Its Monday! What are you reading? From Pictures Books to YA

Its Monday!  What are you reading?  From Picture Books to YA is a weekly feature hosted by Jen and Kellee of Teach Mentor Texts and inspired by Its Monday!  What are you reading by Sheila at Book Journeys.

Here's what happened last week:
August 27:  Its Monday! post
August 31:  Using Pinterest in School:  My "Back to School" board

I'm still listening to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on audio.  I was worried last week that I'd get to "that part" aka "when Dumbledore dies" (spoiler, sorry) while I was driving to work and I'd get really emotional.  But, I was able to listen to "that part" on my way home and to be honest, I didn't get emotional.  I think that I could distance myself from that part and not listen as closely, but you can't really do that when reading "that part" or watching "that part" on the movie.

I'm not a Starbucks junkie, in fact, I've been "off" caffeine for almost 8 weeks.  I found that it wasn't affecting me (I was actually falling asleep while drinking soda/coffee/sweet tea from McDonalds while on our trip), and I just thought that I don't need this or the empty sugar calories anymore.  But I digress.... Aaron and I stopped at Starbucks today on our way to dropping him off at work (I got a frozen hot chocolate...YUM!)  At the register, you know they have those free download of the week cards.  This week's free download is an ebook!  And not just any ebook---Artemis Fowl!

As you can imagine, I was really excited.  And apparently, you can only take one.  I'm downloading it as soon as I'm done writing :)

Also, with my school starting, I thought I'd share my first couple of read alouds.  My first read aloud will be

followed by Wonder, The Other Half of my Heart (maybe, if I can find it at the library & they let me check it out long enough!), The One and Only Ivan and then Where the Red Fern Grows.

You may have seen on twitter people tweeting their #schooljoy.  If you haven't, its a way to celebrate something happy or positive that happened at school that day.  Too often, we focus on the negative rather than the postitive.  Jen Fountain (@jennann516) started a tumblr (schooljoy.tumblr.com) as a platform to share, and I thought post my #schooljoy's on here too.  You can participate just by tweeting, blogging, submitting to the tumblr, or posting on facebook your #schooljoy (make sure you use the # so others can see it!)

This week's planned posts:
September 3:  This post
September 4:  Happy first day of school ; #schooljoy
September 5:  Deep Thoughts on Harry Potter: Book 6; #schooljoy
September 6:  I'm on the Nerdy Book Club blog; #schooljoy
September 7:  An oldie but a goodie:  Where the Red Fern Grows; #schooljoy

What are you reading?