The Good, The Bad, and the Delicious

Right now, I am sitting in the parking lot of the NWS medical center waiting for my dad to be done with this appointment.  Then in a couple of hours we are going to another appointment for his nerve block.  Cross your fingers that hopefully this nerve block will be the thing to stop his pain.  I admit I hate going to the hospital and all doctors, but who doesn’t?  I don’t mind seeing the doctor or even taking the medicine…it’s the waiting that is evil.  I understand it all.  I think I have read at least 10 books, colored 15 file folder games, and written many things while waiting for my dad in his endless appointments for the past two weeks.  I don’t mind especially because the weather is beautiful and I get to stay in the car.

The good is that our next door neighbors were wonderful last night and brought us fresh just picked strawberries.  They were gorgeous and sooo sweet.  I think this week or next is the last week of the strawberry season.  My mom asked, “Why didn’t we plant strawberries?”.  I had bugged her for about 3 weeks to plant strawberries and she of course said we don’t have room.  Well, awesome solution!!!  On the side of our house is a walkway with just lantana.  It gets wonderful sun and is easily accessible.  I told my mom that we could use hanging planters and put the strawberries above the lantana.  I think it solves many problems.  The other one too is that the neighborhood children hopefully aren’t tall enough yet to reach the hanging strawberries.  We’ll see though.



Probably shouldn’t have said that things are bad.  Nothing too much has happened here to really say anything has gone badly.  Unless you count finding a spider in my hair yesterday.  As you can see above, my cat has the right idea.  Reading through osmosis.  Anything that is paper related, he will sleep on.  So of course, when I sat down to read at the counter, who should come up and just fall onto my book mysteriously?  At least he kept my page for me while I went and fixed dinner.

Here’s what I have been reading lately (already have read but willing to read again):

1. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.  I read this book a long time ago but I wanted to read it again before I saw the movie.  I don’t know why I do that when I’m such a book purist.  I hate it when movies make a horrible rendition of the book.  Especially when the movie should really be called “So and So loosely based on the book by So and So…at least we have to the character names down.”
2. The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan.  This is one of the most awesome series ever!!  It is considered a youth book (ages 9-12) BUT he writes beautifully.  Riordan does such an awesome job detailing the characters and bringing Greek mythology.  I definitely recommend this series for everyone.  This is the last book in the series and I admit that I am in love with the ending.  He does a good job wrapping all loose ends without staying too long in one area and keeps the storyline going.  I think that killed it for me with the last book in the Harry Potter series.  We won’t even go into that.  That would definitely be the ugly part of this post.
3. The Lord Is My Shepherd by Harold S. Kushner.  Yes, I have quoted from his book before this but I wanted to still list it.  I finished it yesterday!  I don’t know why it took me so long to finish it though.  It’s a wonderful, easy read.  Rabbi Kushner has a good writing flow that is so easy to follow.  I guess the only thing I can say is that he has so many good points that I read the whole book slowly.  This is such a powerful book.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone.  I think I'm going to try to pick up his other books also.  Now here’s another good quote from the book that has really touched me.

   “Once we have learned to see our lives as the accumulation of gifts that God has given us, gifts we could not have acquired by our own efforts, once we have learned to appreciate what we have, rather than complain that we don’t have more, because we could have had nothing…”  p.152

4. Hidden Fang, Crouching Vampire by Katie McAlister.  Yes, yes, laugh all you want at the title.  She is probably one of the best authors I have read in a long, long time.  She has the right amount of wit in her stories.  This is a romance novel and so be warned to all of you who don’t like that genre.  I would say though that you should start with the first book of this particular series.  I think she writes a youth series and I’m trying to find those books.
5. The Second Siege: Book Two of The Tapestry by Henry H. Neff.  Yet again, an awesome youth series!!!  This is the second in the series with the third maybe coming out in September of this year.  I like this book because it has magic but it doesn't rely on magical things such as potions and wands (which are good too...after all, I do loved Harry Potter until the last book came out).  This is one that I would definitely recommend for anyone.  Powerful and well written.

I’m sorry that this post is the size of my cat (big, flat and pear shaped).  I hope that everyone is having a good middle of the week and enjoying the beautiful weather (at least here).