Blustery Fall Days

This morning it started out cold, but right now, it's blustery, blowing wind and overcast looking to rain, making it one of those days where sitting in front of a warm fire, with cocoa in one hand and a good book in the other sound mighty appealing.

Of course there's no fire in the fire place (yet -- I really do need to get the fireplace swept out), no cocoa and my book to read will just have to wait for another day. Too much needs to get done before I can sit. However, I'm thinking about making some bread this afternoon  -- 'cause warm bread with loads of butter (and possibly honey, but the butter is king) works almost as well as a fire.

I've started my scheme to just list authors and titles on some of the pile of books to go to the book fair. Some I'm finishing completely so they'll go on line (gotta keep feeding the beast to continue to get orders, ya know), then I put a little mark by the price so when I get back I know what's been finished and what's not (supposedly).

The nice thing is that we got the bags all delivered yesterday (second day of walking) for the Scouting For Food Project.  That means we won't be walking in the blustery mess this afternoon. However, possibility of rain AND wind tomorrow when we go to pick up the bags (hopefully) of food donated.   Good thing we've got fresh doughnuts planned too.

doughnuts.....


mmmm...


now for some pictures of books just entered today:

Classic Wonderful

Modern Hilarious

Batter Up!!!!

Today I was cataloguing baseball books. It just happened that they were on the pile in a lump, which is the way things happen sometimes (and sometimes, I pile them in the boxes in little lumps of certain subjects, so that I CAN work on a group of things at a time ... then I forget that I put them in that way....).

So the majority of today's uploaded books are books on baseball. Or more correctly, Baseball Biographies.

A couple of the books feature Boston Red Sox players -- which is a good thing, as we're a (mostly) Boston Red Sox family. My husband is the rabid one though.  During playoffs it's better NOT to talk to him unless the Sox are winning.

This one is signed.

I also just picked up (and listed today) a copy of Dave Dravecky's COMEBACK which is also signed, but I haven't got a picture for it yet.

 Tomorrow I don't know what the pile will bring, but whatever it is, I'm looking forward to it.

NOW -- on to other matters.

I went through on Tuesday and riffled through my boxes of unprocessed stock to see what stuff called to me to take to the book fair. I found THREE boxes full of new stuff.  The problem is, I CAN'T process and add them to my database fast enough (especially with a shortened week next week -- four days away from the main computer makes data entry really not possible, and another shortened week the week after -- when I drive myself down to Pasadena on Thursday).  SO the plan is to just get the author's and titles in the computer with an ID number and just either hand write or sticky note the price for the fair (and put dust jackets on, of course).  We'll see how fast I can do that, or IF I can do that.  In the mean time, I keep finding MORE stuff I want to add to the pile of boxes:

Baseball books (since I have some fun ones now)

Christmas books (duh)

pretty books (which always need to be faced out -- thus taking up MORE SPACE -- even though I want to bring more boxes ... this paradox is never ending)

Mystery books (I'm finding more of these again & they sometimes sell)

What I WISH I had to take to the fair:

A Copy of Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein) -- 1st edition with a dust jacket in FINE condition (not Ex library)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep / or the variant title which I don't remember now (Philip K. Dick) (1st edition, etc. of course)

DUNE (Frank Herbert) (same thing - 1st with dust jacket Fine /Fine.)

Early Georgette Heyer hardbacks with dust jackets

a Modern First title to knock the socks (sox) off people (and which I would find for ten bucks in a thrift store so I make a ton of money ...which I could REALLY use right now).

and as the cherry on top, a few early Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books (1sts with dust jackets, etc.)

Ah.... the dream lives on....

LOOOOONG weekend...

Son number one

(he's starting to look BIG!)

son number two

( in Greek God Pose - note the tie to his shorts hanging down, as usual)

\

The Silver Bullets. Final tournament rank - 5th place

The Vipers- final tournament rank - 4th place

This weekend was the end of the recreational soccer season (well, sort of - but more on that later). For the Under 10 boys and above, the season ends with a tournament.  Three games mandatory plus, if you do well in the standings, you get to go on to determine 1st through 4th place.

Which, when translated into English means that we had no LESS than six games this weekend, with a possible eight in the offing. Son number one's team ended up placing (his team actually missed going to the 1'st vs 2nd's battle by 1 point). For a team that started off rather soft, they ramped it up by the end of the season.  The final game they played turned out to be against the season's top champions (there was a fluke kick in one of the three games in the tournament and the season champs DIDN'T end up in the 1st / 2nd game.... which is how weird tournament play can be). Son number one's team played one of the best games I've ever seen them play and held the other team to ONE point for the entire game.  The one point was again, a fluke kick that bounced back after our goalie thought he had it.

Son number two's team wasn't quite as lucky.  They missed the consolation game (that's for 3rd & 4th place) by ONE POINT.  For this team that was amazing. They managed to make fifth place in the tournament by kicking ONE GOAL in the three games leading up to the finals -- my husband said : only in soccer can you make one goal, win one game, tie one game and lose one game and still end up in 5th place.  Strange things do happen.

In the end, we participated in seven games over two days time (and unlucky us, we got TWO games that started at 8:00AM -- nippy, frozen ground that turned wet as soon as people started running ). 

So -- end of season. Time to rest right?

NOPE.

Both sons tried out for the next season of play -- around here called mini season -- where you do some traveling. NOT the big league traveling, but as far away as an hour and half (ish).  Two games per Saturday per boy.  I don't quite know how they'll get from place to place.... my husband is going to be a Soccer Dad whether he wants to or not... but we'll do it.  We're just hoping for a mild winter. (No indoor soccer here -- it's outdoors the whole winter long, rain, sun, wind, fog...)

And now it's on to Scouting for Food this week with both sons.  Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, walking, walking, walking.  It's a good service project to do and we don't mind the walking (hey, they RUN most of the time anyway).  (for those not in the know - Scouting for Food is where Scouts go out, put empty grocery bags on doors in an area, then come back & pick up any donations of food items for the Salvation Army).

And don't forget- Next week is Thanksgiving.

And THEN it's the PASADENA BOOK FAIR!

Working down the lists

So with the book fair (in Pasadena -- on the 5th & 6th of December - did I mention this already?) coming up in just over three weeks, there are a host of things I have to do to be ready.

Starting with sending out fliers to people who live in Southern California.  This needs to be done at least two weeks ahead of time to give potential fair-goers the chance to add it to their calendars.

I FINALLY got the fliers made yesterday. Today I got the address labels made and put on. This afternoon I'll stick on the stamps and be DONE with step one.

Also, today is finally the day I'm sending out my monthly newsletter.  The newsletter goes to people who have bought books from me in the past. I KNOW how people feel about spam. I DO not want to be a spammer.
However, in order to help keep me in business, it's a necessary evil.  I only send the newsletter out once a month (many other businesses send things weekly, or in the case of Lands End, nearly daily, lately -- now I don't mind reminders from businesses more than once a month -- but I don't want to be pushy and in people's faces all the time either, so I keep it to once a month. I might change that from time to time, but for me, once a month is good.

Now I can mark this DONE on my list as well.

After that, it's starting to box up books to take to the fair, doing more data entry and doing more TAXES...

but then, two of the three things on this list should be daily endeavors and not worth mentioning.

Of course, that being said, I've only done data entry one day this week and taxes.... well, part of May is finally finished (not completely mind you) and that's it.

There's time tomorrow right?

And only three weeks to go.

Mittens by Clare Turlay Newberry

I learned something today (again -- this is why I LOVE what I do).

I had thought that Clare Turlay Newberry was the illustrator for which the Newbery Award was named --

WRONG.

It turns out that the award was named after John Newbery (note the different spellings of the name) a book seller from the eighteenth century. Here's a link for your edification: Newbery Awards.

Even if it's not the same, I love the illustrations in the book shown above. The illustrator did the illustrations in watercolor (using red black and white only) which was transferred to the pages of the book by the photogravure process.
 The drawings have the LOOK of fuzzy kitten fur and of course, she made her kitten (named Mittens) as cute as could be.

Even though this is an early reprint edition, it's in wonderful condition with a nice dust jacket.

It's just a wonderful children's picture book.

AND

I learned something about the book, and the Newbery Awards in the process.

Veteran's Day

I missed being able to put something up yesterday so I'm doing it today.

THANK YOU to all the veterans for all that you have done for our country through years.

My son reminded me yesterday morning that this day was NOT a remembrance for men who have DIED (that's Memorial Day, Mom...) but for those who survived the horrors of war and came back to us --wounded, or not, PTSD or not, The current war or those past. Personally, I want to thank ALL of the men and women who serve our country, in whatever form they do so.

To them I say:  THANK YOU.

Getting Ready for a book fair?

Our Friends from Frolix 8 by Philip K. Dick - 1st Hardcover Edition

So far, I've got ONE new book (that's interesting -- at least to me) for the book fair ....

which is closing in on me in four weeks time.

(huff, huff, hyperventilating here..)

BUT

As far as my list of things to do from yesterday ... I got the ink for the flyers today. Yippee!

I also finally got a new wrist rest that I've needed for about oh, eight months now. The previous wrist rest was torn apart by son number two who, when using my computer, can't seem to keep his hands on the keyboard, but has to TOUCH things -- my wrist rest, my stapler (found it without any staples about four times before I yelled), my tape dispenser, my pens, my sticky notes (expensive toys!).

Sharing my desk with my children is a real motherly sacrifice (and I'm trying to find ways around it -- they HAVE their own laptop to use, but for some reason, my machine seems to be necessary as well) and I don't do that sort of sacrifice well. Day long soccer jaunts in wind, rain and 50 degree weather - sure, no problem.  But mess with my desk.....

AHHHHHHH!

Besides, right now, my desk looks like a case of who did it and ran (who ever thought up these colloquialisms any way?).  Papers everywhere, piles of files, books higgledy-piggledy, envelopes, fliers to  be addressed and mailed, sticky notes (some of which make sense, some of which don't). books that need REFERENCES to find out which edition / state / etc. they are.  And don't forget the BOXES behind my desk.

Tonight, I also spent time googling for scouting information -- Webelos is great fun, but there's real WORK involved as the boys get older and move towards Boy Scouts and more self-sufficiency. Which, in turn, means more work for the den leader.  Luckily, I found some really nice worksheets that I can use to supplement my meetings.

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day. A day of rest and remembrance for the men and women who went to war for our freedoms. And it means another day off school...

Four more weeks.
Four more weeks.
Four more weeks....

sigh