Laura’s Comments (group member since Nov 04, 2015)

Laura’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

It’s up to you. For me, it helps to settle all the books churning in my brain. But I’ll have others I don’t add until I finish them. Do what works for you.

When it comes to the mini-challenges it would be helpful if you could tell us as you start reading something for a task, so no one else picks something up for the same task.

Jenny wrote: "Erin *Proud Book Hoarder* wrote: "I am not familiar with the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, so if this is true, it definitely is a fact I would not have recognized."

I am familiar with that myt..."

I felt stupid when he pointed it out, too!

Adding to the drugs/herbs/depression conversation, my child who is on antidepressants just piped up and said, "Guess what most drugs are made from?" And that's not entirely true, but a lot of drugs do have a base that stems from something in nature.

One of my other kids pointed out that antidepressants don't cure depression. They help, especially combined with therapy.

It's been awhile since I read the original trilogy. I just read the prequel back in November in time to go see the movie. What always comes to mind when I think about these books is an interview I read with Rick Riordan. He was asked about these books and he was astonished that people didn't realize it's a retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. As someone who hadn't realized that, it did affect the way I see it now.

You can log your books in the Round 1 sheet. You’ll know you’re in the right spot when you see a long list of books people have added as planned to read.

There are 2 spreadsheets. Only captains edit the official team spreadsheet, but we have a tracking/planning spreadsheet, linked in my first comment in the thread. You can add your books there. If you prefer not to use a spreadsheet, you can do a completion post in here and we’ll add it for you.

It starts in 19 hours. I don’t know the time zones, but there is a countdown on the Summary page of the spreadsheet. If you calculate 19 hours from whatever your time is now, you’re good. It’s 5 in the morning for me.

I always have my Kindle in airplane mode to save battery, and have been known to leave it that way to protect a book. But I once had an audiobook from the library that was due back about an hour sooner than I would be finished. I put my phone in airplane mode, and I still lost the book at the time it was due!

Just about 37 hours left until we start!

There is a countdown to the start of each round and each mini-challenge in our spreadsheet. It's on the summary page.

Preeti wrote: "MelanieJoy wrote: "@Preeti I'm thinking about it but I don't have the books yet. I was going to do a free month audible trial to knock out both, but I was nervous to commit to DQs if I'm slow at ca..."

I knew, but writing the discussion questions is not my thing. But I do read them if they seem at all interesting and reply to the questions others write. :)

Fallyn Nichole wrote: "Laura wrote: "That must be interesting to do with all those cats. And with a teenager. My oldest is starting school in the summer with travel nurse being her end goal. What would you tell someone j..."

Thanks! I passed that along to her. My mom is an ER nurse, so she was telling us that my daughter needs the 5 years experience. It's good to know that that generally isn't a requirement anymore.

Yes! We’re all here.

Fallyn Nichole wrote: "Hi Y'all! I'm Fallyn, I live in NE Pennsylvania with my teenage son and our 10 cats. I work as a travel nurse so I tend not to have a set schedule and often end up in areas with poor internet conne..."

That must be interesting to do with all those cats. And with a teenager. My oldest is starting school in the summer with travel nurse being her end goal. What would you tell someone just starting out? Or what advice would you give?

I'll be reading as well from The Capitol! I've got the audio from the library.

Claire wrote: "Sorry to hear Laura. I hope it’s nothing too serious and that it’ll be an easy fix."

It's older, so everyone is telling us to hit the cellanoid (probably spelled wrong) with a rubber mallet. But we can't find it, and we can't find good videos to help us, so we're getting it towed to the mechanic. Even if hitting it worked, it would have to go to the mechanic to be replaced. It would just be easier if we could drive it there.

But it should be relatively easy for them to diagnose/fix, and not terribly expensive. Just time sucking.

I was looking forward to doing some book planning this afternoon, but I've got to deal with a car that won't start instead. :(

As a follow-up to Yasmine’s post, they can be read at any time during the challenge, and then participation gets extra points.

Plan away! When I sort the unfinished books don’t get in the way, so go for it.

My post about the spreadsheet should have included that if you are not comfortable using it, a completion post in here is fine and we will take care of it.

If you do use the spreadsheet, no completion post is necessary. When I go to update, I will sort the spreadsheet by date read. And we have those handy checkboxes for us captains that tell us if we’ve looked at it yet.

Hey team! The tracking/planning spreadsheet is linked in the 4th comment of this thread, but here it is again.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

I think we've got it set how we want it, but since no plan survives first contact with the enemy, if we find something isn't working for us, we can change it.

We have 4 columns, labeled Weapons, Shelter, Food, Defense. I'm assuming that many books will work in more than one spot. So just put all the categories your book works for, and the captains/co-captains will assign them as it seems best, once we begin to see strategy.

Feel free to start adding books, but remember that we can't START reading until the start of the challenge.

Claire wrote: "I'm also planning to read . Would a sunshade count as shelter?"

If it can be creatively justified, we can use it. That one looks like it works to me. And maybe we could use the sunshade for defense, as well.