Something Cool!

No, not a new job (I wish!), but still something cool...

I got an email from Amazon.com the other day inviting me to participate in their new "Vine" program. Here's what it said:

Greetings from Amazon.com!

As one of our most valued customer reviewers, we would like to offer you a special invitation to join an exciting new Amazon program called Amazon Vine. As a member of this exclusive community, you will have access to pre-release and new products across all Amazon categories, and the opportunity to be among the very first to review them. There is no cost to you to participate or to receive Vine products. We are simply asking for your time in writing reviews for the products you select from the program.

Basically I get an email newsletter every month, with new products I can review, I get to pick up to two products, they send them to me for free, I review them, and I get to keep them when I'm done! I got my first newsletter yesterday, and picked out two nonfiction books to review (I mostly read nonfiction). Hopefully one of the newsletters will include some crochet books too.

I'm pretty excited - I love to read, and what could be better than getting new books for free?!

Eclipse!

Sorry, no crochet projects to show yet. I've been so tired and stressed out lately between work, school, planning my sister's bridal shower, and helping her with her wedding plans, and my husband working nights, that I haven't gotten a whole lot of crocheting done.

My daughter announced today that she joined the fourth grade book club at her school - they meet once a week at lunchtime. That made me really happy. I'm glad that she (and my son too) loves books. I'm glad that she's old enough now to read chapter books too. I read to her every night before bed, and right now we're working though the "Main Street" series by Ann M. Martin. The title sounds corny, but the books are very good. They deal with some pretty substantial topics for the 9-12 year old set - death, mental retardation, alcoholism, Alzheimers, but are sensitive to the age group of the readers. Ann Martin also wrote another book called "The Meanest Doll in the World" that my daughter and I both really loved. I just bought a previous book in the same series, "The Doll People" for Bethany and I to read after we finish up the Main Street book we're reading.

My son and I right now are enjoying the Veggie Tales' Mess Detectives books. He's totally obsessed with Veggie Tales. I'm just glad he likes them instead of that Barney my daughter loved when she was little, LOL! At least the Veggie Tales are cute without being sappy. We're really fortunate that the suburb we live in has a great public library. It has a whole room of children's DVD's and videos, with two shelves of just Veggie Tales ones, so Dominic is thrilled everytime we go there. I'm happy that the library has a big section of crochet books, and that they are always adding new books to it.

Anyway, to make up for a lack of crocheting photos, I do want to show this: http://www.mind-flush.blogspot.com/. A fellow Clevelander and crafty blogger, Gretchen, took some fantastic pictures of the full lunar eclipse we had tonight. I planned to look for the eclipse, but was helping my daughter with homework and putting my son to bed and missed it. I still can't believe she stood outside in the 12 (feels like 7 with the wind chill) weather to take these! Aren't they great?! Check out her other website, http://www.lazymamadesigns.blogspot.com/ (couldn't get those darn one-word links to work!) to see her awesome knit, crochet, and sewing projects.