2014 Finishing the Series Reading Challenge

Once again, I am signing up for this challenge.  I only expected to finish one or two series, but unexpectedly finished six so far an am going to try to finish one more before the year is over.  I even started a few that I had not even planned on starting.  I'm going for level 3 as I already have two series I plan to start and will probably find one or more others.  I haven't been able to locate the last Sookie Stackhouse book and was planning to start James Patterson's "Women's Murder Club" series, but haven't gotten around to that one.  And I have purchased all the "Shadow Falls" books, so there's two for now.  But I'm sure I'll find more.

To sign up visit this link.

Below are the details copied from Socrates' Book Review:


Welcome to the 2014 edition of Finishing the Series Reading Challenge. I was a failure last year. I was supposed to complete two series, but I only completed one. That's okay, I'll just try again.

This is a challenge for all those series books you started at some point and haven't finished. I know I'll start a series and read the first book, then get distracted with other books and never get back to the series. Before I know it, the series has 10 books - I get overwhelmed and don't go back to it. Now, I want to finish a couple.

Here are the rules guidelines.

1) All books that are part of a continuing series qualify (i.e. Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove, Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, James Patterson's Alex Cross, etc. etc.)

2) It doesn't matter if you have 1 or 10 books in a series to complete it, it qualifies (i.e. if you only need to read one more Sookie Stackhouse book to complete the goal, that's fine) The goal is to complete a series from wherever you are up to until the last published book.

3) The qualification period is January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014. Books must be read during this time frame to count.

4) Take the button above and post about it. Use the Mr. Linky below to sign up and make sure you link it directly to your post about this challenge. 

5) If you don't have a blog, that's fine. Just leave a comment to sign up and tell us what you are reading. Or you can join my Goodreads group for this challenge by clicking here.

IF YOU WANT TO LINK UP YOUR REVIEWS OR, FOR THOSE WITHOUT A BLOG, LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW.

6) Any format of book counts - audio, ebook, etc.

7) You should choose the series you want to finish before the challenge begins, but it isn't necessary. It's fine to change series during the year - as long as you complete whichever series it is.

8) Choose a level....

Level 1 - Complete 1 series.
Level 2 - Complete 2 series.
Level 3 - Complete 3 or more series.



Here are the series I am completing:

Divergent--Veronica Roth:
Divergent completed Feb. 24
Insurgent  completed March 1
Allegiant  completed March 7

The Giver Series--Lois Lowry
The Giver  completed April 16
Gathering Blue  completed April 19
Messenger  completed April 25
Son  completed  April 29

Babylon Cafe--Marsha Mehran
Pomegranate Soup  completed June 17
Rosewater and Soda Bread  completed June 20

Time Quintet--Madeleine L'Engle
A Wrinkle in Time  completed Feb. 27
A Wind in the Door  completed June 14
A Swiftly Tilting Planet  completed June 21
Many Waters  completed July 1
An Acceptable Time  completed July 4

Fallen--Lauren Kate
Fallen  completed July 31
Torment  completed August 3
Passion  completed September 1
Fallen in Love  completed September 1
Rapture  completed September 4

Mortal Instruments--Cassandra Clare
City of Heavenly Fire  completed August 13

Sookie Stackhouse--Charlaine Harris
Dead Ever After completed October 16

English Regency Bride Trilogy--Catherine Coulter
The Sherbrooke Bride  completed November 14
The Hellion Bride  completed November 16
The Heiress Bride completed November 19

It's November Already

I missed getting on the blog yesterday.  I enjoyed participating in the Halloween countdown as always and will be back next year.  I was out late on Halloween night naturally, and it was quite a crowd at the karaoke bar for a Thursday night.  This was the first time the holiday fell on a Thursday since 2002.   Yesterday was the day to take down the decorations and leave the kitchen window blank until after Thanksgiving when the Christmas lights go up.  Every year I make sure that no Christmas decoration go up until after Thanksgiving.


No family plans for Thanksgiving yet, but I know I'll be waiting to see the next "Hunger Games" movie, opening on November 22.  Only 20 days to go!  I need to watch the first one again.  Might just end up seeing it on Turkey day, as my family and I did the last few years with the "Twilight" films. That series ended last year.

Still no job and I'm getting bored and more--I won't say anymore than that.

Happy Halloween!

It's here at last!  Just waiting for the karaoke bar celebration tonight.  I had to get some food at Safeway and the cashiers had plastic pumpkin containers at the registers.  I found and took three of the flavored Tootsie Rolls. Similarly, when I went to get a book at the library, the staff had bowl of candy, from which I picked an original Tootsie Roll.


That's it for today.  More to come about tonight.  Everyone have fun and be safe tonight!

One Day Left...

Only one day till Halloween. I still can't believe it's almost here.  This year has certainly gone by fast.

Not much to say with only one day left. I went looking for  Halloween Peeps at Rite Aid today, but they were totally out!  Guess that what happens when you wait till the day before :-)  On the other hand, there was still plenty candy corn for sale, but I decided I'd had enough of that.  I'd had at least two bags of the stuff before the calendar switched to October and about two more after the month began.  And a week or so ago, I got another bag of Candy Corn M&Ms.  Those were quite good. I liked them better than the Pumpkin Spice ones.

That's it for today.  Waiting for tomorrow.

Netflix Envelope Today

First time seeing this one.

Parent's Sign Makes a Pumpkin Thief Eat Humble Pie

A friend shared from the Huffington Post this on Facebook today.

Now a pumpkin thief's been carved up, rhetorically speaking.

Eric Fidler spotted this amazing sign in D.C.'s LeDroit Park neighborhood on Sunday afternoon, and posted a photo of it to his blog.

In case you can't make out what the sign says, Fidler transcribed it thusly, with the not-so child-friendly language redacted:

To the person who stole my son’s pumpkin:

Thank you for the life lesson. This will teach him that sometimes people are mean for no reason and you have to just brush it off.

Because my son is 2-yrs-old and cannot read this sign, I will add:

You are an a‐‐‐‐‐‐‐.

And to the parent who hung this sign: You are a hero.

Update, Oct. 29, 10:41 a.m.: The hero parent behind the sign is Becky Reina, whodescribed her inspiration to WJLA:

LeDroit Park resident Becky Reina says her family carved four pumpkins a little over a week ago -- one to represent her, one for her husband, and one each for her two-year -old son Tommy and infant Abby.

"On Thursday we came out and there were only three pumpkins," Becky said.

Someone had stolen Tommy's pumpkin.

"Pumpkins get smashed, pumpkins get stolen, of course," Becky said. "I was really just mad because it was only his pumpkin [they stole]."

Reina told the station she hopes the thief or thieves will "see the sign, and I hope they feel bad about it." It seems her hopes that the pumpkin will be returned are more tempered, since she suspects Tommy's pumpkin is among those that neighbors found smashed on the street.

The Only Things I Don't Like About This Time of Year

As much as I get into Halloween, I hate to admit that there are some things I don't like or get about it.  I mean, nothing is perfect, sadly there is a downside to everything.  For all the celebrations, candy corn, costumes, parties and TV show episodes, the following are something I just don't get about it.

1.  Sexy Women's Costumes. I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Why does it always have to be like this?  Every year, I expect to hear rants about how every women's costume is "Sexy-This-or-That."  You would think I, being from California where it tends to be warm well into October wouldn't have to worry about freezing my you-know-what off. Unfortunately it isn't always that way.  Yesterday it started getting colder than in the last few weeks that seemed like a late patch of  summer, prompting me to drag my hooded jacket of the closet.  I now wonder how cold it will be when I put on my flapper costume on Thursday. I wore it to a celebration at a bar on Saturday, and it started to get a little cold.  I know I've picked something a little revealing, but it looks the way it actually did in the 1920s, unlike other costumes which reduced a witch or princess down to a corset dress with puffy, off-the shoulder sleeves or make Wonder Woman  look like someone in a ballerina's tutu.  This wasn't how these characters looked originally, why should they be made this way?

Before I settled on the flapper (one of several ideas I'd had in mind before and as this month began), I narrowed my choices down to a that one, along with a French maid and prisoner,a ll of which I saw at my local Kmart, at the time selling for 30% off.  The prisoner costume said it was for men, but I think that's just silly. There is no reason I could not have gotten it; I just decided not to, at least for this year. It could easily be a unisex costume, even if the package doesn't say so.  And I don't get why those labeled as unisex costumes are almost always shown being modeled by men, and when you see them at a seasonal Halloween store that pops up in an empty storefront, they are inevitably placed in the men's section.  And I don't why a tank dress is supposed to pass for an M&M or  Scrabble board costume.  It just so happens that at the bar I went to last week, a man and woman came in prisoner costumes, and both of them had the full-coverage pants and shirt with black and white stripes.  The woman did not have the sexy one.  Good for her, I thought. Now if I choose this costume another year, I won't feel guilty about it, but I wouldn't have felt guilty anyway.  Thinking that women not wearing sexy costumes is breaking a rule is just stupid!  Do what you want, go against the silliness of all this.

Why this sexy costume has stretched to young girls is another thing. In some ways I'm glad not to have kids so I'm not going through this problem with them.  But I've noticed boys costumes for horror movies characters such as Leatherface and Jason Voorhees and boys' pimp costumes.  There don't seem to be as many complaints about these being inappropriate as there seem to be about girls's skimpy costumes.  I certainly wouldn't allow any of these if I had children.

2.  Christmas stuff already being up.  Come on, putting up Christmas in late October seems too early, but nowadays everyone seem to have Christmas in September next to Halloween.  Kmart didn't even Halloween up until the first week of September, yet Christmas was already up at the end of that sam month.  Today I passed by the mobbed Halloween aisles and heard "The Twelve Days of Christmas" playing from one of the artificial Christmas trees that have been there since the last week of September.  I don't want to be hearing Christmas music yet!  I've only heard "Thriller" once this month and heard a guy at the karaoke bar doing "Monster Mash" last Friday. This is what you should be hearing right now.  No one should have to hear about a partridge and pear tree until December 1st.  I know that some stations start playing Christmas songs as early as mid-November, but that's a rant for another time--like in November.

3. Not getting any trick-or-treaters.  OK, this is about my neighborhood, and I know I can't do much about it.  But I will be gone, at the karaoke bar Halloween bash this coming Thursday so I won't have to worry about a repeat of last year--buying about six bags of candy on sale at Safeway, only to have just one kid show up.  I took the rest of the candy to work two days later (I took the next day off last year).

4. Seeing it get overshadowed by sports and politics.  I just don't like sports (it's just how I am) and unfortunately this is when the World Series takes place. The  local bar having a Halloween celebration is likely to have the TV screens above the bar stools tuned into the World Series as was the case last Saturday.  And of course, every four years we have presidential election, occurring up to a week after Halloween and the candidates seem to be fodder for costumes.  But the election seems to dominate the media in the month leading up to the final decision.  And in a normal year(non-presidential-election year), local, regional and state election signs are everywhere, on a sidewalk or a lawn alongside someone's jack-o-lanterns.  As a side note, I hate it when campaign signs remain up after the elections are over.

But this about all I can really say I don't like about the Halloween season.  Other that that, it's one of the times of the year I get excited about, along with Christmas and the start of summer.  Getting to have parties, wear a costume--what's not to love about that? As long as I enjoy all these things, it's easy to forget the bad stuff and enjoy what you like about it all.