Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Sick!

Ok guys I am a weenie and I am sick so I will not be doing the book club today I will have it up as soon as I am feeling better!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Book Club: Extras

Extras (Uglies, #4)

The Synopsis:
This book is set in another region of the world a few years after Tally's epic message. The world has gone through the 'Mind Rain" that has brought everyone out of the bubble-headedness. The world is in a new stage of advancement as well as rediscovery. They are constantly inventing new devices while learning about customs  from past generations.  This new world has some new ways of getting by, being pretty does not cut it any more now you need to focus on having a high Face Rank. The higher your Face Rank the more currency you have. To get a high face rank you can be a 'surg-monkey' who are always finding new and unusualy surgeries to have, a 'tech head' who is obsessed with new technology, or you can be a 'kicker' who much like a blogger spreads news, rumors, and trends. This section of the world it a fame based economy, and Aya (our new leading lady) wants to make it to the top of the Face Ranks. She finds a story to kick that will make her high in the ranking, but at what costs.

What I thought:
This was a great book. It seems like something that could really happen. The feeds that everybody has reminds me of facebook statuses, or blog updates, or vlogs, very social media oriented. Reading this book I was drawing so many comparisons to life now and how little would have to change to make our life like theirs. I wish that Scott wrote another book so we knew what happened with the Extras plan. This is a series that I wish would never end. This was a great addition to a fantastic trilogy.
5 out of 5 stars


I feel that I may have made too many spoilers in past Book Club posts so I am going to stop here but feel free to comment of your thought of the book. Next week we will be doing Saving CeeCee HoneyCutt by Beth Hoffman. 


Also let me know in the comments below what books you want to have in future Book Clubs.


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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

There are 9 different types of Hammerhead Sharks

And I made one of them last night.
hammerheadshark belly
Now I am not sure what type mine is but I am guessing it is not the Great Hammerhead who can reach up to 13 feet long and weigh up to 500 pounds. 
I can also tell you that my shark is not a baby because their heads are a little more rounded. As you can tell I did a little bit of research about these sharks. 

I love Shark Week because it gives me an excuse to study up on anything shark/ocean life. I hope I am not the only one inspired by Discovery Channels Shark Week and that you are spreading learning with your loved ones. 
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Monday, August 13, 2012

Shark Week has arrived!

Please tell me y'all are as excited about Shark Week as I am. We have been preparing for Shark Week in my house and I am ready.
blakes ocean ocean
The Princess and I painted ocean pictures. 

Taco is ready for Shark Week 
Even Taco got in on the Shark Week action. Untitled 
Until the Shark started to attack, Taco did not like that... Untitled 
so She attacked back. 

 Have y'all started watching it yet? What is your favorite part? I love learning new things and the Sharkzilla episode will be awesome!

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Friday, August 10, 2012

Trials with HP

So I have learned that HP is an incredible company. They have the absolute best technical support I have ever experienced. For Christmas The Mr. bought me a HP e printer. 
This one to be exact. (it is now discontinued) I love this bad boy. The tablet (zeen) is removable and I can have it in any room and print from it check the status of the printer and use the apps to print coloring sheets and such. I also like that it has an e-reader ability, I read a few books on it. 

In February the zeen started acting funny, I would try to turn the page and it would skip ahead like 20-50 pages so we called technical support and they sent us out a new one. We got it in 3 days and sent back the broken one and it has been great! 

Skip ahead to about a month ago I walked into the craft room to see what kind of ink the printer takes to get more black ink and all of the lights were blinking and it could not connect to the internet. Now I thought it was just our router being on the complete opposite side of the house and the signal was not strong enough (we have had this issue with other devices), so we moved it the bedroom next to the router and it still could not connect. 

We called HP tech support and we tried to fix the problem to no avail. We were told they would send us a new printer and do a swap and since we were unable to get the ink out of the printer they were also going to send us a new set of ink. Again I find this to be amazing. 3 days later we received the printer tried to set it up and the support people called us to set it up. We were not home the day it arrived so the next day they called us again. We tried to set it up with their help but the Zeen would not connect so they said that they would replace that as well. Again 3 days later we received the Zeen and they called us to set it up. I love how they called us, they knew when the package would show up and they called to help us. We didn't have to deal with being on hold going through transfers and being tossed around to get the issue solved, they called us!

Our printer is still not fixed and they are not sure what it is. Like I said earlier the printer we have has been discontinued, so to help us out with future problems they are sending us a different printer. I like the idea of the Zeen but I have a net book that I use all the time and another tablet device so we didn't use the Zeen all too often besides me reading on it occasionally when I didn't have any books in my Amazon account. (Zeen uses Barnes and Nobles). So we are getting this guy...
HP Photosmart 7510 e-All-in-One Printer - C311a

I love how they offered us this replacement, extra ink, and a 2 year warranty. I like the extra ink part the best of all because the ink alone is around 90 bucks for all 5 cartridges. We are getting extra ink plus the ink they sent us for not being able to get ink out of the original printer and the ink that comes with the printer. If you add the ink costs together it is the cost of a whole new printer.       

I love that HP has made us feel during the process of the broken printer. They have gone above and beyond on helping us resolve the issue. I made sure to thank them for all of their help and they way they did not forget about us like many large companies do. They made sure to call us and did everything they could to fix the problems we had. Based on my experience I will always have an HP printer and if The Mr. does not build my next computer it will be an HP. 
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Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Book Club: Specials



Specials was suppose to be the final book in the Uglies Series, until Scott decided (thankfully) that the series should continue. This book was my favorite of the series. I could re-read this book so many times I loved it.

Synopsis:
(this will be a spoiler if you have not read the 1st 2 books)
Tally is now in Special Circumstances but she is a 'Special' Special called a Cutter, thanks to her frienemy Shay. With her new abilities she can finally shut down the New Smoke, but her past is still haunting her.

My review: (straight from Goodreads)

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

24 Before 25 *Update*

Picnik collage

#2. Craft room organized and I am slowly decorating it

#3. We have decided that we are going to knock down a wall in the living room and knock down another wall partially in the kitchen to open up that area more

#4. We have it organized (since it is also my closet) and ready for guests but it is not the way we want it

#5.(a) We did this until we ran out of goods.

#5.(b) BEYOND DONE!! I added all 4 in the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld and Cinder by Marissa Meyer

#6. Blake dates are done, I am working on setting up dates with the others

#7. I have passed on quite a few clothes to the sister & I am still sorting through more to get rid of

#14. Done and done we have a cleaning schedule (sort of) and it is working well. We tidy up the kitchen and areas we hung around in every night and do the main cleaning in other areas & outside on the weekends.

#15. I am failing on this, it started off good but now I am back to the bun everyday

#19. I am doing a bunch of this and I am loving it! Vacation helped with this.

#22. Done and my girl is real sweet

#23. I went out on a date with my cousin who was my best friend since we were 7 and we kind of faded after high school me in college and her moving to Chicago but we are hanging out more & cannot be more pleased

#24. I hung out in a bar, went to an outdoor celebration with tons of (smelly) people and the went out to eat on Friday night without getting sick.

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How are y'all coming along in the # before #?

Friday, August 3, 2012

Wedding Planning Update

It is official we have set a date and we have our venue booked and paid for!!! March 2 2013
 Yes March 2, 2013 is the official date! We had to wiggle around some other events around that time but we found the perfect date. Thanks to a little history.com hunting our date has some good stuff on it.

1904 Dr. Seuss was born
1966 Ford celebrates 1 millionth Mustang
1863 Texas declares independence
1793 Sam Houston was born

Sure bad things did happen on this day but I want to focus on the good.

Our venue is also a bit of Texas history. 
Picture
This picture is of the Lucas Gusher, and because of it Texas economy changed forever and brought my corner of Texas into the oil industry. The town around the gusher has been rebuilt and we have booked it! Plus after we get married they will shoot off the gusher just like above (but with water). 

Picture
On March, 2nd 2013 the Mr. and I will be on that platform expressing our love in front of our friends and family.

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