Why I love living in the country

This was the view out of my front door one evening last week. It was right at dusk and the beautiful full moon was peeking it's way up to light the night. I love living in the country where I can sit on the porch in the evenings with a cup of coffee or glass of iced tea and read a good book while the coyotes are howling in the far pasture and cottontails are running around the pasture in front of our home. I love watching them and they have all figured out that our dogs are in no way a threat to them since they are both on the other side of the fence so they will run around while the dogs are out chasing grasshoppers in the front yard. These are the kinds of things that make me appreciate my home and to not mind the 25 miles I have to drive to go work or to just about any kind of civilization.

2008 Fall into Reading Challenge

I am so excited to be starting my first reading challenge. Thanks Katrina for giving us such a great challenge!

My lists of TBRs for fall are

1. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett Completed *** stars

2. The Navigator by Clive Cussler

3. Nighttime Is My Time by Mary Higgins Clark Completed ****

4. Body Double by Tess Gerritsen

5. Life Support by Tess Gerritsen

6. Deep Storm by Lincoln Child Completed ****

7. The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards Completed ***

8. Map of Bones by James Rollins

9. Midwives by Chris Bohjalian Completed ***

10. The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve

11. Table For Five by Susan Wiggs Completed ***

Book Review~ Edgewise by Graham Masterton

I liked this book. It is in the horror genre and while it did not make me want to sleep with the lights on, it was creepy.

It is the story of Lily Blake who is a real estate agent and single mother. She awakens one night to a sound from the downstairs area of her home. She goes downstairs to investigate and is attacked by 2 crazed lunatics from a father's rights group, they try to burn her alive and then kidnap her 2 children. She amazingly survives the fire with little damage to her body or her home, unfortunately she is unable to locate her children even with the help of the FBI. She learns of an American Indian tracker who may be able to help her locate them but he requires a heavy price that she agrees to but is unable to deliver. In return for the price of a small piece of land that he wants he calls the Wendingo, an Indian forest spirit who tracks down those who were involved in harming her and kidnapping her children. They die in a gruesome and violent way, this is one of the horror aspects of the book. Her children are returned to her and she has to admit to the tracker that she is unable to meet his price. He is not happy about that and in turn sends the Wendingo to kill those close to her in the hopes that she will come through with the deed to the land. It is a suspenseful ending to a thrill ride of a book. I will not give the ending away her but I will recommend this book to those who like a good scare and a quick read.

I give this book a solid 4 stars out of 5.

Book Review ~ Shock by Robin Cook

What an incredible waste of time! I am normally a Robin Cook fan but this book was a complete waste of my time. I don't know what I am more irritated by, that the book was so terrible or that I continued to read hoping to find a point that it became better.

The plot of the story was promising. Two Harvard coeds answer an ad in the college newspaper for egg donors at a local infertility clinic. The pay is outstanding, $45,000 per donation. They decide to spend part of it on a trip to Italy to complete their doctorate thesis and use the rest of the money as a down payment for the purchase of an apartment in Boston. (That should have been a clue that the book was going downhill- $90,000 before taxes and they were going to be able to support themselves for over a year and to put a down payment on a pricey apartment in Boston, they must have some great accounting skills). They return from their trip after 1 1/2 years and decide to find out what happened to their donated eggs. Even though they had been at the clinic less than 2 years earlier they both decide to go undercover and break into the computer system to get the information on their eggs. With amazing ease they are able to find the names of 2 recently deceased woman close to their age and they waltz into the hall of records and get copies of the death certificates for a whopping $6.00 each, using the death certificates for the social security numbers of the dead women, they go to a local bank, with NO identification (granted this was written before 9-11 but banks still requested ID for an account) to open a savings account with a total of $20 each. The bank clerk asked for ID and then tells them when they don't have it, not to worry about it, just bring it in tomorrow. They then apply for jobs at the infertility clinic, under the new aliases with disguised appearances and of course they tell the personnel dept that they are Harvard grads but once again never have to show ID or proof of their degrees.

They soon discover that the clinic is doing all sorts of cloning experiments on both humans and animals and that they are using a group of South American women as human incubators for fetuses to be aborted at 20 weeks and used for the ovaries of the female fetuses. The story gets so far fetched that it is hard to even paraphrase it. The women are discovered and a chase through the building and the grounds that houses the clinic ensues. The building was also a TB sanitarium and an insane asylum at different times in it's history so the chase is throughout the building that includes autopsy suites and iron lungs along with a spooky sub basement. It felt as though the author got tired of the story at the end because the ending was even worse than the rest of the book. It was rushed and left the reader with no resolved endings.

My advise is to skip this book, your time is more valuable than this book. :)

On a scale of 5 stars, I would only give this 1/2 star.

Coffee and rainy mornings

I love rainy days, especially rainy mornings. I have my lovely cup of French Vanilla roast coffee and since I have not baked any scones I am enjoying a Double Stuffed Chocolate Oreo cookie. I gazillion calories per cookie but wowsa wowsa they are sooooooo good. You know you just can't go wrong when you start your day with coffee and chocolate.

Woo Hoo! I am going to be a Grammy again!

My sweet one and only daughter called me over the weekend to tell me the good news that she and her boyfriend are expecting their first child. They have been together for about three years and had planned on waiting to have children but this was a wonderful surprise for all of us. She had taken a home pregnancy test on Saturday which came up positive and she went to the Dr today for an official test and of course it was positive also. She is guestemating a due date of the first part of April as of now. She will be going for her first actual prenatal appointment soon. She is so excited as am I. Grandchildren are such a blessing. I have 3 other granddaughters from my 2 sons, my oldest has 2 daughters and my youngest has 1 daughter. Maybe this time we will get a grandson but if not, well granddaughters are absolutely wonderful too :D .

I can't hardly wait to start purchasing books for the wee one's library. :)