Birthday's, Bunnies, and Bargains

May is a beautiful month, and I'm not just saying that because I was born in May. May is when Bobby starts searching for and planting wonderful things in our vegetable garden. May means school is almost over. And May means lots of wildlife activity in our yard.

Sunday morning I woke up early before anyone else in the house; and when I opened the living room blind, I saw two baby bunnies snuggled together near my flower bed.

 

Sunday afternoon, Bobby and Emily took me out to lunch for an early birthday treat. We went to Applebee's, and I used my Christmas gift cards. I usually style my hair in braids when I go out and was pleasantly surprised when Emily came down sporting braids as well.

And Sunday evening when I sat down to write this post, I remembered the great book bargain Emily and I found at the thrift store recently. We found the first five hardback Nancy Drew books. Emily is a great lover of mysteries and has loved Nancy Drew ever since her aunt gave her two Nancy Drew paper backs last year. Nancy Drew books are the kind that never go out of style. She has read the first one already, so I'm going to keep my eyes pealed for books 6 through 12.

 

And while I normally don't read anything but children's books for time reasons, I did start reading A Good Creek Christmas (Kindle Version) written by my friend Virginia Smith. I've only had the chance to read three chapters, but the story is definitely pulling me in. With a myriad of interesting characters and descriptions that really create mental pictures, Virginia has created a top notch cozy mystery that I can't wait to finish. And like me, Virginia has a love of baking and has included a great recipe.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by Literacy Musings Mondays for more great blogs as well as my personal website Fun With Aileen where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own chapter and picture books. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.

A Concert, A Book Event, Discovering Nancy, and Getting Ready...

This past week was Emily's last choir concert of the year and as the event approached I realized my camera battery was low and needed to be recharged before the event. I diligently took out the battery, inserted it in its charger, and let it charge. The next day when it was fully restored, I unplugged  the charger from the outlet and put it away.
 

Before the performance on Tuesday, I took a couple of pictures of Emily dressed up so she could share them on Instagram. I figured I would take pictures of the concert with my fully recharged Nikon that evening. So you can imagine my great surprise and disappointment when I went to take pictures only to find I had forgotten to reinstall the battery.  Yeah, blonde moment of the year.

On Friday we went to SkyZone for a friends birthday party. SkyZone is classically a bulding with trampolines, trampoline dodge ball, and trampolines used to jump into a big pit of sweaty smelling foam chunks. I don't see the attractions, but Emily seemed to enjoy her hour of trampoline fun. What turned out to be fun for me was flipping quickly between the pictures below on my computer which mad it look like Emily was in motion. It sort of reminded me of those old books with little pictures in the corners that looked like the characters were running when you flipped the pages.

On Saturday I had an event at my local Barnes and Noble store. I had a great time and was super excited that a long time friend came out to support me, another friend brought a whole crew, and I also made a new friend. Books flew off the table and and a good time was had by all.

 
And on the book front, Emily finished her first Nancy Drew book; and she loved it. It was called Secrets Can Kill and involved Nancy going back to school under cover as a high school student. Emily has always loved a good mystery, and this classic was no exception. I'm pretty sure this series will be on this year's Christmas list.

And now all that's left to do is get ready for my local Farmers' Market which opens this coming Saturday. I have already started on my homemade granola and next I think I will tackle those candied pecan I shared about before.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by and join the Literacy Musings Monday Blog Hop where you will find other great blogs, or my personal website, Fun With Aileen, where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own early grade Fern Valley chapter book series and my Quack and Daisy picture book series. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.