C'est La Vie: An American Woman Begins a New Life in Paris and--Voila!--Becomes Almost French by Suzy Gershman

OK, so I have been reading a lot lately. It is what I do when it is cold and dreary outside. I hibernate and read. This book was pretty good. I liked the story line and the writing was pretty fluid. I love anything french (french fries, french toast, french kissing...) Of the subject- sorry! The gal in the book loses her husband unexpectedly and decides to do her lifelong dream and travel to France and live with the french. How great would that be. It is one of the places I have longed to travel to as well. Someday I'll get my Christmas in Paris. I give it 3.5 bookmarks.

Book Review: Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella

I wasn't too impressed by the book. I have read some other books by Kinsella in the past and the Shopaholic series was much better. Maybe the premise of this book scared me a little. This girl wakes up in the hospital to find that 3 years of her life have been taken from her by a bad case of amnesia. She was now married, having an affair with a guy that her new husband works with, her long time friends hate her, and she finds that she is very successful in her career. At first she is pretty impressed by the handsome husband and her great digs, but finds that there is loneliness and heartache behind the perfect facade. The ending was a little soft and should have tied up the story line a little better. I don't know what I would do if I woke up in the hospital to find that 3 years of my life was gone. The loss of control on my memories would probably drive me crazy. She was a little gullible in trusting the wrong people in her life for the needed answers. I probably would do the same thing. That's a little scary...

Book Review: One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell

Candace Bushnell is the author of the popular Sex in the City book. I haven't read that book or watched the TV series. Maybe sometime soon...
The book was a little dense and had a few gaps in the story line. There were quite a few character lines that crossed and needed to come together a little better. The premise of the book was a popular apartment building in New York and the story of the occupants. She tied the past and present together pretty well and the characters seemed to be lifelike. Nothing too extreme. It was almost as if I could pick a person in real life that was one of the characters in the book. The mix of characters was pretty good too. The different ages, occupations, economic statuses seemed to flow pretty well. You find yourself liking some of them and want to hang out, but there are always some others that are drab and/or you hate them with a vengeance. The head of the board was a little weird. She was married to her husband for 20 years and didn't want anything to do with the poor guy. Why be married? And she was OK with him being with another woman who would blog about their escapades? I wonder if she would have left him if he hadn't wrote that hit book. The little mystery with the necklace was a nice addition. I kind of felt bad for Billy. He had good intentions, but the luck of money was not his. I wonder what happened to his mom.

I made some snuggly beds for the boys

With the snow piling up outside, there's little to do outside for the little guys...


So, I had some leftover fabric in my craft area and the boys love to lie around on these beds. I can hear them snoring just thinking about it.

...next to our new fireplace. Boy, I can't believe we waited so long to get a nice fireplace for our home. It is really nice and cozy. A glass of wine anyone?

Welcome to Winter

This is one of the 6 times we were out shoveling snow. Got to love the Snowplow Guy! He sure knows how to "throw" a party! (Yes, the snow is up to my thighs here) We got about a foot and a half. It's sometimes hard to measure because the wind likes to make it drift in areas.

Tonka got a new hairdo. Kind of looks like an Afro.

This is the snow coming down (6am) on Wednesday morning. It was a cool thunder snowstorm with lightning. Very cool to watch and listen to. I don't think I have experienced anything like it before. The sky was an eerie quiet light prior to the storm. Almost daylight when the storm came over. The thunder was pretty loud too. I guess it had cyclone-like properties and was a storm of historic proportions.

Little Echo got dumped on. She is frozen to the ground right now (Thursday). Jeff picked a great week to be in Vegas for 'work'. I wish we had a snow blower. This storm had very heavy snow and it was a full body workout in the driveway for Logan and I. The doggies liked the snow. Larry was having a hard time walking in it as the snow was deeper than his height.

Doggie's First Snow

The guys had a great time running and playing in the snow. They love the new fence we had installed and love to bark at the neighbors (we may need to work on their neighborly behavior a bit).