Early October - Saturday Snapshot

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Melinda at  westmetromommy.blogspot.com To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky (at West Metro Mommy). Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

These are pictures from our Friday Snow Day. Level III snow emergency in our small community. 

 Poor old tree, this is our second heavy wet snowstorm and it has now lost 4 large limbs.

 Looking across the street to the stately spruce tree in our neighbors yard. Early morning, still snowing.

 Another tree in our back yard, and snow on top of a BBQ grill and garden sheds.

Our deck is plastered with wet heavy snow. Weird snow sculpture!

This Saturday morning the sun is shining and the sky is blue. It will all melt away today, then we can begin the clean up.   YUCK!

Until  next time,

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Roses

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph or maybe two of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph (or2) of the current book you are reading.

This week while continuing to read Winter of the World by Ken Follett, I will start reading this:

Howbutker, Texas, August 1985

At his desk, Amos Hines turned over the last sheet of the two-page legal document he'd been instructed to to read. His mouth had gone dry at wheat chaff, and for a moment he could only blink in dazed disbelief at his client and longtime friend seated before his desk, a woman he had admired - revered - for forty years and had thought he knew. He searched her expression for indications that age had finally affected her faculties, but she stared back with all the clear-eyed acuity for which she was renowned. Working saliva into his mouth, he asked, " Is this codicil for real, Mary? You've sold the farms and changed your will?" 

What do you think? Would you keep reading?
If so, join me in a Buddy read on Goodreads,
in the Ladies and Literature group.

 Roses
Leila Meacham
Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
2010


Summary: Spanning the 20th century, the story of Roses takes place in a small East Texas town against the backdrop of the powerful timber and cotton industries, industries controlled by the scions of the town's founding families.

Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

2013 Ebook Challenge #12 & #13

Latter-Day Cipher by Latayne C. Scott
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I thought I was going to really like this book. The mystery of who was committing the murders, the interaction and the relationship that was building between Selonnah and Luke.  A good book was happening. Then suddenly there was no interaction between Luke and Selonnah, we switched to Roger and Anne. OK, so what's going on there?  And then we were suddenly away from the murders and were on a religious rant against the Mormon Church. Now I am not Mormon, but I do practice tolerance in all things, so this ranting in the book made me sad. I had the mystery figured out way early and it just wasn't very compelling to find out the reason this man was killing.

Swim by Jennifer Weiner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This short story introduction to Jennifer Weiner's novel, The Next Best Thing introduces us to Ruth. She has left her job writing for a hit television show to do something anything else. Ruthie, as her grandmother calls her,  lives with her fun loving, vivacious grandmother, since losing her parents in a horrendous auto crash when she was just three years old. Her grandmother encourages her to "get out there", but Ruth finds herself hiding in the lap pool. She swims and swims and swims, rather than expose herself to others.

I want to know about her. I like her a lot and I want her to find a great job, fall in love and have a wonderful life.    

View all my reviews

Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

What Are You Reading #2

This is my second attempt to post to What Are You Reading? My last entry was last Monday, the 23rd . You can read it HERE.

Today I am still working on Winter of the World,

 and I just finished ....

The Journey by John A. Heldt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the third book in the Northwest Passage that I have read. I think I may have like this on the best of all. John Heldt introduces a new character who travels back in time, but not as far as Joel Smith did in The Mine. In this book, the character Shelly Richardson goes back to the time she was a teenager, names Shelly Preston. I love how Heldt developed Michelle as a grown up Shelly and yet allowed her to be a different person and affect the lives of others. It was important to my reading of the story, that he kept me focused on who I was reading about and when by heading each chapter with the characters name and the time frame. I am anxious to read the next book, The Fire.  I have it on my kindle program on my laptop. I will get to it very soon. This read is actually #14 on the 2013 Ebook Challenge sponsored by Sarah @Workaday Reads


View all my reviews

Tomorrow I plan to begin a buddy read with Ladies & Literature group on Goodreads. We will read

in October and discuss it on Goodread Thread. Spoilers will be included. Come join us. 

It has been on my TBR list for quite awhile. It is a big book, and of course I have my October read for my F2F book club to start also. I ordered  4 copies for myself and 3 friends, but the order hasn't arrived yet. I am hoping for today. My book club will be reading

Friends in Deed: The Story of Quaker Social Reform in America by Susan Sachs Goldman. 

So as you can see, I will be busy reading. I also will work a Quilt Show this weekend. That means making sure the vendors are set up and happy, making a crock pot of chicken soup to help feed the workers and the vendors and manning the booth as needed. It is a long tiring weekend, but it is something I volunteered to do. I am fighting off a cold or allergy attack, I haven't quite figured out which yet!. I hope I start to feel better in the next day or two. I can't afford to be sick!!!!!

Until next time, 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Into The Journey

                   
                                               

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph or maybe two of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph (or2) of the current book you are reading.

The Journey - Northwest Passage Series

by John A Heldt

on my Kindle, provided at no charge by the author

                           Chapter 1: Michelle      Bellevue, Washington - Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Michelle stared at the marble memorial and saw dead things.  

The dead husband went without saying. The man she had known more that half of her life was literally six feet beneath her designer flats. Or at least his body was. Where his enterprising mind was at the moment was anyone's guess. 

I have read The Mine and The Show in this series. You can read my reviews on Goodreads . View all my reviews
 I really enjoyed John's use of time travel in both these books. He makes it feel like, maybe just maybe, time travel is possible. I fell in love with the characters, Joel Smith and Grace Vandenberg and all the rest. I am looking forward to starting this next book, very soon.  This is another e-book for my Ebook challenge and it will be the "J" in my name for part of the Mega Mix Challenge on Goodreads.

So, would you read on?

Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

What Are You Reading #1

This is my first post for the meme, It's Monday, What Are You Reading? This meme is sponsored by Sheila at  Book Journey.  I used to do another Monday meme, but I wasn't getting any books in any mailbox.

So today I will share my current reads. I am in the middle of

 Winter of the World by Ken Follett. The 2nd in the Century Trilogy. Oh how I love a trilogy!.

It is a very large book, 940 pages, but I am really enjoying connecting with the characters from Fall of Giants.  This book is on loan to me from a friend in my F2F book club. 

I am also reading, 

This is the second in the series , A Garden Mystery. I do not own a garden shop, nor am I a college professor, but for some reason I identify with Peggy Lee. Maybe it's just her age, and maybe I would like to have a romantic interest in my life!  LOL. This one was loaned to me by my daughter-in-law. 

This will be the 3rd in the September mini-challenge for the Love of Reading group on Good Reads. It's called, You Have the Right to Remain Silent. The books need to be crime/mystery/or thriller. 

 Until next time, 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.

I am currently reading Latter-day Cipher by Latayne C. Scott. I am reading it on my Kindle and so the new to me words have been easy to look up. But I'd like to share a few here. 

1.   surfeited.        Office staff had of course been off all weekend so surfeited fax machines with their endless cascades of papers squealed for attention.  

surfeit in a noun meaning a excessive amount of something.  

2. apocryphal       That ancestral name seemed apocryphal at best - the rangy-boned kid was handsome but hardly Nordic. 

apocryphal is an adjective.  (of a story or statement) of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true. 

3. obsequious     ...he'd heard Alma Woodruff's Lord-voice booming behind the holy veil there in the temple, right after the obsequious "veil worker" had tapped with a mallet three time. 

obsequious is an adjective meaning obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree. 

Although these words are interesting, and there are many more in this book, I doubt that I will add them to my everyday language.  Are these words familiar to you? Do you use them frequently?

Until next time, 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy