Have you been to games.com lately?

I work from home and most of my work is online. I like to be able to take a walk around my house, chat with a friend, or disengage and hang out with my family when I need a break- but sometimes I just need to open a new browser and veg out with some eye candy window shopping or a few games of solitaire. I need to not think for a few times a day. It is why we read shallow magazines or watch reality TV right? Just mindless resting really.

I signed up to check out and do a paid review for Games.com
over at Blogher and found myself quite sucked into the online gaming community. The games are pretty simple and have tutorials and I love that you can just jump right in as a guest and not have to sign up for some handle and password that you will soon forget anyhow. I swear, I spend half my life online typing out a myriad of passwords or proving to someone that I am not a robot. I digress.
I tried out card and casino type games and I discovered that I like single player games better than the community game set- up because I get sweaty pits and nervous stomach if I appear ignorant in the forum. How dumb is this as I am anonymous!? I was so nervous to play Spades that I had to study the tutorial like a test would be given. I did have fun with the Hearts game and even beat a few folks with obvious beginners luck. I loved solitaire, poker, and I did get sucked into Bingo although it was a bit campy with the old cartoon dude calling and even a chat room to chat and play? I don't know about chatting with the strangers in the online Bingo hall. Who has time to chat and search their BINGO cards? Whatever floats yr boat I guess.

I think the best part of these games are that they really take yr mind off the issues you might be dealing with and recharge you for a moment. They might even stimulate yr grey matter. I am a big game and puzzle believer. My gran is 88 years old and smart as a tack because she blows through like three puzzle and crossword books a week. She keeps sharp. Use it or lose it they say. I like the mindlessness best though, I like to escape from my work for a bit.
Don't we all? The problem with some of the games was I think I could get sucked in for quite a chunk of time. I was going nuts for poker and pretending that I was actually making that money. I was getting all kinds of depressed at the the reality of not really winning that two thousand dollars in slots.

I think Solitaire is my game. It makes me think a bit yet is not so seductive that I would pilfer too much time away from writing or my small business. I will pop in and out of games.com for a quick break every now and again. I might even play Gin rummy with ya if you ask.

Check out this roundup at Blogher!

Zoo Keeper for Hire! Must love Monkeys!

I am living with monkeys. The climb all over me and jump from the coffee table to the sofa and I even caught one on top of the table attempting to swing from hanging pendant lamp yesterday. They use their monkey toes to pinch me and they threaten my sanity. They are age 20 months and four years and they are my monkey boys.
It is funny how they cannot keep still for long before the jumping resumes. I bought books and got DVDs out of the library about monkeys for them because it is uncanny how my home seems like a jungle sometimes. I tried to show them that even monkeys sometimes sit around quietly and pick dirt and groom one another. I tell them monkey's nap and monkeys relax. My monkey boys just laugh and bounce up and down on the couch.

Since they love animals these little guys I thought we might try this:

Parent Bloggers network has teamed up with Generation Next this week to announce their brand-new product - iKnow Animals, Letters & Sounds. I love how this media kit looks like a great mix of graphics, gorgeous tunes, and fun video to promote literacy and keep children mindful of the animal world and our planet. I really want this. I also really want a zookeeper some days.

and yr little for a little while

breaking my heart to today
watching my wee one dance to this
beautiful song

winner winner chicken dinner

Amy from Pretty Babies won the amazing Scott's Giveaway and Erin from Hammer and a Nail won the copy of Matrimony!
Yahoo!
Sorry to post a few days late guys!

Year Supply of Scott Bath and Towels/Win it now!

The kind folks at Scott Common Sense Community have offered up a years supply of bath and towel tissue to my readers who check out the Scott Common Sense Community!
(Approximate Retail Value - $144)
FREE TOILET PAPER RULES!
All you need to do it go over to this cool new site and check out all the tips and leave a comment about something on the site that seemed interesting or cool to you. I encourage you to dig a round a bit bc I actually found quite a few tips there. It is an interactive site that wants you to leave yr best tips and tricks too. Yay come on- this is what we do all day long. We share information over the blogosphere...right?
Good Luck!
I will close the give away Tuesday at 10pm.

Matrimony Giveaway!

Leave a comment and win an autographed copy from my pal Joshua Henkin.

Description of Matrimony from website:

It is 1987, and Julian Wainwright, aspiring writer and Waspy son of New York City old money, meets beautiful, Jewish Mia Mendelsohn in the laundry room at Graymont College. So begins a love affair that, spurred on by family tragedy, will take Julian and Mia across the country and back, through several college towns, spanning twenty years.

From the moment he was born, Julian Wainwright has lived a life of Waspy privilege. The son of a Yale-educated investment banker, he grew up in a huge apartment on Sutton Place, high above the East River, and attended a tony Manhattan private school. Yet, more than anything, he wants to get out--out from under his parents' influence, off to Graymont College, in western Massachusetts, where he hopes to become a writer.

When he arrives, in the fall of 1986, Julian meets Carter Heinz, a scholarship student from California with whom he develops a strong but ambivalent friendship. Carter's mother, desperate to save money for his college education, used to buy him reversible clothing, figuring she was getting two items for the price of one. Now, spending time with Julian, Carter seethes with resentment. He swears he will grow up to be wealthy--wealthier, even, than Julian himself.

Then, one day, flipping through the college facebook, Julian and Carter see a photo of Mia Mendelsohn. Mia from Montreal, they call her. Beautiful, Jewish, the daughter of a physics professor at McGill, Mia is--Julian and Carter agree--dreamy, urbane, stylish, refined.

But Julian gets to Mia first, meeting her by chance in the college laundry room. Soon they begin a love affair that--spurred on by family tragedy--will carry them to graduation and beyond, taking them through several college towns, spanning twenty years. But when Carter reappears, working for an Internet company in California, he throws everyone's life into turmoil: Julian's, Mia's, his own.

Starting at the height of the Reagan era and ending in the new millennium, Matrimony is about love and friendship, about money and ambition, desire and tensions of faith. It asks what happens to a marriage when it is confronted by betrayal and the specter of mortality. What happens when people marry younger than they'd expected? Can love endure the passing of time?

In its emotional honesty, its luminous prose, its generosity and wry wit, Matrimony is a beautifully detailed portrait of what it means to share a life with someone--to do so when you're young, and to try again, afresh, on the brink of middle age.

Daniel X Review

I was excited to review this book because I worked in the education system for a long time and found it very frustrating finding books that boys would want to read. I have always been a bookworm and was relentless in seeking out "beyond the Potter" as I called it for my male readers. I worked hard to show my male students that reading could be pleasure and it could be a wonderful escape. I tried to recommend lots of genres and authors to them, yet often felt guilty because just until recently rarely ventured into the trade/mass publications and fiction bestseller lists myself. I was a canon snob, a voracious reader of the classics and up and coming creative nonfiction and poetry. I just hadn't let myself fall right into book club mania or Barnes&Noble list of what's hot. I had never read James Patterson and was interested in reading something as many friends loved his work.

I loved The Dangerous Days of Daniel X! The book is very well set up for a young reader with super short chapters that can be a great aid in allowing readers to feel like they are "doing well" and reading a book quickly. In my experience, reluctant readers need this as they start to pleasure read so as they do not get lost or bogged down with the feeling of "never being able to finish" a chapter. Readers cultivate the craft of reading and through quick paced YA novels like this one they gain the confidence that they are good readers.

Daniel X is a pretty amazing and sad little dude. It felt like the weight of the world was on his shoulders as he set off to seek revenge upon his slain family. A boy who is gifted with super powers goes out on this amazing archetypal quest for revenge and vision quest. The journey is cool and imaginative. His character is so very likable and the writing is quick and speedy enough to keep the interest easily. I like the way that Daniel can conjure up people when he needs them and his shape shifting abilities are awesome and no doubt very appealing to kids. Daniel X who is stronger than a typical human, and wicked smart has problems when up against the list aliens who are vastly more superior even to him- but in the novel he shows the reader how he taps into his intellect to solve problems- not a bad lesson to be learned here.

The only issue I had with the book was the pop culture references and this is most likely because I am an old lady. I know it is hip and cool and a nice "buy in" for the young readers to be able to relate to these references, but I feel like it may date the books if they are to become an iconic series. It was really my only beef with this gem.

My husband who is a Sci-Fi reader himself adored the book too. We sat and chatted about how no matter what adults or Patterson fans might say-we loved the book for what it is. A new series of books that may do something to bring the kids back to the paper. To bring the noses into a new world, a world where they can believe again.
Bravo Mr.Patterson!

Book website here
Mothertalk review here
Amazon page here