Migrating West

The time is here for my final move back to California!!!

We leave tomorrow morning and will arrive in San Antonio Sunday night where we will stay with my brother-in-law for 3 days then we should be arriving in Southern California Friday night. We will stay the night with my aunt and finally get home in Healdsburg, CA Saturday night. Wow, it is crazy it is already time for this.

So the good news is I am very excited, the bad news is that I will have limited internet for a while. I am hoping to post a review of at least one audiobook while we are in Texas but other than that I am going to be focusing on stockpiling book reviews to post when I am back in the internet zone.

So I leave you with an old picture of me in my old car but I thought it best suited the occasion since it shows the state I will be in for the next week: in a car with a giant smile on my face.

Have a great week!!!

The Case of the Missing Book

I have to start this post by admitting that I completely sucked at the final leg of the Lord of the Rings Readalong. I was going so strong, my posts were fairly on schedule and I was loving the books. When I finished The Two Towers, I wanted so badly to continue on with The Return of the King but March wasn't over and I didn't want to finish it before everyone else had even started it, so I put it down. That was my big mistake. April turned out to be a crazy month and May 1st came and went with me only getting 10 pages into ROTK!!!

The problem was that everything was so crazy, I felt like I wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the story. Plus, I didn't want it to end. I enjoyed seeing it on the table waiting for me. Finally today I picked the book up again and threw myself into the story. I read about 15 more pages and had to set it down to help with some moving stuff (we had pro movers packing us up courtesy of the Army...now I'm spoiled and will never move myself again) I set my book down in a designated "no pack zone" and when I went back an hour later it was GONE!!! I don't know what happened but I think somehow it ended up with the other books packed away for A MONTH! (we are having them store our stuff while we get our living situation finalized)

What the hell man!! Am I being punished by the readalong gods? I finally allow myself to get back into the story and finish an adventure that I have fallen in love with only to have it ripped away/hidden. The picture is the view right now from my couch. I feel like I'm in a fort but somewhere in there is my book.....

Suffice to say I will not be finishing the book until next month (*sniff*), but I think the real loser here is my husband who waited so patiently until May to start pestering me about watching the movies. When I started reading the books, he was so excited to watch the movies again and I told him not to even ask until April was over and I had finished reading all the books. Well sorry Mike, you have to wait another month...oops.

Mailbox....Thursday??

Okay, I know it isn't Monday but I just couldn't wait to tell you about what my favorite UPS guy delivered. Not because of what it is (I mean of course I love what I got) but because of what it means. I got 3 new audiobooks!! Why is this so important??? Because it means I am going to be driving...far. Yes, the time is here for my trip back to California!!! I am finally leaving Dementorville and going back to the state that loves me...for good this time. You have no idea how excited I am about this.

Yes, North Carolina has grown on me and there are things that I will forever miss (like the awesome thunder storms and the warm rain...even if it does create the most awful humidity ever) but California is where I am meant to be. My family is there and I mean really...I was raised in Sonoma County, where the best wine in the country, possibly the world, is made. Northern California here I come. Plus, if I am really lucky, I will be living even farther north in CA where I will be the proud...dare I say it...OWNER...of an adorable condo. Ok I can't say it because it hasn't been finalized yet and I just about had a heart attack typing that one word. Dear God escrow must be the longest thing to wait through known to man!

Moving on...

Knowing that this trip was coming, I have been scouting for the perfect audiobooks to join me on this glorious drive. I finally decided on Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, and Waiting for Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk. And yes, I took the picture of them surrounded by the boxes that are overtaking my apartment. I can't wait to start listening. We hit the road a week from Saturday!

The Stolen Crown Winner

Congratulations!!!

Linda 

you are the winner of a signed copy of 

The Stolen Crown by Susan Higginbotham.

Thanks to all who entered the giveaway.

Last chance to win The Stolen Crown!!

Only 2 more days to enter my giveaway for a signed copy of The Stolen Crown by Susan Higginbotham!

Ends May 2.

Island of the Blue Dolphins - Scott O'Dell

Island of the Blue Dolphins
by Scott O'Dell

This is the only book that I read for the Shelf Discovery Challenge that was a reread and I saved it for last because I remembered loving it when I was little.  I was not disappointed reading it again!  I'm kind of in love with it, and really what's not to love?  You have a young girl alone on an island that is shaped like a dolphin fighting wild dogs while taming birds and otter and then you get to the author's note and find out it was based on a true story!!!  How did I not remember that?

It was a quick read but I loved every second.  It was strange to read the one part I remembered the most and how it was barely even a part of the story:

On the sixth day, when the storm had ended, I went to the place where the canoes had been hidden, and let myself down over the cliff.  This part of the shore was sheltered from the wind and I found the canoes just as they had been left.  The dried food was still good, but the water was stale, so I went back to the spring and filled a fresh basket.

The part that stuck with me was about the water.  Reading this in elementary was the moment that I found out water didn't last forever, it became stale.  This was such a shock to me that the image of the canoe with water baskets in it has stuck with me and it is what I think about anytime stale water comes up.  I'm ashamed to say that the image in my head did change over the years and without my realizing what happened I switched out the baskets for plastic water jugs...come on Jess there's no plastic on the Island of the Blue Dolphins!

Basically read this book.  It's like Snow White meets Hatchet, without prince charming or the creepy dead pilot in the plane that crashed in the water.  Okay so clearly you know what part of Hatchet has been burned into my skull, and I couldn't stop thinking about Snow White and the animals that constantly follow her around.  I'm not making this sound right, just read it. 

*I read this book as part of the Shelf Discovery Challenge.

**Source: I bought this book with my own sweet loot.

Flowers in the Attic - V.C. Andrews

Flowers in the Attic
by V.C. Andrews

I was and still am very confused by this book.  It has been a long time since I read V.C. Andrews and I thought this would be a good choice for the Shelf Discovery Challenge.  I mean come on, 4 kids locked in an attic...I was intrigued by what motives their captors could possibly have and what the outcome was.  Seriously though...390 pages of 4 kids in an attic, it got a bit old...fast.

Then, surprise! Part 2 is much better.  I finally cared what was going to happen to these kids and felt like there was something worth reading about.  There was danger and drama and a mouse named Mickey...how cute is that!  the problem was that throughout the entire book I just kept going back and forth between needing to know how it ends, to make sure revenge is had and then being bored enough to want to give up and move on to my next book.

The end finally became more steady with the intensity and after reading the last page I quickly flipped a few pages to the second book in the series (the book I bought includes the first 2).  The last chapter took on a kind of horror story feel (which I guess it kind of was but I didn't really feel it until then) and I really enjoyed that part.  My biggest issue was part of the storyline.  I read all kinds of books, true stories that have harsh details of all kinds, but I had a seriously hard time dealing with the way the relationship between Cindy and Chris played out  Maybe it's because I wasn't expecting it, but I was surprised at how much it bothered me, especially since it was fiction.  

Have you read Flowers in the Attic?  What did you think?

*I read this book as part of the Shelf Discovery Challenge.

**Source: I bought this book with my own sweet loot.