It's Monday! What Are You Reading? & Mailbox Monday - Mar 2

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are, and about to be reading over the week. It's a great post to organize yourself. It's an opportunity to visit, comment, and add to that ever-growing TBR pile! So welcome, everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog and was then taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date. 

Welcome to March, everyone! Can you believe it? There are only 18 days until the official start of spring in our hemisphere. We are expecting rainy, but warmer temperatures this coming week. Maybe we will even get to see the grass one day soon. I'm sure the Lil' Princess will be disappointed with the warmer weather once she arrives on Friday for a quick visit. She prefers the snow.

Hope you enjoyed the past seven days. Last week, I appreciated a slightly slower pace than the beginning of the year, and even got to enjoy almost two days off. I attended a paint and sip event with one of my real estate friends, read, made great food, began the process of organizing thirteen pages of story ideas, and even submitted a manuscript to a literary agent. The exciting news is that our brokerage was named the Chicopee Chamber Business of the Year! We attended the awards gala on Friday. Then on Saturday, the husband and I attended the closing ceremonies of a local charity danceathon, which donated money to three local non-profits, including Rick's Place in Wilbraham. 

Here are a few photos from the week:

Travis is looking at who knows what

Paddy and I at the awards gala

Western Mass Charity Danceathon

Theo is adorable when he's playing coy

Thanks to the lighter load this past week, I was able to get reviews written. 

My review of Creepy Kid by Caleb Roehrig was posted. You can read it here. Such a great book!

My review of Chapters and Second Chances by Evelyn Grace Berry was posted on Saturday. You can read it here if you missed it. Love this one, too!

I also posted my review of I Heard the Bells on Saturday. You can read that review here. The authors did an amazing job of combining their various genres into one heartwarming collection. 

I listened to this one in the car this week. I have about two hours to go with my listening of 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist's Guide to a Happy Life by Dick Van Dyke.

I didn't read Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor last week. I will likely start it up again once I am done with Van Dyke's book. 

I continued with Dream Facades: The Cruel Architecture of Reality TV by Jack Balderrama Morley. 

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books they added to their shelves the previous week. This weekly meme is now hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach. 

As you will see below, I am not honoring my promise not to buy new books. I have to ask, does it still count if they don't cost me money? LOL!

I grabbed Love and Christmas Cookies by A. M. Heath as a freebie for my Kindle.

Then I used an Audible credit to snag Taming Lady Temperance by Karen Witemeyer, the first in her Secret Society of Spinsters series. 

Upcoming Events

Agatha Christie, She Watched by Teresa Peschel - Apr 15 (Review)

Murder, Local Style by Leslie Karst - Apr 20 (Review)

Christmas Year Round

Christmas Year Round's latest "Journey through Christmases Past" takes a trip into the food and confections from my childhood holidays. You can read that here.

The Children's and Teens' Book Connection

Only my review of Creepy Kid for this week, but I should be posting another review soon, and I hope to post here more regularly. 

Laura's Little Houses

Nothing new at Laura's Little Houses, but if I can complete my Albert Quinn Ingalls profile this week, that will be something to read. 

That's it for me today. I'm looking forward to visiting you and seeing what has been going on in your lives since we last connected. Wishing you a fabulous day!