Working HARD!!

Hi everybody!!  It has been a long time, hasn’t it?  Have yall been reading?  I tell you what…I’ve been so busy at work that I have been neglecting my blogging!!  What’s the DEAL??  Anyway, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do!!

Okay and before I start talking books with you, do any of you out there own any Pandora jewelry??  Well, my friend, KK, took me by a WONDERFUL little shop that sells Pandora rings, necklaces and bracelets...zOMG.  I have become obsessed with their stackable rings.  I have been hinting to the hubby that I want some of the rings for my birthday (which is coming up!), but I'm also LOVING the charm bracelets (which end up costing quite a bit more - but think about it, he'd have built-in, automatic gifts every holiday for quite awhile!!).  Any way, I've put a couple of the rings below...aren't they pretty?  Very very reasonably priced.  Like I said, they are stackable, so you can mix and match and do pretty much whatever you like.  

 

Okay, so let's talk books.  

The first book that I wanted to catch up with you on is entitled ‘The Saving Graces’ by Patricia Gaffney.  It is an awesome read!!  It is a story about the friendship of 4 women over a period of time.  The oldest, Isabel, is very Zen and motherlike, but finds out she has breast cancer which has metastasized to the bone.  Lee works as the director of a children’s center, is very organized and determined.  She met the love of her life, Henry (a plumber), late and now is struggling to have children.  Emma, who is a writer, is sarcastic and funny, but ends up falling in love with a married man.  (But she doesn’t do anything.  In fact, once they figure it out, they go out of their way to avoid one another).  And then there is Rudy, who had a very traumatic childhood.  Rudy is beautiful and married to a very successful but controlling man…she also has a lot of mental health issues she is dealing with.

I know this sounds like another run-of-the mill chick book, but I have to tell you that this book is multi-layered – it has depth.  And while everyone has problems, and EVERY SINGLE TIME I read it, I cry, it is a wonderful book and I feel pretty good when I finish.  It makes me laugh, too, so it is not all gloom and doom and tears. 

Currently, I’m re-reading ‘Picture Perfect’ by Jodi Picoult.  Now, if I haven’t talked about her before (and I’m pretty sure I have), I really like her.  This particular book?  Eh.  Not so much.  JP has written some real wing-dingers and this just isn’t one of them.  The story opens with a woman with amnesia wandering near a graveyard in LA.  She is found by Will, a Native American police officer. Well, as the story unfolds, you find out that her name is Cassie, she is an anthropologist and she is married to Alex, who is a very famous actor.  As Cassie regains her memory, she finds that Alex is very abusive and she runs away to the reservation where Will’s family lives.

As I said, this book is not BAD, it is just not as good as it gets for JP.  I just don’t think it is up to her usual standards.  :/

 

In the meantime, I’ve also finished ‘If Tomorrow Comes’ by Sidney Sheldon.  You’ve just got to love books from this time period (I know, I know, I’m back in the 80s) – everything is just larger than life.  In this book, the heroine, Tracy Whitney is wrongfully convicted of a crime, ends up exonerated, but vows to get revenge and starts a life of high dollar crime.  LOVES IT!!

  

Speaking of crime done right, have yall ever read ‘Honest Illusions’ by Nora Roberts?  Okay, ignore the cover because it looks like a regular old romance novel and it is anything but.  The main characters are Roxy and Luke and their family, who are magicians living in New Orleans by day and high dollar thieves at night.  Who can make thieves SO incredibly likeable?  Um, Nora. Roberts.  This book is definitely a 5 out of 5.  If you haven’t, please please please read it.

Oh, and ps, the Baby T-Rex is finally reading ‘Hunger Games’.  Ha.  I win.

Ok, time for me to go!  Yall take care!!  Please feel free to comment!