such a girly-girl. However pink is closely followed by purple and green. Hence the blog colors.

From Senfaye:
What is your favorite book of all time?- Phew! That's a horrible question! :-) That's like asking me to pick a favorite child. Hmmm... if I had to pick one pick that's remained a favorite for the longest time, I would have to say Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. Does that count as favorite book of all time?

From Yan:
What's your favorite book that you've reviewed so far?- Wow. Umm... (flips through blog looking for reviews). Okay, I have a hard time choosing just one because they books I review are so different in their own ways, so I'll compromise and choose one of several categories. My favorite fantasy so far has been City of Masks, my favorite manga/graphic novel has been Emma, my favorite non-serious book has been I Can Has Cheezburger?, my favorite historical fiction has been Doomed Queen Anne, my favorite obscure book is The Last Grail Keeper and my favorite children's book has been The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies. But that's just what I've reviewed. I have lots of favorites that I haven't reviewed yet.

And which book are you most excited about to be released!- When Yan asked me this question it would definitely have been The Diamond Secret by Suzanne Weyn. Now... hmm... I really want to read The Pale Assassin, which just came out in the UK, but I have to wait until November to read.

From Paradox:
What's your favorite genre to read?- Fantasy. Hands down. Though I've found that most adult fantasy is a little too deep for me. If I can't pronounce any of the names, I usually put it down. Close behind fantasy is historical fiction. YA, of course.

I won't ask about favorite books, because that is almost always an impossible question, but what about favorite books you've read this month? Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce. Well, I started it last month, but I did finish it this month. In fact, this book is what caused my book slump I mentioned two weeks ago (I'm over it now though!)

From deltay:
What types of blogs do you personally enjoy reading?- To be honest I don't really read a lot of stuff beyond book blogs. I just don't have time to find more than that! My experience in the blogosphere focuses on one realm only because otherwise I would spend wayyyyyyyyy too much more time on the computer than I do now.

Do you like/dislike when there's pictures in the entries?- Personally I love pictures. But I think it depends a lot on what you're writing about too. Some posts aren't picture friendly, and some deserve more than pictures.

If you could meet someone, anyone, who would it be, and why?- Walt Disney. I am enormously impressed with him, and I think he would be a wonderful person to meet.

From Michelle Kuo:
Even though I'm sure many others are asking the same thing, what is your favorite book of all time? Or if that's too hard to answer, who's your favorite author?- It would be a toss up between Patricia C. Wrede and Tamora Pierce.

I'm also curious as to what your favorite genre of books is--romance? Action? Humor?- Ooh, humor. That's a good one too. I forgot about that one. So fantasy, historical fiction, and humor. Or a combination of all three would be good.

From H:
You said you like crafts. What do you make/draw?- I've dabbled in pretty much everything. I stay away from the drawing/art aspect mostly because I have absolutely no talent in that arena. Beyond that, I go in cycles. Right now I'm working on a huge cross stitch project, and I love making cards with a process called quilling.

Also, because the favourite book question has already been asked I thought I'd go a bit different and ask what is your favourite book COVER and why?- Hmm... another one that's hard to choose. I'm actually very picky about my covers. I'm one of those nuts who will rebuy a book if they change the cover because I like the new cover better. I'm not sure what makes me like one cover over the other, it's more of a I-know-it-when-I-see-it thing. But to pick something, I love, love, love Kinuko Y. Craft's covers for the Once Upon a Time Series. Headless girls precluded, I love the amount of detail she does for everything she paints. She also did the cover for Wildwood Dancing and Cybele's Secret, both of which I like so much I bought jigsaw puzzles of both paintings.

From the epic rat:
If all books had to be burned save one and you could pick which one to save, what would you choose and why?- I'm going to have to go religious on one. I know, I know, I picked the easy way out. But I'd save my scriptures. You know, eternal salvation and all that. :-)

Which literary character do you most want to be or be friends with? For the risk of sounding cliche, I would really like to be friend with Elizabeth Bennet. I have a tendency to be rather introverted in public, but I think she would bring out the adventurous side of me if we were friends.

What's your all-time favorite Disney movie? Whose your favorite Disney princess?- Well, I'll answer the princess question first, because that's easier. Aurora is my favorite princess, followed closely by Belle. My favorite movie changes yearly it seems. When I was little it was Cinderella, until The Little Mermaid came out, until Beauty and the Beast came out, until Aladdin came out, until The Lion King came out.... well, you get the idea. I can tell you that Pirates of the Caribbean and Enchanted will always be at the top of that list. And right now my favorite is, of course, Up, which I saw two weeks ago.

What book(s) have had a major impact on your life or the way you think?- This is going to sound cliche again, but I really like Shakespeare for this reason. Another example is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain and Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. I read both for an American Lit class and we had some great discussions. Another interesting one, although it's not a book, is the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell.

How did Contest Monday start, and how do you manage to keep it going?- It started as an idea that popped into my head as I was moving after graduating college. Despite the fact that I had only brought about 10 books up to school with me, I had over 100 I had to cart back home (most of them were Cybils nominees, which I was smack dab in the middle of at the time). It was one of the many things that made me realize I have way more books than I will ever have time to read or keep track of. So I thought of, "would it be fun if I held a weekly contest on my blog to help give away some of the books I no longer need and/or want?". I thought that idea was cool, so then I thought what day should I have it on? Well, nobody really likes Mondays, so why not brighten up a least favorite day by giving someone a prize. And so Contest Monday was born.

As far as how I keep it up, that's a little more complicated. I don't think I will ever have a shortage of prizes, but postage can get really expensive. I do make a (very, very) small commission using Amazon Associates which helps me pay for postage some months. So if you are planning on buying something from Amazon, using the links found here helps a lot. And the more stuff people buy, the more prizes I can afford to send out. In the end though, the thing that keeps me going is the satisfaction I have knowing someone is getting a book that they are excited about reading.

Bloggiesta Wrap-Up

Well, it's time to wrap up the Bloggiesta. Unfortunately, I got rather sick on Friday, so I didn't get as much done as I hoped. But, having just added up my hours, I spend a total of 12 hours and 15 minutes on this challenge. Which was just barely over my goal of 12 hours. Yes!

So here's what I got done:

Blogging- 28 posts written (29 including this one).

I completed 6 mini-challenges: Clean Up Your Feedreader!, rainy-day post, Google Alerts, Elevator Pitch, blog directories, creating links using anchor text, and Grade Your Blog.

I only made two blog comments. I was more focused on writing than reading other blogs. :-) I certainly hope that was the case around here too, since I noticed there weren't as many people this weekend. However I did spend about an hour or so in conversations with people on my new Ning profile.

Layout- I fixed the sidebars on both blogs and signed up for Feedburner. Now you can subscribe by email if you are so inclined! I did re-add the followers widget here and it did fine for a few hours and then gave me problems again. So I had to take it off again. Grrr. I hate technology sometimes.

I only go two reviews written. This is the big bummer. But considering the huge number of posts I got written, this isn't a surprise. Every time I tried to sit down and write a review something else would pop into my head and demand attention. I think I have Blogger ADD.

All in all, not too bad! The mini-challenges were a great addition, although I only took on half of them. Hope everyone who participated had a great time, and if you didn't make it this year, join us next time!

Funnybone Fridays: A Day Late

Yeah, I know these are supposed to be posted on Fridays. But I got so wrapped up with the Bloggiesta that I forgot to post this. So it's going to be Saturday at 5:00 this week.

Today's post deserves a little bit of an introduction. I'm starting a new feature over at my Disney blog Disney World Girl next week. I've gotten permission to repost a webcomic, and I will posting a new comic every Thursday. So here's a sneak peek for this week's funnybone:



Intrigued? If you like princesses and/or Disneyland, you'll love this comic. I've added a follower widget and a feedreader button to that blog, so you can easily subscribe if you want. That way you won't miss anything.

Anyway, I'll be back next week with something on time next time.

Bloggiesta!

Okay, so here's my introduction post for the Bloggiesta. Although I officially started at 10:00am this morning, I am late putting up this post. I didn't think to check the host blog until just now. I know, ironic isn't it? So my official end time with be 10:00am Sunday morning.

My goals

Time: I'm not going for any prizes here, because I already know I won't win. I have way to many things to do this weekend. Unfortunately, more than I thought I would when I signed up last week. Oh well, I'm going to do what I can! I think if I can pass 12 hours (6 each day), I'll be doing really well! That's how cluttered my weekend ended up.

Reviews: I have (hold on, let me count) currently 43 (!) books sitting on my top shelf that need to be reviewed. Beyond that I have another 27 books on a list of books I have returned to the library/borrowed/etc. that also need to be reviewed. Yeah, not going to get that all done. But a girl can dream!

Posts: My big o' notebook of blogs has 22 ideas in it. Plus I would like to get ahead on creating future Contest Monday, Waiting on Wednesday, Funnybone Fridays, and LOLs of the week posts. I want to plan them out at least if not write them. Plus I have two series on my Disney blog I want to get started on, as well as a regular feature for the summer I'd like to plan out. I also have a little something I'd like to do for Father's Day on Sunday, but we'll see what happens.

Layout stuff: I think it's time to add a feedburner to my blog. So I'm going to investigate that. I also want to re-add my followers widget and see if I still have problems "aborting". I also need to update my Disney blog. I'm going to add a follower widget over there, as well as a subscribe button. And maybe a feedburner. Also, as a sidenote, I'm having problems claiming my blog with Technorati. If anyone can help with this, please send me an email!

Social networking: Nothing planned really. I need to update my profile on a Ning group I recently joined. Other than that, not really anything planned.

Mini-challenges: I just found out about these. Arg! One more thing to add to my list. I don't know how many I'll even try, but we'll wait and see.

Wow, now I feel even more overwhelmed now that I've written all that down. Time to get cracking!