Quote of the Week

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

Japanese Proverb

I Need Help

No, seriously.

Over the course of the last couple/few weeks, I lost this:

Does anyone know how to find it once you've lost it?

Better yet, once it's found, does anyone have a good technique to KEEP it? Because lately, I've been like this:

Help!!

Quote of the Week

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue to that counts.

Winston Churchill

Random Stuff Friday

1) Finally am starting to feel better now. Hopefully the weekend will give me a chance to get all back to normal, bloggerly speaking. I've been playing catch up for the last week and a half and I hate feeling like I'm falling behind on everything.

2) I've been having some Twitter issues of late and I've found it thoroughly annoying. For some reason, my Twitter/Tweetdeck disconnected itself from Facebook and now my statuses don't flow through. I've done everything I can to fix this, so if you think you can help me ... please? HELP? ... in the mean time, I've resorted to using the Selective Tweets app, which is a pain because I constantly forget the #fb.

3) OK, again ... sorry sorry sorry to all my bloggerly friends who don't live in Utah and want to participate in Brodi Ashton's EVERNEATH ARC tour. I just don't have the bandwidth to go beyond Utah and I'm coordinating everything with Brodi ... so yeah. Sorry. I don't mean to exclude anyone, I just cannot logistically handle that and, yanno, have a life too. Forgive me? Please? Maybe I need to bribe you with prizes for forgiveness? ... hmmm ... I feel a contest coming ... stay tuned .....

4) I don't mean to sound mean here, I'm just repeating a child's observation. The other night after dinner, the kidlets were having Girl Scout Cookies for dessert and 5yo picked up the box of Thin Mints and said, "Mommy, how come if these are Girl Scout Cookies there are only boys on the box?" This was the side of the box she pointed out to me.

5) Finally bits and pieces of spring are starting to appear at our house so you know what that means ... yard work! I probably sound way more enthusiastic about this than I should, but really, Husband and I have some plans for this year that include cutting down up to 4 trees, finally getting a half-decent flowerbed in, AND finally killing the overgrown hydrangea bushes in the backyard (inherited from previous owners). Lofty goals, but I figure, we've got about 6 months to get all this work in, so good luck to us!

Happy Friday everyone and have a great weekend!

Everneath in Utah

I apologize in advance to those who don't live in Utah. But to those who do ... have I got an opportunity for you!

In January 2012, a little book written by a little author from our fair little state will be released. Her name's Brodi Ashton. Ever heard of her? Yeah, apparently she's also sometimes referred to as #1 Crazy by her loving crit group. Anyway, Brodi's got this little book coming out next January called EVERNEATH. Here's the blurb of it I stole from her blog:

EVERNEATH is partially based on the Greek myth of Persephone: a 17-year-old who's been banished to the underworld escapes to her former earthly existence with her family and boyfriend. The catch is that she only has six months in the real world before being sent back to Hades, this time forever.

Sounds interesting right? Yeah, I thought so too. Well, when this tweet came through my timeline:

I replied and asked Brodi if she'd considered doing an arc tour. More specifically, a locals arc tour just because there are so many writers and book bloggers here and maybe we could stretch one arc a bit further. Some gears started cranking, someone was *ahem* volunteered ... and Huzzah!

If you are a writer / book blogger and are interested in an opportunity to read EVERNEATH before it's released, here's your chance! Brodi's generously offered to donate an arc to the cause and this copy of EVERNEATH will be getting a grand tour of Utah, via bloggers.

There will be some fine print details to come around regarding reviews and time you can keep the book, etc, but if you're interested, please email me at windy.aphayrath (at) gmail (dot) com or leave a comment below with your name, email and city so I can start the organizing!

Also, Brodi's going to be at the Utah Book Bloggers Social on Saturday, March 5th. You can get my contact information from her there also!

UPDATE (12:12 pm): Please make sure you are leaving me an email address or some way of contacting you if you leave your info in the comments below. If your profile isn't setup for email responses, I have no way to reach you and won't be able to add you to the list!