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Pregnant Jessica Alba was seen in Mexico having her birthday party just in bikini with few of her friends and daughter Honor Marie Warren. 

Pregnant Jessica Alba having birthday party fun on Mexico Beach with her daughter Honor Marie Warren

Jessica Alba turned 30 on April 28 but the star planned to enjoy a cherished birthday vacation in Mexico in place of big home party. Cash Warren, husband of Jessica Alba, was not present in this “girls only” party.

Pregnant Jessica Alba having birthday party fun on Mexico Beach without husband Cash Warren

Pregnant Jessica Alba having fun on Mexico Beach in 'Girls only Party'

Pregnant Jessica Alba having birthday party fun on Mexico Beach with her daughter and close friends

VIA Pregnant Jessica Alba spotted having birthday party fun on Mexico Beach with her daughter and close friends

An estimated 5.5 million tons of copper, one of the biggest deposits in the world, could provide a major export for a war-ravaged country desperately in need of jobs and cash. But the hoped-for bonanza also could endanger rare artifacts that survived the rule of the Taliban and offer a window into Afghanistan's rich pre-Islamic history.

"The copper mine and its extraction are very important. But more important is our national culture," said Abdul Qadir Timor, director of archaeology at Afghanistan's Culture Ministry. "Copper is a temporary source of income. Afghanistan might benefit for five or six years after mining begins, and then the resource comes to an end."

The government is determined to develop Afghanistan's estimated $3 trillion worth of minerals and petroleum, an untapped source of revenue that could transform the country. The withdrawal of U.S.-led combat forces at the end of 2014 and a parallel drop in foreign aid have left the government strapped for cash. It hopes to attract global firms to exploit oil, natural gas and minerals, ranging from gold and silver to the blue lapis lazuli for which the country has been known since ancient times.

Beijing's state-run China Metallurgical Group struck a $3 billion deal in 2008 to develop a mining town at Mes Aynak with power generators, road and rail links, and smelting facilities. Workers built a residential compound, but were pulled out two years ago because of security concerns. Nazifullah Salarzai, a spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani, said the government is determined to finish that project.

Archaeologists are scrambling to uncover a trove of artifacts at the site dating back nearly 2,000 years which shed light on a Buddhist civilization that stretched across India and China, reaching all the way to Japan.

"The more we look, the more we find," archaeologist Aziz Wafa said as he scanned hilltops pock-marked with bowl-shaped hollows where copper powder once was melted down and painted onto ceramics. Excavators have found silver platters, gold jewelry and a human skeleton as they have uncovered the contours of a long-lost town that once hosted elaborate homes, monasteries, workshops and smelters.

Behind Wafa is a cave in which three Buddhas are seated around a dome-shaped shrine known as a stupa. Two are headless; one was decapitated by looters who entered through a tunnel. The other head was removed by archaeologists and placed in storage along with thousands of other items.

Movable objects, including sculptures, coins and ceramics, are stored at the National Museum in Kabul. Larger objects, including stupas measuring eight meters (26 feet) across and statues of robed monks 7 meters (23 feet) tall remain at the sprawling site, which is closed off and protected by a special security force. The roads are lined with armed guards and the archaeologists have no telephone or Internet access.

Experts believe that proselytizing Buddhist monks from India settled here in the 2nd Century A.D. Like today's miners, they were enticed by the copper, which they fashioned into jewelry and other products to trade on the Silk Road linking China to Europe.

The site was discovered in 1942 and first explored in 1963, but the excavations ground to a halt for two decades during the Soviet invasion, the civil war and the brutal rule of the Taliban in the late 1990s. Osama bin Laden ran a training camp at Mes Aynak in the years leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the subsequent U.S.-led invasion.

Until the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan were dynamited by the Taliban in 2001, few knew that Afghanistan was once a wealthy, powerful Buddhist empire. It still does not feature on the local education curriculum, which ignores the country's pre-Islamic past. But at Mes Aynak the eroded remains of enormous feet testify to the colossal Buddhas that once towered over the valley.

Low world copper prices and a slowing Chinese economy have bought time for the archaeologists to uncover more artifacts, while the government seeks to find a way to unearth the copper without ruining relics.

The government has asked the U.N. cultural agency to survey mining sites and draw up plans to protect and preserve cultural heritage, said Masanori Nagaoka, UNESCO's head of cultural affairs in Afghanistan.

The request is rooted in hope for better days, when tourists might replace the tense guards scanning the valley.

The archaeological value of the site "will outlast the life cycle of the Aynak mine," an anti-corruption group called Integrity Watch Afghanistan said in a report. "The relics found could be a perpetual tourist attraction and would provide a new symbol of the historical foundation of the region and people."

Author: Lynne O'Donnell | Source: Associated Press [February 06, 2015]

Shut Out by Kody Keplinger is a book the surprised me. It's honesty a book I didn't think I would enjoy. I decided to give it a chance, because I hadn't expected to like The Duff, but was very pleasantly surprised. And, while there were definitely things about this book that bothered me, or didn't sit well with me, for the most part, I did enjoy it.

Keplinger is a strong writer. So far she is 2 for 2 — delivering books that I didn't expect much from and surprising me with how well they are written, and how entertaining the story is. Keplinger does a great job writing heroines that many people will find themselves understanding, relating too, and connecting with. Lissa has her doubts, her insecurities and her desires and, for the most part, I liked her a lot.

There are two male leads — Cash and Randy, and both bring something unique to the story. I had some issues with Randy from the beginning, but I didn't like how his character was treated. I never really loved his character, but I felt like there was some unexplained, drastic character switching mid-way through the novel that wasn't really... set up as well as it could have been. Cash, however, is awesome. And you know that things are gonna get interesting between them. Oh, and also — he reads and recommends obscure Greek plays. Win!

As for the story itself, I had a bit of a hard time with how caviler this book was in its treatment of teen sex. I know that teenagers have sex, but this book makes it seem like every single character is having sex and, that the few who don't, are really weird and strange and behind the times smart for waiting until it really is right for them. It also offers some super crappy justification for continuing to have sex. Like one character, who genuinely does not enjoy having sex, but she keeps it up and pretends to like it, because it makes her boyfriend happy. This bothers me. I know that there are going to be teen girls out there, who are sexually active in this way. But I don't think it's positive. If it's something you do not enjoy, then you do not have to keep doing it! Seriously.

More teenage girls NEED to know that. They NEED to know that if they don't want to, or are not ready to have sex, then SO WHAT?! It's OK. It is ok, and they have the RIGHT to control who they allow that level of intimacy with. Considering the topic, I really wish that the book had made more of a statement about this, considering (IMO) a huge reason for this book was to make a point. Lissa's boyfriend pressures her to have sex. You get a sense of it from the very beginning of the book. And while he is ultimately labeled a dickhead and it is mentioned that trying to coerce a girl into having sex to stay in a relationship or to prove she loves you is wrong, it's not given all that much attention, and isn't really addressed. It's more like a passing thought when really, there are so many girls who need to hear that, need to believe and understand that it's not okay for a guy to try and force that.

I'm really torn on this one, because, while I did like it, it's honestly not one that I would really recommend to teenage girls. No matter how well written the book is, it does make light of a subject I think is incredibly important and serious. It's something that is already treated far too lightly by our entire society. And honestly, teenagers don't need another book that says it's about learning to get a handle on your own sexuality and being comfortable with whatever is right for you, but that actually shows a lot of relationships contrary to that and portrays them positively. Talk about mixed signals.

So, I doubt I will be rushing to supply this book to the teen girls in my life, but I do think that there are a lot of people who will love this one without reservations, especially the older crowd. Me personally, I don't like books that trivialize important topics, and I think Shut Out has a tendency to slip into that gray area a few times.

So, if I'm being honest, I liked this book. Quite a lot actually. And a large part of why I liked it so much, is because I didn't expect to like it, so it was definitely a very pleasant surprise. But Keplinger is a talented writer, and I will continue to read more from her. Now I just wish Keplinger would write a book that doesn't go out of its way to tackle the Oooh! Controversy! surrounding sex in YA. If she keeps going with it, sorry... But it's gonna look like agendizing and trying to hard.

Right now I'm still having that experience you always have at the beginning of the semester where everything is new and exciting and awesome. Today has been extra great because my first class is about comic books, my second class is taught by a professor I love, and my third class is piano. And I got home at 3:40 which is earlier than I ever got home last semester (I actually get to make dinner for my fiance for once!) so I just have good feelings all around. I didn't even mind buying textbooks this afternoon, see pictures below for happy faces with textbooks.

To be fair, I had to buy The Best American Comics 2010 and Picture This: The Near-sighted Monkey Book

for my comic book class and I actually wanted the books, so I didn't mind forking over the cash for them. I will be less enthusiastic about purchasing my entrepreneurship books tomorrow. I'll probably be pretty cranky about the whole thing.

This is also the post where I say my brain is still scrambled from my trip, so I probably won't be on my normal schedule again until next week. I need a few days to write posts, get organized, figure out how exactly my post schedule is going to go this year. All fun stuff I know. But now I'm off to enthusiastically do my homework before the excitement wears off!

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A rectangular scrap measuring about 4.five inches by 1.five inches and featuring 15 partial lines of Homer's epic poem The Iliad in the elegant hand of a 4th Century Egyptian scribe was just [DEC] picked up by an unidentified European purchaser for £16,000 right after a feverish Net auction battle.

That value was way above the posted estimated but is standard of the sums that collectors will now devote to lay their hands on these fingerprints from the previous. Indeed, it is not just modern day art that has been setting jaw-dropping records at auction lately - so have ancient scrolls.

When a fragmentary parchment sheet from the 3rd century AD featuring portions of Paul's epistle to the Romans was bought at Sotheby's for £301,000 auctioneers and antiquity authorities alike have been stunned.

But even though there is no suggestion of any impropriety in these unique sales, scholars are alarmed by the burgeoning online trade as some unscrupulous sellers also cash in. They portray a no cost-ranging trade, particularly on the on line auction giant eBay, exactly where precious documents are carved up for sale, potentially stolen goods are trafficked and forgers can flourish.

Brice Jones, a papyrologist and lecturer in New Testament and Early Christianity at Concordia University in Montreal, has turn into an on the web scrolls sleuth, scouring auction web-sites for manuscripts that are usually incorrectly labeled or their provenance unclear.

A couple of pieces are straightforward forgeries. Most famously, the papyrus fragment called the Gospel of Jesus's Wife created headlines for apparently overturning almost two millennia of theological teaching that Jesus was unmarried, but is now widely viewed as a forgery.

Considerably a lot more distressingly, some sellers are dismembering papyrus books to sell things page-by-page, a financially lucrative endeavor that amounts to small extra than vandalism of ancient works.

A single eBay papyrus seller turned out to be two sisters who ran an online beauty supplies store. They had inherited a Book of Revelation from which they cut person pages to sell on an ad hoc basis to fund the wedding costs for one.

But Mr Jones has also identified a proliferation of scrolls becoming sold of which the origin and ownership is unknown or unclear. A fragment of papyrus with neatly penned Greek script of Homers Iliad, 565-580, 4th Century AD. Ex Hamdy Sakr collection, London, formed in the 1960's. There had been only two serious bidders on the piece and it probably went a lot greater than either of them had anticipated.

Papyrus itself is a tall, fibrous reed plant that grew along the shallow banks of the Nile River in Egypt. 'Papyrus' is the Latin type of the Greek word papuros, from which the English word 'paper' is derived.

The papyri - mostly written in ancient Greek and Coptic - variety from items such as rare biblical texts or the lines of the Iliad to hum-drum but fascinating each day records of book-maintaining accounts or letters amongst loved ones members. All exert an incredible lure for collectors, historians, archaeologists and theologians.

But under American and Egyptian law, only antiquities that can be verified currently to have been in private hands ahead of the early 1970s can be traded. Those guidelines are intended to avoid looting and end the export of papyrus that is generally still identified by Bedouin tribesmen, preserved by the arid desert situations. But critics say that lots of sellers skirt or ignore the guidelines on Internet internet sites that are difficult to monitor and regulate.

The disapproving tone from academia also reflects a deep philosophical objection by many scholars to how manuscripts flow by means of private hands, fearing that priceless scripts will disappear forever amid the frenzy of trading.

"The study of ancient papyri is a fascinating field of historical inquiry, simply because these artefacts are the fingerprints of true men and women from a bygone era," Mr Jones told The Telegraph.

"Each time I study a new papyrus, it is as if I am peeking over the shoulders of the scribe who wrote it, eavesdropping on a conversation that in several cases was meant to be private: an argument in between a husband and wife, a divorce contract, an invitation to dinner, a letter in between a father and son.

"But when private collectors acquire papyri for private enjoyment and restrict scholarly access to them, the instant consequence is that we drop worthwhile historical info that would otherwise advance our understanding about ancient people."

Nonetheless, the owner of a little specialist World-wide-web auction corporation, who asked not to be named due to the fact of the sensitivity of the situation, pushed back against these criticisms.

"We are scrupulous about producing certain of ownership despite the fact that not everybody is so fussy and it's accurate that there are some people today who know practically nothing who are out attempting to make a buck in the wild West of the Web," he mentioned.

"But some of these archaeologists and purists simply hate the reality that that any private person would personal, invest in or sell antiquities.

"They ignore the reality that things like this have always been collected. Indeed, some of these scripts have been commissioned by the private collectors of that time.

"Collectors play a crucial function in preserving these items with their interest. A lot of these items would stay hidden, forgotten, fading away, unknown to the scholars, if there was not a industry for them."

Amongst specialists in the research of early Christianity, there is specific concern about the emergence of eBay as a absolutely free-wheeling marketplace for antiquities, with low opening bids and normally exaggerated language to lure in possible purchasers.

An eBay spokesman, however, stated that its150 million buyers and sellers "must make certain listings comply with our clear policy on artefacts. We operate with regulators, law enforcement and other parties which includes the Egyptian Embassy to apply this policy, and if a listing of concern is identified we will need proof that it was legally exported and take away any listing exactly where this proof is not supplied."

As a specialist who spends his life studying such scrolls, Mr Jones also has concerns for the preservation and conservation of sensitive centuries-old documents when they are handled by traders.

He cited then instance of the well-known papyrus codex of the Gospel of Judas, which published in 2006. It was stored by one particular of its owners in a protected-deposit box on Long Island for sixteen years, and then placed in a freezer by a possible purchaser who thought that was the ideal way to preserve it.

"The benefits of these choices have been horrifying: the codex crumbled into quite a few hundreds of tiny pieces and what was after a practically total codex was now badly deteriorated and tricky to restore," he stated.

The booming trade has clearly revealed to scholars how numerous papyri have survived down the centuries.

"This prompts the question: just how quite a few ancient manuscripts are sitting in the basements, match boxes, drawers, safes, or shelves of private collectors about the globe?" Mr Jones asked lately.

"It is nearly certain that numerous ancient manuscripts or fragments thereof are just sitting in the dark closets of their collectors, decaying and crumbling to pieces. The public demands to be conscious of the importance of the preservation of antiquities, for the reason that when they are gone, they are gone forever."

Author: Philip Sherwell | Source: The Telegraph [December 28, 2014]

For one year Vanessa Farquharson decided she would make one environmentally friendly change every day. She would keep a blog about her progress, and try to figure out what all of this green movement stuff meant. Sleeping Naked Is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days

is the book version of her blog, although they're very different. The blog had in-depth posts for each change, while the book only has a little bit about a few different changes every month. And sometimes nothing about the changes at all, just a mention of the change and then a story about a date she had that same day. Something completely unrelated. If you can't tell by my lackluster introduction, I was less than pleased with this book.

Maybe I should preface the rest of this review with a statement: I'm an environmentalist. I pretty big environmentalist. I recycle, bike/walk instead of drive whenever possible, buy organic food, recycled products, make homemade cleaning products, take military showers, wear clothes several times before washing. Yeah, I'm kind of green. But there is still so much more I could do, so when I picked up this book I thought maybe I would also pick up some new ideas. Which I did, let's make that clear. I'm planning on creating compost box after reading her description of hers, and there were a few other ideas. But for the most part, I think this book was a cheap ploy to cash in on the media success of the green movement. Oh, and a way for her to brag about how she started dating her boyfriend.

The biggest problem I had with this book was the lack of information. She says she did something, like stop using paper towels, but she never goes into why she decided to make that decision. She doesn't talk about any research she did, and scientific information to back up that decision. And without education, people are not going to make a change. Another problem I had with this book is that she complains relentlessly about everything. She decides to wash her hair with natural oils instead of shampoo, and then complains and complains about how this will prevent her from getting a boyfriend because what kind of guy will date a girl who uses oil to wash her hair. She decides to bike instead of drive to work, but then complains and complains about how this is going to prevent her from wearing cute outfits to work, and that's she's going to have to take backpack (God forbid!) with her to work. She has a real thing against backpacks, just hates them. And there are multiple instances in the book where I was under the impression she was doing all of this to meet hipster guys instead of for herself. To her credit, she does stick with some of her changes and stops complaining about them after a few days, but honestly my view of her was not the greatest, and I didn't find this book to be very interesting, helpful, or mind changing.

I'm giving this book a D.

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Middlesex. I put off reading this book for so long because I thought it would be hard. It just sounds hard. And looks hard. But since the College Students group on Goodreads was reading it and Michael Kindness at Books on the Nightstand was reading it this seemed like my chance. I put it off until the last month in July and with gritted teeth I opened up the book. I read the first few pages and I was immediately captivated by Calliope's story. Calliope, a girl, becomes Cal, a boy, in these pages and somehow the character stays somewhat the same throughout the book. The book starts with Calliope's grandparents in a tiny Greek village. I must say here that the book starts with incest, and I gather from the forum on Goodreads that this really freaks some people out. It didn't bother me, although it is weird, and I think the book is worth reading even if you're weirded out in the beginning. The book moves from Greece to Detroit, which is where Calliope grows up as a girl.

This passage took my breath away and it's on page 20 of the book. My hope is that you will read this passage and it will make up for all the stumbling I'm going to do about this book. I hope you will read this passage, leave your house and get this book immediately, all because of this passage.

And so now, having been born, I'm going to rewind the film, so that my pink blanket flies off, my crib scoots across the floor as my umbilical cord reattaches, and I cry out as I'm sucked back between my mother's legs. She gets really fat again. Then back some more as a spoon stops swinging and a thermometer goes back into its velvet case. Sputnik chases its rocket trail back to the launching pad and polio stalks the land. There's a quick shot of my father as a twenty-year-old clarinetist, playing an Artie Shaw number into the phone, and then he's in church, age eight, being scandalized by the price of candles; and next my grandfather is untaping his first U.S. dollar bill over a cash register in 1931. Then we're out of American completely; we're in the middle of the ocean, the sound track sounding funny in reverse. A steamship appears, and up on a deck a lifeboat is curiously rocking; but then the boat docks, stern first, and we're up on dry land again, where the film unspoolls, back at the beginning...

Yes my friends, Eugenides just successfully described time backwards. Be amazed. This is one of the few books I've ever read that I wanted to read slowly just because it cut such a huge hole out of me I had to experience every little bit completely. This book covers the experience of three generations of Greek-Americans just to explain the experience of one person. One person who didn't fit the mold, but as we read about her we realize that no one really does. And that gender is just one part of a person and that we're all actually kind of messed up and don't fit.

I just don't know what to say to make you read this book. Just know that when I was finished I couldn't breathe, and when I was finished I wanted to read it again, and before I was even done with the book I knew it was in my top ten favorite books of all time. Just know that, and experience it for yourself.

I give this book an outstanding A.

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This week's Top Ten Tuesday at The Broke and Bookish is favorite book quotes. Luckily I have a lot of these! In no particular order:

1. "I had that terrible feeling you get when you realize that you're stuck with who you are, and there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, you can make characters up, like I did when I became like a Jane Austen-y person on New Year's Eve, and that gives you some time off. But it's impossible to keep it going for long." A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
2. "Sometimes, I look outside, and I think that a lot of other people have seen this snow before. Just like I think that a lot of other people have read those books before. And listened to those songs. I wonder how they feel tonight." The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
3. "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you." Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
4. "Sometimes I think that knowledge--when it's knowledge for knowledge's sake, anyway--is the worst of all. The least excusable certainly." Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
5. "It is simply wrong to love music halfway." Perfect From Now On by John Sellers (I love this book! I've never mentioned this on her before because I forgot but I really, really love this book!)
6. "And so now, having been born, I'm going to rewind the film, so that my pink blanket flies off, my crib scoots across the floor as my umbilical cord reattaches, and I cry out as I'm sucked back between my mother's legs. She gets really fat again. Then back some more as a spoon stops swinging and a thermometer goes back into its velvet case. Sputnik chases its rocket trail back to the launching pad and polio stalks the land. There's a quick shot of my father as a twenty-year-old clarinetist, playing an Artie Shaw number into the phone, and then he's in church, age eight, being scandalized by the price of candles; and next my grandfather is untaping his first U.S. dollar bill over a cash register in 1931. Then we're out of American completely; we're in the middle of the ocean, the sound track sounding funny in reverse. A steamship appears, and up on a deck a lifeboat is curiously rocking; but then the boat docks, stern first, and we're up on dry land again, where the film unspoolls, back at the beginning..." Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
7. "Youth and death shed a halo through which it is difficult to see a real face--a face one might see today in the street or here in my studio." Moments of Being by Virginia Woolf
8. "Everything she said was like a secret voice speaking straight out of my own bones." The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
9. "If I broke down here, what would that mean/ Was I not as strong as my father had been?/ But I think I can fight this all on my own/ With a handful of happiness that never was shown/" The Doctor's Waiting Room by Joshua Partington, Part of the anthology Revolution on Canvas
10. "Buy why think about that when all the golden land's ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?" On the Road by Jack Kerouac

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

One of the first words students of the Spanish language learn is “vamos” (let’s go). Here in Ecuador (and I suspect many other Latin countries) “vamos” is pretty much a way of life. By that I mean that many (most) things are done on the spur of the moment, without much planning. People will take an idea or suggestion and run with it, dropping everything else along the way. For example, the other day I idly mentioned to Lucho that the door between the kitchen and the dining area served no useful purpose and that it might be a good idea to remove it. He agreed with me and then said “do you want me to take it out right now?” Or when I ask someone what they are planning to do for the day, half the time they’ll tell me and then say “vamos, do you want to come with me?” This means that plans change in an instant and on any given day I’ll end up doing about 10 things that I never expected to do.

I’ve given up telling Merry what our plans are more than a few hours in advance because invariably something changes and we don’t end up doing what she was looking forward to doing. And I’m not the only one who does this. Sometimes I think that people are being extremely vague, or even evasive, about what they are up to, but the reality is that they may have a goal in mind, but they just don’t know if they will be able to accomplish it anytime soon.

Sometimes it is hard for me adjust to this because I am a planner at heart. I’m the kind of person who likes to make a list of things to do at the beginning of the day and cross them off as they get done. I still make my lists (at least mentally) but I scale back on the things I want to do, and if I don’t get something done, oh well, maybe it will get done another day. In the meantime I may get some things accomplished that I hadn’t planned on getting done that day. I have learned to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. So for example, if the cell phone company calls and tells us that we have to do something in their office downtown, I’ll also find something else to do while I’m there, like checking our P.O. Box or buying some paper at the bookstore.

As you can imagine, partly because of this “last minute” culture, the passage of time is viewed a little differently here. People often arrive late, and many things take much longer than originally planned; but it is all much more accepted than it would be in the States. Of course, this varies depending on the person and some people are much more difficult to pin down than others. For example, one of Lucho’s sisters is notorious for showing up hours late or not getting things done on time. She is also extremely busy because she works two jobs and is involved in many other endeavors. That means that there are many opportunities for her to be “detoured” into something new. So everyone knows that if she says she is going to be somewhere “right away” it will be at least an hour. If she says “1/2 hour” it may be a couple of hours, and if she says “one hour” well, we might as well wait until the next day!

Also, everyone seems to take on new projects quickly (“vamos!”, let’s do it!), without as much preparation as I’m used to. If an opportunity presents itself, they take it, be it something small like going over to a friend’s house for coffee after running into them on the street or something big like trying to buy the apartment next door because it happens to be for sale, or starting in on a new business because a friend needs some investment cash (and by the way we need the money tomorrow). Projects are dropped just as quickly too. So someone can spend all evening discussing the perfect undertaking with you. Lots of plans will be made and future meetings scheduled. Everyone will part full of energy and enthusiasm for the next steps. Then, inexplicably, you will never hear from that person ever again. Someone else got to them and “vamos” they’re off to the next venture.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

• Grab your current read


• Open to a random page


• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)


• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week comes from Babydoll

by Allyson Roy:

"We were out looking for an old coffee can with some dead person's hair inside it when we ran into this guy smoking a joint who invited us into the wrong house, whereupon I clogged up his toilet, and you decided to lift three semi-automatics, twenty-one thousand in cash, and four bags of powder. And, let's not forget I'm the sister of a convicted serial killer."

Check back tomorrow for my review of Babydoll

!

What's your teaser this week?

VIA Take Steps for Crohn's & Colitis Walk

I was trying to decide on a book pick for this weeks Memory Monday, when I got to thinking about my earliest memories of books I had actually read and finished myself. And other than picture books, which I've mentioned before, the earliest book I remember reading to myself was Bill Brittain's All the Money in the World. We read it for class in 1st or 2nd grade and I remember being interested in how the author made everything so literal.

Here, I'm about to show you how weirdly specific my memory can be. Keep in mind that I read this book over 15 years ago as a very small child.

So, the main character gets a wish granted. I don't remember why, or who grants the wish (a genie maybe? Isn't it always a genie?) Being a young boy, he wishes for all the money in the world. So he gets it. In his backyard. Pretty sure there was a Scrooge McDuck moment in there, where he goes swimming in it, but I might be mistaken. He even had Japanese money and he's crazy excited to go out and spend all him new money.

So, also being a young boy, he decided to buy an ice cream. But, when he gets there, and tries to spend the money, it goes into the cash register, but vanished right back out. This means our poor boy can't have his ice cream and he starts realizing maybe his wish was a little bit rash & somehow, he refinds this genie who I think only wanted to teach him a lesson anyway, and he gives back all the world's money. (This is about where, as this little elementary school kid I decided it would be much, much better to just wish to have exact change in your pocket, and then always wear jeans).

Not gonna lie, I'm kinda proud I remember all that from my earliest years in school.:)