statement about reviews & recommendations (part 2)

Last October, due to the FTC's new blogger guidelines, I blogged about my connection to the products I review and/or recommend. Since then, a few things have changed, so I wanted to update you.

I still review books for Thomas Nelson, though I don't do as many as I used to. You may have noticed the name change from Book Review Blogger to BookSneeze.

I am now also a member of WaterBrook Multnomah's Blogging for Books program. (If you're a regular reader of this blog, I'm sure you've figured that out by now!) This is a great program that I'd encourage you to join if you have a blog and enjoy reading. I've had the opportunity to read and review some wonderful books (as well as one book I didn't like so much ... but that review is still in the making!), and I love the fact that they often provide me with an extra copy to give away!

I'm still an Amazon Associate, though to date I've made a whopping ten cents! And, since Amazon only pays when an associate reaches $10, I have yet to see my dime.

I recently joined a similar program at bookschristian.com. Most of my links for Christian books, music, and movies will probably point to them from now on. Their pricing is very similar to Amazon's.

When I signed up with bookschristian.com, they provided me with a link to Michael Hyatt's blog post on the FTC guidelines. Hyatt is the CEO of Thomas Nelson, and his blog is the reason I started reviewing books in the first place. (When Thomas Nelson published Lynne Spears' book Through the Storm, Hyatt offered free review copies to the first 200 bloggers to respond to his post. I was one of those bloggers, and shortly after that, the Book Review Blogger program was born.) In an effort to comply with the new guidelines, Hyatt recommends adding a "Disclosure of Material Connection" at the bottom of posts. So, to ensure I'm following the guidelines, I'll be doing that--ridiculous as it may seem.

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statement about reviews & recommendations

Due to the FTC's new blogger guidelines, I thought I should make a statement about the reviews and recommendations I provide on this site.

I am a member of Thomas Nelson's book review blogger team. This means that I receive free books from Thomas Nelson in exchange for reviewing them. Thomas Nelson urges us to be honest in our reviews, and I am. If I loved a book, I let you know, and if I didn't love it, I let you know that, too. All of my Thomas Nelson reviews are tagged "book review blogger," and I also make a statement about it somewhere in the review (usually at the end). I also have a banner on my site that identifies me as a book review blogger. I think it's a great program, and I'd urge anyone who has a blog and enjoys reading to join.

All of my other reviews are written about products I either paid for myself or was given by a friend or family member who paid for them. I write about them simply because I liked or disliked them, and I want you to know about it. If I'm ever fortunate enough to receive more free stuff to review, I'll let you know.

I am also an Amazon Associate. This means that if someone uses a link I provided to go to Amazon and then buys something, I get a referral bonus. They don't pay until you reach $10, and I'm not anywhere close to that amount. Just know that all of my Amazon links are connected to my associate account. If you have a problem with that, then just go directly to Amazon and search the product I've linked to. When I joined the program, I was already linking to Amazon a lot, so I figured I'd join, and if I made a little money, well, that would just be a bonus! (What I really need is for imdb to create a referral program ... 'cause you know I link to that site all the time!)

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i'm excited about ...

• my next book review blogger book: Green by Ted Dekker! I would have bought the book anyway ... but now I get it for free!
• taking my yearbook staff to the fall yearbook conference in Kearney tomorrow.
  
• Homecoming Week, during which I get to wear jeans to work every day. (I usually have to stretch things a bit in order to make jeans fit into each day's theme--for crazy footwear day a couple years ago, I pinned socks to my jean capris--but this year, each day naturally lends itself to jeans!)
• the start of Singing Christmas Tree practices! (October, I think?)
• watching more Fringe. I watched the pilot last fall, got bored, and didn't even finish the episode. A couple months ago, a friend who knows I love LOST asked me if I was into Fringe. I told her I wasn't, then she proceeded to tell me why I'd love it. So, I gave it a chance, getting the first disk from Netflix last week. She was right--and I have absolutely no idea why it bored me last fall!
• hanging with my family tonight, watching Friday's Psych and drinking delicious Sleepy Monk coffee.
• having my cousin claim my spare bedroom in a couple months.
• going to Indiana in less than two weeks!!!
  

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what a day!

I've always loved birthdays. When I was a kid, my birthday meant I didn't have to wash dishes, fold clothes, or do any other chores that my siblings had to do. I always hoped that the beans from our garden would need to be snapped--or better yet, picked--on my birthday, so that Andrew and Val would have to suffer through that while I stayed home and watched movies. Mean, yes, but I'm just being honest here! (And if you're wondering why I didn't mention Steph, it's because she never really had to do anything anyway . . .)

Today is my 28th birthday. Praise the Lord, this one was not difficult. Either 24 or 26 (I can't remember anymore!) was torture--I'm not sure why that one was so much harder than the others.

A look back at my day:

• 12:05 a.m. Say goodnight to Val, Jamie, Kimberly, and Steph. Yes, there was a slumber party at my house last night--Jamie was Val's college roommate, and she's on her way back to school. Kimberly, Jamie's friend from home, is driving back to school with her. Steph came over because, well, Jamie is her hero!
• 1:38 a.m. Finally put down my book and go to sleep. I was reading my latest book review blogger book for Thomas Nelson. This is the first book from them that I've been interested in to the point of not being able to put it down. I really wanted to finish it, but I had 100 pages left and knew I'd regret staying up so late.
• 6:55 a.m. Wake up to a Jeremy Camp song on the radio. Funny, because I often refer to My Bridge Radio as Jeremy Camp Radio due to the frequency with which they play his music.
• 8:00 a.m. Rush out of my apartment. I'm late for work on my birthday.
• 8:10 a.m. Buy Daylight Donuts to take in to work. I'm sure I'll be forgiven for being late if I come bearing donuts. Wish I could stop for coffee, but the line at the Coffee Bean is too long.
• 8:12 a.m. Eat a donut while waiting on a train and realize I could have stopped for coffee.
  
• 8:17 a.m. Walk into an empty office. Where is everyone this morning?
• 8:30 a.m. Receive a happy birthday text from Walter, my student from my church's ESL program.
• 8:35-9:10 a.m. My co-workers slowly trickle in. That's the nice thing about summer . . . it's really no big deal if we're not all in the office from 8-4.
  
• 9:03 a.m. Crack open a Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi. I'm gonna need the caffeine today!
  
• 9:25 a.m. My boss (jokingly) asks if I'd like to use Rosetta Stone to learn Vietnamese, as we have a family coming in next week to drop off their child, and they don't speak any English. I just laugh at him.
• 9:30 a.m. Receive this email message from FutureMe.org:
  
  Dear FutureMe,
  
  Try to be more organized in yearbook this year. Use en dash and em dash. Set early deadlines because things won't get done when you hope. Require senior pictures in October and set the sr pages for 2nd deadline. I'm sure there are more things to think about, but I can't remember them right now.
  
  Oh, and HAPPY 28TH BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!
  
  (Can you tell I wrote this when I was frantically trying to finish up the yearbook?)
  
• 9:44 a.m. My mom calls to wish me a happy birthday and ask what kind of coffee I'd like. Yay, coffee!
• 11:15 a.m. Steph asks Dad if we can go out for lunch for my birthday since we went out for Andrew's birthday earlier this week.
• 11:45 a.m. Meet Mom and Dad for lunch at DQ.
• 12:30 p.m. Birthday picture time!
• 1:08 p.m. As I struggle to keep my eyes open, I think once again that I'm too old to be staying up so late. Too bad I don't have those thoughts when I'm actually doing the staying up!
• 4:05 p.m. Take advantage of Amazon's sales to buy Christmas presents.
• 4:20 p.m. Pick up my bookagain.
• 5:15 p.m. Finish book. This is one review I'm looking forward to writing!
• 5:40 p.m. Head over to the parents' for my birthday supper. We had chicken tetrazzini (aka "Take One Fat Hen"), garlic bread, corn, coffee, and homemade ice cream. Muy delicioso!
• 7:30 p.m. Watch 17 Again, one of my birthday gifts, with Mom. She thought the best friend character was hilarious!
• 9:30 p.m. Go home; work on the Advance for a bit. (If you actually click through to see the Advance, you'll find that the person who is in charge of updating the website--me--never posted the most recent issue. Oops.)
  
• 10:15 p.m. Finish blogging.
  
• 10:30 p.m. Crash. I must be getting old!

(Not only do I love birthdays, but I evidently love writing about birthdays, as last year I basically told the same story I told today.)

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two weeks later

I realized this morning that I haven't posted anything in two weeks. Here are some of the things keeping me busy, in (roughly) chronological order:

1. Working through my next Book Review Blogger book--Faith and Pop Culture (Christianity Today Study Series). This is meant to be done as a group Bible study, and I'm working my way through each chapter before writing my review. So far, I'm really enjoying it, and I'd love to do it in a small group setting.
2. Finishing the school year . . . and (sort of) completing the yearbook. I sent off the last pages, and I'll get proofs back in a few weeks. Then I'll need to make all the final corrections; I'll probably need to do a lot of work because I got so sick of staring at pages that I just quit proofing!
3. Seeing Wicked in Omaha! My mom, sisters, sister-in-law, and I all went together. It was amazing! I didn't take many pictures, but here's one of Susan, Steph, me, and Val in front of the sign (Susan and Steph didn't know they were in the pic):
   
4. Admiring the beauty around me. On the way to Lincoln to pick up SIL Susan for Wicked, we came through a crazy rain storm. Just as we got through the storm, we got our first view of the capitol building . . . and it was positively glowing! This picture doesn't quite do it justice--it was beautiful!
   
5. Cooking with my sisters. We attempted to make a "real" dinner one night last week. (By "real," I mean something that required a recipe, not one of our old standbys that we learned to make from Mom. I'm not saying her food isn't real, but it's not very adventurous.) We made Rachael Ray's Garlic & Oil Spaghetti with Greens, with a few modifications. Seems the local Hy-Vee doesn't carry swiss chard or scallions, so we substituted arugula. As I don't normally eat greens (ever), I have no idea if swiss chard and arugula are even remotely similar . . . but I know they're both green! Here are the results:
   
6. Hanging out with friends. A bunch of us got together to say farewell to Tricia, who is moving to Lincoln to go to UNL. We went to Carlos O'Kelley's (the greatest Mexican chain restaurant!), watched a movie, and just had fun being together.
7. Killing my African Violet. I'm not sure how it survived the Great Plant Holocaust of 2008, but I managed to keep it alive for over a year. Take a look at the "then" and "now" pics:
   
   I already have its replacement, a Sansevieria. Supposedly, it requires little light or water . . . so hopefully I won't kill it!
8. Taking some time off work. I realized at the end of last week that I still had five vacation days left, to be used by the end of June. So, I took last Friday and this morning off. Yay for vacation time!
   
   
   

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it's been a while

I haven't posted in two weeks. First, nothing "blog worthy" was happening, then I went to Kansas for Easter, then I was really busy with work, then I got sick. Now I'm healthy and less busy, so hopefully I'll get some things posted soon . . . especially the snake pictures. I read another book review blogger book, too, but I still need to write the review, so look for that in the next few days. And I've started tutoring--I definitely need to talk about that. Just wanted you to know that I'm still alive, and I haven't forgotten about my blog!

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finally reading again

From last May through the beginning of this month, nearly every spare moment was spent working on my big cross-stitch project. And whenever I wasn't working on it, I felt guilty about not working on it. Basically, I went several months without doing much reading. And I hated that. (But I love the cross-stitch project. Really!)

Now that I've finished the project, I've started reading again. I've finished two of my book review blogger books (Rex and Field of Blood) in the last month, and I've just ordered the third. I'm much more excited about this one: The Great Eight by . . . wait for it . . . Scott Hamilton! My love for (or perhaps obsession with) figure skating has diminished over the years, but seriously--it's Scott Hamilton!

I also have several other books on my reading list:

• Kiss
  by Ted Dekker & Erin Healy (also a brb book, but I'd already bought it!)
• Sinner: A Paradise Novel (The Books of History Chronicles)
  by Ted Dekker
• Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be
  by Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck
• Sunset
  by Karen Kingsbury (I just need to finish this one!)
• Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye?: Trusting God with a Hope Deferred
  by Carolyn McCulley
• On a Whim (The Katie Weldon Series #2)
  by Robin Jones Gunn
• Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
  by Francis Chan
• . . . and many others!
  

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a week of craziness

Monday

• Went back to school. Because we had a snow day on the day that was to be our last day before break, we ran our test block schedule on Monday. Only one of my students was back, though, so I didn't give my final.
• Had my big toe vaccuumed. Seriously. Val was vaccuuming, and I lifted up my foot to get it out of the way. She lifted up the vaccuum and charged my foot. She thought I was watching; I wasn't, so I didn't know I needed to move my foot. Let's just say that getting your big toe vaccuumed isn't a plesant experience!
  

Tuesday

• Learned my reading class would be no more. Got three new students in my Intermediate ESL class, which will now be a writing class.
• Met with my speech kids. Found out I'd have eight entries for the meet on Saturday. (I thought I'd have two or three, so this was quite encouraging!)
• Stayed at school late working with speech kids.
• Stayed up late watching Jon & Kate Plus 8. (I get started watching episodes, and I have such a hard time stopping. And the show only appeals to me when I should be going to bed. I don't know why.)
• Missed my daily Bible reading . . . so I made it through 5 days before "falling off the wagon." Knew it would happen, but not so soon!
  

Wednesday

• Got home from work with only an hour and a half before I needed to be at an Awana directors' meeting. Opened up my lesson book and learned I'd need brownies for an illustration in the lesson. (Yes, I should have looked at my lesson earlier . . .) Since this year's book is on Bible heroes and goes in chronological order, I couldn't really skip the lesson. So I hurredly made box brownies while trying to cram the lesson into my brain.
• At Awana--our Sparks secretary couldn't be there, which always makes things a bit crazy. I made one girl cry during lesson time. After I announced that I had brownies for everyone, not just for the girl who got one as part of the lesson, the kids tuned me out completely. Plus, we didn't have a sound system like we normally do, so I had to try to yell the story. It hadn't occurred to me to put the brownies into plastic bags, so as the kids took them, they created a trail of crumbs going down the church hallway, and I had to apologize profusely to the church custodian.
• Val came over after Awana, and we watched Poseidon. It's not a very good disaster movie--Richard Dreyfuss shouldn't have a face at the end of it, part of it is a blatant rip off of Armageddon, and how on earth is there a life raft--with oars--just a few yards away from the overturned ship?

Thursday

• Val came to observe my yearbook class.
• Caught up on my daily Bible reading.
• Received my next book review blogger book--Rex: A Mother, Her Autistic Child, and the Music that Transformed Their Lives
  
  

Friday

• Got an email from my yearbook publishing company. Evidently, the cd of our pages that I sent them before Christmas was blank or broken. After a very stressful hour and a half, I got a new cd burned, and Val mailed it for me.
  
• Completely slid through a stop sign on my way home. Fortunately, no one was coming.
• Jon, Beth, Val, and Steph came over to watch Psych. (You really should be watching this show.)
• Made coffee for all. It was supposed to be cinnamon but kinda smelled like smoke.
• Framed my cross-stitch project.

Saturday

• Got up at 4:30 to get ready for our first speech meet.
• Spent all day at the meet. I judged twice--serious prose and poetry. I really love judging! My kids did well. I ended up having seven entries, and four of them placed! And our OID beat Minden's . . . which will probably never happen again, but it sure felt good!
• Didn't eat all day (until I got home), other than a piece of cheese at 5:30 a.m., a Kudos bar at 8 a.m., and some cheese crackers at 9 a.m. I was too busy judging and/or watching my kids perform. (That doesn't usually happen--I can only think of one other speech meet when I didn't really eat . . . normally, the coaches and judges are fed well . . . and I'm sure they were at this meet, too--I just never made it into the coaches/judges lounge!) I also didn't have caffeine all day, and I surprisingly never got a caffeine headache.
• Crashed on my couch after arriving home. Watched several Monk episodes and knitted a little.
• Watched an entire episode of SNL, perhaps for the first time ever. Neil Patrick Harris was the host, and he was quite funny. This part was my favorite:
  

Sunday

• Took Val to church with me. We sang one of my favorite worship songs ever--"You Are Holy (Prince of Peace)". Also, Pastor Paul played the pan flute.
• Went to Ritta Christmas, Part 2. We played this game where we all got presents that had a phrase from "Twas the Night Before Christmas" on the wrapping paper, and when our phrase was read, we had to yell "ho, ho, ho" and open our present, which Gram specially chose for each of us. I got a box of books and this note: "Becky, I know your love for reading. Maybe you can find some books here you haven't read. Enjoy. Maybe you can blog about one of these." Well, Gram, I'll do ya one better--here's a picture of all of them! And here's the wind chime I got from cousin Shawna--I love it!
• Stayed up way too late blogging.
  

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