The winner of Cecile's birthday party present!

Happy Halloween!!!

I hope you'll have a wonderful time!!!!

And the winner from yesterday's contest is......

AmyC

(chosen by random.org)

Congrats Amy!!! I've sent you an e-mail. You have until Tuesday to send me your mailing address or I'll choose another winner.

Happy Birthday, Cecile! (and a party with presents)

And many happy returns!

For those of you who don't know her, Cecile is a great person and friend - I feel privileged to know her! Visit her at http://alliwantandmore.blogspot.com/

And because I just adore parties, and since Cecile is living a hundreds of miles away, I've decided to throw my own party for Cecile!
So in honour of Cecile's birthday, I'm giving away a present to one lucky commenter today. And what that present could be, you wonder? A book, of course. Everyone who knows Cecile knows she just LOVES BOOKS, and here goes this appropriate present:

To win this book you have to tell me do you know Cecile, what do you think of her (only nice remarks, please :)) and bring her a cyber present - it's her party after all! You have until tomorrow evening (Europe time) when I'll randomly pick a winner. Please make sure I have a way of contacting you!

Please spread a word about this party around the www, we want to have a big one :)

P.S. If you don't know Cecile, you can still win just leave your cyber present in the comments :)

In loving memory...

My favourite cat named Hector was run over by a car yesterday. I'm feeling sad and lonely... It feels like a balance of the world. On Monday I was super happy because I became an aunt for the fourth time, and today I'm feeling extremely sad because I lost my cat. You just can't feel overjoyed because something will happen to ruin it...
He was a wonderful cat, he caught mice to stop them from coming into the house but never killed them, and he liked to oversee my baking of the Christmas cookies, to sleep by the fireplace, to take the walks with me like he was a dog and to meow in greeting whenever he saw me.
This is the last picture of him.

Hector 2005 - 2009

I'm a proud aunt!

Today, I became for the forth time an aunt!!!
My older sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy, today. He's 53 cm long and weights 3.7 kg.
She's petit so she had to have a c-section, and after a long day both baby and mother are fine.
Welcome to the family Rocco!

I know he looks like an alien in this picture, but it is his first - he has time to learn how to pose for a photograph :)

A little bit of dark humor...

This is something to cheer you up (and me as well)!

Studying...

Hello everyone!
I'm so sorry I haven't been around my blog lately. As many of you know, I went back to college to get my MBA diploma. Last week I had all sorts of 'fun' activities related to registering for my classes. On Monday (10/19/2009) my classes have started. In the mornings I have to work at my regular day job and in the afternoons and evenings I attend the classes. That is the reason I won't be around my or yours blogs a lot. I'm very sorry about that but I just don't have time to surf the net on a non-business related stuff :)
I'll be around, lurking in the shadows!
Have a great week, and please stop by my blog because I'll post but not as frequently as I did before.

It Happened One Night by Lisa Dale

This book sounds great, I've already ordered it!

Here's a little about it:
(Grand Central, November 09) Lana Biel longs to leave her family’s Vermont wildflower farm so she can travel and see the world. And her sister Karin wants nothing more than to put down roots and conceive the child she and her husband just can’t seem to have. When a lighthearted fling with a mountain biker leaves Lana expecting, she finds herself tumbling headlong into motherhood while her sister Karin can only look on.
For help, Lana turns to Eli Ward, a professional meteorite hunter and her best friend for the last ten years. But Eli’s keeping secrets that could turn their friendship on its head. As the Vermont seasons change and the flowers in the wildflower meadows begin to fade, Lana must make some meaningful decisions about her family, her friendships, her love life, and her dreams.

Sherrilyn Kenyon ~ Born of Night

This is the first book in The League series by S. Kenyon.
Here goes the blurb:
In the Ichidian Universe, The League and their ruthless assassins rule all. Expertly trained and highly valued, the League Assassins are the backbone of the government. But not even the League is immune to corruption . . . Command Assassin Nykyrian Quikiades once turned his back on the League--and has been hunted by them ever since. Though many have tried, none can kill him or stop him from completing his current mission: to protect Kiara Zamir, a woman whose father's political alliance has made her a target. As her world becomes even deadlier, Kiara must entrust her life to the same kind of beast who once killed her mother and left her for dead. Old enemies and new threaten them both and the only way they can survive is to overcome their suspicions and learn to trust in the very ones who threaten them the most: each other

I'm not in a reading funk! Yay!!! It just seems like I've been reading a lot of not so good books that couldn't keep me awake through the night.
But this one - Born of Night - kept me awake till the early morning hours when I had to get up and go to work. The reason I'm all bleary today is that I haven't had a minute of sleep last night. And I don't regret a minute of it. This was Sherrilyn Kenyon I knew and adored! I mean, you have your badass hero and beautiful heroine, but with Kenyon nothing is ordinary or simple. The way she describes the feelings of Nykyrian, his suffers and struggles - it makes you want to hug him. He's not good, he made many mistakes in his life and Kenyon is not trying to justify him but she makes you understand his actions. Although he looks remote and emotionless, through his own voice we can hear that things aren't what they seem to be and that he just doesn't know how to comfort people or how to be nice. He sees his feelings as a liability, but also he doesn't feel worthy to be loved by anyone. He tried to reach to other people in the past, only to be cruelly rejected by them. He just doesn't want to try anymore. He locked himself out of the world and doesn't want to get burned again.
Kiara struggles with herself and her feelings for Nykyrian. It's not easy to accept and love an assassin. And the one known for his brutality, especially after going through her own mother's murder and several attempts on her life by assassins like him, it seems impossible.
There are a lot of side characters that are well developed and they have their role in the story which couldn't flow this easily if they weren't present.
I want to keep this review spoiler free - so I'll just say that this book is one of the best by S. Kenyon. If you want to tryout her writing, I strongly recommend you read this book. I can promise you that you won't regret it. The only other two books by Kenyon that are close to this one, that I can think of at this moment, are Acheron and Dance With the Devil. They are just an emotional read, and they make you aware how important our childhood is and how grownups should be aware that every word can be a very strong weapon.
The League series was published in 90s but with many editor's rewrites that Kenyon didn't approve or like. This 'new' issue has been rewritten and restored to its first version. Those of you who read this series before will find the rewritten version a very different and improved.
I give this book 5+ feathers - it's just out of the scales. Can't wait for the other two - Born of Fire and Borne of Ice that come out in November and December.

The book details:

Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Subject: Romance - Fantasy
Edition Description: Mass Market Paperbound
Series: League Novel
Publication Date: September 2009
Binding: Mass Market Paperbound
Language: English
Pages: 560

If you want to find out more about the author and her books visit http://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/.

Hiking excursion :)

Yesterday I went for a hiking to the nearest mountain. The day was beautiful, sunny and warm. We visited mountain cabin for hikers, botanical garden, saw horses (no wild animals, thank God) and climbed a few lower peaks. It was a great day, just what I needed - to get away from closed space. Here are some pictures:

One part of the mountain

The rocky trail



Pines in the botanical garden




B-friend at one of the peaks

Me at the beginning of the trail

The device that measures a number of sunny hours in the day (not sure how it's called)

The chapel at one of the peaks

Funny looking wood

The Cult pictures

Those of you who read my blog know I've been to this fantastic concert - the Europen tour of the group The Cult - LOVE LIVE.
I just wanted to share a few pictures from that great event :)

The Cult

Me before the concert

The Cult on the stage

Hope you are having a great day! I'm off to do some hiking since in my part of the world today is a national holiday and I don't have to work. Yay!!

The cover for Spirit Bound by R. Mead

Spirit Bound comes out May 18, 2009. Can't wait!!!

Are you a believer?

Well, this isn't exactly what I wanted to ask, but rather: what makes you a good person?
Do you think that faith makes you a better person? Do you think that person should hold and live their faith?
Why do I ask this, you may wonder? Well, I was unpleasantly surprised this evening when I got a response to my request from the person who declares herself as a Christian and preaches about Christian values on-line and in real-life. I am a Catholic but that's beside the point, 'cause I think being polite and nice to other people is a basic thing you learn while growing up. I understand people are busy, and that's why I personally like when people remind me that I've forgotten to do something I promised before. We are all people with our flaws but I don't think that's an excuse for rudeness. I was disappointed in this person and her response, and I'm not angry just sad.
So tell me, do you think that people should respect other people and does this have anything to do with religion? Is this a matter of decent upbringing or just tells about what kind of a person you really are? Does this make you a hypocrite when you preach one thing but in real life do something entirely different (even if the reason is that you’ve just been too busy) – is that an excuse?

(cartoon is the copyright of wonderful author Fredrika Ulfström - see her work at http://www.frikaworld.com/)

Uh, thanks for listening, I already feel better just sharing this :)

Short report

I left on a Wednesday for a business trip and came back on the Friday evening. But it wasn't all business - on Wednesday I went to The Cult concert. It was great, the band gave his best and the crowd went crazy. It was 2 hours of absolutely positive vibes. It made my business stuff a little bit less hard. On Saturday I went to another business related fair and on Sunday was my Name-day - St. Francis of Assisi. It was also a big celebration of another saint in my boyfriend's parish. So we had a big party :)

Today is just another working day. I didn't have time to read, so I'm really behind with my TBR pile. The lectures on my MBA University start on October 19 and I'm really afraid my TBR pile will be neglected even more!

Hope you all had a great weekend and I wish you happy and successful week.