The Sunday Salon 1.23.2011

Good morning, everyone!

I’ve had a busy little weekend of productivity. I am participating in Bloggiesta and it forced me to finally finish fixing the formatting on all of my old posts AND create a alphabetical-by-title books read/review directory. So now you can read my posts all thy way back to February 2007 without any wierdness getting in the way (but I don’t necessarily recommend it – I wanted to delete about half of the posts). And, which I definitely recommend, you can browse my books by title now HERE. Someday, I will have the alphabetical-by-author directory up but that’s going to have to be done by hand. Next Bloggiesta perhaps?

I also grew frustrated by the variations of white walls, white trim, light carpet that apartment living has forced on me and picked up a last minute painting project. I decided to paint the entertainment-center-turned-china cabinet that we have in our dining area. We got it for free and it was a very light pinkish color which neither of us really liked. Well now it’s GREEN! We’re a bit obsessed with green – there is a little bit of it in every room. It just needs one final coat today and I will have a new china cabinet. Now I have the painting  bug (I enjoy painting more than normal people) and I am trying to think up more projects (this will almost certainly include the middle section of this piece that we keep in the guest room).

PaintingBefore

PaintingAfter

I am going to keep painting and Bloggiesta-ing today and maybe even get a little reading in. Have you accomplished anything this weekend?

Bloggiesta!

Buenos dĂ­as! For the first time, Bloggiesta (a blogging marathon for book bloggers hosted by Natasha at Maw Books) has fallen on a weekend that I have NO other plans. So I will be happily participating just as soon as I get through this pesky work day. I don’t have a lot of projects on my list but they will take some time. Here is what I hope to accomplish:

  • Catch up on reviews. I have about 6 or 7 to write I think.
  • Finish my review database. I’ve been slowly linking old reviews for a LONG time now and I’d love to be done with it.
  • Fix old posts. The formatting on my old posts is off even after being here at this version of the blog for over a year. It’s a bit sad.
  • Get a new series going where I talk about books I read before I was blogging regularly. This has been in the works for awhile and I just need to finally do it.

I am sure that I will find some other things to do as I browse the mini-challenges. I’ll just update this post as I go instead of spamming your feed reader with new posts so check back if you’re curious how I’m doing. I’m looking forward to chatting with everyone this weekend as we are all super productive. Buena suerte!

Update (Day 2 6:30 pm)

So far I have:

  • Linked all of my reviews.
  • Fixed the formatting on all of my posts.
  • Created a book/review list by title.
  • Entered all of my new books into the catalog and shelved them.
  • Watched Downton Abbey Episode 2, one episode of Buffy, one episode of Angel, and four episodes of Glee.
  • I also decided to paint my china cabinet this weekend and that’s taking up a significant amount of my time. I’ve primed and put one coat on so far.

I Hope There are Margaritas

I wasn’t going to participate in Bloggiesta this weekend as it’s the last weekend before my husband leaves me for six weeks. But since he’s going to be very busy spending quality time with the television (World Cup), I figured I’d have some time to spend with my computer. I don’t think I’ll be able to spend a ton of time on it, but I’ll do what I can.

I probably will not update with posts, but I will update on Twitter and I have the #bloggiesta hashtag saved so I can follow along with everyone else.

My Bloggiesta goals are:

For my Blog/Reader

  • Register for BBAW
  • Morph my book lists into review directories
  • Go back through old vox posts and fix the alignment of pictures (I will not finish this task but I hope to work on it a little)
  • Organize my reader – I have a system but new blogs tend to have to fight for themselves for awhile
  • Write reviews for the 5 books I recently finished
  • Add reviews/books to Goodreads

For Other Blogs

  • Work on my firm’s blogs/website (I hope my boss sees this)
  • Help my husband set up his new blog

If you want to participate, you can still sign up here.