Life...or something like it!

It's been a bit quiet here on my blog, but it's not because there's nothing happening. The Olympics are over and so tonight for the first time in a couple of weeks I had to actually think about what I wanted to watch on TV - and the choices weren't that inspiring!

Speaking of Olympics, I knew when I signed up for Annie's Olympic Reading Challenge I wasn't going to do all that well, because I only had one book by an Aussie author coming up to be read soon. I did end up reading the book (Sir Thursday by Garth Nix) but on the couple of occasions that I sat down to write the review the words just didn't come! They will eventually but for now, I have a few too many other things on my mind! If I was to look at the nationalities of authors that I read during the Olympics, then the US would dominate - 10 Americans, 1 Aussie and 1 Brit.

I got home from work on Friday night to find lots of messages about what is happening at HistoricalFiction.org. More on that in the next couple of days. I promise you all that there is something happening!

The Melbourne Writers Festival started in Melbourne last weekend and I was very much looking forward to spending time at the Festival on Saturday, but it didn't end up being such a great day in the end. That's not because of anything at the Festival itself, but just that we had a bit of drama. You may remember that a couple of months ago I mentioned that my son had been diagnosed with a nut allergy and therefore we had to start carrying an epipen around with us just in case he had a severe allergic reaction. Saturday morning we got ready to go into the city, packed some lunch, a couple of books and his allergy medication into a backpack and caught a train into the city. Only problem is when we got off the train in the city, the backpack did not. By the time we realised it was too late and the train had left.

I took my son to the activity that he was participating in and explained what had happened and left him there, saying that I would be back with food a bit later and all seemed well. I then spent an hour at Flinders St train station waiting for the train to return to the city to see if the bag was still there, but it turned out not to be which was very disappointing. Not long after that I got a phone call from the program saying that my son couldn't stay there for the day unless someone stayed with him because he did not have his medication. I don't know why it took them an hour to decide this but it did. By this time I was very emotional and upset. It wasn't really the people at the program's problem or fault but it was just so frustrating, especially when it would have cost a fortune to buy a new one.

In the end I had to get a family member to come in to the city to stay with him so that I could go to the one session that I was already booked in for, which was to listen to Jennifer Kloesters talk about the life and times and Georgette Heyer, which was very interesting. I am definitely hoping to attend at least one more event, if not more, this weekend.

I was meant to be going to a flamenco club on Saturday night but that didn't happen either. Needless to say I didn't really enjoy my Saturday all that much.

Fortunately I got a phone call today to say that the bag had been found, and handed in and everything was still there, so we were very lucky! I guess part of the drama was that this was the first real impact we have felt in relation to the difficulties of living with allergies. Hopefully we won't have to go through this again.

Just because this is a very rambly post with not much point, I thought I would post the video that the session that I did get to go to on Saturday started with. I had seen it before but it is lots of fun. Enjoy!!

Olympic Reading Challenge

Annie from Reading, Writing and Ranting has come up with an awesome idea for a short term challenge:

For the entire period of the Olympic Games (08 August 08 till 24 August 08) I'll be hosting a unique mini-challenge. It's country against country in the battle to prove your reading patriatism. The ultimate prize will be awarded to the individual who earns the most gold medals - a US $20 Amazon.com Gift Voucher. The runner up will receive a $5 Amazon.com Gift Voucher. Both 1st and 2nd place will also receive a special 'winner' badge to place on their blog.
How it Works...

1) You are to read as many books possible written by authors from your own country during the period the Olympics are on. The genre and length of the books will be up to you.
2) Each time you finish a book, post your name, country, blog address, book title and author as a comment on the bottom of this post. That will earn yourself and your country a silver medal. If you do all the above plus post a link to your review of the book you earn yourself and your country a gold medal.
3) A running country medal tally will be kept down the right hand side of this blog as well as the individual currently topping the leader board.
4) To win the Amazon Gift Voucher, you must be a gold medal winner (ie you must have submitted a review).
5) I don't mind if you've read the books before or were half-way through when the challenge started either.

Now at this point of time I only have one book by an Aussie author lined up for the next couple of weeks, but it is just such a good idea that I couldn't resist joining in! Click here for all the details and to sign up.

I just need to practice my skills of reading and watching Olympics coverage at the same time so I can fit everything in.