Greatest global online bookclub in town

Spring is arriving in WI also. Last year we had a horrible ice storm when I was here, snow melted, turned to slush and froze again before the roads could be cleared. i am hoping it won’t happen again but know it can. This week it is nice. This is good because it means the dogs can be out in the runs longer. They like playing together out there. Susan sold the last puppy she had planned to keep. He was a six month old cutie. An older couple who had lost their old lab they had gotten from her thirteen years ago offered to pay her to find a puppy for them.
There aren’t any available now or coming up so she decided to sell. There is only one lab in the house now, retired Barbie who seems to think she is my dog.The kids all think I should take her as she would be easy. She is well trained but I like not being responsible for anything at this point in my life and I have many “grand” pets I can visit.

I finished reading the John Irving book, Twisted River and highly recommend it. His characters are so unbelievable believable. I am now enjoying Jody Picoults latest, House Rules. It is true that she has a formula but I haven’t read one of hers for a while and I am finding it hard to put down. This one involves an 18 year old Asperger son who is accused of murdering his tutor. Because he has trouble communicating he is n deep trouble and looks guilty. I am tempted to read the end to see how he gets out of it but I won’t.

Happy Spring all!

I am definitely ready for spring. The last bit of snow we had has melted and temps are in the 50s, which is nice. I face NE and maybe even NNE, so I don’t get a whole lot of sun yet. And, since I am no hothouse flower, I like that although I do miss not being able to see the mountains. Anyhow, we can get snow up until the end of April, Darlyne. It doesn’t last long, but it can do a number on spring flower planting!!! I found that out last year when I planted too soon.

I need to go into Amazon and download some more books as I’ve read all the ones I downloaded before. I can also delete the texts of the books I’ve read and I guess I’m left with only the titles. Since I got all free books, older books to be sure but some good ones, it isn’t money wasted.

I read Jack Higgins’ latest called The Wolf at the Door and since I am a fan of that particular type by Higgins, I plan to get the earlier stories featuring Sean Dillon. I think I ‘enlightened’ you all about that maybe in my last post. At any rate, reading is #2 on the list – spring is arriving and I plan to welcome it with open arms.

I’ve been riding the Mirasol van lately and it isn’t all that bad, I must say. I still have not had to use the city transit – they apparently don’t have any regular bus runs, or at least don’t have any where I live (south Loveland), so I’ve had to call and get an appt to deliver and pick up. COLT is rearranging itself, or so I understand, and it is far from useful, especially in getting back home. Their drivers pack up their drivers’ licenses and quit work at 5 p.m.! There is another option and I have to check that one out. I have a friend who says that COLT means Crabby Old Ladies Transit! taint so, but it sounds good. It’s actually City of Loveland Transit. I do miss my car at times like that.

Stay dry – you Northeast Coasters, watch that water level.
Jo

Thought it was here a couple of days ago–I got out and trimmed the dead foliage ready for new plants. Then we had another dip. Now it’s pouring rain and cold. Glad I hadn’t got more yet–maybe next week.

That’s a lot of snow, Jo, this late in the season. Thanks for the book recommendation. I’ve finished all the mysteries I had downloaded on Kindle. These days, I enjoy those more. I like Donald Sutherland, too. In the car I’m listening to Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper. It’s the first of hers I’ve “read.”

I’m halfway through The Glass Castle. I find it interesting but not really depressing. I liked Half Broke Horses better.

Candace

Have a good fast trip, Darlyne (maybe work in a nap when you get there) and enjoy Figaro.

It rained snow all day yesterday and the parking lot lights reflected on the snow made my apt quite light .. woke me up in fact, it was that light. I looked at the clock and it said 3:11 a.m. and I had to get up to check another clock to be sure. Yup – 3:11 a.m. And overall I have some 6 inches of snow on my balcony. I’m sure other sides of this trapezoidal shaped building with the wider bottom line missing got more than that. It’s the kind of snow that, if the kids have a snow day, will make great forts, snowmen and snowballs. Me? I’ll stay inside.

Our driver canceled our trip to Walgreen’s and King Soopers grocery because of the poor shape of the roads, etc. She’ll do the Walmart trip tomorrow morning and the Walgreen/King Soopers in the afternoon. Gonna be a busy day for her. But she is a good driver so it won’t be a problem.

My daughter get home from work around 9:45 p.m. and said she couldn’t get her car up the driveway to put in the garage as the snow was too slushy and slippery. So, as she worded it, “car slept on the street.” Temp is still around 32°. Hope it melts quickly. I’m so ready for spring! And I LOVE this cold weather etc. But enough already.

Any espionage/adventure fans here? I downloaded Jack Higgins’ THE WOLF AT THE DOOR to my Kindle some time ago and it is very good. He has brought Sean Dillon back from previous stories. I don’t remember the movie, but Dillon was played by Donald Sutherland and what a villain he could be. He has since turned over a new leaf and is with the good guys now. I want to try to get the rest of that particular series. I can see Sutherland/Dillon as I read.

Son Kiefer does a good hero, too, but he yells to make a point. Father Donald never raised his voice as I recall and oh what a menacing presence he could be. I’m glad to see him working for the good guys, however, as I really liked the character.

Probably too much information (TMI) but there it is, folks.
Stay warm, well fed and housed.
Jo

Strange weather all over. I unplugged my electric blanket because an electrical storm was forecast and was thinking about putting my snow shovel away but was advised to wait on that.

I am off to WI tomorrow morning for a couple of weeks in the dog world. My daughter has tickets for the Lyric opera in Chicago for tomorrow night so it is going to be a long day for me. The flight is a short one but I get there quite early and never sleep well the night before I travel. I hope there are no hassles at the airports. I have a new Judy Picoult book and my knitting along in case there are delays. (Seeing The Marriage of Figaro will be worth the long day).

stra

Here in Oklahoma, on the second day of Spring, I measured 7 1/2 inches of snow in Mom’s front yard. My brother, his wife, daughter and granddaughter went to Tulsa on Saturday to visit his other daughter and her new baby and were unable to get home on Sunday. There were auto accidents all over the road. They were able to get home on Monday. The high temperature today is supposed to be 73! Springtime!

Yesterday was the first day of Spring. We had, overnight, about 2+ inches of snow! Strange for Texas, strange period!

Stay warm. (Hope the floods are not near anyone)

I think, from reading what the stories are about and getting a bit more of the stories, that I shall bypass these two much as I really like true stories. I’ll be happy for the author that she has come through that kind of childhood but I don’t care to read about it, thank you.

We expect a couple inches of snow tonight and snow tomorrow. I hear we can still get snow until the middle of April, which is just prior to when I moved in. And I think I recall having snow once after I got here. So – winter isn’t done with us yet.

Suzanne (daughter) is currently on a 12 noon to 9 p.m. shift and thinks she’ll be going to day shift in a couple of months. I do certainly hope so. She has come over a couple of mornings the last 3-4 weeks and the time I had to call 911, she was right there. I had taken my Kindle but had no opportunity to use it. If she wasn’t there, I was taken off for testing or somebody was getting a blood sample.

She and hubby Paul are flying to FL tomorrow and back on Monday. Sunday is the Celebration of her Life for their stepmother and I do believe that all my children will be there to support their father. Paul will go to his jobsite on Monday and Suzanne will fly back home.

Paul put my car on craigslist.com to sell it on Saturday morning and it was sold by Sunday. Man wanted to come by and test drive it and ended up okaying the sale. His daughter needed a car desperately and she got a good one. Daughter was too young or didn’t make enough money at her two jobs to afford a loan, so her grandmother got the loan for her. We met Wednesday when we went to sign papers, etc., and the transfer of funds went to my bank that afternoon. What a wonderful balance I had for a while, but I no longer owe on my credit card (and will keep it that way). I do still have a nice checkbook balance and even put a goodly sum in my savings. Love getting a pot of money. St. Patrick’s Day was a good one for me.

I think I told you all that I had decided to sell my car. I drove it VERY seldom during the winter and a bit more but not much otherwise. Mostly I went with Suzanne. I’ve gone once to the market with the Mirasol van and it wasn’t too bad. I’ll continue to do that. Suzanne said she would take me for the big grocery shopping which should work out well. Anyhow we’ll see and maybe if I plan well, she won’t have to do that and we can sit in their backyard and yak it up – coffee or tea or beer or wine and maybe a munchie or two. More fun that grocery shopping!

Well folks, that’s about all I have to report and I’m getting sleeeeeeeepy so I do believe I shall do the final pills and eyedrops for the day, grab the Kindle and go to bed. I do love that Kindle. It’s a big different from holding a real (!) book, but OTOH I have some ten books in there. I plan to dump some of them which will free up a lot of space so that I can get more.

Take care all
Jo

I was at first turned off by the Glass Castle until I realized it was a true story and I was impressed by how successful the author had become after such a child hood. I also was curious about the Mother and where she came from. I have read a number of books that I don’t care for the characters but find the books interesting enough to keep me reading them.

Friends, I just finished reading “Half Broke Horses.” I read “Glass Castle” first and that might have been my mistake. Those of you who recommended these two books, I have agreed with you on almost all recommendations before. However, I REALLY did not like these two books. As I said, I read Glass Castle first and Rosemary was such a terrible mother. It was all I could do to finish the book, then I thougt the second would be better; but when I knew what kind of woman she grew up to be, that colored my feelings toward her. How on earth could a mother use her money to buy art supplies for herself and let her children scrounge in garbage cans for food. The children went DAYS without food. So, please, tell me what you liked about these two books. They are both still on my iPhone so I can reread them if you can give me a good reason to. Thanks.
Judith

Jacky, both of our states are in the news. I walked to the hospital to have a stress test today and on the way a neighbor pointed out that branches were on my roof and a down spout was damaged. I guess I will have to call Gutterman. I kept hearing noises during the storm but thought it was just minor branches hitting the house. I didn’t know about the downed trees in my neighbor’s yard.

I am reading John Irving’s book, Twisted River and now that I am half way through it finding it more of a page turner. It did take a while.

Enjoy Florida and I hope the flood predictions don’t come true.

We are at Daytona Beach, and heard this am that Fargo, ND, 100 miles north of Oslo, is now covered with only 5 inches of snow, it was over 20, but there is still the strong possibility of a flood from the Red River of the north, that flows north into Canada, and there lies the problem. It melts slower the more north the melt has to go. Our little village of Oslo has a high strong dike, with national guard folks helping us with it, we did not take out flood insurance before we left, hope we are not sorry!

We have “time share” points and are using them at Daytona Beach, but had to sit through a 2 hour update this am. But we held our ground and didn’t buy more points, which is what the update is for, and got a free lunch for our time. The facilities are always nice, but we paid dearly for the initial purchace, and hardly use the points we have.

Our son, wife and 3 teenage grands are flying in from Oslo tomorrow, so it will be a busy, fun few days among all these spring breakers.

I’m going to look for Half Broke Horses, I liked the first “Glass” whatever book by the author, but won’t get much reading done til next week. I’m reading John Grisham’s The Associate, but haven’t read enough of it to form an opinion.

Son, Craig, wants to see a MN Twins spring practice, I wonder if he knows how far Ft Myers is from here, and dil has signed up to swim with the dolphins at Sea World, I’ll watch. And their youngest, Erik, will turn 16 on St Pats day. The time will go by fast.

So glad your home is ok, Darlyne, we’ve been hearing of the winds and rain in New Jersey.

Jacky

Thanks, Julie! Jacky

Thanks, Julie–that stuff doesn’t doesn’t belong here.

Candace

i am happy to have you delete that post and others like it.

Hi, everyone–Darlyne’s daughter Julie here. I’ve taken the liberty of deleting the spam post that showed up this morning, and have done this with one earlier. I hope that’s ok with everyone–that no one feels that she or he needs to see them! I’ll be glad to continue this practice (don’t know why I didn’t think of it before) unless there is any objection.

The Nor’easter that is at the tail end really did a job on Princeton. We had six inches of rain in 24 hours and very high winds. My neighbor has one huge tree down and it luckily fell between two of their cars, another fell into their back yard and filled it up. That one was from a neighbors yard. My daughter and sil came over to look this am and then we all drove around looking at the devastation. Many roads are blocked because of downed trees and wires. Large parts of the town have no power. Mine didn’t go out. If it did I would have had a flood in my basement. Many areas are flooded but I just have a little lake in my back yard. Fortunately I don’t think anyone has been hurt.

I attended Pi day at the library. The library and town put on many activities for Pi day which is also Einstein’s birthday. I was there for the Pi recitation contest and was surprised at how many kids entered. There were a couple of five year olds who got up to ten. My sil entered the adult competition and won by getting to 204. One of the kids got to 60. There were many dressed as Einstein and his family. I didn’t stay too long but enjoyed it and the walk home. It stopped raining for a while but is raining again.

Talk about wordy–Anne of Green Gables is unbelievable. The writing style of 1850 took precedence over the story. A simple point that could be well expressed in a sentence becomes a long paragraph. The novelty of the flowery language which I enjoyed eventually got beyond my tolerance. I stopped after the third tape and put in a modern novel which moves along and will go back to it later.

Yesterday I spent most of the day reading Half Broke Horses. I couldn’t put it down. Was The Glass Castle made into a movie? As I was reading it I recognized the story but can’t put my finger on why. I am sure I haven’t read it before but images that came to mind seem like I had seen them somewhere. Apparently it is a sequel to Half Broke Horses or at least it picks up with the daughter who got married near the end of Horses.

Candace

Heartburn I can handle with no problem.

I also plan to get THESE IS MY WORDS and the two sequels as I liked THESE IS MY WORDS. I have a Kindle and hope to get quite a few books on it. I’ve read LADDIE: A TRUE BLUE TALE by Gene Stratton-Porter. I am SO glad later writing isn’t as convoluted as it was when she was writing. LADDIE was a good story but it seemed to me to be a tad long – a LOT of the words would have been edited out in these later years! I’m now reading HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER, which I am liking but with the same criticism. Yet, it isn’t really a criticism as some of those words are pertinent. Maybe it’s the long L-O-N-G paragraphs and boy, I do mean long. (Which reminds me: I had to write a terrible paper for an English class I took. It ended up with some 900 words, three paragraphs and 3 periods. I got an A. I enjoyed that class!) I think I have one more of hers to read. I like the premise of her books but I find I skim through a lot of the verbiage.

Our weather here in northern CO seems to be warming up some – snow is only visible on the mountains, of course, and in the more protected areas where the sun doesn’t yet reach. I’m ready for spring.

Take care y’all,
Jo

Jo, you sure took the hard way to find out your heart is in good shape–great outcome! Those occasional weird sensations that we wouldn’t have thought much about 20 years ago take on a whole new meaning now, I’ve found. You’ve mentioned trigger finger. This week the TV ad about “The Brown Procedure” for carpal tunnel also mentioned trigger finger. I don’t know how widespread the procedure is and wondered if you had heard about it. It sounds rather revolutionary, if it’s as noninvasive and successful as they claim.

I downloaded both Half Broke Horses and The Glass Castle because of the recommendations here. I’ve just read a few pages and am anxious to get back and read both.

Candace

It is good to catch up with all of you and see what you are reading. Also fun to hear about your pets and their reac tion to the snow.

I began to develop allergies a few years ago and when I let our dog in early in the morning, I started to sneeze. I sneezed about 17 times. Then Bo said, “ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF enough already.” Well at least that is the way I interpreted it. The look he gave me was attention getting. Bo was a Pomeranian.

Jo, I am glad you called 911 and got checked out. I think we hear so much about symptoms for women and how they differ from men’s that you don’t know what is serious and what isn’t.

I really appreciate hearing about all of your reading. One of these days, I will read books again on a regular basis. I still read a lot. I’d like to hear more about the kindle for iphone. I have the iphone and I love it. I have googled so many things. It is wonderful technology. I rarely use it for a phone though.

Georgianna

Good to catch up with you all. Our oldest son’s in law parents passed away 12 days apart in Feb. The parents live in Oslo, but our daughter and family are in MO, so we’ve had them staying with us, and it was good to have them even though very sad circumstances. Chuck’s mother has been quite well until recently and her husband, though fragile, was doing ok until his loss.

I haven’t had much time for reading so its nice to hear of the books that you mention. We plan to leave for FL next week, for a few weeks, but I’ll have my computer and will be keeping up much better.

Glad you have a good heart, Jo, that was a scarey experience! Jacky

Looks like I’m going to have to download this, given this recommendation. I, too, have occasionally given a book I like to a Kindleless friend. That’s the one downside to Kindle–can’t share it otherwise.

Candace

I’m liking this book so well on the Kindle that I bought a hard cover copy to give to my friend Debbie.
J

The book I was thinking of was The Master Butcher’s Singing Club by Louise Erdrich. She is another author I usually like.