Happiness is a Warm Puppy
Since I was born there have always been dogs in my life. There have been some lapses without a dog, but for the most part I have had the companionship of a four-legged friend.
Muffin was a Lhasa Apso my family had before I was born. She was a big fan of my dad, and I have heard they get attached primarily to one person, so when I came around my parents waited to see how she would handle a baby. She was okay at first, she would sit just outside my blanket if I was placed on the floor, never touching the blanket or me. I was never left alone with her though. When I did get mobile, it took one time for her to show her teeth and my parents took her to my grandmother. She ended up destroying her house, and then when my great-aunt took her in, she bit her. Sadly her tale was not so happy.
Sheba I remember we got when I was about four or five years old. There was a store in New York called The Emporium I believe, and one day someone had some Siberian Husky puppies they were giving away. We went home with her and she sat in my lap. She was a gentle giant, and was actually a mixed breed. She had some Labrador in her too. Her eyes were brown and blue, and she was black and white. My dad could put a piece of cheese on his finger and she would gently take it off his finger. She moved with us to Florida and I remember the drive with her. Sadly we moved from a house in Florida and she couldn’t come with us.
Pepe was the little man. My coach in grade school, this was 4th grade, had found an abandoned puppy and decided to see if any of the students could take him in. I went home, my dad helped me write a note and we got to school early the next day and I came home with a new friend. He was a Terrier/Beagle mix and just a little man. He was a sweet guy and always a good friend. He got sick when he was about 13 and he had to be euthanized, and to this day I think of him fondly.
Honey-Belle entered my life a bit after Pepe was gone. She is my little princess and protector. She is a Poodle/Bichon Frise mix and at all of nine pounds she is still a feisty little thing. She is nearing ten years old now, but she is truly a great little girl and I enjoy having her to come home to. Her protectiveness of me makes me laugh because she is so small, but feels she is an imposing figure. She is truly a personality to behold.
Loving a pet is a bittersweet thing. We have such a limited time with them, but they bring so much in those years it is hard for me to say I could give up having a dog in my life. Unconditional love, friendship is a given, and all they seek is your love, care, and friendship in return. It is truly a unique relationship humans have with their four-legged friends, and I am so grateful for it.
*Pictures to come soon :0)
K
Second Time Around
Since I have been using a Nook I have found it very easy to go back to reread a book. I find that there are still things to discover the second time around. Although the pages haven’t changed, the characters might be the same, I still find something new in those pages and characters to enjoy. Stepping away and coming back to the story again after some time, I still find myself getting pulled into the story and enjoying the journey the characters take. I also find I like revisiting a book when I am reading current series and during the time between publication it helps freshen up my memory and get me ready to start reading when the next book does arrive. It is revisiting an old friend, an old memory of sorts, and there are some people who might feel it’s boring to reread something, but I don’t think I have that problem. Go in with a fresh eye, and it might be surprising what is there the second time around.
K
Summer Cold Make Me Feel Blah
It happened, I ended up with a lovely summer cold/upper respiratory thing :0( I have always believed that getting a cold in the summer is highly unfair. Colds are caused by a virus, blah, blah, blah, but somehow during the summer it doesn’t seem that a cold should be allowed to occur. Sun, fun, relaxation, that is summer, not sniffles, coughing, and misery. So I figured I would share my misery on this lovely August day while my head is stuffed and my nose is a faucet and I cough, oh well, summer cold fun.
K
Accentuate the Negative, Make that the Positive
At lunch today with Steph, a/k/a KitchenKM we got to talking and insecurities came up. I thought a lot about what creates insecurities and I realized that it is so easy to get bogged down by the negative things tossed your way, that sometimes the positive gets squashed down to oblivion. Why do people do that to themselves? I know I am guilty of it. Sometimes it seems easier to recall the bad that has been flung at me, that the good becomes increasingly nonexistent. I can’t understand why it is so easy to remember the bad over the good. Negative reviews, opinions, feedback are recalled with a crystal clear memory; the good or positive compliments received get sent out into the ether to be forgotten. It is something I hope to stop doing, now that I have given it some thought. Accentuate the positive!
K
On the Island – Tracey Garvis Graves
My good friend and fellow blogger Steph at KitchenKM isn’t a huge fan of reading fiction, so when she recommended the book On the Island I was immediately intrigued knowing her recommendation wouldn’t have come easily. The premise does sound a tad salacious, as if The Blue Lagoon was mixed with The Mary Kay Letourneau Story. 30 year old teacher Anna Emerson is going for the summer to tutor TJ Callahan in the Maldives, where his family is vacationing. TJ is 16 years old and recently in remission from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The two travel together to the island, and what should be an uneventful trip turns into and unplanned struggle for survival when the pilot has a heart attack the two are stranded and forced to survive on a remote island. This story of survival and what appears to be a taboo romance is handled with heart and grace. Anna is not a cougar looking for her prey, but a woman who was looking for a change in her life and ends up with more than she bargained for when she must rely on the very student she came to tutor. TJ is a teenage boy who has had to grow up fast because of his cancer, and then again when thrown into this survival situation he must face adulthood and his growing feelings for his teacher. These two people only have each other, and bond while facing dangers in their struggle to live and survive. The romance is handled over the course of time, and I think that is what softens any taboo or salaciousness of the age difference and student/teacher rolls. The relationship is not fully realized or consummated until TJ is nearly 19. This romance isn’t a quick island romp, but built out of adversity and life and death struggles that shape the bond and eventual love for each other that develops between Anna and TJ. This is a fast paced read that kept me turning pages and explores the deepening of a relationship over the course of time between characters that felt honest to me. I am glad to say my initial expectations were wrong, and I enjoyed this wonderful romance.
K
Best Buy – GRRRRRRRRRRR
Okay, rant time, but this will be a short post too :0P Yesterday I went to Best Buy to return something, with a receipt in hand, and that damn messed up policy to take and swipe my license makes me furious. WHAT OTHER STORE DOES THIS! Oh, the cashier tried to say Wal-Mart does this too, I haven’t been there in a while, but I don’t remember that and I am not sure if this is their policy now too. It is ridiculous that they track returns this way, to my license, it made me feel like a criminal! Okay, I can see there might be people who are return offenders, but give me a break. Best Buy is in trouble, having to possibly let people go, hummmm, maybe that is why people don’t want to shop there anymore, because they feel like criminals!
*I looked it up, Wal-Mart does this if you don’t have a receipt, which I can tolerate, but when you have a receipt, that is just, ugh!!
K
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger
It continually amazes me to think of the things life throws my way, and like a trooper one must soldier on. Trying times, dark times, lonely times, those are the times that try the heart, mind, and soul. Bloodied and battered from battle, it feels as if it will never end and enemy advance will deal the final blow. However, once that time has passed, the battleground is cleared, and hopefully left standing to fight again, I am stronger. I don’t know what it is, but seeing others around me, and experiencing what I have in my life, I see that this can be the case. Things are thrown my way, taking control and fighting to see another day is all I really can do. If other people have done it, why can’t I. The pain, struggles, heartache in life are tumultuous and defy explanation for a concrete reason why, but the good and happy in life is made better, stronger, and brighter because of that. It sounds like trite and as if Pollyanna is speaking when I say all this, but it is a way to look past the dark times, and see what lies ahead. The past is history, we have the present to live, and and a future to shape and make our own.
Are there sad, dark times you are grateful for? Something that was painful but brought you to a greater happiness?
K
One for the Money (Stephanie Plum) – Janet Evanovich
Stephanie Plum is the sassy and feisty heroine in a series of Janet Evanovich novels following her adventures misadventures as a bond enforcement agent, or bounty hunter. Recently having lost her job as a lingerie buyer, this plucky Jersey Girl must figure out how to come up with some cash, and turns to her dad’s cousin for work as a bounty hunter. Clearly not well-suited to this dangerous work, she somehow has a keen instinct to know when she should dig deeper into a mystery surrounding an FTA, i.e. Failure to Appear. Her first assignment is Joe Morelli, a vice cop seemingly turned killer who grew up in her neighborhood. The two have a colorful history and clearly strained feelings exist, but she must do all she can to get her man. With some help from Ricardo Carlos Manoso, otherwise known as Ranger, bounty hunter extraordinaire and mystery figure of male danger she lands herself in some rather dangerous situations along the way to getting to the bottom of things.
This series, which has a nineteenth book coming out, is funny, sexy, and lively. Stephanie is a regular girl who takes a job as a bounty hunter out of need, and lands in deep water time and time again. I have now read 6 books in the series and have enjoyed each of them. They have funny characters, like Lula a former prostitute who ends up going along with Stephanie on some of her FTA missions as the series progresses. Grandma Mazur is Stephanie’s funeral loving grandma, who seems as trouble prone as Stephanie. Even “Big Blue”, a tank of a Buick Roadmaster that Stephanie endures driving after she continually loses cars fires, bombs, and garbage trucks becomes kind of iconic in her world.
The back and forth flirtations/relationships she has with Morelli and Ranger are endearing, because what girl wouldn’t love having two sexy guys in their life. Watching her figure out her feelings as she goes after FTAs is amusing, because both men must continually keep her out of the trouble she seems to draw to her. She isn’t a damsel-in-distress, but she is definitely a girl who attracts trouble, and the two men in her life have to endure a lo.
I find myself going back to this series for enjoyable, light reads, with a bit of adventure and romance mixed in. Stephanie isn’t perfect, and that is what I love most. She goes in, does her thing, and somehow manages to make it out in the end. Her no holds barred approach is always amusing. I plan to continue reading the series and see what trouble our fearless bounty hunter finds herself in next.
K
krissyandthecity 