Blog Hops, Books, and Friends.

This past week was pretty busy as I was getting ready to host a garage sale with my sister. I didn't realize just how much junk, I mean how many sales items I had, until I started hauling things to the garage. The good news is that we sold over two thirds of what we put out.

Of course I still left myself plenty of time to read a few books, and I even found a new blog hop to join called Make My Saturday Sweet. It is hosted by a lovely American mom who has been living and raising her children in South Africa. So if you have a minute, stop by, read her blog post, and check out her great blog hop buddies!

And don't forget this week's selection of books. As I have written about before, it's always fun to find books by friends at the library, and this week was no exception. My very talented friend Salina Yoon, author and illustrator of the penguin books, delighted me with Penguin on Vacation.

Everyone needs a vacation from time to time and Penguin decides to take his at the beach. He has adventures and fun, but best of all, he discovers that where you spend your time isn't nearly as important as who you spend it with.

I also read The Curious Garden by another very talented author/illustrator friend of mine, Peter Brown. This whimsical book will delight children with it's beautiful art work and make them itch to plant a garden all their own as they follow Liam's adventures. It is also a testament to the fact that you don't have to be perfect at what you do. You just have to love what you do and keep working at it. And if you do, before long your joy will spread much like Liam's curious garden spread all over town.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. And feel free to drop by my personal website, Fun With Aileen, any day of the week for even more on reading, writing, my very own early grade chapter book, Fern Valley, and my soon to be released sequel, Return To Fern Valley, coming summer of 2014! I'm also on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.