My Musings On Reviewing Books

I've finished reading the first book I received after joining up with Tweet Your Books.  I've had many more people approach me to do reviews, but only one other has already mailed me his books.  E-books are the most popular form offered to do reviews on, but I don't like to read on my electronic devices.  Guess I'm a bit old fashioned!

I also feel like authors don't create physical copies of their books for "testing" purposes.  As a reviewer who has to make time in my life to read the books with my full attention (as opposed to skimming it while kids are talking non-stop in the background) I don't like thinking that the authors don't value my time.  By that I mean that a physical copy of a book has to be created and then mailed (which costs a few pennies, I'm sure) while an e-book doesn't cost anything anywhere along the way.  I'd like to think my time is worth something, so I give priority to authors who are willing to send me a book I can sneak away and read in a quiet corner of my home.

To my fellow readers - there will be more book reviews appearing on my blog.  I hope to keep them well interspersed with my other posts and musings of the world around me.  I'm also reaching out as an influencer so I may be chosen for other reviews (products maybe) which I will also enjoy writing about.  I will always let you know if I'm being paid to talk about an item, or reviewing products I received for free.

Please let me know if you feel I'm doing too many "review" posts and not enough "personal" style posts.  I want to create content people are enjoying, so feedback is really important for me!

In case you aren't aware I do have two other blogs that I post to less frequently than this one.  One is Kingston, Ontario centric - talking about what's on around town and/or what we are about to (are already did) do as family activities.  That one is Modern Mom In Kingston.  The other blog reflects more about my daughters.  What they're doing, how they're growing and changing, and a little about Emma's modelling and acting "career" (where nothing has really happened yet...)  That blog is 2 Talented Daughters.

As always - thanks for reading.  My next post will be a book review but I have few half-formed ideas for other posts floating through my brain as well.  Stay tuned!

~Jess

Work, Family, and Covering Vacations

This week (Tues til next Tues) my co-hort and fellow pharmacy technician is off for a vacation.  I'm very excited - and jealous - that she's getting away and taking time off and all that, but I'm not looking forward to the extra work that means for me.

If anyone out there reads me faithfully you know I take Wednesdays off - a hold over from when I used to work every other Saturday.  I liked the day off in the week so much that once I got away from working Saturdays I just kept the Wednesdays off as well.  It's been working so far.

Tomorrow, being Wednesday, would be my "catch up" and sometimes "me time" day.  This week, not so much.  As I said at work today: "It's no skin off my nose to work extra once in a while."  I stand by this statement but it doesn't mean I have to enjoy it fully.

We actually have a great work environment at the store - my co-hort and I have the more "tedious" tasks divided up fairly equally and we alternate "jobs" pretty well so it works for us.  Before she left we did a bit more intense work so there wouldn't be so much for me to try to stay on top of while she was away.

It's going to run very smoothly, of this I have no doubt.  Today was a bit hectic as there was a very time-consuming task that took one of the pharmacists away from the regular work for more than an hour.  That got us behind a bit, but we persevered.  I definitely felt the strain though.  When I'm leaving at 5 I want the people who have to stay that last hour to not have to catch up my tasks I didn't get to, you know?  Usually one of us is there until close so it's not an issue.

In a normal week I can get the kids to the bus 3 mornings without feeling rushed because I either don't go to work (Wednesdays) or I don't start until 9:30.  That's not in the cards until next Wednesday.  I can already feel the morning strain - especially if I want to sneak in a shower before work!

The girls get on the bus about 7:45 and I have to leave at 8 for the "early" shift.  But there is no way I can get them up earlier so I can, say, start their breakfast sooner so I can jump in that shower for 15 mins while they're eating.  They're not ready yet to get seconds or get another glass of milk themselves.  The kids are pretty time consuming.  Even when I'm not on "primary morning parent" duty they still can't get through 15 minutes without asking me for something while I'm in the shower.

I'm going to miss my quiet Wednesday tomorrow.  But the day will fly by, and luckily it's off week for dance (me and the girls) so there's one less stress - Emma doesn't have to be ready to leave for dance class at 5:30, which is the time I get home from work.

I've got a bet with myself as to which night I crack into a bottle of wine the minute I get in the door.  I'm thinking I can hold out til Friday (that's normal wine drinking day, isn't it?) but I almost uncorked a bottle tonight.  It might also depend upon how much fighting goes on with the kids over the week as well.  Tonight was all right - dinner was in the oven when I got home!  That was a splendid surprise, although the part where the furnace wasn't working quite right detracted a little from the excitement of not having to prepare dinner.

For the next week I have to remember to stop and take a breath.  If I don't get every little thing done it's not the end of the world - in fact it'll be there for me to do tomorrow.

Any tips or tricks for staying relaxed at work?  Share, please, in the comments.  Or just comment so I know you stopped by.  And thanks for reading!

~Jess

I'm A Book Reviewer Now - Do I Have Time For It?

I feel like I've gotten myself into a bit of a conundrum.  I don't know if you, my faithful readers, remember a post I created a few months ago about "What's my brand?" (you can click and it'll take you to the post), but I basically said I didn't want to pick a brand because I just post about whatever I feel like.  And then I went on about how much other stuff goes on in the blogging world.

Well since then I haven't done anything about a "Brand" and I've continued to post whatever I want whenever I want.  So I stuck to my guns there.

But what I did do was express more of an interest in reading and doing book reviews.  I even put my name in a database of sorts so people can contact me to read their book.  All well intentioned, but now I have 6 books coming my way (in the mail, I don't like e-reading) and I hope they are all pretty good because I often find it hard to stumble through a book I'm not really into.

Luckily I made a claim that I sometimes am a slow reader (relative to pre-kids and husband) and they can't really pressure me to get things read super quickly.  In fact everyone that has approached me has actually stated in their emails that as long as I do read them and create some sort of review there really isn't a timeline attached.  I'm very grateful that people can be quite understanding.

I love the idea of getting new books (for free!) and especially that some of them are not available to purchase yet, and some the authors will sign their books for me as keepsakes.  And I like the flexibility of reading on my own time and creating a review without so much pressure.  But I'm going to have to start scheduling and replying to these people with something like "I have 6 books ahead of yours, I would love to read yours too but it will be a month before I can even start it."

Here's an oxymoron for ya: I don't want my blogging to be a business, but I would still like to make money and/or get these free things to review.  All I mean by that is I can't take away from my family time with blog-related stuff (especially if there's no payment involved!)  If this interest in my reviewing continues I will eventually have to say no.  Or at least "Not right now."

Today I am excited knowing that 6 books (4 are a set) are on their way to me.  Although I do have about 20 books already in my house that I've borrowed or been given to read, that just makes me feel like I'll have to instate "Mom's Reading Time" in which I get 30 minutes uninterrupted.  Ya, right - like that will happen!

If you're reading this and you have a book you'd like to send (or a product to review), drop me a line at iamjess@gmail.com and I will reply.  I may tell you I need 30 days before I can even look at it, but we can be candid with each other, right?  I'm always grateful for people who give me these opportunities!

~Jess

Making Time To Blog Is Hard - I Need Help!

When do you blog?  I was going great gangbusters when I started this blog (in the spring and early summer) but now that we're back to school and other life is happening I don't feel like I have time!

Currently I've spent a lot of time increasing my Twitter followers (and following) and trying to share my FB page with more folks.  I've been checking my affiliate sites, reading other blogs, and also trying to have a home life.  All that seems to have eaten into my blogging time.

Also we just had Thanksgiving, so that ate up an entire (long) weekend.  Don't get me wrong, it was a delicious, beautiful, family-type weekend, but it didn't leave me much quiet time.

I know scheduling is key when trying to build up a blog.  The problem I'm having is one part writers block and one part hoping to have time to me - and just to me, not blogging, gardening, cooking, laundry doing, working etc.  Those moments are hard to find.

My schedule currently involves working 4 eight-hour days, with one day off for me to get stuff done.  This week I have appointments on my day off, and I need to get stuff together for my daughter's Halloween party next weekend, as well as my foray into a live Rocky Horror Picture Show performance - think costumes, hair, props, the works!  And I'd like to get groceries and do laundry - regular mom stuff.

So then there's evenings after work.  I get home (at 5:30 or 6:30 depending on the shift) and either make, or just eat, dinner.  Try to get Emma to do homework before Rose has to go to bed (at 7:00) and then get Emma to bed by 8.  All that is often accomplished by 8:30 and then it's "my time."  So I clean up dinner, do dishwasher stuff, start or switch laundry, and sweep the dinner mess off the floor, if I didn't get that done before bedtime starts.  Some nights I also clean up toys and then, if I'm lucky, I sit down.  Hubby will have the tv on but I'm only good for maybe an hour before I fall asleep on the couch.

I try, often, to blog while the tv is on.  Some nights it works, some nights it really does not.  Depends on what's on, or how tired I am.  I'm one of those people that needs 8 hours of sleep almost every night to be functional the next day.  Yes, the newborn and baby years were hell-on-earth for me.  Luckily my sleeps are much less disturbed these days, so I can pull a few later nights if I have to.  But when I'm tired I can't form coherent thoughts, let alone interesting blog posts!

Tonight I've been crafting this post while the girls eat dinner - I've had an upset tummy all day, so no loss to me if I'm not eating with them - and now they're watching some tv and looking through the costume bin and Halloween decorations.  By the time I'm done here I figure I will have been "writing" for 45 minutes.  And really, what have I written about?  Mostly nothing.  No deep thoughts or well-researched articles.  Just fluff about how I don't have time to post anything!

So share with me your schedules, or routines.  How do you blog (and promote!), as well as do affiliate stuff and keep up with other blogs - and be moms or dads, husbands or wives, or any other functioning members of society?  Maybe with the cooler weather creeping in I may have less desire to be outside, or be doing anything else, frankly.

Really I'm just desperately curious to hear how fellow bloggers manage it all.  I really thought I'd just be writing stuff, I did not realize so much came with blogging (if you want people to actually read your stuff!)

7 Things I Forget When September Rolls Around Again

Back to school is always a busy time.  It was busier than normal for me this year because little Rose started JK this year.  She seems to be enjoying it so far.  No fights with either of them in the mornings (yet - I'm sure they'll happen somewhere along the way.)

This September I've managed to forget everything we were doing in June, as it pertained to school.  Here are a few of things I forgot about during the carefree days of summer this year:

1. The bus comes early.  And I mean really early.  We have to leave the house by 7:40 so we aren't late.  So I have to get the kids up at 6:30.  That is also early.
2. My kids don't really eat lunch.  During the lazy days of summer they often just graze, and we don't have to prepare a "main course" style lunch.  At school I've had notes sent home in the past that suggested Emma didn't have a "lunch" when I packed many different snack options in the hope she'd actually eat something.  So far this year lunch has gone alright. *fingers crossed*
3. Library days (and library books).  Emma managed to lose track of her first book she brought home from the school library this year.  Luckily we located it, but where do I keep these books that are "theirs" but not "ours" without losing them in the mountains of books we have at home?
4. How tired kids can be after being at school all day.  I'm pretty sure Rose could go to bed at 6 most nights now.  Granted, she's still adjusting to the whole school idea, and a 6pm bedtime would be a 5am wake-up so we won't go there, but she's so tired!
5. How small my big kids are.  Rose in a backpack looks so tiny!  And once you put a full lunch pail, her communication book and a water bottle in there she can barely walk in it.  But also it's super cute.
6. Germs!  We are two weeks into school and we've already had one bout of night-time vomiting, and right now both girls are working on colds.  Now my kids go to daycare during the summer months full time, so I feel like we should be somewhat immune to the early colds, but we're not.  Also I work in a pharmacy so I must bring home all sorts of crazy bugs, but still September is the start of everyone rotating through colds all fall and winter.

What school- or routine-related things trip you up in September?  I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who lets things slide until 2 days before school starts, am I?  I am actually surprised how smoothly things have been going so far this year. *touch wood*  Now we're amping back up into ballet lessons, and this modelling stuff has events right now so I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed in all of the extra-curriculars as well.  I know it will all become routine before long, it's just a matter of getting settled into it, right??

Do You Find Time To Read? A Voracious Reader's Decline In The Face Of Family Life

I received the book I'm supposed to review.  Dane Cobain mailed me the book from the UK.  It's a first-run copy, with a personalized note to me in the front.  So awesome!

Angels by Dane Cobain

I am totally a book nerd.  He asked me if I wanted the digital copy.  I don't do "digital" reading, unless it's blog stuff or interesting articles (or anything on Facebook...)  I need a book in my hands, otherwise my focus wanders.  So here is my new book!

So I would like to hear from other busy family people.  If you liked to read before (significant others, kids, careers etc) do you still find time to read now, as much as you'd like?  Now that my daughters are older, I'm finding it a tiny bit easier to sneak in some book time, but it's still rare.

I often try to read before bed.  That is never a good idea, as I drift off after about 10 minutes, unless it's a really (and I mean amazingly, crazy, super) riveting read.  I found the Game of Thrones series great for putting me to sleep - not because it wasn't interesting (I actually loved the series!) but because it was complicated and so many things were going on over so many books I really had to be awake to focus on it all!

On my quiet Wednesdays I can usually carve out an hour, at least, to read whatever I like.  This week it will be this book (to be reviewed as No Rest For The Wicked - watch for that to appear in the next week or so!) and I hope to make a sizeable dent in it.  I'd love to finish reading it for the weekend.

In my previous (before kids) life I could polish this little book off in about 2 days.  I don't think that will happen this week.  When my husband saw it he joked I could read it in one sitting.  It's true there was a time I could, but that time is not now.

This is a pic of the inscription.  In case you can't read it, it says:

Hi Jess, Thanks so much for agreeing to review No Rest For The Wicked.  This is one of fifteen copies that I had printed before I signed with Forsaken - enjoy your rare book. :)
All the best, Dane Cobain

How fun is that??  If my review of this book makes him an international superstar, I'll have a super rare pre-publisher copy!

So needless to say, I'm super stoked to read this book.  It better be good, I don't want to have a write a bad review!  But I don't want to start reading it until I know I have some serious time to devote to reading.  Occasionally I have a tough time getting into a story, and I don't want that to be the case here.

How do you find time to read in your busy family lives?  Short of going outside to read on the deck, I find it hard to fit reading into the daylight hours.  Well, unless I'm at work where I can read on my breaks.  But then it's getting through a book in 15 minute chunks which isn't ideal (at least for me and my reading style).  And then I often have 2 books (at least) on the go, one at work and one at home, which can cause it's own confusion if they're similar at all.

Well, wish me luck setting aside time to get lost in my new book.  And watch for my review sometime in the next week.  I'm sure I'll enjoy this story, and hopefully you'll enjoy my review of it as well!

Holidays and Retail Life

I have worked in a retail setting my entire working life.  It still, to this day, amazes me that people can get worked up about a store being closed for one day.  One day!  And this time it's even in the middle of the week - with work days on both sides.  I'm pretty sure you aren't going to die because you didn't buy milk, and I'm sure you really need that toothpaste or else all your teeth will fall out tomorrow.

Now over Christmas - that can be a different story.  Depending on where the holiday falls there can be up to 4 days off in a row in some cases.  But still - plan a smidge ahead people!  You can plan your company, your food, and your travel, but you can't realize you're going to run out of your prescription?  It's not that hard.

My other favourite thing is the people who seem surprised we (people in the retail world) get a holiday off.  I know not all stores are closed for a holiday, but where I have worked for the last 14 years we have closed for every holiday.  Every holiday!  Why is this now a surprise, here, today, when tomorrow is another holiday?

Sadly (sort of) this Canada Day falls on a Wednesday.  What do we already know about Wednesdays?  They're my regular day off.  This is great in that I get the day off and I get paid this week, but not so great is that my family is home and we're having company (that's not the bad part) so I won't get my usual home-work done this week.  You know, laundry, tidying, vacuuming, grocery shopping, even the gardening I try to fit into my "quiet" day.  Of course this is greatly outweighed by the family who is coming to help us build a fence tomorrow (thankyouthankyouthankyou!) and visit and eat and all that.  But my week feels incomplete if I don't fit in some time for me, you know?

Anyway, to sum it all up, I'm happy my workday is over today - it was busy in spurts, and frustrating in spurts, and I felt like unplugging all the phones - I'm looking forward to some extended family time tomorrow, and I'm hoping desperately it doesn't rain all day.  That will make for some grumpy fence builders, and cooped up kids.  The city has so many fun things planned for tomorrow it will be sad if they have to be cancelled because of weather.

What do you have planned for your mid-week holiday (or July 4th celebrations, Yanks)?  I hope all my readers have a great time doing what you do!

Toodles!

Is "Mom" a Style?

I like to think I'm not totally un-fashionable.  However sometimes I know that's not true.  I think Mom Fashion should totally be a style.  You know, the jeans, t-shirt and ponytail look?  Or maybe leggings and longer shirt that may or may not go with the pants.  I embrace my random looks.  One day I can put on a dress and actually do something with my hair and I can look great.  But the next day I can't even find 2 socks that match, so I just don't care.  On those days I wear whatever pants are in the heap and aren't really dirty - or at least that's my aim but I'd be lying if I said there weren't days I got to work only realize I did spill or smear something on these pants.  Such is the life of a mom.

Parents with kids: what's your style?  Do you feel like you have a style?  Or is just aiming for clean, almost coordinated clothes style enough?

I see lots of moms in my travels around who look fabulous.  I often wonder how they have time to do their hair and keep it looking nice when my kids are always wanting to "brush" or "style" my hair, so however it started is not the way it looks right now.  Or where they got that outfit that totally goes with everything, everywhere, all the time; and if it cost them more than I make in a week.  Conversely I see lots of moms who tried maybe as hard as me, or maybe less, with their "look" for the day.  It's a funny thing.

I feel a bit like dads have it easier.  They wear one hairstyle (generally) and most of their tops match any of their pants.  Their choices for the day are running shoes or sandals, and long sleeves or short?  I know lots of men out there put a lot of time and effort into their appearance, just not a lot of the ones I know personally.  I'm not saying the men I know don't like nice - quite the opposite.  I'm just saying I bet they didn't agonize over their choices when they got dressed in the morning.  Some days I can pick out about 5 outfits and none work for how I'm feeling that day - this is not helped by my weight loss and subsequent lack of clothes that fit nicely.  I'm slowly remedying this, but it's a long (potentially expensive) process.

So to go back to my original point: I am lobbying for Mom to be a style which encompasses everyone who literally throws something on because their kids are yelling that they have nothing to wear/eat/pack for lunch etc. in the mornings.  It's not a sloppy style, unless that's really what you're going for.  It's just a relaxed look that says "I have better things to do with my life than worry about my outfits every day."

Toodles!