My Reading Blog

Goodreads Summary:  " A stunning debut novel of power and grace that tells the story of a family that slips from fortune's favour in a southwestern Ontario mill town during the mid-1960s Within a bend in the Attawan River lies the Island, a small neighbourhood of white-washed houses and vine-freighted fences, black willows and decaying sheds. It is here that Alf Walker, a fixer in the local textile mill like his father before him, lives with his family. It is 1965, and when a large corporation takes over the mill, and workers attempt to unionize, Alf's actions inadvertently set in motion a series of events that will reverberate far into the future and burden him with an unspoken shame. This is also the year when his eldest son, Joe, falls headlong for a girl he first glimpses on a bridge - and his world is overturned by the passion and uncertainty of young love. The bittersweet story of Joe and Anna is juxtaposed against his father's deepening role in the...

Today's the day.   Yes, today, I'm going to do it.   No excuses.   It's too hot to do anything outside, so I just need to get started.   Procrastinated long enough.  Up the stairs Open a storage bin Sigh Do I keep it, donate it, or throw it out? Sigh A pile for here Another pile to go A third pile to trash Sigh Why did I keep this? Whatever was I thinking? Open another bin Oh, I don't remember this On and on I go Meticulously around the room Open up a dresser drawer full of scraps of fabric And then bits and pieces of yarn And then pictures - can't take time to look I'll never get finished. After six hours, Hubby says "It's time to quit" Yes, I'm almost finished. I look around, smile with a sigh And wonder why it took me so long to get started. Ah, such of good feeling To have a fresh room without clutter.

This has been such a strange summer.  Usually when August arrives, everything has turned brown, the humidity is high and the temps even higher.  But this August, we were inundated with rain for almost three weeks and then last week, we were blessed with cooler temps (in the 70's), low humidity, sunny and a breeze.  We turned off the air conditioning and opened up the house to enjoy the coolness at night - it was like a fall day and evening. But the mornings are what I'd like to share with you.  I'm an early riser and enjoy my quiet time before hubby gets up and the day begins.  I check e-mails and play my Scrabble games.  And then it's my time to spend with God - reading the Bible and devotions and sharing my concerns for family and friends  in prayer.  I have a special rocker that I sit in which located next to the patio door.  As I sat in the quiet, listening to the ceiling fans click, Max snore, the refrigerator hum, I could hear two o...

Shelfari summary: "D-Day is approaching. They don't know where or when, but the Germans know it'll be soon, and for Felicity “Flick” Clariet, the stakes have never been higher. A senior agent in the ranks of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) responsible for sabotage, Flick has survived to become one of Britain's most effective operatives in Northern France. She knows that the Germans' ability to thwart the Allied attack depends upon their lines of communications, and in the days before the invasion no target is of greater strategic importance than the largest telephone exchange in Europe. But when Flick and her Resistance-leader husband try a direct, head-on assault that goes horribly wrong, her world turns upside down. Her group destroyed, her husband missing, her superiors unsure of her, her own confidence badly shaken, she has one last chance at the target, but the challenge, once daunting, is now near-impossible. The new plan requires an al...

I borrowed this from another blog. Time:  6:00 p.m. Place: My recliner Eating: A Lean Pocket (Hubby wasn't home to cook!) Drinking:  Water (didn't have any wine open) Reading:  Jackdaws by Ken Follett (can't put it down) Listening to:  The 6:00 p.m. news and weather (it can be so depressing) Wishing:  The rain would stop (maybe tomorrow) Considering:  Is this really what I want to write? Planning:  Creating some Christmas Cards for Operation Write Home Thankful For:  This writing community and for all those who teach. Praying For:  A dear friend who has cancer of the kidney and liver. Your turn - what's going on in your life?

Goodreads Summary:   "New York Times" bestselling author Phillip Margolin returns to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., with an exciting thriller about a ghost ship and the President's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sarah Woodruff, on death row in Oregon for murdering her lover, John Finley, has appealed her case to the Supreme Court just when a prominent justice resigns, leaving a vacancy. Then, for no apparent reason, another justice is mysteriously attacked. Dana Cutler--one of the heroes from Margolin's bestselling "Executive Privilege"--is quietly called in to investigate. She looks for links between the Woodruff appeal and the ominous incidents in the justices' chambers, which eventually lead her to a shoot-out that took place years ago on a small freighter docked upriver in Shelby, Oregon, containing a dead crew and illegal drugs. The only survivor on board? "John Finley." With the help of Bra...

 As y'all know, we live in the country in the Ozarks and we have an abundance of wildlife, but this year we've been blessed (until they eat my flowers) with a virtual herd of deer.  They love to graze across our front yard, thru the woods, around the back, down the drive, across the road and back again (all in the matter of a couple of hours!) This year we have seen two sets of twins and a single.  We generally only see the babies and Mommas, but this year we've have up to three button bucks.  The other days, hubby was at the computer and looked out and three of the bucks were playing games, rubbing their heads on the ground, charging, backing up and charging again.  It was fun to watch their antics.  Here's Momma feeding her babies with another looking. The other day when Max and I took a walk, the babies were in the driveway, they stood their ground as Max sniffed in the air.  We walked closer and closer, until they decided it was time t...