Bloggy Carnival: A couple of my favorites

I had a lot of fun earlier this year when I participated in the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival. I won a few prizes. I spent far too much time browsing a thousand new blogs and drooling over fun prizes. So, this time around, I'm participating by hosting a giveaway of my own. Fun fun! I love to give things away!

I realize I'll have a lot of new visitors by participating. Hello! I'm glad you came by, and I hope you're having fun.

I wasn't sure what I might give away, at first. I don't have a ton of time to do something handmade right now. I didn't want to just do a generic gift card or something. But, as it happens, I just got finished reading an absolutely wonderful book - the first to go on my list of absolute favorites in quite a while! And as soon as I put it down, I immediately wanted to tell everyone about it, so they could enjoy it, too! So, it's perfect timing. Why not? I'll give the book away for the carnival!

Item #1, a treat for your heart: Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale
What can I say? I absolutely devoured this book. It was a quick, easy read - it took only about 5 hours to read, with interruptions. But more importantly, it was such a beautiful and magical story.

There are so many reviewers out there who will do it more justice than I can. But I'll try. The book is written in the voice of Dashti, an orphaned mucker who trades her last horse to gain employment. When it is discovered that she has a gift with healing songs, she is taught to be a lady's maid, and to read and write. Just after Dashti swears an oath to serve Lady Saren, she learns that her lady is to be locked in a tower for seven years for refusing to marry the man of her father's choice. Dashti feels something for Lady Saren, and agrees to be locked in the tower along with her.

Book of a Thousand Days is written as Dashti's journal, numbered by the days they began their life in the tower. You would think that perhaps the story of two lone girls locked in a dark tower would be dull and unexciting, but it actually feels rather exciting and magical, as they deal with problems, visitors (friendly and not), and the emotions of isolation. The story follows the two of them through their adventure in the tower, and their adventure out of the tower, once they break free.

This story is based on the Grimm Brother's fairy tale "Maid Maleen", which I have to admit I've never heard of before now. But it truly does read like a fairy tale, with the commoner girl being full of bravery, spirit and honor. Set in an invented land with a medieval Mongolia background, you get a lot of cultural influence into the story, which serves only to absolutely beautify it. The language is simple to read, but absolutely lyrical, almost like music on the page. Dashti is full of hope and faith, wonder of the beauty in the world, as well as profound gratitude at the merest blessings. She is an uplifting, beautiful soul, and you just want to keep reading and never stop. In contrast, Lady Saren sees her life as tragic, and often sulks and cries like a little child. Dashti is overwhelmingly gracious about it the majority of the time, and the contrast between their reactions to their situation further propels the wonder of the book.

As with many fairy tales, there is a wonderful ending. The growth of the character of Lady Saren and her relationship with Dashti, as well as the influence of people who learn to love Dashti's gifts and beautiful soul, help to bring about happy circumstances despite the laws of the culture.

It was simply one of the most magical, beautiful stories I've ever read, and so easy to get caught up in, just flowing from one entry to the next. Dashti even occasionally sketches within her book, which makes it even easier to envision the Asian influences and characters. Dashti's attitude about life is so contagious, and this story is absolutely well worth the read. I don't doubt you'll want to tell someone else about the book as soon as you're finished reading it!

Item #2, a treat for your body: Trader Joe's Natural Mint Cocoa
If you're not familiar with Trader Joe's, let me introduce you! And if you're not near one, I'm so sorry! This is a fun, quirky store full of natural groceries. There is always something to sample. There are always balloons and stickers for the kids. And everything I've ever purchased from Trader Joes is absolutley yummy and to-die-for. The Natural Mint Cocoa is no exception. Here is a partial description of the product:

Our mix has been created using only all natural ingredients, like pure vanilla extract and all natural peppermint oil, so its fresh, inviting flavor will fill your mug with invigorating chocolate warmth morning, noon or night. And it’s as delicious as it is easy to prepare. For a rich, creamy cocoa, simply mix in warmed milk.

The peppermint oil really adds a unique kick to the cocoa. If you find it a bit overpowering, it's easy to mix it half-and-half with another hot cocoa mix for a more subtle effect.

I may or may not throw in some of my favorite classical music along with these things, to make a nice rounded package. A book that will warm your heart, some hot cocoa to relax your body, and music to soothe your mind. I haven't quite made up my mind if I want to spend the extra money on the music or not. At the very least, the winner will definitely get a copy of the book and a container of the mint cocoa.

All you have to do in order to enter the giveaway is leave a comment on this post. No requirements. But I would surely appreciate something a little more fun to read than, "Thanks for the giveaway!". Because I read all my comments, I really do! I get so excited by them! But a couple hundred "Thanks for the giveaway!" comments won't be all that fun for me to wade through. Still... no pressure. But I do enjoy meaningful comments. : ) Extra warm-fuzzy/brownie points if you've been a regular lurker at my blog but have never commented before. I will love you forever if you come out and say hi!

Important notes:

1. When entering, make sure you leave an email address or at least have an email available in your profile. If I can't contact you via email if you win, I'm going to have to pick someone else.
2. Please note that the winner will be selected at random.
3. I'm sorry, but this giveaway is only open to U.S. residents! I can't afford to mail a package out of country.
4. You must be willing to provide your address if you win, so I can send the prize!
   
5. I know at least some of my family reads but doesn't comment. You don't have to have a profile in order to comment. But if you can't figure out how, and want to participate, please feel free to email me and I'll add an entry for you.
6. Contest will officially end on October 31st at midnight! I will be sure to announce and contact the winner on November 1st.
   

Many, many more giveaways can be found all this week back at the Bloggy Carnival!

The Halloween Party

Alternative title for today's post:
In Which Becky Feels Like a Complete Failure

Seriously, Friday night majorly frustrated me.  It's a miracle I was still in a good mood by the end of the evening.
Synopsis:
Saturday night, Alex started suffering from a head cold.  He didn't fall asleep until 12:30am, and woke up bright and early at 8am.  Much too early.  But he couldn't sleep through the stuffy nose anymore. 

9am on Friday, I was running around trying to get everyone out the door for playgroup.  Usually they start at 10am, which is a reasonable time for me to get out the door.  But this week and next, they're early to accomodate our host's schedule.  Apparently, 9am is too early for me to be on time, I'm discovering.  So we arrive at playgroup at 9:30... and it was only about an 8 minute drive from our house.  And poor Alex screamed the whole drive there.  He was incredibly cranky the whole time I was trying to get us all ready, too.  It just wasn't a good morning.  I'm afraid I made for poor company once we were at playgroup. Alex fell asleep in my carrier at playgroup, but woke up again, and got cranky again.

11:30am, we get back home.  Feed the kids, nurse Alex some more, finally get him to sleep.  He went down at noon.  Feed myself.  Check on emails quickly, etc.  Get the kids into older clothes in order to ready for Art Play, and head out the door again at 12:30pm.  Wonderful blessing: Alex stayed asleep through the transition into the car!

1pm-2:30pm, Melinda and Jacob were in Art Play. They did Pablo Picasso funny faces this week! only Jacob's looked more like a big blob.  He named his Blue Volcano, lol!  Alex remained happily asleep (and it was happily - he had been SO CRANKY the entire time he was awake so far that day, I needed the quiet).  I read in the car until it was time to pick them up.

3pm, we get back home, again.  I immediately start working on finishing costumes:  I made some underwear to match Melinda's Tinkerbell costume (because it became apparent, after she tried it on for me, that her antics made the dress ride up a little too much to be modest without the matching underwear).  Then I went to make some shoes to match.  The making of the shoes went surprisingly smooth... although it came time to locate some pom poms to attach... and they were nowhere to be found.  I'm sure I could have found them within 30 seconds at the old apartment, but I haven't used them since moving, and now I have no idea if we even kept them.  I can't see that I would have thrown them out, but I couldn't find them anywhere.  No, I didn't dig through every single box that I've stashed away in various closets, but I looked through the appropriate ones, to no avail.  Argh. 

Then I had to work on my costume.  I had decided to just be a mummy, since it would be straightforward and have minimal preparation.  So I cut my strips of fabric as quickly as possible, no problems there.  During this, Jesse arrived home with some food and we ate quickly.  Then we started getting ready for the party.

First off, I did Melinda's hair.  Another nice miracle for the night, it actually pulled into a bun.  And it actually looked good.  And it actually stayed put - ALL night long.  I was amazed.  But then, I did use a whole handful of styling mousse, and then a truck load of hairspray on top of it.  She looked awfully cute with her hari up, I think!  Then I got her dressed, all but the wings, so she could get into her car seat.

Then I started wrapping myself for a mummy.  It was slow going, and part way through, I realized I should put on some more form-fitting clothes in a lighter color to make it easier.  So I unwrapped, changed, and started wrapping again.  Then Jesse started helping, and it went better.  But as we were doing it, parts that were wrapped up started coming unwrapped.  And I was hardly moving much at that point.  But we kept at it, deciding that even if it looked sloppy, well, people would still get it.  But then there wasn't enough to wrap my head, like I had wanted to do.  I was disappointed.  And then as I walked back and forth in the apartment to gather other things, things really started to fall apart.  I was in kind of a hurry - it was time for the party to start and we hadn't even left the house yet!  But as we were about to walk out the door, my mummy strips started slipping down (not unravelling, just getting so loose they slipped downwards) to the point where I was practically tripping myself.  So, it became apparent that this would just not be a safe idea.  But since we were running so late at this point, I couldn't take the time to unravel myself.  I had to cut it all off.  Poor wasted fabric.  :(  At least I bought it cheap.  But I was SO frustrated!!  The whole reason we were late was because of taking the time to get me into this mummy costume, and then there we were, going without me in a costume at all.  I felt a little heartbroken.  Okay, a lot heartbroken.  I was pretty upset and flustered.  I love Halloween, it's so much fun, and this was kind of ruining it for me.  But what could I do?  Nothing.  So off we went.  After I had changed back into my regular clothes, of course.

We got to the party pretty late.  It started at 6:30, and games ended at 7:15.  We got there at about 7:00.  Well, slightly earlier, but I still had to put the boys into their costumes, since they aren't car seat friendly.  So we really got into the party at about 7.  Which, with how insanely crowded it was (wow! too bad all ward activities aren't so well attended!), the kids got to do all of 3 games, and stand in lines the rest of the time. Pin the eye on the monster, donut eating contest, and bean bag toss. They really really wanted to do the fishing pole game, but the line was far too long.  What a shame.

Oh, and I realized in the car that, in our hurry to get out the door, I had forgotten to get stuffing to put into the Peacock an Phoenix tails.  Urgh.  It didn't matter too much for Alex, since he would be carried around anyway, but the Phoenix looks pretty lame without any tail stuffing to support it.  I ended up taking the stuffed snake out of the car and tying it around Jacob's waist, under the costume.  Which also looked a little bit goofy, but he thought it was pretty funny... and it kept the tail off the floor a little bit.

So anyway, the kids did their parade through the church, and then we did the trunk-or-treat out in the parking lot.  They thought that was pretty fun!  I was starting to finally feel less flustered by that point, and maybe even enjoying myself.  Alex had started looking sleepy, and so I tucked him into my pouch carrier, and he fell asleep easily.  Unfortunately, he woke back up while we were outside, only 10 minute later, and got all cranky on me again.  Ugh. 

After trunk-or-treating, we went home, pumpkins in tow, and Jesse looking and acting completely ready for a quiet night.  But once we got home, to the very messy house (because really, I had no time for cleaning on Friday, and it already needed it by then!), Jesse almost threw a fit.  Well, a fit for Jesse.  You couldn't really tell unless you were watching the way he was cleaning, huffing and puffing and letting out gigantic sighs every time he picked something up, and practically stomping in and out of the room.  I asked him to calm down (very nicely, with a big hug and a smile!), and he just rolled his eyes at me and told me that he was calm, and just wanted to clean up.  Could I please let him go and finish cleaning?  (You have to understand that I'm chuckling as I write this. He gets so silly when he's tired and frustrated, but it doesn't seem silly until the next day.)

Anyway.  The kids got in bed.  They had a great time.  They're so excited to trick-or-treat on Halloween.  We finished cleaning up.  Mostly, at least.  And the rest of the evening went fine.  Alex even went to sleep 2 hours earlier than normal! 

But really, it was a frustrating night.  And of course, all my energy this whole week had been focused on getting through that evening.  On the drive home, I realized I had no idea what we were going to do the next day.  Or the day after that, or the day after that.  No immediate plans, no projects consuming my time?  How odd.  It felt a little spooky, actually.   But you know, it's nice not to feel pressure to finish something, even if the pressure only comes from my own mind. 

So... yeah.  This summary turned out a lot longer than I intended it to be.  Thanks for getting through it, if you did.  I wish I could say I kept my sense of humor through the whole thing.  And honestly?  The reason I got through the evening as well as I did was simply because I kept thinking about blogging it.  I didn't want to lose my head and have a miserable post to share with you today.  ;)

Here's the few pictures I got before my camera's batteries died! Yep, just one more thing that went just a little wrong.  I didn't get much of Melinda.  I'll make sure and take a good picture of her on Halloween.

The family.  

And no, I don't know what Jesse is, lol.  He just decided to wear a lab coat from work.

Melinda (Tinkerbell) and Jacob (Phoenix) during the parade.

 

By the way - the Bubba Fet behind them was Jacob's favorite costume of the night.  We found a Bubba Fet action figure in Jesse's things while we were moving, and Jacob loves it.

 

Sleepy Peacock.

Jacob the Phoenix poses with his treat bag.

Happy Peacock.  Heading for Mommy's camera.

The destroyed remains of Becky's mummy costume.  Tragic.

Mr. Jack-O-Lantern

Tonight was the designated pumpkin carving night!  Those 4 pumpkins were hanging around our living room all week just absolutely aching to come to life, I tell ya!  Right after dinner was cleared and a few necessary phone calls made, we got down to jack-o-lantern business.

You can see how Alex started out all nice and happy.  Melinda went to work on cleaning out her pumpkin.  Jacob loved the idea, but not the actually business of getting gooey.  Which is typical for him, really.  He doesn't like his hands getting dirty.  But he sure loved the tools for carving!

Once the pumpkins were emptied out, the face-making began.  Melinda and Jacob both drew a face on their pumpkins first, and then Jesse carved them out.   Jacob went a little hog-wild with the drawing, but he did get a face on there.  Not a carve-able face, mind you.  He did dots for eyes and a single line for a mouth. 

But after taking it over to Daddy, it got spruced up a little bit.  Same basic shape, with a little extra in the outline department.  Makes for a truly cool pumpkin designed by the resident 3-year-old!  I can't remember if it was Melinda or Jacob who later called it a "frustrated" pumpkin.

Melinda re-did her eyes several times, because she kept making them too small.  But eventually, she got what she (and I, by way of encouragement) were shooting for.  And then came the mouth... she's been practicing this on paper... she made it "scary".  "Because sometimes Halloween is scary, too, dad!" (And she said that completely cheerfully, like the scary part of Halloween is something exciting.)

During the cleaning-out stage, Alex lost his patience.  Completely.  If I wasn't holding him, Jesse was.  And since Jesse was doing the majority of the helping, I was holding him most of the time.  But for a while, Jesse held Alex while I cleaned out my monstrously thick and spaghett-squash-like pumpkin innards.  You can tell here that he's been pretty upset, what with the red face and tear-streaked cheeks..  Ahh, the teeth.  The second one is just about to break through, but in the meantime, Alex puts anything and everything in his mouth and chews hard.

Finally, I took Alex and Jesse got to carve his face.  Did the whole thing by hand and with his own imagination, old-school style.  No stencils for us this year!

After Jesse was finished, Alex was still upset.  So he went into the sling while I started drawing on my design.  And then as I started doing the first few bits of carving, I realized that he was asleep.  So, baby goes down, and I get my hands free for real carving.  Thank goodness, this was all starting to take a while!

I had gotten a carving idea from some blog out there and decided that's what I wanted to do this year, so I picked my pumpkin big and tall in order to make it work.  I'm happy with the way it turned out!  But I was last one working at the table by a long shot. 

And then, the photo shoot!  I must say, it's fun to have 4 pumpkins all lined up and glowing this year!  

They'll be transported to our ward Hallowen Trunk-or-Treat tomorrow night.  We'll see if anyone wins anything from the carving contest!  And of course, don't forget that there'll be photos of kids in their costumes tomorrow night!  Well, probably tomorrow.  If I get too tired, I reserve the right to post it all on Saturday.  ;)