Wordless Wednesday

Book Signing Success!

Leveling the Playing Field

by Rod Scher

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Mailbox Monday - Poetry!

Welcome to Mailbox Monday, a meme started by Marcia and now hosted on its own blog.  

Skating on the Sky 

by Claudia Walters Reinhardt

Born in the Prairie State of Illinois, Claudia Reinhardt has lived in Colorado, Boston, and Iowa before taking root in the Great Plains. She has earned degrees from Illinois Wesleyan University and Emerson College. After a long career in corporate communications, she now lives near a prairie and is a freelance editor, writer, and tutor. Her poetry has appeared in numerous print and online journals and in anthologies. A chronically curious, lifelong learner, she is passionate about the environment, literacy, and wellness. She enjoys yoga, hiking, biking, gardening, traveling, and reading. Claudia and her husband, John, live in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The poems in Skating on the Sky focus on nature, family, community, the seasons, and the senses. The book is divided into several topical sections, each highlighted by inspiring quotations and beautiful color photographs taken by the author.

Claudia and I have a mutual friend who mentioned to me how much she enjoyed reading Skating on the Sky. Shortly thereafter, Claudia stopped by the store for her monthly book club meeting and gave me a copy of her lovely book of poetry. I am so impressed, not only with her poetry, but also with the gorgeous photographs she has included in her book. I've started reading the poems, just a few at a time, and I already have several favorites. April is National Poetry Month, so I plan to share one or two of Claudia's poems during the next few weeks. I think you'll enjoy them!

Note to local readers:

Saturday, April 9th at 2 pm
Barnes and Noble, SouthPointe Pavilions
Lincoln, Nebraska
402.421.7979

Celebrate the 20th anniversary of National Poetry Month with us as we welcome local poet Claudia Reinhardt to our store. Claudia will be reading selections from and signing her new book Skating on the Sky from 2:00 to 3:00PM. This book will make a great addition to your collection with each poem highlighted by inspiring quotations and beautiful color photographs taken by the author. 

What arrived in your mailbox this week?

Click on the title for more information.

Find more Mailbox Monday posts here.
 

A Day in the Life Blogger Event

Trish, of Love, Laughter and a Touch of Insanity is hosting today's 2nd Annual "A Day in the Life" blogger event. I missed it last year, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading posts from fellow bloggers, so this year I made sure to start early! Several people worried that their days would look dull or boring to those of us with full-time jobs or large families, but that wasn't the case. The creative effort of some of these bloggers made the posts fun to read and a nice way to get to know them a little bit more. 

Just a little bit about me before I begin. My husband and I are empty-nesters, living in Lincoln, Nebraska. We've been married for 27 years and have a grown daughter who lives in Dallas, working for JC Penney corporate. (She also has an amazing fashion blog called Fashion Jackson.) We share our cozy home with our 12-year-old Annie-dog, a stray we rescued over 8 years ago. I work full-time as a bookseller at Barnes & Noble, which has been my dream job for 9 years. When I'm not at work, I enjoy reading, biking, traveling and cooking. So, here's an example of a typical weekday:

5:00 Rise and shine! Stumble to the shower.

5:20 Brew a cup of coffee, chat with Rod and try to coax Annie to eat her breakfast. 

5:30 Head back upstairs to enjoy my coffee as I check the weather, email, Twitter and Google News.

6:00 Step away from the computer! Get dressed, make a green smoothie, grab my lunch and head out the door.

6:45 Off to work, which is only a 3.5 mile drive. Sometimes I get lucky and see a beautiful sunrise. I either listen to NPR or my current audio book. Have I mentioned how much I love Audible.com?! I use my library a lot for audio books, but they don't always have what I want.

7:00 Clock in, grab my PDT, a cart of books and start setting displays. Tuesdays are my busiest mornings since this is when the Bestsellers change over, as well as several other displays. I'm able to listen to an audio book on my Nano or phone during those first two hours when we don't have any customers in the store. Best time of my work day.

9:00 Breaktime. Breakfast and a quick peek at social media for 15 minutes.

9:15 More of the usual. Bring out new books from receiving, set promotional displays, relieve the cashier for breaks, etc. Oh, and answering questions like, "Where is your nonfiction section?" or locating a book that was in the newspaper two months ago. You know the one. "It's got a red cover and it's about that guy on that show." Sigh. But then there's always one of my favorite customers, asking for a recommendation for their book club. This is when I think to myself, "I love my job."
 
11:30 Lunchtime. I either read in the break room or head out for a brisk 20-30 minute walk.

12:00 Work, work, work. I can usually log about 10,000 steps during work.

1:30 Another 15 minute break. So tempted to get a scone or a mocha from the cafe! Or a piece of cheesecake. Or a cookie. Sigh. Oh, wait. Didn't I just walk 10,000 steps?!

3:00 Quitting time. Out of the store by 3:15ish.

3:20 Grocery shopping. Don't you love the local murals?

3:50 Quick stop for gas. Ours has crept up again. I get regular (no ethanol), so it's $2.299/gallon. Today's cost a total of $31.96. That usually lasts about 3-4 weeks, so I'm not complaining!

4:15 Home! Unload the groceries and put the perishables in the refrigerator. The rest can wait.

4:20 Annie's walk. When the weather's as nice as it was today, the park is full of children. Annie gets a lot of attention from the little ones.

We've cut way back on the cookies, but she always gets one after her walks. 

4:40 Check the snail mail. I sort and toss/shred every day so it doesn't pile up.

4:45 Change out of work clothes. Nothing feels better than taking my shoes off and slipping into my ancient (Privo) flip-flops! Ahhhh.

4:50 Toss a load of laundry in the washing machine.

5:00 Feed Annie, pour a glass of wine and head upstairs. Write a quick note to our granddaughter for Easter. Now that she's older (13!), she loves Starbucks! Easier to mail than chocolate bunnies. :)

5:10 Relax and read emails and a quick scan of social media (Bloglovin' Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).

5:30 Rod's home. We always spend a few minutes catching up (Annie joins us, of course!) before I start dinner.

5:45 Quick phone call to American Express to sort out my new text alert program. They notified me of a $100 charge at the gas station. Apparently, that's what the gas station automatically charges before reversing the charge to the actual amount. Phew!

5:55 Throw clothes in the dryer. 

6:00 Porchtime with Rod. He's enjoying a beer while I finish my wine. Annie really wants to chase squirrels. Or just roll in the grass.

 

6:30 Dinnertime. Depending on the night (Rod teaches two nights a week) we either eat at the table or in the living room, watching something on Netflix. We just finished House of Cards, so tonight we decided to watch the second half of History of the Eagles. Man, they were an incredible band. We had leftovers, so no photos.

8:00 Dishes and lunch prep.

8:20 Quick look at email/Facebook/Twitter/Bloglovin' and work on this blog post.

8:45 Heading to bed. Yep. 5 a.m. comes far too early and I want to read for a little while.

8:50 Remembered there are clothes in the dryer. Run downstairs and get them out. Hang up the ones that I don't want to wrinkle and leave the rest for tomorrow.

8:55 Say goodnight to Annie-Dog

  

9:00 Read! 

10:00 Lights out!

Thank you, Trish! This was so much fun and I look forward to doing it again, maybe in the winter... and when we're retired and living in Oregon!