What’s New This Year:

Well for starters:

#1: Social Vibe: I’m raising money for education but not in the way you’d think. Here’s how it works. Click on the social vibe widget (further down my sidebar) and it’ll open to a set of Company based ads. You watch the ad and the company donates money to the cause. It cost them money and each of us 5 minutes of our time. A really easy/great way to give back.

#2: The 2011 Debut Authors Challenge – hosted by The Story Siren. This is exciting to me. Because as a writer it’s easy to sometimes write/critique and forget to read. (Or get too busy to read). I’m hoping this challenge will help me step back even more to simply enjoy a book and of course support Debut Authors. Just found this out as well, each month/for every review done on a debut book participants names are put into a drawing for a prize pack. Below is a photo of January’s pack. Let me just say, WOW!

#3: The contest area in my sidebar. (Which I may move lower, because it distracts me for some reason.)

#4: Totally 4 YA: It’s a fantastic NEW authors group geared completely at teens, their lives, their world, YA reading, YA writing… the list goes on and on.

#5: A *hush-hush* sisters site getting ready to launch.

As you can see it’s starting off to be an exciting year already! Oh and before you go, don’t forget to tell me, what’s new with you?

BIG NEWS: The Replacement and Rules of Attraction Blog Tours!

Two Fabulous Authors Doing UK Blog Tours.

And since they’re on line tours, we can all play!! Thanks to Jenny over at  Wondrous Reads, for this Fab info!! She says to check out all the details on the banners and join in! (banners made by the talented Kat at S&S!)

I adore both of these authors. Simone Elkeles who I author crush…BIG TIME! And Brenna Yovanoff, who was absolutely lovely participating on a YA panel at Romance Divas! So excited for this event arranged by Simon & Schuster Children’s UK (@simonkids_UK on Twitter).

Tell me, will you be available to play on any of these dates?

Before you go click over to read the most recent December ‘SHORT REVIEW’.

Our winner is…(followed by a weekend update)

BG: Mom let me pick the winner this morning and I’m really excited to send you Flipped. I hope you like it like we did. (I still don’t know when my book order is coming in but I will make sure Mom puts it in the mail when it does) Oh and Mom decorated the winner thing to look like a tree because in Flipped Juli has a tree that she loves to climb. But Mom says not to tell you any more about the book so that you’ll want to read it.  :-)) Anyway off to school. Hope you liked our first giveaway. (And so you know I commented back to all of the comments I got Friday. It was kind of hard.)

Okay, stepping in here as it’s time for BG to go to the bus stop.

BG: See ya.

And that’s one kid out the door this morning. And congratulations on the WIN Jennifer. Jennifer blogs at Me, My Muse, and I. So if you get the opportunity to stop in and congratulate her on her win that would be great.

That said, while there should have been more writing accomplished in the Gilbert house this weekend, after a slew of unending interruptions I opted for the NO WRITING WEEKEND. I swear on Sunday I sat down a dozen times with my laptop. But after phone calls, running into town, being called for an unexpected favor, which ended in more running, our puppy begging for attention, 3 kids and a husband coming in and out of the room, irritation began to rise instead of word count. As I’m not the type of person to be buried in frustration I decided instead that the writing could wait, because life outside of my laptop could not.

Yep, they LOVE me so much, I can’t get anything done!

Finally Friday Segment:Introducing Baby Girl, BeeGee, BG.

Sitting back I realized a big part of my sanity when it comes to reading and writing stems from the moments I share with my 12 year old daughter, who I’ll call BeeGee (not like the group, but like a way cooler nickname than Baby Girl). Hmm, maybe I’ll go lazy and just use BG, I think I will. Moving on.

So BG and I sat down together this weekend and came up with the idea to do blog posts together. Sometimes we’ll have giveaways, she’ll write a post of her own. We’ll talk ‘stuff’ and focus as best we can on reading, writing, and life in the Gilbert house.

Since this is our first Finally Friday Segment we’ll begin with her introduction.

How about you tell the readers something about yourself…

BG: Well, as Mom said, I’m 12. What she didn’t say is I’m in the 6th grade. I love to…

Should I have told them you’re in the 6^th grade?

BG: I think you should have. *smiles* Anyway, like I was saying, I love to read, listen to music, and I really like learning about Egypt. Also, I enjoy a good mystery, even if I’m the one who wrote it. I’m not very fond of math. Science is okay. (But I would rather be in Social Studies or Language Arts.)

So would you rather read or write?

BG: Probably read. But I guess, it depends on the day.

Would you rather do LOTS of math or get a tetanus shot? (Seeing as she just went in for her shots it should be an easy comparison).

BG: MATH, big time!!

I’ll remember that next time you sit down to do homework.

BG: (Thank heaven she doesn’t remember things too well. Hehehe!)

Don’t worry; it’s going on THE LIST! Mwahahaha!!! *clears throat* Okay, now back to reading. BG and I are going to celebrate the launch of our Finally Friday Segment with a GIVEAWAY. Yay!!

BG: Oh my gosh Mom, we’re only giving away a book.

Yeah, but tell ‘em what book.

BG: It’s a really cute comedy book that we read together.

That’s right, it’s about this girl, Juli–

BG: And this boy named Bryce–

I read Juli–

BG: Oh, and I read Bryce–

Juli was a bit clueless and naive and totally crushing on Bryce.

BG: Bryce was hilarious and tried his best to avoid Juli.

But eventually things flip and the two begin to see one another differently–

BG: Yeah, my favorite part was at the beginning when he’s trying to get Juli to let go of his hand and he’s thinking about how she has him ‘in a death grip.’

I loved that part, (lol) and her thoughts were priceless: ‘I almost got my first kiss that day, I’m sure of it.’ When the whole time Bryce is trying to get away.

The book we’re talking about is Flipped By: Wendelin Van Draanen.

BG: Yeah, Flipped is totally flipping awesome!!

Um…yep it is. At the heart of the story is true friendship, finding something to believe in, and the value of family. If you want to win a copy of Flipped for you–

BG: Or someone you love.

Go ahead and leave a comment. Anything to add, BG?

BG: How will the readers know who wins? Maybe we could number the comments and draw a number.

Sounds good.

BG: Do I get to draw the winner?

Sure, and we’ll announce who’s won on–

BG: Monday!

Okay, so there you have it, you have the weekend to comment.

BG: Adios!!!

Thanks for stopping by. And a quick recap, don’t forget to leave a comment for your chance to win Flipped and while you’re here say ‘hi’ to my baby girl–don’t tell her I said that–and let us know what you think of our Finally Friday Segment.

BG: Be our first WINNER!! (And so you know, we ordered the book from my scholastic book order…and I’m not exactly sure how soon it’ll be in).