Still Here

I’m still here, even though I seem to have dropped out of the A to Z Challenge.  I’m thinking about trying to finish it out, even if it’s unofficially, just to get back in.  Good idea or waste of time?

Last week just got really crazy.  First of all, the weather went insane; one day we were wearing shorts and sunscreen and the next day we were wearing coats and gloves.  I don’t think my squash and zucchini plants survived the cold.  I planted them way too early I suppose.  My flowers seem to have made it.  They were still in pots, so we were able to move them on to the screened in porch and cover them up with old towels.  I’m hoping the weather will stay warm enough for me to plant them this weekend. 

I totally blame the weather, but I also got knocked on my butt with some sort of cold/sinus/allergy thing.  It pretty much felt like a herd of angry cats took up residence in my throat and then tried to claw their way out.  Not fun.  I just had no energy and felt terrible. I’ve been going to bed early and drinking lots of tea, water, and orange juice, and have finally started to feel a little better.  Early bed time and chicken noodle soup are still on tonight’s agenda, however.  Aren’t I exciting?

We also had three sick fur kids last week.  Frankie started vomiting excessively and had to go to the vet.  Lots of expensive tests later, it was determined that he seems to have acid reflux. He’s currently on Pepcid, and seems to be feeling much better.  The first few doses went fairly well, but now he seems to think he’s had enough.  He bit the HELL out of me last night when I gave him his pill!!!  I think it’s going to be Nick’s turn today. 

Emma went back to the specialist on Friday, and they repeated several tests.  We’re still waiting on the results of one more test, but they’re leaning toward a behavioral issue.  I’m still deciding if I think that’s accurate or not, and we’re currently researching a few different things to try for her.  We will also talk to her regular vet before beginning any new medications; he’s a really good vet and has more of a history with her than the specialist. 

We were hit in the parking lot as we were leaving.  All three of us are fine, and the car is fine. The woman who backed into us just seemed like a total idiot, and tried to pet Emma without asking first (which is a very sore subject with me).  Between feeling terrible and being worried about Emma, let’s just say that I definitely was not at my most charming.  At least everyone was fine. 

Duke has developed the very bad habit of eating anything he can possibly scavenge when we go out for walks.  I promise we’re not starving him, in fact the vet wasn’t terribly pleased with the amount of weight he has gained since we’ve had him.  But he still scavenges for anything even remotely edible when we walk him.  Unsurprisingly, this causes him severe gastrointestinal problems sometimes.  He needed to go out about every hour and a half Saturday night.  Nick and I took turns taking him out, but I’m a light sleeper and it takes Nick a while to go back to sleep, so neither of us got much sleep Saturday night.  Duke has some medicine now, and seems to be feeling much better.  I just hope he stops his scavenging.

We rented The Book Thief from Redbox and watched it over the weekend.  It was excellent!  I loved the book, and thought they did a really good job with the movie.  It has been a while, so I want to re-read the book now, but from what I remember, it seemed like the movie stayed pretty true to the book.  Have you read the book or watched the movie? What did you think?

I’m looking forward to catching up on all of your posts that I missed last week, and hope everyone in blogger land is doing well.

Never Say Never

Are there things you’ve said (or thought) that you would never do or like that you one day find yourself doing and/or liking?

For me, yard work has turned into one of those never say never things.  As a teenager, I hated yard work.  I swore that when I had my own house I would never garden, and that I’d pay someone (that was well before I realized how much things cost) to cut the grass.  Well, never say never.

Nick and I bought our first house about three and a half years ago.  It has a very small yard, but every year I’m finding myself doing more and more in the yard.  And I find myself actually enjoying some of the yard work.  

This weekend was beautiful and warm, and Home Depot had a Spring Black Friday Sale. There’s another never say never.  I never would have thought I’d utter the words, “Home Depot is having a Spring Black Friday sale.  We should go and get things for the yard.”  But once again, never say never.

We decided to go with some raised beds in the back yard for our vegetable garden, and we are slowly mulching and planting flowers in various beds around the house.  We’re both really excited about the raised beds because we’ve read and heard a lot of good things about them. We put the first one in on Saturday, and I am ridiculously proud of it.  I only have four plants in it so far.  It’s still a little early, but I just had to go ahead and try to get started.  We’re planning to put one more in this weekend, and will be planting lettuce in it.

We had a cold snap (hopefully the last one) last night and today, so I’ve moved all of my flowers onto the porch.  Yet another thing I never thought I’d do.  I’ve already planted the more cold tolerant flowers, and I’m looking forward to planting my daisy, marigolds, and petunias as soon as it warms up a little more.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really excited about our plans for the things we want to do with the yard, and the vegetables we plan to grow. 

What about you?  Any never say never things you’ve surprised yourself with?

Review of One Good Cowboy by Catherine Mann

One Good Cowboy (Diamonds in the Rough #1)

by Catherine Mann

Genre: Contemporary Romance/Category Romance/Cowboys/Animal Rescue

Age category: Adult

Release Date: April 1, 2014

Blurb:

From Ex to Eternity?

To inherit his family's empire, Texas cowboy-turned-CEO Stone McNair must prove he has a heart beneath his ruthlessly suave exterior. His trial? Finding homes for his grandmother's rescue dogs. His judge? Johanna Fletcher, the woman whose heart he broke.

Sure, Johanna can handle a week traveling the country with her ex-fiancé to fulfill his dying grandmother's request. She and Stone want different things—plain and simple. But there's nothing plain about Stone, or simple about the heat that still flares between them. One week may not be long enough….

You can find One Good Cowboy on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18774824-one-good-cowboy?ac=1   

You can buy One Good Cowboy here:

- Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FTQ1VH6/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_bFmctb01SMAV8

- Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-good-cowboy-catherine-mann/1117057012?ean=9780373733064    

- Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/one-good-cowboy-1

- Harlequin: http://www.harlequin.com/storeitem.html?iid=51415   

About the Author:

USA Today bestseller Catherine Mann and RITA Award winner, Catherine writes contemporary romance for Berkley, Harlequin, and Sourcebooks, With over two million books in print in more than twenty countries, she has also celebrated five RITA finals, three Maggie Award of Excellence finals and a Bookseller’s Best win. A former theater school director and university instructor, she holds a Master’s degree in Theater from UNC-Greensboro and a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts: Theater (with minors in both English and Education) from the College of Charleston. Catherine and her flyboy husband live on the Florida coast where they brought up their 4 children – and still have 5 four-legged, furry “children” (aka pets). Catherine is an active volunteer with her local Humane Society, serving on their Board of Directors and fostering puppies and special needs dogs (she stopped counting at a hundred). She recently checked off a major item on her “bucket list” by completing the hands-on training for the Florida State Animal Rescue Coalition. Catherine enjoys hearing from her readers and can be found online daily.  To receive an autographed bookmark, send a SASE to: P.O. Box 6065, Navarre, FL 32566

You can find and contact Catherine here:

- Website: http://www.catherinemann.com/

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CatherineMannAuthor

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/catherinemann1

- Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/93454.Catherine_Mann

- Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/catherinemann/

- Blog: http://www.catherinemann.com/category/blog/

- Newsletter: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/CatherineMann_News/

I received a free copy of One Good Cowboy by Catherine Mann in exchange for an honest review, which was pretty exciting for me since this was my first time being a given a book to review.  The blurb really grabbed my attention when it mentioned finding homes for rescue dogs.  As someone involved in animal rescue, I decided it was a book I definitely wanted to read.

Overall, I enjoyed One Good Cowboy.  I’m giving it three stars out of five, which means I liked it.  There were a few things I didn’t love about it, so I’ll start with the negative and end with the positive.  That’s just how I like to do things.

The negative:  The names of the characters and pets pretty much drove me insane.  Stone McNair’s grandmother is a billionaire and the founder of a jewelry company, Diamonds In The Rough.  The family also owns and operates the Hidden Gem Ranch.  There’s definitely a jewelry/precious stone connection there, but in case you miss that somehow EVERY single pet has some kind of jewel/precious metal name.  The dogs are Sterling, Gem, Pearl, and Ruby.  The horses mentioned by name have names like Goldie and Opal.   Then there’s Stone.  His cousins are Amethyst and Alexandrite.  It just seemed like a lot of overkill to me. 

There also seemed to be some overkill in letting you know just how wealthy the McNairs are; the private jet, the insanely famous and wealthy social circle, and the ability to just buy all new clothes and accessories in the middle of a trip.  Once again, it seemed like overkill by the end.

I know neither of those things are very big deals, and it’s probably just me, but that’s how I felt.

The positive:  First and foremost, the fact that the book essentially starts off with a dying woman’s wish to see her rescue dogs placed in good homes.  You had me at rescue dogs OR being responsible enough to make sure there’s a plan in place for pets in the event of their owner’s death.  Both?  I’m definitely in.  This was the first time I’ve read a romance with any kind of animal rescue connection, and I just love that being added in as a subgenre.

I liked Stone and Johanna, and I liked them together.  They had broken off their engagement several months before due in large part to a lack of trust, communication, and a lack of compromise.  The week together with the dogs placed them in close proximity to one another and more or less forced them to acknowledge and resolve their issues.

There was definite heat between the two of them, they just both seemed to get caught up in the picture of how they wanted things to be, and didn’t really give much thought to where the other person was coming from. 

The issues they faced seemed pretty realistic for the most part; children or no children, how and with whom they socialized, total (or lack thereof) honesty, and how much each was willing to give to make a life together.  I enjoyed the give and take between the two of them to come to a workable solution, and definitely felt like they were a couple I wanted to see make it.

This was my first time reading Catherine Mann, and I think I’ll definitely give some of her other books a try.  What about you?  Have you read any of her books?  

Life

I had a plan going into the A to Z Challenge to write and schedule a lot of my posts for the week on the weekends, and have everything scheduled to post on its assigned day of the week.  It takes a really, really long time for pictures to upload, and I thought that would be easier in addition to allowing me more time to visit other blogs during the week.

Sometimes life gets in the way of plans, though.  That was the case for me this weekend.  Nick was off, the weather was beautiful, we had a class Saturday morning, and we had plans with Nick’s grandparents to attend a nearby festival.  We took advantage of the beautiful weather to get a lot of yard work done.  We put in our first raised bed, which I’m extremely proud of (probably more on that in a later post).

This made me think about the things that make up our lives, and how much time we spend doing them.  Life is busy, and it seems like we’re constantly juggling to fit everything in.  Obviously, some things are more necessary than others, and some have a much higher priority than others, but they’re all part of our lives. 

Here are the major things that make up my life:

Work.  I imagine this one is a biggie for most people.  It’s 40 hours a week, probably for the next 40 years, unless we win the lottery or something.

Fur kids.  We have six of them right now, so taking care of them and spending time with them takes up a lot of time.  It’s time we both feel is time well spent, but still a lot of time.

Volunteering.  For hubby it’s at the Fire Department, usually at least one day a week.  For me it’s something involving animals.  Today it will be driving to a kill shelter in South Carolina after work to pick up kittens to bring to the no-kill shelter here.

Home and yard work.  The dishes and laundry (and sweeping and dusting) seem to be never ending.  No matter how much we try to streamline it, they still take time.  This is also the time of year when yard work becomes a major thing.  At least we get to be outside for that!

Cooking.  This is how I spend a lot of my time.  I love cooking.  Most of our socializing seems to involve having people over to out house to dinner, and I’m in the process of writing a cookbook.   I spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

Spending time with family and friends.  This one is so easy to push to the side, but so important to make time for.  Because Nick’s work schedule is pretty crazy we have to be very conscientious about blocking off time for the two of us.  I also think it’s very important to spend time with family and friends, even if it’s just meeting someone for coffee to catch up.  

Of course there are other things, but those seem to be the main daily and weekly things that make up my life.  

What about you?  What are the main things that make up your life?  

The Winner

Thank you to everyone who participated in my Guessing Game last week, especially those of you who expressed your very kind wishes for good news from my next MRI.  In answer to the questions about that, no, I haven’t had it yet.  I’ll be calling later this week to have it scheduled for sometime close to the end of the month, and am hoping it shows more shrinkage.  Thank you for all of the kind words about that.  You’re all so nice. 

There were a few very creative guesses, including Betty’s (from A Bench With A View) guess of “Jamming”.  Jacqueline (from Cheapskate Blethering) had the closet guess with “Just give in to your inner cat lady”.  So very, very close!

However, no one came up with “June Is Adopt A Shelter CatMonth”, and the fact that I will be turning my blog over to all things cat rescue related for the entire month of June.  I suspect this means that none of you are teetering on the edge of crazy cat lady status…

My highly technical method of determining the winner was to write everyone’s name on a sticky note, toss the notes in a bowl, and draw.  Fancy, huh?  Milo supervised and approved the whole process. 

And the winner is…

Anna, from Herding Cats & Burning Soup.

Anna, please send me your mailing address so I can get your chocolates on their way to you.

Thank you again to everyone who participated!