The Kari AnnAlysis

I’m not even sure where to start. 2009 has been a wonderful year and it’s going to take a lot to beat it.

First, I married my best friend! Michael and I had been engaged for two years and on Memorial Day weekend set the date for October. Luckily, my mom and her best friend, a budding wedding planner, did a lot of the grunt work, but I still can’t believe how much work the wedding took. I am not complaining though because it was perfect. It was by far the happiest day of my life.

2009 was also a great year for my career. Yes, I do realize I only have a couple years under my belt, 2009 was my first full year out of college. I love my job as a news producer. I love that every day is different, you never know what to expect and my co-workers are fantastic. I am so excited for my future at the station and can’t wait to see what it has in store for me.

Over the past year, I have gotten a lot closer with some of my family. Growing up, everyone had kids running all over the place and we spent the holidays with family, but other times we were always too busy. We have been spending a lot of time with family on my dad’s side and even got to spend a bit of time with my mom’s side of the family who lives a few hours away. I can’t believe we lost so  many years, but we are definitely making up for it now.

One of the things I’m most happy about this past year is finding my niche. I have always liked reading and started reading quite a bit my senior year of college. But after I read Jane Eyre and started blogging, my reading life has completely changed. I have found a world where I can escape to after a hard days work. It’s a world that I have met some great people and have been able to release the good and bad. I started my blog on Myspace and then this spring changed over to Blogger.com. I found out through Twitter (which is another one of my favorites of 2009) about Wordpress.com. I moved all of my posts over and started strong. It wasn’t but a few months later that I decided I wanted to add some ads and couldn’t do it through Wordpress. One of my pals on Twitter took over for me, helped me get a domain and set up my blog. I owe him my life because I am so happy with my blog and the outlet it gives me.

I read 55 books this year and when I told my husband that and he told me that it was ridiculous. But he also set me a goal of 67 books for 2010! I can’t wait to get started.

In the past year, I have read some great books and some horrible ones. My favorite book of 2009 and the reason I started blogging,
Jane Eyre. I bought this book right before Christmas. My grandma had a stroke 3 days before the holiday and I knew I would be spending a lot of time in the hospital. I don’t know why, but that day when I went to the bookstore, I bought Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Once I started on Jane, I couldn’t get stop! After I read it, I had to talk about it. That’s when I started my blog.

I read a lot of series books in 2009. The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich has my heart! I heard about this from my in-laws and they said it was wonderful. They weren’t lying. I fell in love with Stephanie and her crazy sidekicks. Who doesn’t want to be a bounty hunter for a living??

I started a lot of series’ that I can’t wait to continue.

My least favorite book of 2009 was Son of a Witch. I really liked Wicked and was looking forward to this book, but it was not what I expected. It was very twisted and dark and Elphaeba was my favorite. She wasn’t really in this one as much. There are a lot of twists, it just didn’t keep me reading much.

In the past month or so, I started getting books from a publishing company. I was so excited that I just started saying yes to whatever they had to offer. After I thought about it, I wasn’t sure if it was a great idea. I didn’t want to give their books bad reviews if I didn’t like them. But it turns out this was one of the best choices I made. The Kelley and Hall Company has sent me books I would have never chosen, but I loved them. Here are a couple I really liked:

I hope you guys had as wonderful a year reading and enjoying life as I did. I have some high hopes for 2010. I have some big hopes for work, being the best wife I could be and doing some MAJOR reading. I already have over 40 books on my shelf to be read. I can’t wait to make a dent in them! Have a safe New Year’s Eve and great start to 2010!

Release: February 17, 2009

Do you ever sit back and think about your life and wonder what it would be like to take on an adventure you’d never thought possible? What about giving up your life when a complete stranger sends you parts to a motorcycle?

Meet Georgia. She’s in her late 30s, works at a chicken factory and sleeps. She doesn’t have a social life other than her dog. But all of this changes the day she received a couple pieces of metal in the mail. They come with labels of what the parts are. Day after day, more parts come. Georgia has no clue who they are from but starts compiling them. She finally gets all the parts along with a manual on how to put the bike together. Not much gets Georgia going, but for some reason she can’t stop thinking about this.

She quits her job, moves in with her Uncle and they put the bike together. Georgia can’t believe the life she is now living. She finally feels free and alive. But what about the person that made it for her? Why did they go through all of this trouble? Once Georgia finally finds out, a flush of bad memories come back along with a man who thinks he could have stopped her from being hurt as a teen.

I got this book from the Kelley and Hall Publishing Company. My mom and her boyfriend ride bikes and I thought it would be a good book for both me and my mom to read and talk about. I definitely think she’ll like it.

This book has two points of view. One from Georgia’s life and one from Frank’s life. At first, I had no idea who this Frank fella was and why he got such a big role in this book. And a forewarning, while Georgia’s part starts out dark, you ain’t seen nothing until you see the darkness of Frank’s life. There were times I wished I could smack him. Although I was confused about Frank’s role at first, it was soon put to ease…. just to spark more confusion. The book hinted on why Georgia was sent the bike, but it didn’t say until the last 100 pages or so. But every time it mentioned it, I had to sit and think if I missed it or it didn’t sink in.

I really like the female empowerment in this story. I like that Georgia took her life by the balls and did something to make herself happy. I believe in controlling your destiny to a certain extent. If all I ever did was work and sleep and had my hands up a chicken’s butt all day, I’d probably be unhappy too.

I can’t wait until my mom read this. And her boyfriend probably will too. Yay for a book club of sorts I give Assembling Georgia 3 bookmarks.

I absolutely love getting awards and I love just as much as I love getting, I also like showing appreciation to the people who stop by my blog!!

I got this award from Alita at AlitaReads. Thanks bud! And here’s the rules for this award:

List 10 things that make you happy. Try and do at least one of them today.
1.  My husband
2. My job
3.Lots of coffee and chocolate
4. Reading during every spare second of my life
5. My penguin thermal pjs that make my husband laugh hysterically
6. Finding new books and new book blogs
7. Making others laugh
8. Spending time with my family
9. Candles that smell so good you can eat
10. Snuggling in my bed

Tag 10 bloggers that brighten your day.
1. Meg at WriteMeg!
2. Allison at ReadIntoThis
3. Cindy at PrincessBookie
4. Amber at A Little Pink in the Cornfields
5. Dahlia at The Book Shopaholic
6. Jessica at Cover to Cover
7. Josh at the Worst Damn Blog
8. Susan at Well-Mannered Frivolity
9. Kay at The Infinite Shelf
10. Katie at Katie’s Book Blog

Thanks to all of you whose blogs brighten my day

The Holiday Swap is one of my favorite things I’ve taken part of since becoming a book blogger. I didn’t end up getting my package until after Christmas, but that’s because I have my packages sent to work and it came Christmas Eve and I didn’t work that day. It was a pleasant surprise yesterday though when I got to work.

Yay for my goodies from Nari at The Novel World. How cool is it that my gifts came from California? I’m sure the person I sent to wasn’t as excited that her gifts came from West Virginia, but it’s the little things that make me happy.

And the big things inside this package DEFINITELY make me happy! Nari sent me Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty. Now I know what I am going to spend my gifts cards on from Borders. I have to buy the rest of the series I also got an awesome book mark that I can put a picture in. I’m sure there’s a far away picture of me and Mikey at the wedding I can stick in there. She also sent me some Ghirardelli coffee and some tea. And with the temperatures dipping in the teens and below in the next week, I need all the warmth I can get.

If you aren’t a frequent reader of The Novel World, check Nari and her blog out! And thanks Nari! I LOVE my swap gifts!!

So if you’ve been keeping up with my On My Bookshelf posts for the past couple of weeks, then you already know I got two copies of Truly Madly and that means one will go to one of my lucky readers.

Now since I got these from Goodreads.com and Librarything.com, I will ask that you post a review of the book when you are done reading.

Normally I make the giveaway periods a month, but since this book comes out in February, I want to make sure I get it sent out so you have time to read and review before the release date. So, this giveaway will end at midnight on Saturday,  January 9th. I will announce the winner on Sunday the 10th and send it out on the 11th.

Here’s what Goodreads.com says about the book:

Meet Lucy Valentine; sassy, fabulously original…and psychic.

Lucy hails from a long line of matchmakers known as Valentine INC. According to family legend, the Valentines have been blessed by Cupid with the ability to help couples find true love. Trouble is Lucy’s powers were zapped away by an electrical surge and now all she can find are lost objects.

But what good is that in the matchmaking world?

Lucy is about to find out when she tries to solve a murder and winds up falling into a romance of her own.

Here’s how you enter the contest:
+1 Leave me your email address
+2 Put this on your sidebar or tweet about it (leave me both links)
+3 Tell me about one of your matchmaking experiences

Again, this ends at midnight January 9th. I am really excited about this book and hope you are too!

Now, here’s my matchmaking experience: My senior year of high school, my homecoming date asked me to go shopping with him to get his outfit. We were going to go meet his dad at the mall, go shopping and have lunch. Although I had known this guy since kindergarten, I had never met his dad. The next weekend, he was at the homecoming game to watch his son and I thought my mom would hit it off with him. I introduced them and the next day he came to my cross country meet. They talked for a while, started dating, quit dating and now almost 6 years later, they are still together. Maybe Valentine Inc. should hire me