Month: February 2018

Just Finished…

Hello!

Just finished another mystery thriller called
Two Girls Down by Louisa Luna.

From Amazon:
 When two young sisters disappear from a strip mall parking lot in a small Pennsylvania town, their devastated mother hires an enigmatic bounty hunter, Alice Vega, to help find the girls. Immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts, Vega enlists the help of a disgraced former cop, Max Caplan. Cap is a man trying to put the scandal of his past behind him and move on, but Vega needs his help to find the girls, and she will not be denied.  With little to go on, Vega and Cap will go to extraordinary lengths to untangle a dangerous web of lies, false leads, and complex relationships to find the girls before time runs out, and they are gone forever.

This book kept my attention and read it fairly quickly. I really liked the Vega and Cap characters and I think the author will write more books with these investigators. I also enjoyed the mother, Jamie, of the two young girls that disappeared…she knows she isn’t the best mom and feels like they are a burden at times, but we watch her go through all the emotions and devastation when her girls disappear. Overall, it’s a great read and would recommend it to all that like a good mystery thriller.

The things that lower my 5 star rating to a 4 star rating is that there are so many characters introduced and revisited it was difficult to remember who was who. You may want to keep a cheat sheet as a book mark!  When the mystery is solved, the book goes very dark and I didn’t see that ending coming at all, which is a good thing, but almost too far out in right field. Is the ending believable…yes, do that investigators need to go down all the routes to get to the ending, yes. It’s just that you will not see the ending coming at all. This book will definitely keep you guessing!

Overall, I would give this book a 4 out of 5 stars!

Who Remembers These?

Hello!

(I found this little story in my draft file…never posted, but so relatable!!)

I was riding with Sam in his car the other day and said, “You have a tape deck?!?!”

Sam: “I DO!! Listen to this!”

And he proceeded to fast forward (heehee) to a song, turn it up as loud as he could, so loud, his car shook. It shook in the way that when you are at a stop light and a car drives up beside you and you can hear their car music shaking the car type of thing.

“Wow,” I said,”that’s loud.”
Sam, “Isn’t it great!”

Then I officially realized…I am old, because the music was too loud.

Saving Teeth…

Hello!

I was cleaning out Jack’s room. Deep cleaning is always  interesting when getting deep into Jack’s room. All sorts of treasures can be found, including all his baby teeth. Some were in a special hidden spots, some where in baggies and pinned to his bulletin board.

But, this was the most interesting found tooth in a baggie. One that he lost while biting into a Starburst.

Most kids, I am guessing, would have pulled the tooth out of the Starburst, but not Jack. Was I surprised? Nope.

What did I do with this found treasure…I but it back in the baggie and put it with the rest of his teeth.

(I do not judge Jack keeping his baby teeth. I, too, saved teeth. Including my basset hound’s baby dog teeth AND I scrapbooked them  after he would lose a tooth. I KNOW!! I’ve been scrapbooking forever!!)

Knitting Update…

Welcome Back!

I have found my new hobby, knitting,  relaxes me and helps me think. Well, with everything going on in the world, I have been knitting away!

My first “real” project is a scarf (What else would a new knitter knit?) and I have completed about a third of the wrap.

If you look closely, you can see a few oops! As I have read, beginner knitters are suppose to embrace their mistakes…they are gong to happen! So, just go with it!

So, I have embraced my mistakes: the holes, the loose stitches, the dropped stitches and a little lose yarn.

I am very excited about my progress and have tried to wrap the scarf around my neck. OH NO! The scarf was supper itchy due to the wool in the yarn. I can’t wear that…wool drives my skin crazy.

So, who’s going to be the lucky one to get a new wool scarf???

All for now…

As you can imagine, I have all sorts of thoughts and feelings about what happened in Florida.

I am sure if you have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews or any loved ones that go to school, This thought has passed through your mind at some point.😔

No automatic alt text available.

I wrote a long heart felt post, but will or will not share next week.

This is all I have to say for now.

Hmmm…

Hello!

Do you ever come across something in your  house that makes you say, “Hmmm…” I did the other day…

 Charlie’s dog collar…with a padlock on the bottom…hanging from a Command hook…Interesting.

“JACK!”

“So what’s up with this?”

“Mom…I am making different Escape Chambers in the house.”

Oh! Of course. Silly me. What else could it possibly be?

(I’m glad to report that no one has had to escape a chamber in our house due to this is as far as Jack’s planning has progressed. )

Just Finished…

Hello!

I just finished the book This Is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel.

I loved this story! It gave me all the feelings!
I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

I am going to share pieces of a review that I read due to the fact that it words my thoughst perfectly:
As Rosie and Penn’s fifth child, they had learned to take their children’s many quirks in stride. Claude is a sweet little boy, the youngest in his family of five boys. Claude is a happy well-adjusted, precocious child who knows what he wants. He wants to wear dresses, carry a purse for a lunchbox, play princess, and be a girl when he grows up. Rosie, Penn and his brothers want Claude to be happy with whoever he is, but there is no road map for how to do this. When it became apparent that Claude’s yearning was more than a phase, they didn’t panic as many parents might. Instead, Rosie and Penn did all they could to help Claude be the person he felt himself to be, Poppy. When it became too difficult in the small Wisconsin community where they lived, they moved their family to Seattle for a fresh start. I so loved the way the entire family took everything about Poppy in stride. Her brothers were amazingly off-handed about it, but never to the point where it didn’t ring true. Poppy was just another piece of their busy lives. Soon the whole family is keeping secrets to protect Poppy. Secrets too big to be secrets for long.

There is a part where Rosie and Claude/Poppy go to Thailand. (Not giving anything away.) I questioned this part of the book and thought it wasn’t really relevant, but…This section of the book helped me understand the hopelessness that Claude/Poppy felt. That last section allowed the reader to learn that transgender people are accepted in some cultures.(Earlier, Poppy even taught her parents about gender variations in some animals.) The Thai part showed that there are other issues much more critical in life and allowed Poppy/Claude to help others and thus gain strength and accept herself.

People Magazine’s Top 10 Books of 2017
Amazon’s Best Books of 2017: Top 20
Amazon’s Best Literature and Fiction of 2017
Bustle’s 17 Books Every Woman Should Read From 2017
PopSugar’s Our Favorite Books of the Year (So Far)
Refinery29’s Best Books of the Year So Far
BookBrowse’s The 20 Best Books of 2017
Pacific Northwest Book Awards Finalist
The Globe and Mail‘s Top 100 Books of 2017

Oops!

Welcome Back!

When I pick up Charlie’s poo in a poop bag (may be too much information) I  throw it into our “poop-bag bucket.”

Out poop bucket is beside our recycle bin, so instead of walking around to the bin, at times, I throw it over the bushes to see if I can hit the poop-bag bucket. No, you cannot see the bucket from where I toss the bag.

Here is the poop-bucket from the recycle bin side.  (NO it is NOT that full! It is full of frozen snow and that is why the bags are at the top!!)

The other day, I gave the bag a good toss and Oops..it got caught in the tree! (Oh Dear!!) How gross is that!?!?

Can you spot the yellow bag in the tree in the previous pictures? We will have to get it down…but not sure how. It’s strategically landed right over the bushes and as you can see, it’s caught on one of the higher branches.

Most would say, stop throwing that bags over the bushes.
I say, try aiming lower!