Booknerd survey.

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack:
Not usually, I do however read on my lunch break while eating sometimes. It's quite hard to eat yogurt while eating though.

What is your favorite drink while reading?
Whatever I have at the time.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
Gah! NO I could not mark in my books!


How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
I have some pretty cute bookmarks Kayla made me for Christmas, or I use whatever I have laying around. NEVER dog ear, I get so mad when I get a library book and someone has bent all the pages!!!

Fiction, non-fiction, or both?
Both, I usually go through phases of each though.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere?
I would rather read to the end of a chapter but when reading at work I have to get up and down a lot, and sometimes have to read a part over if I didn't get to the end.

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you?
No, I'll stop to calm down or yell at it!

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?
No, I don't think I've done that, I may have looked it up later.

What are you currently reading?
Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay

What is the last book you bought?
Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Are you the type of person that reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one?
At times I read more than one but I'd prefer to just do one at a time

Do you have a favorite time/place to read?
My lunch break, it's super quiet. Also sometimes I'll read while the kids are watching tv.

Do you prefer series books or stand alones?
I like both, If I start a series then I'm obsessed with reading them all in order and one right after the other.

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?
The Southern Vampire series, or The Sookie Stackhouse books, by Charlaine Harris. I also am loving the Dexter books right now! Go Read them!!!

How do you organize your books? (by genre, title, author's last name, etc.)
If I had the room I would do it by author, and chronological order, alas, all we have is one bookshelf that will one day die of exhaustion. :(

Mickey Mouse Cake.

Whoa, has it been a while! Mr Maxie had a birthday a few weekends ago and I made his super cute cake. Well, cute except for the giant grease/dye stain on the cake board I didn't cover. I was pretty happy with the results, especially since I had a few meltdowns during making it. Maxie seemed pretty happy too!

Max's Wolf Suit

So last year at Christmas I was trying to think of what to get my little man, who at the time was only 7 months old, and I remembered the book "Where the Wild Things Are" my brother had when he was a kid. I searched high and low until one day I found it after having to ask a sales clerk at Barnes and Noble. I was super excited especially when I read it and saw that the little boy's name was Max just like our son. After I bought it I found out that it was going to become a live action movie and decided I wanted to dress my Max up as Max from the book for Halloween. I searched (again) for a costume but all I could find was one person who made them on E-bay. I decided to make it myself with the help of my super sewing Aunt! She made all of my cousin's costumes, most of my cousin's pageant outfits, and my wedding dress. She said it would be very easy so we set to work using an old cat costume pattern and my aunt's imagination. I am so pleased with the way it turned out!

Crockpot Salsa Chicken

This meal was suggested to me by my best friend Kayla at Central Cooking. After 1,000,000 times of her telling me how much she and her husband liked it and after seeing her post the recipe on her blog I finally decided to make it! I was pleasantly surprised. It was super easy and tasted wonderful!



You will need
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup of your favorite salsa
1 lb of frozen chicken breast
1 packet of taco seasoning
Put the frozen chicken in the bottom of the crock pot, pour seasoning on top of your chicken, mix the soup and salsa together and spread over the chicken. Cook in your crock pot on low for 7-8 hours until the chicken is cooked. When chicken is done shred the chicken (I used my handy pampered chef chopper ( I LOVE that thing!)).
We put our chicken in tortilla's and topped with cheese and lettuce. You can make it into nachos or eat any way you'd like....My 1 year old ate it straight from the bowl!

Review: Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse Novels 1-3

I received this wonderful first book as a gift for my birthday from my wonderful best friend Kayla. As she gave it to me she said "I have a feeling this will begin another obsession." Boy was she right! This being based on how we were both obsessed with the Twilight Series and both read all four books in a matter of weeks. I had heard of this series before from both the internet forums on Goodreads and from my most favorite magazine Entertainment Weekly, where I had read about the show based on the books on HBO also and wanted to read them but I had SO many books on my library queue and wanted to knock some of them out of the way first. When I received this first book I decided to forget them begin the series. I was drawn in and in LOVE within the first chapter! I absolutely adore the main character Sookie and Charlaine Harris is such an awesome writer. I love or love to hate every single character that comes along! I have yet to be bored at any part of the three books I have finnished in the month I have had these books. After finnishing the first book I made my husband go out and rent for me the first season of Trueblood and fell in love with it too! Although they did change several main things I still feel it follows the book well.
The first of the series Dead Until Dark introduces you to Sookie and Bill (or Vampire Bill as the town of Bon Temps, Louisianna refers to him). Sookie is a waitress in a local bar and reads minds. Most of the people in town thinks she's crazy especially after she meets Bill and becomes his girlfriend. In this book Sookie tries to discover who is killing women in town who have been connected to both Vampires and her womanizing brother to try and clear both of them of the murders.

In the second book of the series Sookie is inlisted to help some of Bill's vampire friends find a fellow vampire that was kidnaped right from Fangtasia, a night club where vampires and humans come to meet that Bill's boss Eric owns. She also comes across a radical group that is fighting against vampire rights.

In the third book Sookie must try and rescue Bill from a group of vampires that want something very usefull from him. She gets help from Eric and a Werewolf and ends up learning of other supernatural creatures she never knew existed. She also learns something about Bill that makes her wonder if being a vampire's girlfriend is what she wants.

Father's Day Pt 2

Every year at Father's Day I have no idea what to get my dad. Sure he'd be happy with a gift card for any of the home improvement stores in the area but I just didn't want to get him the same thing I did every year. This year it hit me: OATMEAL PIE! My dad LOVES my grandma's oatmeal pie. Grandma rarely makes it any more . My aunt teases my dad by telling him she only ever gets to eat it when my grandma knows my dad is coming over. When Ruthie and I took it over to him he was beaming, especially when I told him it was grandma's recipe!

Grandma Ferguson's Oatmeal Pie

Ingrediants:

1. 3/4 c Quick Oatmeal

2. 3/4 c sugar

3. 1 stick butter

4. 2 beaten eggs

5. 3/4 c maple or pancake syrup

6. 1/4 c pecans (I left these out)

*to fill pie shell sometimes it's better to use one and one half times ingrediants (I just doubled it)

Preheat oven to 350

Mix syrup and oats. Melt butter, then add to sugar and oat mixture. Add eggs and mix well. Pour into unbaked 9" pie shell. Bake on middle shelf about 30-45 minutes. (I baked for at least 50 minutes, it took a little longer since I doubled the ingrediants)

Father's Day Pt 1

This year fathers day for my husband came early. Since he had to work during the day the kids and I decided to celebrate early. So Friday I made him the meal he likes the most: French Onion Chicken. I have never seen some one so in love with onions! Especially french fried onions, sometimes I'll buy ffo to make this chicken and when I go to make this dish they're all gone! I found this recipe in an old pamphlet for Hidden Valley Ranch that my grandma gave me in a recipe book. I've since seen it in magazines, only a little different. I also made some quick cheesy mashed potatoes.

French Onion Chicken

from Hidden Valley Ranch

Ingredients:

1 lb chicken breast

2 cans french fried onions

bottle of honey mustard dressing

Heat oven to 350. Crunch up french fried onions in a bowl. Dip chicken in honey mustard and then in onions. Place on baking sheet and cook until chicken is done.

We also got Daddy a new weed eater/edger.