Sunday Salon - Life and Awards and what not

Happy Easter Sunday Saloners. Hope everyone is enjoying their day and had fun with Easter Egg hunts. I wasn't planning on doing an Easter Egg hunt for James this year since he is 9 now. I wanted this Easter to be just about Jesus's sacrifice. However, he specifically requested the Easter Bunny come this year. So, last night Father and I hid some Easter eggs filled with his favorite candy Nestle's Crunch and a few quarters. We went out this morning before breakfast and he searched for all the eggs. Afterwards we discussed the symbolism of the eggs - new life. I asked James what is the purpose of Jesus dying and rising again. His reply: To forgive Adam and Eve and all of us for our sins. Ever since we started studying Genesis, he has been concerned that Adam and Eve not being forgiven.

And who is the Easter Bunny in his view - a Angel who flies down from heaven to hand out the eggs.


I received another wonderful surprise upon coming on line this morning. Sheri at A Novel Menageri gave me this sweet award:

The Super Comments Award - how neat is that!

Sheri said: We give and get awards for having a great blog and being a good friend. What I want to award is to those people whose comments have meant THE WORLD to me. It takes time to visit a blog and leave a comment. I wanted to take this opportunity to say “thank you” to each and every one of you who has left a comment for me on A Novel Menagerie. Also, I wanted to recognize some special bloggers whose comments have made such an impact on me. The “You Don’t Say?” Award is awarded to these special bloggers in hopes that they will pass the award along to 5-10 of their best commentors! Below are my awardees and the number of comments they’ve shared with me!

Thank you, Sheri. You are so sweet! I can't tell you how much I appreciate these awards. I also received a couple others this week including the One Lovely Blog Award and the Premo Dardos. They are mentioned a couple posts below. I really love being part of the the book blogging community - because at least you guys acknowledge and appreciate giving and receiving awards. You truly make people feel special. Unfortunately the Premo Dardos I decided to award to my 52 Books Challenge participants was neither appreciated or acknowledged. (except for Kristi and Sherrie - thank you guys) I really wasn't expecting anything in return, except perhaps a thank you would have been nice. I'm truly disappointed and because of it I'll be sure to hand out future awards to specific folks within the book blogging community. A new lesson learned - so will forgive, forget and move on.

I finished The Mystery of Grace by Charles DeLint, but still haven't found the time to review it yet. I also completed 14 by J.T. Ellison and Agatha Christie's first book that introduce hercule poirot - The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I will be reviewing all some time this week. Life will be a little less hectic this week since I finished my marathon push to finish the first draft of Winter's Illusion. Finished that on Thursday. Happy Dance!!!

I'm currently reading Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman and really enjoying it. Next up on the list will be A World I never Made by James LePore. After that, will have to see what I'm in the mood for.

Posts I am working on this week will be Musing Mondays which is all about how you respond to comments on your blog. This is something we've been discussing in the pro-bloggers 31 days blog improvement challenge and also part of sophisticated dorkiness blog improvement challenge. Today, I'm trying to wade through Day 6 in which Darren has highlighted 27 must read tips and tutorials to read. Oh my! They don't all apply to my blog, since it's more personal than business. But food for thought for the future.

I'll also be passing along the You Don't Say Award as soon as I figure out how to count comments. Anybody know of a widget that will make it easy count how many comments each person has left?