MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

More Books

I just found the first half of this post in draft form. I had written it and then forgot to post it. Since then I had read several more books so I added those to the post and now I'm finally posting it.

Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs

In this book Tempe Brennan has put her vacation on hold to investigate charred remains and black residue from a plane crash There are also some mysterious bones found on a farm. Are they human or animal? Are the bones and the plane crash linked together? Another page turner, but not my favourite Kathy Reichs book.

Twenty Wishes by Debbie Macomber

This book centers around the owner of a book store on Bloom Street. Several widows get together on Valentine's day to celebrate...hope. They each begin a lost of twenty wishes, things they always wanted to do but never did. Anne Marie, the owner of the book store, has 'doing good for someone else' as one of her wishes. This wish leads to her being involved with a little girl at the local elementary school.

True Blue by Luanne Rice

This is about veterinarian Rumer Larkin. She has never left her home town, even after everyone she loved left. Now her childhood love returns to the village with his son. The question is whether they can rekindle what they had or is it too late?

Witch Season-summer and fall by Jeff Mariotte

It wasn't until I was almost at the end of this book that I realized there had to be more. A quick google told me that I had just read the first 2 books in a 4 book collection. This book is very different. It's about a bunch of college kids that stumble into the lives of a bunch of witches. Kerry Proffit, one of the students finds a stranger lying half-dead on their doorstep. His name is Daniel Blessing and he is on the hunt for a witch named Season. Whether they like it or not, these six teenagers are stuck in the middle of a deadly feud. Took a while to get into this book, but turned out to be pretty good. Now I have to try and find books 3 and 4.

Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs

A house under renovation with a forgotten cellar. A plumber finds animal and human remains, cauldrons and religious artifacts. Then a boys torso, carved with a pentagram, is found nearby. Panic over Satanism and devil worship has the citizens on a witch hunt. To Tempe Brennan nothing is cut and dried about the case. At the same time she is trying to decide whether to move on from her departed lover, Andrew Ryan. As usual, a good read, although it tends to get a bit technical (boring) in parts.

Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark

A 21 year old university senior walks out of his Manhattan apartment without a work to his roommates and disappears. He calls his mother once a year, on Mother's Day, but refuses to answer her frantic questions. When he calls this year his sister, now 26, tells him she intends to track him down no matter what. She reconnects with his old roommates to try and find out what happened to him. It keeps you guessing to the end. Another good mystery by MHC.

Faces of Fear by John Saul

Fifteen year old Alison Shaw isn't beautiful but she doesn't care. She'd rather be reading a book than primping in front of the mirror. But her mother, Risa, knows that beauty can be the key to success. Risa marries widowed plastic surgeon Conrad Black. Conrad claims that he can turn Alison into a vision of loveliness, so she agrees to have the first procedure. Then Alison finds a picture of his first wife and she realises that he is trying to make her over to look like his dead first wife. Her mother refuses to acknowledge the similarities. As Alison continues to dig into her stepfathers murky past she discovers dark secrets and dark motives. This is another good read from John Saul and keeps you turning the pages to see what is going to happen next.

Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy

The Ryan family, Kate and John, and there 4 children live in a small town in Ireland. The children play in the ruins of Fernscourt, the great house that burned down during the Troubles. The ruins are bought by Patrick O'Neill, an Irish American with dreams and lots of money to rebuild the house to its former glory and more. This is about the children of Mountfern and how there lives intertwine with each other and the goings on with the rebuilding. There are 762 pages in this book so there are lots of twists and turns to the story. I enjoyed this book as I have enjoyed all the other Maeve Binchy books I have read.

Salvation in Death by J.D. Robb

Eve Dallas is on another case. This time a catholic priest dies after partaking of wine at a funeral mass. The wine was laced with potassium cyanide. The autopsy reveals scars from knife wounds , a removed tattoo and evidence of plastic surgery. Obviously there is more to this priest than meets the eye. Another good read.

A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory

1939 in the small rural community of August Falls, twelve year old Joseph Vaughan hears of the brutal assault and murder of a young girl. This would be the first in a series of brutal murders over the next decade. Joseph and his friends are determined to protect August Falls against the evil in their midst and form The Guardians. But the murderer evades them and they watch helplessly as one child after another is taken. Fifty years later Joseph is still troubled by the past and must confront the nightmare that has overshadowed his whole life. I found this book a hard slog to read. I had the ending figured out about half way through, and not one to give up on a book , I slogged on until the end. Not something I would recommend other readers do. Boring.

Play Dirty by Sandra Brown

Accused of murder, convicted of throwing games for the mob, former Dallas Cowboys superstar Griff Burkett spent five years in federal prison. Now free, he has no prospects and no forgiveness in football crazy Texas. There is someone willing to pay millions for Griff's services-airline CEO Foster Speakman and his wife, Laura. This is an interesting and different story. I enjoyed reading this book.

Bye for now.

Fall is Here

Summers gone and it's already Fall and the temperatures here have been record breaking. We have had 32-34 degrees C. These temps. are record breaking, after all, this is Canada!!!

Some pictures of the flowers in my garden. This chrysanthemum must have over 300 flowers on it.





Summer was way too short. We managed to get away for a couple of weeks. We went to Spokane and Seattle. We went to Pike's Market. Loved it, but it was so hot - 103 degrees F. Way too hot for my liking.

Rows and rows of fresh fruit and vegetables.

HUGE lobster tails and shrimp.

Beautiful flowers.

We went to B.C. and stayed in Kelowna where we visited my sister and her family and we have friends there too.

These pictures were taken at one of the many wineries in Kelowna.

Scored a great load of fabric while in Kelowna. A friend of friends had fabric that she wanted to give away to a good home. Her mother, who had recently passed away, was an avid sewer and had one hell of a stash. I was invited over to 'help myself'. I couldn't believe the amount of fabric that this lady had. There were bags and bags and bags of it. The daughter kept saying don't bother looking through the bags, just take the whole bag. If I had to guess, there was enough fabric to fill 50 green garbage bags. I would have needed a U-Haul to take it all. I probably took enough to fill 3-4 green garbage bags. We didn't have room in the van for any more. She said if I come back next year to give her a call as she probably would still have the rest of it in storage.

I got some really nice wool, ultrasuede, lots of suiting, flannel, velvet, velour and lots more.

We had to go back to school early this year. It's been a long time since we went back before Labour Day. We had to go back August 26 because our city was hosting the World Skills Competitions. This would give students an opportunity to go on field trips to see the competitions. It sure seemed to shorten the summer though.

Bye for now.

Summer

It's three weeks into the summer holidays already. I've tried to do something constructive everyday. It might have been clean out a drawer, do the ironing, work in the yard, anything. I don't want to look back and say I didn't get anything done while I was off.

I got my hair cut today. Oh boy, is it short. It's probably 2 inches shorter than I asked for. I don't think I've had my hair this short since I was in nurses training. That's going back a lot of years!! Oh well, can't do much about it, I'll get use to it and it will grow. DH is not very keen, I have to say.

We've had a lot of rain so far this summer. It seems like if it's not raining it's really windy. I have to say the plants and flowers are doing really well, although they are a little behind.

I have won several giveaways that I haven't blogged about.

From 'One World One Heart 2009' I won a beautiful 10x10 print of an Hibiscus from Marti Hicks. I don't think the picture I took does it justice. The colour in the print is so bright and vivid. You can view some of her work here http://shadoelandphotography.com/


I also won a gift certificate from Kristin Roach at Craft Leftovers which I spent on a fabulous set of stitch markers. They really are cool and really do the trick. Way better than the plain plastic rings I've been using for years. Visit one of her blogs here http://www.craftleftovers.com/blog/


Anything Indie http://www.anythingindie.com/ is always having giveaways and I was lucky enough to win one, I got a cute little fox necklace from Ji Ji Kiki http://www.jijikiki.co.uk/- so cute!
A Legacy of Stitches had a fabulous giveaway. She was celebrating her first year blogaversary and having a giveaway every day for 8 days!! I won day 3 and what a fabulous prize. There were 23 fat-eighths of Mark Lipinski Katmandu Fabrics, Mary E journal and bookmark and a cute little gift bag. Check out her blog at http://alegacyofstitches.blogspot.com/
Bye for now.

Books

These are the books I've read so far this year.

Don't Wake Me At Doyles by Maura Murphy

This is Maura Murphy's memoir. I had a hard time getting into it because she was jumping all over the place and it was a little difficult keeping track of the chronology of the story. It did get better and reminded me a little of Angelas Ashes by Frank McCourt. There were similarities in the story but McCourt is a much better story teller.

The Survivor by Dinah McCall

I enjoyed this story. It was about a plane that goes down in the Appalachians. There are 3 survivors and this is the story of their rescue. They are not all together though and one of them is a murderer. It's a page turner.

Susannah's Garden by Debbie Macomber

I've enjoyed all of Debbie Macombers books and this is no exception. It's light reading, about a woman who has to deal with her young daughter and some of the decisions she makes, and her elderly mother who she has to put into a retirement centre. She then has the difficult job of going through the contents of her parents house and finding out the truth about things that happened in her youth,

The Very Thought of You by Lynn Kurland

I really enjoyed this book. It's about a very successful businessman in the world of corporate takeovers-but not happiness. At the family 'Keep' in Scotland he finds a pirate map that sends him on a journey that takes him back in time to Medieval England where he is captured by a knight in shining armor!! Then it gets interesting.

The Alibi Man by Tami Hoag

This is about Elena Estes a former undercover cop who is working as a horse trainer. She discovers a friends body, murdered and dumped in a canal. She, of course, gets drawn into trying to discover who killed her and gets to see the bad side of the Palm Beach bad boys. Among them is her former fiance. This was a good read.

Light of the Moon by Luanne Rice

This was another good read. It's about a young woman who decided on the eve of her birthday to take a break from the demands of her life. She travels from Connecticut to the French Camargue. Her late mother had told her magical stories about the famous white horses and finds a mysterious 'saint' linked to her family's history.

Queen of the Mersey by Maureen Lee

I really like Maureen Lees books. They bring back a lot of memories just by some of the expresions used. This book starts out in Liverpool in 1939. We follow the life of Queenie who is abandoned by her mother at the age of 14, and the war is just breaking out. She is evacuated to a little village in Wales where her life changes forever. The book then follows her life for the next 35 years. I really enjoyed this book.

That's it for now.

Yesterday

Yesterday, at noon DH took Sam for a walk and ran into these new neighbours 2 blocks from home.

I got home from work at 3pm and this is what I saw.

What a difference a few hours make!!
Bye for now!!

Spring?

How many days are we into Spring and this is what we woke up to yesterday morning - 12"/30cm of the white stuff. Very wet and heavy. As if that isn't enough they are predicting the same amount again on Wednesday. We are very tired of all this stuff. We have had way too much of it this winter. It's very depressing checking out all the blogs around the world with all the beautiful flowers and green grass in their yards.

I have won several more giveaways over the last few months.

I received a beautiful wall hanging all the way from Sweden from Helena at http://syverkstan-helena.blogspot.com/ I had it on my coffee table for a while and received many compliments on it. You should check Helena's blog out. She does some beautiful work.
I received a really cute crayon roll from Corinna at http://corinnaquilts.blogspot.com/ Hard to see in the picture but the crayon roll is made from the cutest dog fabric. She also included a colouring book, a really cute picture frame that holds lots of pictures in the back, cute pig tissues and some delicious chocolate. Go pay her a visit.

I received a beautiful lemon scented soy wax votive candle and matches from Jackie at http://wrensnest.typepad.com/wrensnest/ She has opened a fabulous store called Dreams of France. She has some gorgeous stuff, go check it out.
I haven't done much on the crafty front. I finally finished a scarf, headband and fingerless mitts set for #1GD. She loved them. Not a great picture but I think you get the idea. If I was making the fingerless mitts again I would make the finger part shorter.
I think that's about it for this time.

Bye for now.

Happy Valentine's

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. My husband and I exchanged cards this morning. That's about as far as it goes for our V. day celebrations. I have a terrible cold so I'm not up to going out for supper anyway.

I decided to change the picture in my header to a better one of Sam. The old one, he had a bad case of devil eyes!! He just got a haircut and looks much better. He's not the easiest to get a good picture of, as you can see.

It's snowing again today. It has been, on and off, for the past few days. We have had so much snow in the last month that we are running out of places to shovel it to!! The temperature has been up and down as well, so that makes for some very icy conditions on the roads and sidewalks. Taking Sam for a walk can be pretty treacherous at times.

I talked to my aunt in England yesterday. She said they have no snow. They have lived just outside Wigan in the N.W., not too far from Manchester for over 25 years and have only seen snow once. Too close to the coast I guess. They get lots of rain instead. At least you don't have to shovel rain.

I've been doing very little on the crafting front. A little knitting. I made Sam a new coat (he's wearing it in the new header picture). I

I'm finishing up a little knitting for my GD#1. It's a matching scarf, fingerless mitts and a head band/scarf thing. She turned 18 last week. Her Mom and Dad took her to the neighborhood pub at midnight and she was quite put off that she didn't get ID'd!!

Bye for now.

Books

These are the rest of the books I read in 2008.

About Face by Fern Michaels
This is about a young girl who is accused of murdering her step-brother and thrown into a mental institution for many years. When she finally gets out she returns to the town she is from and wants to reconnect with her mother. Lots of strange things start to happen to her, but a young doctor befriends her and wants to help her get to the bottom of what is going on. This is a pretty good read. Keeps you wanting to read another chapter so you can find out the truth.

High Noon by Nora Roberts
I found this to be one of Nora Roberts better books. It's about a female police lieutenant who is Savannah's top hostage negotiators. One of her fellow police officers has no use for women and makes her life a living hell. Things start happening that are related to her past and the search is on to find the person and have Phoebe try and negotiate a good ending to this situation.

The Lazarus Child by Robert Mawson

This is a story about a marriage on the rocks when one of the couples children is run over by a bus. Seven year old Frankie is in a coma and they have been told that there is no hope. Their son, who witnessed the accident, is having many problems and the parents are desperate. Their only chance is with a neurologist who has dedicated her life to coaxing children back from the 'darkness'. They are hoping for a miracle and this is a story about that journey. Really good read.

The Things we do for Love by Kristin Hannah

This is about Angela DeSaria who wanted a baby more than anything else. This was not to be and her marriage fell apart. Divorced, she moves back to the little town her family is from to help her mother and sisters run the failing family restaurant. Along the way she meets a young girl who is from a bad part of town, with a mother who only cares about her next drink, and next boyfriend. She is going to a very expensive private school on a scholarship and is dating the football jock who comes from a very rich family. She becomes pregnant and Angela becomes very involved trying to help her. You have to read the book to find out what happens.

The Pagan Stone by Nora Roberts.

Book three in the Sign of Seven Trilogy.

I enjoyed all three of these books. In this final book it all boils down to kill or be killed for the 6 friends. I wouldn't want to spoil the story but I would highly recommend reading all three books.

That's 25 books for the year. Not very many, but, for the most part, I only read half an hour a night when I go to bed. Maybe a little more on the weekends.

That's it. Bye for now.