Sunday Salon 19 - READ-A-THON!!!!!

I'm utterly ashamed to admit this, but I'm plagiarizing my own posts--if you remember my Sunday Salon on Why I Love the Read-a-thon, some of this will look familiarish. If you're new--yippee for hopefully unfamiliar material from me. :) Life has just been too hectic this week to stress about coming up with an entirely new post. And yes, everything is fine. Life is great. Just busy. You know how that goes.

So, without further ado.

What is the read-a-thon? The 24-hour Read-a-thon is just that--an excuse to read for 24 hours guilt free. A few years ago, Dewey from The Hidden Side of the Leaf hosted the first blogging read-a-thon. If memory serves correctly, this is the fifth read-a-thon. Dewey passed away nearly a year ago, but the read-a-thon now lives on in her memory.

Who participates? Anyone! Although I'm guessing the participant list is mostly made up of bloggers, I've seen a lot of bloggers talking about their family members who are joining them. Really, it's a great event for everyone. A great excuse to read!

How do you participate? Well, by reading silly goose! For 24 hours. Ok, you don't have to read for the full 24 hours, and you don't even need to stay up for the full 24 hours--your level of participation is up to you! There are lots of mini-challenges to participate in and of course lots of readers to cheer for when you need a break from the book. The first step is going to the read-a-thon website and signing up.

Where do you participate? At home, at the coffee shop, in the park, in the car (audio?), at the library. Really any place you can read a book. Although, access to a computer is really helpful. The start times for the 'thon are listed on the read-a-thon website.

Why should you participate? Because it's good old fashioned fun. No seriously! When my friend Laura asked me to do the read-a-thon with her two summers ago I told her "that doesn't sound like fun at all." Oh my gosh how wrong I was! I signed up for the 'thon that day and had the time of my life. I'm addicted. Hooked. Can't get enough. It is more fun that you can possibly imagine. Haha! Plain silly no sleep drink too much Mountain Dew and eat too much sugar kind of fun.

Need more convincing? (yes, this might be the longest post ever).

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Trish's Top 10 Reasons to Join (Shamelessly taken from previously mentioned post)

1. Being able to reenact those teenaged years when you could stay up for 24 hours with no worries

2. Reading and blogging for 24 hours without the guilt that you should be doing something else

3. Meeting and connecting with other bloggers all over the world who are doing the same crazy thing you are

4. Mini-challenges: a great way to give your brain a rest after a long stretch of reading

5. Snacks. Junk food. Caffeine. Whatever your poison, I know I'm not the only one who stores up on yummy foods to eat throughout the day and night

6. Remembering Dewey, the fabulous blogger who started this incredible community builder two years ago

7. Reading for a cause--I'm not sure how I'll work it out this time, but I'll be donating to The Salvation Army

8. It's the silliest fun one could possibly imagine that involves reading and blogging (yes, you know I'll be posting that Harry Potter Puppets video--it has been requested again)

9. Accomplishing what you thought was impossible--reading more than you expected and staying up later than imaginable

10. Hours of cuddle time with your favorite cuddle-buddy (for me, Maggie)

Yippeeeeeeeee!!

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Read-a-thon Tips (yes, again shameless taken...forgive me but the original post was just so...well, I can't say it any better now than I did then!)

The Books:

**Keep a stack of books handy. If something doesn't catch your attention immediately you can quickly move on to something else

**Pick books that are short and don't require a ton of attention. Put that War and Peace back on the shelf...right now! Eva has created a big long list of books that are sure to keep you reading through the wee hours.

**Include some Young Adult titles in your stack--they provide a perfect break from heavier reads and they are sure to keep your full attention. (Tip from Laura)

Before the Read-a-thon:

**Either pre-prepare some meals or have quick and easy things on hand. Don't want to spend time cooking! (Hence all the yummy snacks--Jodie suggests a combination of sweet and salty snacks for variety)

**If you will be doing blog updates (which I recommend!!), make a template beforehand so you can just plug in numbers and quickly post

**Get all of your weekend obligations like cleaning out of the way early. You'll be too tired on Sunday unless you are a superhero (which I don't doubt some of you are).

**Let people (friends/family) know ahead of time that you'll be participating in a 24-hour read-a-thon so that they don't think you fell off the face of the earth when they try to get ahold of you (tip from Joanne

**Laura and I created a spreadsheet to help us keep track of minutes and pages--very handy! We also have a column for the hour, our time zone, and the read-a-thon time zone, time spent blogging, mini-challenges entered, bloggers visited, etc.

During the Read-a-thon:

**Don't overload on the caffeine. While in small doses it can be OK, it might make you jittery and then crash. Especially if you aren't used to it.

**Take some time out of your reading to join a mini-challenge or do some cheerleading. If you spend the whole 24 hours reading you'll certainly get a lot accomplished, but you'll miss out on the community building aspect.

**Don't torture yourself. If you can't make it anymore, go to bed!

**Keep your camera charged and handy so you can include fun pictures of you, your books, your cat, your food, your reading spot, etc. (Tip from Laura)

(please fill me in with your tips, too!! I'd love to add them to the list)

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The Stack:

Yes, it's teetering. And as I was trying to snap the picture I noticed I had the camera on video setting. It's a short video, but you can tell Maggie approves:

What is YOUR favorite part of the read-a-thon? Any special memories? What are your fears? What tips do you have to share? Have I twisted your arm and convinced you to join or did you already sign up weeks ago? Read-a-thon!Read-a-thon!Read-a-thon! :D

Yayyyy Read-a-thon! Sign up here. And please, also sign up to cheerlead. Cheerleading is SO vital. Readers need cheerleaders. And you can totally do both--I will be!

Other Trish tidbits:

Today is the last day to sign up for the signed copy of The Lace Reader

I started up cake decorating class again. We spent so much time prepping the cake that I didn't actually get a lot of decorating done, but the orange blobs are lions (done at the end when I was beat tired), the gray are elephants (my favorites) and the green are crocodiles. I took it to work and it got devoured. Not the best work I could have done but it sure was yummy (I think you can click to enlarge).

My apologies for being a lousy blogger lately. I did get three posts up this week but none of them were book reviews. Part of me is kind of embarrassed by this but I have been having a tough time keeping up. I've been subscribing to a lot of blogs lately but the drawback of this is that I can't comment as much on everyone's blogs. I'm struggling with trying to figure out if it's better to comment a lot at a few places or a little at a lot of places. And I've been terrible with emails and responding to comments on this blog. I really really want to get back to commenting back, but I'm having troubles lately. Please know I love getting your comments and I read all of them even if I don't respond quickly (or lately at all). I fear that people will think that I've snubbed them for not responding or for not visiting and that's the last thing I want. How do you keep up? Or do you even worry about it?

Sorry for the world's longest post. I had a lot to say, I guess. Well, and I'm just so damn excited for the 'thon. I really need this. I haven't been making time for reading the past few months, so it will be great to have a whole 24 hours devoted to it.

Hoping you had a great weekend,