So much to say, so little time...

So much going on this summer - no time to blog about it!

Just got back from my favorite vaca destination... Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Beautiful, fun, relaxing, and family time! See pics!

:)

LC at BWB

Last night, the best independent bookstore ever hosted LC. For those of you who aren't ensconced in the trenches of reality TV, that would be Lauren Conrad, star of MTV's Laguna Beach (no longer on) and The Hills (spinoff of Laguna Beach starring LC). After being on reality tv shows for the past 4 or 5ish years, she decided to write a book and of course, it was instantly published and has made a zillion dollars since its release on the 16th. The book is called LA Candy, and it's a story about a girl who moves to L.A. and gets picked to be on a reality tv show about her own life. Hmmm... sounds autobiographical, yes?

The phone at the store rang off the hook all week, and in particular, yesterday, was so insane that at 4:00, we stopped answering the phone altogether. Literally, from 9-3 when I left to go change and come back for the event, we'd be talking on both lines, hang up on both lines, and they'd ring again... over and over and over. We pre-sold around 650 books and sold well over 100 more at the event. Of course, we couldn't hold all of these people inside our tiny store, so everyone was out in the heat, dressed to the nines (I couldn't believe how some of these girls dressed up for her!), and salivating for their 5 seconds with her when she scrawled an L and a C across their book and occasionally made a comment about liking someone's outfit.

The downside was that her driver got lost and they were very late, which kind of screwed things up, but it still worked out, and everyone got their books signed by the time she flew out of here at 9:15 to catch a plane to Austin.

Overall, the event was spectacularly managed by V, C, and everyone else. Truly, for having nearly 1000 people in a parking lot with a celebrity on a hot and sultry Friday night, it went VERY well.

TALL Texans

Where has the month gone?

I wasn't actually done w/ school until around the 11th or so, so it's really only been about 10 days of summer so far.

Last week, I went to a big Leadership Summit for the Library World of Texas called TALL Texans. It was up in north Dallas almost to Denton, and other than stinky dorm-ish rooms and bad food, it was pretty cool. Oh, the coffee was terrible so I snuck out each morning to get my own yummy McD's coffee! :)



Here's a Wordle that highlights some of what I learned - I made it by transcribing my notes from the 4-day institute. Anyway, it was really exhausting, but I did learn a lot. I'm glad to be back home now and spending some time relaxing at the bookstore and at home.

Yay, summer!

What am I paying Insurance for?

Here's a slap in the face...

I have had some health issues in the past month that are now resolved. Everything is fine, so no worries.

However, in order to get to that diagnosis of "everything is fine", I went to the doctor 2 times, and had 3 procedures, one of them at a diagnostic center at a hospital. I paid my co-pay, and the claims for the visits and the procedures were sent to my insurance which I have through the school district.

I rarely, if ever, am sick. I rarely, if ever, claim anything on my insurance. The total amount that my insurance "agrees" to pay on these office visits and my procedures, apparently, doesn't cover what the office and lab charged for these procedures. So I now owe a whopping $700.00 for these procedures in addition to what I've already paid, which is upwards of $250 in copays.

Ummmm... excuse me?! I thought insurance was for this exact thing... to help save you from over and above medical bills and all that crap. This is completely and totally absurd, and I think there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. And now, all of my summer money that I make from my 2nd job is going to have to pay these people instead of be used to pay other bills.

sigh.

It never ends.

Catching Fire

I just finished the most incredible and frustrating book. I don't even remember if I blogged about its predecessor last fall or not... methinks I did not, b/c my blogging is so erratic right now.

Back story: Last October, I stayed up until way past 2 am reading the most incredible book called The Hunger Games. It's by Suzanne Collins of Gregor the Overlander fame, but it's not really a book for elementary kids like Gregor is. It takes place in post-Apocalyptic North America and the US no longer exists. Instead, the territory is divided into 12 districts with a Capitol ruling over all. Each year, 1 boy and 1 girl are selected from each district to go to the Hunger Games. Basically, they throw all 24 kids into a giant arena (desert, mountains, beach, forest, etc.) with tons of danger, poisonous stuff, and all kinds of deadly things you can't even imagine, and only 1 victor emerges. Yes, readers... these kids have to kill each other or be killed by their surroundings until there is only 1 left. It's meant to be a reminder to the districts that the Capitol is in control. Oh, yeah, and it's televised to all the households in the districts like a reality TV show, and the participants are given celebrity status before, during, and after (if they make it out alive). It's abhorrent, completely freaky, and a very difficult book to read.

Now, when I type this, just like when I try to sell it at the bookstore, many of you will be thinking... "oh my God, how can we let our kids read this book/this is horrible/why would anyone write this"... well, I did some research after reading The Hunger Games and watched a video interview with Suzanne Collins about how she came up with this idea. Much of it is grounded in the knowledge that our young kids today are so de-sensitized to violence b/c of everything they watch on TV, their video games, etc. It's an exploration into that theory, and in all honesty, it's completely fascinating. In addition, I come to it with a 35-year old mind, and we forget sometimes that kids don't read as much into books as we do - they simply haven't had enough life experience as we have, so things don't ring as true.

Regardless of its violent premise, I highly HIGHLY recommend this book, but only for upper-middle school and up. Truly. It was completely addicting, and I couldn't stop once I started, as I was rooting for Katniss (the girl main character) and Peeta (the pivotal boy character) and all of the side plots. This book is a deep and difficult exploration into the senseless violence that our kids are exposed to today, along with the insanity of what our television viewing has become, what with all the reality TV crap that's out there.

This brings me to my post today... last week, my good friend C went to BEA, the big Bookseller's convention, and she brought back to us at the store an advance copy of the 2nd book in the Hunger Games series, which we've all been trading around feverishly. It's called Catching Fire, and it's just as good, if not better, than the first. And the most frustrating part of the book is that it ends COMPLETELY unresolved. I mean, surely they meant to put another 300 pages in this thing, right? It comes out on September 1, and I can't wait for fans of the first book to start reading it.

And how can I possibly wait a year or more for Book 3?! I perish the thought...

If any of you decide to read this, please comment and let me know. Truly, it's an incredible series by a master author.

FINALLY!!!

Readers, I have an announcement:

SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLS OUT FOR SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Summer is the best perk of the job in Education... and I do love my job, but I also love my summers. We had a strange school year filled with Hurricane Ike, a crazy spring flood that interrupted TAKS testing and gave us an unexpected day off (which we had to make up on Thursday), and the crazy swine flu (although no schools in my district were affected). It was a good year (my 12th year), but a long and slightly crazy one.

My first official summer activity was spending 2 hours and 45 minutes in the salon chair of my amazing hair stylist, Gene. He cut 9" off my hair at its longest point in the back and gave me the cutest swing bob! I haven't had short hair in many years and it's a great change and a great start to summer.

I never share pics of myself on this blog, but I thought I could put one up today to show you how good Gene is... the first pic is the pic of Katie Holmes that I took him to show him what I was looking for... the 2nd is ME!

Gene's pretty darn good when he wants to be!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, summer.

1 1/2 days...

I frequently buy flowers at the grocery store to cheer up the condo. I love tulips and carnations the most, and buy them more frequently than other kinds, but I also love the roses. This week, the roses were on sale at HEB, and I had to buy some. I love how all of the roses have different names - sometimes the name is the reason I buy the roses. Friendship, Big Fun, Confetti, etc.

This week, I picked roses that symbolize the last week of school... they're called FREEDOM!

C A N N O T W A I T ! ! ! !

New Moon Madness!

Thank God for MTV and the movie awards. I giggled my way through that INSANE show last night just to see all the Twilight awards that were given. And then, the Gods smiled on us and we got a little tiny taste of what's to come in New Moon... can November get here already?! Oh, and if you can't see it, take the link... it worked, then it didn't, so I'm not sure what the deal is...

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer in HD