Book Review!

 

I just finished reading the Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry.  It was a very quick read that falls in the Young Adult category.

Huh.  

Not quite sure how to start here because I have mixed emotions about this one.  I looked on a few sights and so many readers gave it rave reviews with very few negative ones, so I am confused.  I am wondering if I read the same book they did. Yet, I didn't hate it.  I am somewhere in the middle on this one.  Let me break it down.

First, I would not put it in the Young Adult category, it would fit in more of a fifth and sixth grade area.  

Things I liked:

• A creative retelling of a Cinderella story
• Lucinda, the heroine, although whiney here and there, wasn't afraid to take charge of her situation.
• Peter, the thief, was interesting and added some witty banter to the story.

Things I didn't like:

• The heroine falls completely in love after one small encounter with the prince.  It felt like she just decided one minute to be in love.  There wasn't any relationship development.  It just felt flat.
• Beryl, the woman from another world, was a great opportunity lost.  She could have added a huge dimension to the story and it wasn't really played out very well.  
• The traveling back and forth between the worlds wasn't thought out very well.  Beryl says she is trapped, yet, with the heroines help she returns to her world, then comes back again to help the heroine.  I thought there wasn't any way for them to go back and forth.  It was confusing.
• The protagonist was flat. Why was he banished?  Where was the person who was banished with him?  If he knew who and what Beryl was when he first met her, why didn't she know about him?  
• The prince.  We don't really get a chance to meet him, yet he and Lucinda are so in love with each other he decides she needs to stay away so he can fulfill his duty.  Who is this guy?  What is it she loves about him?  What made him fall in love with a commoner and a thief for that matter?

I don't mean to sound like I am tearing this book apart.  It was a fun, easy, cute read.  But, like I mentioned earlier, more for the preteen crowd.  I would recommend it to a 10 year old girl in a heartbeat!  

Manna from Heaven.....

This is probably a strange post to follow so closely behind the skunk stink, but I have made a discovery worth heralding!

I love lemon.  Lemon pie, lemon bars, lemon pound cake etc. etc.  I love it so much that I would rather have a lemon meringue pie for my birthday than a cake.  I have now found the perfect "it's afternoon and I just need a little something" treat.   They are called  Carr's Ginger Lemon Cremes (see them here).  I found them at Costco and just the word lemon caught my eye so I had to try them.  The ginger cookie is the perfect balance with the lemon creme center.  After savoring the first one I thought "This must have been what manna tasted like!"

Watch out oreos!  There is someone sexy in town!

The sweet smell of skunk......

Excuse me as I dry heave while I type this.

It is that bad.


Last night I had an errand to run, so, I hopped into my car for a few blissful moments of me time.  I cranked up my Taylor Swift cd and joined the fast flow of traffic on the freeway.  The exit I needed came and I merged off and was on my way to Ikea.  Pure joy up until this moment.


I noticed a few cars doing a weird little swervy move up ahead of me.  I thought it was a strange thing for them to do until I got to that point in the road.


The smell.  It was horrible.  


The sight was just about as bad.


A dead skunk was right in the middle of the road.  Well, not exactly the middle, kind of off centered to be exact.  Off centered just enough that it was in the exact same spot that my left tires were headed.  That was the reason for all of the swervy moves.  Only I couldn't swerve.  Cars were coming toward me and there was no room on the other side! 


Oh the horror!


I drove right over it!


The smell, the smell, the smell!

I thought I knew what a skunk smells like.  Until last night that is.  Now I really know what it smells like!


In an instant a putrid, pungent perfume permeated through the air of my car.  I rolled down the windows but found no relief.  Gasping and choking I drove into the parking lot and saw puddles of melted snow.  Thinking it would help to drive through the water I headed right through them.  I parked my car with all of the windows down hoping that the night breeze would come through like a Merry Maid and rid my car of its aroma.  

As I walked through the store I wondered if anyone could smell me.  I could smell me!  Of course they could if they ventured close enough!


Purchase in hand I headed out to my car.  The smell of skunk was everywhere I turned.  Thinking that it was just the foul air and not my foul car that I could smell I ran and opened my trunk.  


WHOA!!!!


I was assaulted with the sharp smell that had settled within.  


There was only one way I was going to make it home.....

With ALL of the windows down and the heater on full blast, the cold winter air sliced at my face and I had to wipe the tears off my cheeks repeatedly.   I then spied a gas station with a car wash attached.  


I washed my car longer than necessary and tried not to think of what was splashing up into my face as I sprayed the undercarriage.  It didn't make the problem go completely away, but there was a definite improvement.


My car spent the night on the driveway with the windows down.  I wasn't worried about anyone stealing it because of the smell.


It was better this morning, but the sun brought out the aroma like a scratch and sniff.  It is still there, just waiting to be brought to the surface.

Looks like I will be spending some time with google trying to find a way to rid my car of the olfactory infestation.

GROSS!!!!!!

Book Review!

 If you have a teenage daughter at home or if you are still a teenager at heart, I highly recommend It's A Mall World After All by Janette Rallison.  I just read this book yesterday afternoon and laughed, sniggered, swooned and blushed the whole way through! 

It was very clean in content, which for me is a definite plus.  It is not a literary masterpiece if that is what you are looking for, but rather, it is a fun, escape your day with something light kind of a read.  

I love that the main character, Charlotte, turns her nose up at all things snobbish, but then in turn realizes that she herself has been a bit of a snob all along.


Let me know what you think!


Happy reading!

You want emberrassing? I'll give you emberrassing!

My husband and I went to dinner and a show with some very good friends.

Apparently I took the "very" part a little too seriously because when we got to the movie theater and walked in my friends husband announced he was going to use the restroom.  "Oh!  Great idea, I don't want to leave during the show!"  I said enthusiastically. 

I turned to get my ticket from my husband, then walked to the bathroom and went right in.  

I stood there for a minute stunned.

"This is strange" I thought to myself.  "Why would Lisa's* husband be in the womens bathroom?"

Even stranger still was the fact that there were urinals in the womens bathroom.

It took a few too many seconds for everything to register.

A few too many seconds as I inappropriately stared at my friends husband standing in front of the urinal.  But I wasn't looking, I was more in a state of confusion. And no I didn't see anything I shouldn't have!  It was more of a "one of these things is not like the others" kind of stare, while my brain was trying to catch up to the situation.

I turned bright red as the realization of everything hit me.


Then I started laughing.

Bob* turned to look at me.

He raised his eyebrows and gave me a look of confused wonder.

I laughed again, said sorry and ran out as fast as I could.  I went across the hall to the womens bathroom and I could not stop laughing.


Sigh.

I never did ask if he got gun shy after that.  That would just be too much information!

The rest of the night I would laugh whenever I looked at him.  I don't think he appreciated it too much towards the end. 


*names have been changed for privacy!

Forgetful and Judgy....

My husband forgets things all of the time.

And when I say "things" I mean things like his pants, a belt, shoes, a shirt, or his underwear kind of things.


You have to know something about him before you make any snap judgments about his forgetfulness.  He leaves for work at 6 a.m. each and every morning and heads straight to the gym.  He gets ready there, so he really has to pack a small suitcase every night before he leaves.

For whatever reason he has been quite forgetful this past week and a half.  (Which when I think about it, he hasn't really gone more than 6 weeks at a time without something that was forgotten.)

Last Thursday I got a phone call from my embarrassed husband who forgot his underwear.  He told me about the strange looks he got from everyone else in the gym as he put his pants on in what he refers to as the "free-ball" style.


Monday he calls to tell me he forgot his belt.  (not so bad, right?)

Yesterday, he called me in a panic and needed to know where the nearest Walmart was.........He forgot pants.  (He would be mortified if anyone knew he was buying pants at Walmart.  He is a bit of a clothes snob.  But hey, they are open 24 hrs. a day!)

Today, well, today was just as much fun.  He forgot his COMPUTER!  Hee, hee, hee!  I realized this before he even got a chance to call and let me know.  Me, being the nice person that I am, thought that I would run it to his office (35 miles away) before he even noticed that he didn't have it.  (He was still at the gym during this time).  In my haste I didn't worry too much about my own appearance or of my 4 year old daughters.  We hopped in our car, zipped up the freeway, and waited.  

Forever.  

I called.  No answer.

I called again and again.  Still no answer.

I looked at my daughter and thought I might as well make this little trip of ours fun, so I left my husband a message and drove to the nearest McDonalds.  

Walking into the McDonalds I wasn't too worried about my appearance.  It's still early, most people are in a hurry and I don't know anyone anyway so it doesn't really matter.  We order, sit in our booth, relax a bit and then I start to take in my surroundings.  


That is the time that I start to realize that pretty much everyone in there looks like they spent a cold hard night on the streets.  The restrooms near where we were sitting had some sort of contraption on the doors that you needed to insert a token in order to unlock the door to go in and use the bathroom.  My daughter and I were just one of a few females.  The rest were men.   Tired, hungry looking men.


Oh my.


I was a little nervous. 


I kept watching the door, waiting for my husband to get there.


Minutes take a really long time when you are just a tad bit nervous.


My daughter was blissfully unaware of our scenario.  Which to be honest was probably not that bad.  I just have an imagination that will bring out all of the possibilities of any situation.  


We waited and waited and waited.


Finally, my husband came.


"Glad you are here!  I am having breakfast with all of the homeless people."  I said to him.


He looked at me, looked around the room and said "You fit right in."


I realized in that moment that my daughter and I were dressed like we had spent the night on the streets as well.  She had on a dirty long sleeve shirt, long pink camouflage shorts, dirty moon boots, a stained red jacket and a rats nest in her hair.  I sported my husbands too big black sweats, my brown ugly boots, my sons fur lined hoodie, and an equally impressive rats nest pulled up into a pony tail on the top of my head.


"Oh!  I guess you are right!" I said.  


Then I started laughing.  I remembered the cute "showered" family that had been in the restaurant earlier.  They had looked at me with sideways glances, but I had assumed it was because of everyone else that was there.  

Nope.  I was scary too!


I wished I could have had someone take a picture of us.  My husband all clean and dressed in nice work clothes eating breakfast with us.  It probably looked like he found us outside and wanted to make sure we had at least one good meal for the day.  


Here is what I learned.  I need to make my husband a check list and I still need to work on not being judgy.  (If you read earlier posts you will know what I am talking about)  

I have far to go!

I am slow I know....

Have you read These Is My Words by Nancy Turner?  I just did and WOW!  

I had a hard time at first because of the "uneducated" type writing style (I am not sure the best way to describe it).  I didn't think I was going to like it, but then I got swept away into what I would say is now one of my favorite books.  

Talk about a love story.  

I loved that the book made me angry, scared, sad, irritated, anxious, excited, thrilled and thoughtful.   

I also loved that after I finished reading it I could not stop thinking about it!

If you have not read this book, run as fast as your legs can carry you to get it.  I am behind the times because it has been out for quite a while, along with books 2 and 3 (I have them on reserve at the library).  I will let you know what I think of those as well.

If you don't have plans for Valentines read it!  
 
LOVED IT! LOVED IT! LOVED IT!