Changing of the guard...

I have had this blog with my book reviews, and the other two blogs tied to it, for aw long time, but I no longer use the email that I set these blogs up with.

After much thought and consideration, I have decided to move my blogs over to my new email address.

Yess, this will be a lot of work and it will take a great deal of time, but i am trying to move all the book review posts over to the book review blog.  All personal posts will move to a personal blog, and all work posts will move to a work blog. A little more organized.  I am also planning to organize the past book reviews with added links to each other as i move them, making them easier to find and to move from one to the other for people.

The new book blog will be at this address:  http://tammommyblogs.blogspot.com/

The new name will be TAMMommy Blogs on Books

Thank you for bearing with me during this change and i hope that it will be better for everyone in the long run!

Thanks!!

Reading

As you might have noticed from the last couple of blog posts, I love to read! And I am not a snob about what I read either, I will even pick up a kids book and read it, especially since I have three kids. I have tried to instill a love of reading in my children by example, and I have to admit that at this point, the oldest two now love to read, although that was not always the case.

My oldest struggled to read in school. He is still behind his grade level in reading, but I could really care less about that, I don't care how fast he can read, only that he reads and understands what he is reading, and I know that he is doing that, so I am happy. The school taught phoncis, and he struggled to understand it and still sounds words out in a "strange" way, or at least to me is seems that way. Once he got older and learned other techniques to read he did better, and in the last year, he has went from a child who refused to read when asked to a child who can't but a book down!

My middle child has always been a reader, and she is ahead of her grade level, but I sometimes have to caution her to slow down and listen to what she is reading a little more. She loves to read and picks some really nice books to read, and sometimes some off the wall things, but we have fun and I love watching her read and hearing her or my son want to talk about the books they have read.

My youngest is in first grade and is way above her grade level in reading, but she is at this rebellion point where every book we present her with is "boring" and she refuses to read! The school year started with her picking books to read that were so below her reading level, and us encouraging her to pick beginning chapter books, only to have her respond that no one in her class could read chapter books so she couldn't read them. After a talk with the teacher and more encouragement, she started picking chapter books and found she could read them and enjoyed them. Now we are at this "boring" thing, and not sure what to do about it. We still read to all the kids at bedtime, and they love that, so I know she is hearing the written word and soaking it in, so I can only hope that the books are boring phase is short lived!

The other thing about reading that I love to do, is tied to my love of writing, and that is to tell others about what I read! Yep! I love to write about the books I have read and share them with everyone. I used to write reviews of the books on this blog, or my other business blog, but then I found www.goodreads.com and I write my reviews there, then they can be diretcly posted to my blog from there, so I only have to write them once, but two different crowds of people get to read them!

So far my writing of my reviews have been very basic and mostly I try to tell what I thought and felt without devulging too much of the story or plot. I am working on my writing of them and making them sound better to other people, but also giving you enough information to want to read the book without giving away the book itself. I find it fun to challenge myself to give more details in my writing, while maintaining the idea of not revealling the ending. It is fun and I enjoy it. More than anything, I love being able to combine two of my favorite things in the world together, reading and writing!

Missing In Action

WOW! Has it really been 8 months since I have been on this blog?! How can that be?

I have to say that life has been hectic! I am getting into a daily routine, but then Maeve auditioned for Narnia: The Musical and got cast, so we had practices in November and december, with opening night December 31st, and it ran through January 9th. It was a wonderful show, but the week before opening night, I did nothing but sew costumes, find props and work on the show, from 10am to 10pm, everyday, and then on show days, I was there early fixing costumes, or props or whatever else, and it felt like I had no life but that theater. Oh the things we do for our children! I loved it, in the respect that I was there with her, this is something she loves and I got to see her in her element.

Things have slowed down a little, but Maeve is still looking for summer theater to audition for, she has Dear Edwina coming up April 30th and May 1st, two shows both days at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in Bloomington, and then competition dance season starts next month! WOW! That leaves little time for anything else.

Add to that, Maeve and Molly are both in Girl Scouts, Maeve in the troop that I am leading, and Molly in a Dasiy Troop, and there are outings and events coming up with those, along with cookies. The orders are placed, in fact I am picking up 110 cases of cookies this afternoon, but cookie booths are still to be had, so alot of time involved there.

And for me....i just want to write! I feel more alive, more me when I write and when I take that little bit of time for myself. So I am figuring out how to schedule the time, between laundry, dishes, dance, girl scouts, church, homework and everything else, to have a little time to write. I had to face the fact that when I don't write, I get depressed and my moods get unbalanced. It's just a fact of life, I am a writer at heart, and I need to write, even if it is just a imple daily journal, I need to write each day or I am not as good of a wife, mother, or woman as I could be, or am when I am writing.

Daily Writing Practice: Nightfall....

PROMPT: Nightfall...

1st ATTEMPT:
As the night was slowly falling, she sat on the hill, under the big oak tree thinking. What would her life have been like if she had never left this place? Would she be the woman she was today? Would she be happier? So many questions but so few answers. Maybe it would be best, to leave all the questions, forget this place and leave again, but then she thought of his eyes. The way those deep brown eyes seemed to see straight through her, and she knew that here she would need to remain, at least until the questions were answered.


This was a five minute exercise on writing....
Given the word Nightfall I had to brainstorm and write something. There are no corrections, no revisions, this is the first attempt. Could I make it better? Could I expand it into a full story?

This is what I came up with upon hearing the word nightfall. Hope you like it, and please leave me comments. I am going to be writing here daily, working on my writing skills, and maybe one day you'll see my name on the title page of a book...at least I can dream!