Nothing much to report

I am sleepy and cannot wait for the week to end. It used to be that i looked forward to coming to work. Now I just want to go home.

We finally took another step foward to finishing our home renovation. We got the kitchen flooring. We will go either today or tomorrow to get the bamboo flooring for the living room. I cannot WAIT.

Saturday we will be getting our new bed... I have been dreaming of this new bed since we bought it. Our new couches are ready for us to finish the flooring then we will have them delivered.

We also figured what we will do with our kitched cabinets and picked the countertop we want.

I cannot wait to get this D O N E.

I finished the first book in the Stars of Mithra series by Nora Roberts and now I am reading Captive Star (the second in the series). I am almost done with this one. I will probably finish it at lunch today.

I cannot wait to read the next Kresley Cole book that just came out and everyone has read it but me in our little unofficial book circle. :)

Honeybrowne is playing this Saturday at a place close by and I am thinking of going. I missed them the last two times I could have seen them. I guess it will depend on what we get done on Saturday to the house. We are also starting to get the pool cleaned out and ready. Christopher wants a pool party. I have to get his invites done ASAP so he can pass them out in enough time. Ashley is gearing up for her prom and her dress should arrive any day now. (2nd -9th) If I do not receive it by the 9th I will start getting worried. I have to get her invites designed this weekend for sure. It's hard to believe that she is graduating already. Even tho my relationship with her didnt begin until she was 14, it still amazes me how much she has grown since then.

Ok well back to work.

Got a case of the Mondays?

Me too... and my coffee mug says so.

Never did get our bedroom rearranged though I imagine my husband will want to do it this week sometime. I just want a floor to cover my house and some new cabinets in the kitchen and oh yea a new couch. I am sick of the icky concrete floor.

I am now reading a Jennifer Weiner book, Goodnight Nobody. She makes me laugh. She is a great writer and one of her books was made into a movie with Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz and Shirley MacClaine, In Her Shoes. LOVE that story. Check it out. I love how real her characters are... with sarcasm, real heart... you can totally relate to them on a personal level. If you haven't read anything of hers, I highly recommend her.

Back to work... here is a clip for your monday enjoyment from Office Space... (I LOVE THAT MOVIE!):

What if you just found out you had one month to live?

How would you live it? What would you do?

Our pastor and his wife wrote a book called One Month to Live: 30 Days to a No Regrets Life. They are challenging all of us in our church to think about this very question and to basically live 30 days as if it were our last. What is most important to you? It makes you think... would you care about the small stuff anymore? Would you try to be with your family more? Try to fix a broken relationship? Take a trip to a place you always wanted to go? Would money be such a stresful thing anymore? Would it make it moreso?

My husband and I are going to start on the challenge this weekend. I wonder what will happen? Will we both be totally different people by the end of the 30 days or will nothing change? I want to be serious about this. If you are interested in this, click here for more information about this challenge.

*YAWN* Oh excuse me... is it a workday?

Well, this morning began with me jumping straight out of bed and staring at my cell phone which read exactly 9AM while I realized it was quiet. Too quiet. NO POWER. Nice...

I wake up my husband who is snoring peacefully. He jumps up and goes to check the house. Yes.. all of the children were still snoozing too. Grrrreat.

So I was 2 hours late this morning to work, which is good I guess cause I can use exactly 2 hours of personal leave to cover it since I can only use 2 hour increments. RME

I have been doing so well that this morning just made me sick to my stomach. sigh

I am sure part of the problem with why I didn't wake up EARLIER is because I finished the 5th book for the Dark-Hunter series, Kiss of Night. This one made me cry. I really liked when all the characters from the previous books came back at the end to help out the hero of this book, including Zarek (I love him). And what is with the head DH... Acheron... I mean it is like he can do anything now. Hmmm... I notice the next new book that is coming out in Aug 08 is called Acheron... I cannot WAIT for that one!

A joke for you:

A woman, in her fifties, is at home happily jumping, unclothed, on her bed. Her husband watches her for a while and asks, "Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look? What's the matter with you?" The woman continues to bounce on the bed and says, "I don't care, what you think. I just came from having a mammogram, and the doctor says that not only am I healthy, but I have the breasts of an 18 year-old." The husband replies, "What did he say about your 55-year old ass?"
"Your name never came up," she replied.

In the Garden & Key series... Nora gets me again

I started the In the Garden series last week and I finished it over the weekend. The series includes, Blue Dahlia, Black Rose, and Red Lily, by Nora Roberts. First off, I learned A LOT about flowers, plants and gardening that I had NO idea. It was a bit overwhelming, all the gardening talk, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story throughout the entire series. It is based on three women, mothers, in various stages of their lives coming together... making a business grow and creating a family. It also involves a ghost that affects the lives of each woman in each book. By the last book, I was totally engrossed in the story and nothing could pull me from it. lol

I then started the Key series also by Nora Roberts. This series (Key of Light, Key of Knowledge, and Key of Valor) was also about three women, but this time they are around the same age. They are each invited to a special meeting where they are given the chance of a lifetime... What a great story this was! They each have to find one of three keys that will unlock the souls of some demigoddesses locked away like sleeping beauties by an evil sorcerer god. Each book focuses on one of the women and their quest for their key.

Ok here is what I love about both series and Nora Roberts:

Nora Roberts is just excellent at creating a character. All of her characters are so believable, human, REAL... she is able to shape them with her words so that I see that person and relate to them in my mind so clearly. I have to say that I have yet to read a Nora Roberts book I did not like. Anyway, in each of these series, the people, the characters, each have real issues, real insecurities and pain that I can relate to. It is not your typical romance novel where everyone is a supermodel and perfect. It is not about sex... They are all stories of love, loss, pain and triumph... But all women are STRONG women even if they don't believe they are... like most women I know. It was just a real joy to read these and I recommend them to anyone. :)

Now I am onto the Christine Feehan's Carpathian series. I am 15 books behind so I gotta get cracking. :) So far the first book, Dark Prince, is intersting... and dark. We shall see how it continues.

Little Lady Agency... Honey Please!

I am almost finished reding The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne and I have to say it is a DELIGHTFUL read! Just what I needed after reading all that paranormal romance stuff.

This book reminds me of the fun with Bridget Jones' Diary, which I loved. It is set in London and it is about a woman trying to find herself and she eventually does... even tho she finds it thru an alter-ego she creates named Honey. What a FUN FUN FUN story... I laughed a lot and really love the characters. I am still waiting on the ending which I know I will finish at lunchtime... but I suspect that it won't be without a laugh or two.

In other news, I have finally finished the mini-catalog that I was designing for work and got the proof today. It looks pretty good if I do say so myself. I just hope that it generates some good sales. :)

I am ready to go home already cause I am still tired. I went home and passed out immediately, woke up at midnight and couldn't go back to sleep. It was too late for me to take a sleeping pill by the time I woke up so I was pretty much stuck. So I read. I really hate insomnia. :(

Earlier I got an IM from my SIL. Apparently, Brian's ex was posing as Ashley yesterday during school hours and trying to talk to her. SIL and my husband's ex do NOT get along. Long story. Anyway she had to make sure that Ashley was in fact in school and not at home online.... but she said that she knew it was NOT Ashley and the conversation sounded like bait. While I would love to think she is being delusional, this is something that the ex has done on many prior occasions. SIL was not thrilled but I told her I doubt the ex will stop anytime soon. It is best to ignore the drama-monger. It really is a waste of energy. I learned that the hard way.

*EDIT* Turns out it was Ashley talking to SIL. Now SIL feels really bad for some of the things she said thinking it was the EX. In all fairness, the EX has done that so many times, it is easy for one to be paranoid.

I'm a book reading fool...

So this weekend, I read a total of six books.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Kresley Cole, Immortal After Dark series (books 1-3), that I read. It was hard to put them down for even my husband to talk to me. He knows by now that if I am that engrossed in a story to wait until I pause to talk to me. LOL That is pretty lame I know. Anyway, I know that I will really enjoy reading more from her.

After I finished those books, I read an older one by Kay Hooper (one of my faves) that was republished. It was her last romantic novel.... The Haunting of Josie. I really liked it. It was short and sweet with little bits of goosebumps mixed in.

Next up is The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne. Brian found this for me when he went to the grocery store to get some stuff. I have not read anything from Hester Browne before. It LOOKS like it might be a fun read. I will get started on it today at lunch.

In other news, our washer is out again. Well, it's the pipes I think. We have to get them cleaned out because the washer ended up flooding our house. Good thing I have no floors down (we are down to bare concrete while we remodel "SLOWLY"). So meanwhile we washed clothes the old fashioned way... by hand ... in the tub... and now I am itchy.

This is my life.

Date Night

Tonight, Brian and I are going on a date. Nothing like dinner and a movie sans kids to break up the monotony of daily life. Since Jon has a band thing this weekend (typically our weekend with the stepkids), we are going OUT. YAY!

We are going out to eat, probably at Texas Land & Cattle. Then we are going to see P. S. I Love You. I will let you know how it is... the previews looked interesting.

Then I plan on reading a lot this weekend. I want to finish Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts. I have to say that Nora Roberts is a fantastic writer. I was never big into romance novels but she really has a way to bring it all together into a story that grabs your attention and holds on until the end. Though, I am having a slower time with this particular book than some of her others. I am not sure why... maybe because of how she is breaking it up? It is a good story but it is not something that I have to finish before I put it down as some of her others have been.

After this book, I will begin on the Kresley Cole series and probably also read Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich. (Thanks to MK and Rachel)