The Christmas Wedding by James Patterson

This book's plot was extremely different from anything I had read before. Gaby is proposed to by three men and decides that yes she is going to get married on Christmas Day. However, no one including the groom knows who she is marrying.
The suitors are all best friends as well as best friends with Gaby and know her personality. They love her for it and are willing to let things play out. During the course of getting ready for the wedding we meet her children and their families. We become familiar with the way they interact amongst themselves, with Gaby and the love that they have for each other.
I loved the way things happened and didn't happen. It was a very easy entertaining read. As always James Patterson has produced characters that I can envision in my mind. A nice Christmas read!

Stephen Kings 11/22/63 review

This was not his regular story but I enjoyed it all the same. Jake goes back in time to stop the Kennedy assasination. Along the way he has many things thrown in his way as the past tries to stop him from changing it. As  he contemplates the changes he has no idea what ramifications await him.

The book is a longer novel and is not a quick overnight read. It took me awhile to finish it however that was not because I was uninterested.

The characters, scenes and times were fully described and felt real. Stephen King does an excellent job of crossing the time barrier not only in speech but the ideology of the 60's. I'm sure that part alone was time consuming but it was mastered perfectly.

A great read!

New language

So I decided after all this time that I would attempt to learn French again. It just felt like the right time and it is going so much smoother this time. Amazing after 4 years of German in high school which I spoke fluently and 2 years of Spanish in college which I was getting good at that I can even pick this up.

I am getting slightly confused on some of the words but greatly impressed by how much I have learned. What in the world made me decide to learn a language that no one in my household speaks? I mean no one will be able to have a conversation with me. No one will understand what in the world I am talking about… maybe that’s it.

It means that I will actively have to find other people to engage with. People who speak French as well and maybe just maybe I will be able to have a small life outside of my house and my pain. Granted I know I won’t be able to leave all the time but maybe a I can get a French pen pal. Hey maybe it might get my kids interested in it. Who knows??!!! All I know is that I felt like it was time to do this for me so I did and I am very excited and proud of how far I have come!

Wow now I have to enable French in MS word

Dealing

Only one night this week have I been able to sleep all night. It amazes me that no matter what time I go to sleep… what time I get up… how long I stay up… or if I take a nap I always seem to wake up at 4:00 am. It’s like clockwork.

I laughed as I told Terrence that maybe I am doing the “Amityville” thing. This illness is so unpredictable and makes me feel so inadequate sometimes. Can I not sleep because of the pain, the heat, the shivers, the feeling like something is crawling on me or the “princess in the pea” syndrome where everything underneath the sheets feels like it is made of rocks.

I don’t want to become a druggie. Where the only way I can get sleep and stay sleep is by popping a pill.

When I wake up I don’t want to bother anyone else and fear of walking downstairs consumes me. What if I fall and no one hears? What if I pass out and no one is there? This timing… this problem overwhelms me but what can I do except… deal with it.

Wow just deal……

Loving environments

After a 15 year absence a neighbor child showed up at my parents front door. I babysat her and her brother when she was little. She spent many hours and days at my parents home. When my mother looked in her face and remembered her she cried and cried.

The most amazing thing is that she remembered everything about the family. My sister, brother and myself. Her brother had apparently stopped by last year but my parents weren’t home.

I began to tear up as my mother told me this story. I told her that it was the difference between a family and a home! My daughters friends come to my home now just to visit. They said they loved coming to my house. This makes me ecstatic. It means that I am following in the footsteps of my parents. That I have made a profound effect on these kids. On the lives of kids that may not have had the same wonderful home life that I had.

I feel so blessed to know my parents are the people I want to be and that I am also becoming just like them… wonderful loving, kind, caring parents!

Judgmental

I watched several clips today of people talking about the lower class. The poor people, the moochers, the raccoons one said. I am so distressed by the way our country is headed. One of the articles stated that 99% of America’s poor had a refrigerator as if having one is a luxury. God forbid that you have a fridge to put your food in after you buy it.

The biggest problem is that the rich and upper class have become so detached from reality that they don’t see that this is a human problem. If for some reason the “moochers” stopped working for a week, their worlds would stop. Who would cut your grass, clean your house, serve you at the restaurant you eat dinner at, ring up your groceries, collect your garbage, watch over your kids at the water park?

Every day some new person comes out ranting about how people need to stop getting a free ride and actually do something instead of wanting the upper 2% to pay more taxes. I don’t believe any of these people have even looked at the people they are asking to pay more. Many have no cars, no homes, no savings. They are living week to week not because they aren't hard workers but because they don’t make enough to save anything. If it was possible for them to switch places for a week with one of them, they would probably be singing a different tune.

Where has our humanity gone… because it definitely isn’t in the Home of the free!

Power of words

Today I saw first hand how the power of words can be both detrimental and positive. Sometimes I have to stand back and watch what is going on without interjecting as much as I may want to. Years ago before I became ill I would jump to get in the middle of an argument. I loved the debate, loved the rush from trying to prove my point. Now I have to be careful of how riled up I get for fear of having a full out flare up that will affect my entire family.

With that being said I also can see how hard it is to turn the other cheek and walk away. Sometimes things touch so close to home that it makes it difficult to forgive and forget. We are all human but what we say can make us no better than the animals we call ourselves superior to.

I wish I didn’t have to choose. I wish I didn’t have to step away. I wish there was no need to make a choice. I wish people would realize the power that what they say can have. Instead of being destructive we should be positive and make changes. Instead of being nasty, we should be uplifting.

To bad we can’t use that power to make a difference!

Wow, was that justice!

Tonight Troy Davis was executed for the 1989 killing of a police officer and I am amazed at how far this country has yet to go. Don’t get me wrong, I feel horrible for the family of the police officer, Troy Davis was not a good man before he went into prison. However, there was just too much reasonable doubt. I pray for the families of both people. I could not imagine the anguish either are going through. I just hope that they don’t find out later that he wasn’t the one. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I stood by and watched an innocent man die. That I hoped for his death because I needed someone to pay for the life of my child. I don’t know if he did it or not. The only ones that truly know are Troy, the officer and God. Yet I stand here amazed! It amazes me how the prosecution states the witness are unreliable now because they recanted but they were reliable during the trial. It amazes me how one of the people considered a witness is the same man who owned the 38 and who others have said bragged that he actually did it. It amazes me how with so many cases that have been found to have involved police corruption, false imprisonment and execution, our legal system didn’t want to make sure that we had it 100% right. But that is unimportant… someone had to pay for the officers death… that’s all that matters. Whether he was innocent or guilty is irrelevant. Justice was not served here. I hope they can sleep at night and I pray they actually got it right. One innocent man being killed is one innocent man too many!

So tired!

Once again it is 1 am and I am still awake! WTF! I would like to be able to crawl in bed like a normal person and get 8 hours of sleep. Uninterrupted sleep… no pains… no aches… no cramps.

If not for my Nook and FB I’m not quite sure what I would do. I am so sick of being in the house every day while everyone works or goes to school. I so wish I could go back to work. Wow, mini pity party!

Damn… I need coffee

Fifty Shades Darker

Read from September 15 to 18, 2011

I could not wait to get my hands on this book. It was literally bugging the hell out of me and it was completely worth the wait! My palms were twitching just thinking about it! LOL.

Once again E.L. James did a fantastic job of wrapping me up into the story that is Ana and Christian. As Fifty Shades ended Ana & Christian had basically come to an impasse about what to do about their mutual conflicts. Ana didn't think she could make Christian happy because of what she thought he wanted and needed. When the book begins the results are a completely broken Ana who does not know how she is going to get through this terrible heartache.

I wanted her to just get on the phone and call him but the process by which they find themselves back together is totally fitting their relationship. I went through ups and downs, laughter and crying, wishing and hoping and this was in the span of a few chapters!

E.L. James is a fantastic writer because there was sex.... oh my... lots of sex but there was also a story and equally important very developed characters. I can safely say I was not disappointed and can not wait for the 3rd book! Fantastic and well written!