Well Hello Vacation....

I started my vacation err my staycation yesterday. It is so nice to have a little time off from work. I have been horribly lazy and just watched television, read and napped for 2 days. It has been wonderful :) . Hopefully tomorrow I will be more motivated to be a little more productive and get some housework done. I have a PhD from the school of Procrastination so I think that the chances are not all that high for the housework.

I have been watching The Voice on NBC and it has been so good. I have really enjoyed it. I am a big fan of Blake Shelton and he has been a hoot on it and seeing him perform has been a great too. He dueted with Brad Paisley tonight and wow-what a fun performance. I really like all the finalist, it is hard to pick who I want to win. They are all so diverse and talented I will happy to see any of them win. I love reality shows, they are my guilty pleasure. I am looking forward to Big Brother starting next week, now that is truly a guilty pleasure, it is a show without a single redeeming value but darn I love to watch it. LOL

I hope everyone's week is going great!

Those crazy Anthonys

Wow, what a day of bombshells in the Casey Anthony murder trial. I am so disappointed in Cindy Anthony. I really felt sorry for her during the prosecution's side of the trial but now I am seeing a different side of her. I think that she absolutely told her attorney that she thought Casey was guilty but she never ever thought that it would be made public. It seems like now that that information was out, she is trying to come up with a defense on her own to save her daughter. I don't believe for a minute that she made any of the google searches that she is claiming she did. Now the brother is on the stand talking about how no one in the family talked about Casey's pregnancy until a few days before the birth and he did not go the hospital when Caylee was born. That is all very strange....

On a more pleasant note...only 3 more work days until my vacation! WooHoo! I am not going anywhere, it will be a staycation but it will be nice not to have to work for almost 2 weeks. We are having a July 4th, well actually a July 3rd :) party, we have one every year and we cook out and the kids shoot off fireworks but this year we are in such a horrible drought that all the counties in our area have outlawed fireworks, both selling and shooting them so we will not be having fireworks but hopefully we will come up with something else for the kids to do. We are incorporating a 1st birthday party for our grandson, Spencer AKA Pookie :) so that will be fun.

Well, we are having another 100 degree + day here. I think this is the 19th one this month, this may be a record breaker. I sure feel sorry for those who are having to work out in the heat. Ugh...

I hope that it is cooler and nicer where you are today.

Hello Blog, it's been a while.....

Wow, 2 1/2 years since I blogged. I debated about whether to just delete this blog and start over but since it is already set up and running I took the easy way out and will just continue on. Hopefully I will manage to post a little more often than once every 2 years, LOL.

I have been sucked into the Casey Anthony trial on television like a moth to fire. I come home from work each morning and sit glued to the television watching forensic experts detailing everything from trash to botany. I have already decided that she killed her poor baby and am watching and hoping that the jury sees that also. I heard a report this morning that her parents have acknowledged that they don't think that she is innocent but that they don't want her to get the death penalty. I think it is pretty telling for her own parents to admit that they think that she did it. I do hope that she gets the death penalty. If she manages to get herself put on the witness stand, I am sure that she can talk herself into a trip to the "chamber" . The prosecution will have a field day with her. What do you think about the case?

Mermaids in the Basement

Michael Lee West

This is the story of a woman's return to her childhood home to find some family secrets. I loved the main characters in this book, they are strong southern women who all have an opinion on everything and they are all more than happy to share it with everyone. My only complaint about the book was that she added so many minor characters and they all had something to say or add and it made it hard to keep track of what or who was doing what. I read this book in one sitting starting in the morning and finishing that evening so it was not a big problem but I think that if I had read it in increments of time that it would have been hard to remember who was who. I do love the southern style that Michael Lee West writes with, her novels feel like a trip back to an old family home and leave me feeling like I have just sat on the veranda with a glass of cool lemonade.

Water for Elephants

Sara Gruen

This is book has become one of my all time favorite books. It was so beautifully written and was impossible for me to put down once I started it. I read it in a 2 day time span, it was memorizing. The author's depiction of the depression era circus life enabled me to connect to and really care about Jacob. I absolutely love this book and am going to recommend it to all of me friends that are also avid readers. I would definitely give it a 5 star rating on a scale of 1 to 5 stars.

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

Lorna Landvik

Holy guacamole, this book was wonderful. It was my favorite book of the year. It is the story of 5 women who become friends while living on the same street and the book club that they form. The novel covers from the 1960s to current time and tells of their friendships, their feuds, their joys and tragedies. It was so heartwarming that the characters are still vivid in my mind and I feel like they are 5 old friends who I could just pick up the phone and ring up to chat with. If you like novels of friendships and families then this is the book for you. It reminded me a lot of the Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood. I give it 5 stars.

Book Review ~ Table for Five by Susan Wiggs

This was a great quick read. It is the story Lily Robinson, an elementary school teacher whose best friend is killed along with her ex husband leaving three young children. Lily thinks that she will be appointed guardian to the children because her friend had told her that she wanted her to take the children if something happened to her, unfortunately, she dies before she discusses it with her ex husband and no official papers are ever filed. Sean MacGuire, the brother of the children's father is given custody of the children. He is a bachelor who has never had children but is willing to put his career as a PGA golfer on hold in order to concentrate on raising the children. Lily and Sean are drawn to each other through the tragedy and by the fact that each wants what is best for the children. Over the course of a summer vacation spent together, they find that they have grown to love and respect each other and that they are truly a family in need of a table for five.

I give this story a 3.5 star rating.

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. :)

Book Review: Hard Truth by Nevada Barr

This was a great book. I am a huge fan of Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon books. Anna is a national park ranger and each book takes place in a national park. Hard Truth is set in Rocky Mountain National Park. It is the story of three young girls who go missing in the park. After a massive search turns up no clues to the girls disappearance the search is closed. A month later two traumatized girls turn up at the camp site of a parapalegic woman and her aunt. The girls are too traumatized to be able to help find the third missing girl. One of the girls form a connection to Heath Jarrod, the paraplegic woman, and looks to her as her saviour. Heath feels responsible to help the young girl that affectionetly calls limpet.

Anna has newly transfered to the park as a district ranger and gets involved in trying to find out any information from the girls. She discovers that the girls are from a religious polygomous sect and that there are things that are amiss at the compound they live in. The "parents" are of no help and even in the initial searches the parents chose not to help search but instead had prayer vigils for the girls. The more Anna discovers the more the questions about what happened grow. Anna and Heath discover horrors and terror in the form of commune leader and a serial killer that Anna has dealt with before.

This book is a full of suspense and pschological twists and turns. I recommend it to anyone who likes a good suspense thriller.

Review: A Place Called Here

A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern

Cecelia Ahern is an Irish author that writes truly wonderful novels. A Place Called Here is the story of Sandy Shortt, she has been obsessed with finding things since she was 10 years old and her childhood rival who lived across the street vanished without a trace. Sandy can't concentrate on anything else when something goes missing, she turns her entire home upside down looking for the item. Her parents help her search but they become more and more concerned and arrange for Sandy to begin seeing a councilor when she is a teenager. As Sandy gets older she continues to search for the missing. She joins the "Guard", (which appears to be the Irish police) and begins to work for the missing persons division. She continues to work for them for a few years and then opens her own missing persons agency. She is hired by Jack Ruttle to search for his missing younger brother. While searching for Jack's brother Sandy goes for a run in the forest and finds herself in a mystical land where anyone and anything that goes missing ends up. She finds people that she has searched for in the the past, items that she has lost and a society that has developed by those who also ended up in the place called Here.

I really enjoyed this book. Ahern blends the mystical magic so seamlessly into the story that it does not feel like a fairy tale even though after finishing the story, I felt that I had read a fairy tale. The characters are endearing and linger in your thoughts afterwards. I rate this story a solid 4 stars out of 5.