Sunday Salon – July 26

Happy Sunday everyone!

It’s been a chaotic couple of weeks in Galleysmithland. My mom (and her neurotic dog) are here visiting from Florida for the month so I’ve not had the usual weekend blogging time.  I’m trying to be productive but, yea, not so much.  Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

I’m going to try and highlight a few things here today in the hopes of giving a small status report.  So without further ado here is Galleysmith’s last few weeks in a nutshell:

Galleysmith Re-design
I got a brand spankin’ sparkly new look to my blog and my Twitter page.

**preens**

If you’re checking this post out through a feed reader may I suggest you click through to see how pretty I am now?  I hope you like it! I contracted the design through a company called Better in Pink and I have to say that Maddie and her programmer Clemente did a super fantabulous job!  Let me tell you, it was no small feat on their part either because I’m not easy to please.  They showed increadible patience with my continued feedback and inquiries, were super timely, beyond accommodating and tremendously professional.

I gotta say, if you are every looking to get a theme Better in Pink is the way to go for sure!

BBAW

If you haven’t heard about Book Blogger Appreciation Week by now check out my post of last week (Book Blogger Appreciation Week and You) explaining exactly what the event is about and how to get involved.  I’m all registered and I’ll be putting together my nominations to submit this week.  Remember, you can enter your nominations through the deadline of August 15th so go show your favorite blogs and bloggers some love!

The Literary Road Trip

The outpouring of support for my Literary Road Trip feature has been amazing.  From participating bloggers signing up to publishers and publicists reaching out to offer up suggestions it’s just been a most gratifying experience.  I myself am going to be covering the DC area and I’ve already got a few books lined up to focus on.

In case you may have missed it The Literary Road Trip is a local author spotlight.  Bloggers from near and far have signed up to showcase their hometowns by featuring it’s authors on their blogs then allowing me to link to those postings here on Galleysmith.  Each Sunday (you’ll see it later today) I’ll be creating a Road Map that provides links to all the posts provided so that all our readers can travel near and far together.

The Harry Potter Reading Challenge

If you aren’t aware of what exactly this challenge entails check out my Harry Potter Reading Challenge introductory post.  I’ve listed the particulars there and would love to have you all join in if you haven’t already!

WOO HOO approximately 56 people have signed up to participate!  I’m super thrilled that so many have found their way here and have decided to join me. According to my records it also looks like 16 of you have linked up kick off or other posts.  I hope to get to comment on them today but just in case time gets away please know that I appreciate your participation and can’t want to spend our Harry Potter time together.

Lastly, a participant asked if there was a button available so I scaled down the image I created for the intro post and added it above.  Feel free to save it and use it as much as you like.

Notable and Newsworthy
There were some great discussions and industry tidbits that happened around the blogosphere this week.  If you haven’t had the opportunity to see them yet please visit the following:

Borders Ink Launches, Aimed at Teens [FiledBy Blog]

Don’t Judge a Book By It’s Cover [A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy]

A Pile of Guilt, Do you Fret Over Your TBR’s? [Book, Line and Sinker]

Book Banning is So 1642 [bookalicio.us]

Blog Neglect and Reviews [Books on the Brain]

Awards

Laura from I’m Booking It has sweetly awarded me the Friendly Blogger Award.  I strongly encourage you to check out her blog she (and it) is great!

In turn I award this to the following lovely ladies who have welcomed me into the book blogging community with open arms:

BethFishReads [Beth]
Jennsbookshelf [Jenn]
Pop Culture Junkie [Alea]
1330V [Natasha]
MyFriendAmy [Amy]

Admittedly, I’m not a huge fan of award giving (though I am supremely grateful) mainly because I always feel guilty for not awarding something to everyone.  Each and every person I follow on Twitter or subscribe to in my feedreader is worthy of mention but I can’t really put a list that long out there.  So, know that even though I’ve chosen the ladies above to receive this award please remember I hold ALL of you dear.

Tag I’m It!
This is the scary portion of the post. Well, if you don’t already consider the length of it to be horrifying that is.  The lovely Debbie from Debbie’s World of Books has tagged me in her State of my TBR and What’s on My Desk post.  I jokingly told her that I was afraid for people to see it all but alas, I will give you all a taste of what it is my desk, work space and TBR pile look like.  Pass at your own risk, LOL

This is a long shot of my desk….not too bad right?

The books piled on it were so I could take a picture for a post that will go up tomorrow related to books purchased, won and given to me from various resources.

This is a close up of the right side on it you can see my webcam, scanner, and hard drive for backing up all my files. I’ve got the cord for my iPod and the cordless mouse for my PC laptop that’s obsured by the books in the previous image.  There are also two pictures that you’ll see better in the next pic.

The picture below shows the middle of the desk so behold my monitor, a pair of scissors, a few cute alien shaped stickie note pads, a couple of tiny notebooks for my purse, my sun glasses, and a few pictures.  The one you can only see half of is a picture of my dog Bear (RIP) sticking her tongue out at me.  I’ll have to post the original if I can find it.  It’s my favorite. There is a second picture of her directly below it and then to the right a pic of my niece Shelby with the aforementioned neurotic dog my mom has with her. haha

Now before anyone gets all “wow you really are tidy in your workspace” I’m going to pan to the right of my desk:

This would be the catchall corner where all my office supplies, printers, bags, and general piles of crap go.  Clearly it needs some work. haha

Lastly, here is a picture of my bookcase in which you can see much of my TBR pile.  I’ve opened the glass doors so you avoid the glare from the flash hitting it.  I’d say that about 10% of what is in there has actually been read.  Yet I still continue to add to it.  I know….I have a problem.

So that’s about it for the past couple of weeks.  I’ve got a couple of new ideas for features percolating so I’ll be working on this some this week.  Hopefully I’ll get a couple of announcements for you soon.  Have a great week all