The First Husband by Laura Dave

The First Husband by Laura Dave is the most recent book for the BlogHer Book Club. I signed up for it because it sounded sweet and romantic (something BHBC books don't tend to be) and like something I would enjoy.  Annie Adams has it all, a great job, a long term boyfriend, a great dog. Until the day her boyfriend comes home and announces he needs a break. Annie moves on, meets another great guy, and marries him in a whirlwind courtship. Then, just as she's questioning her place in his world, her ex comes back and asks for a second chance. (That's all from the book cover, no spoilers.)

Ok, so you guys have been reading me for years, and most of you skip my romance reviews (don't deny, I can tell) but if you've paid attention at all, I typically avoid anything with two love interests. This time I took a deep breath and told myself I'd power through, that most books end satisfactorily, and this would too. But then a funny thing happened- it turned out that the book wasn't so much about them as it was about her. The longer I waited for the inevitable showdown, the closer to the end of the book I got, and ultimately, it was perfect and painless.  Dave does a great job, a terrific job, of getting into Annie's head and making the struggle real, without really painting anyone as the bad guy. It's never about the guys (tho I admit to having a favorite, and I suspect it's intended that way,) but always about Annie herself.  I enjoyed this one a great deal and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys chick lit with a strong romance.

The First Husband
by Laura Dave (@lauradave on twitter)
Penguin Books
2011
For more information and links to reviews, visit the BlogHer The First Husband page here.

Disclaimer: I am compensated for my review and participation in the BlogHer Book Club, but all opinions are my own.

The Standalong

My very favorite insane blogger Trish is hosting a read-a-long of Stephen King's The Stand. It starts on June 1st and we have two months to read the entire behemoth of a book.  I am really still debating if I want to do this at all (I have already read The Stand, but it was literally half a life ago), but I love Trish and she's nothing if not infectious (and as I type this, I have pinkeye, so I KNOW infectious!) so I'm signing up.  I checked out a copy from my library (same copy Trish has) and it clocks in at a massive 1153 pages and 4 lbs (yes, I weighed it.)  Trish asked that we answer a few get-to-know-you questions before we join, so here goes:

1. What makes you want to read The Stand? Trish does!

2. Describe your preconceived notions of The Stand. Well, I've already read it, so I have a vague memory of the plot and a clear memory of how much it scared the pants off me.

3. What was the last scary(ish) book you read or movie you saw? I don't watch scary movies. The last one I saw was The Ring, well before I had kids.  I read A Monster Calls, which some people find scary, and you can see my thoughts here.

4. Which version of the book will you be reading from? My copy is a massive hardcover from the library, the uncut version. The cover is similar to the on in the picture above, but with a big red band marking it as uncut. It looks like it only gets checked out once or twice a year, so with any luck I will make it all the way to the end of July before I have to return it.

5. What are you previous experiences with Stephen King? In high school and college I was a big fan of King. I read quite a few of his books (The Shining, Cujo, Christine, Firestarter, The Stand, It, possibly more) but the last one I read was The Tommyknockers, which I really disliked. I moved on to Dean Koontz after that, and then stopped reading anything scary at all.

6. Anything else you'd like to add (bonus points for being extra random). This is my first readalong, so hopefully I won't bail on it, but I refuse to feel guilty if I don't make it to the end.  Also, I think Trish will owe me a pack of post it notes by the time I finish marking off where I should be (roughly) at any given date.

Comments on Promises in Death and Kindred in Death by J.D. Robb

Over the last two weeks of heart attack /pinkeye / not heart attack/ head cold/ pinkeye AGAIN (HI! Me this time! Grrrrrr....) it's seemed like a major committment to pick up an actual book. I look at them and I want to read them, but ehhhhhh. What has been easy for me is to read books on my phone, I have no idea why. I was lucky enough that my library system had the next two J. D. Robb books available as e-books and I downloaded them both. Promises in Death is #34 in the series (if you count the short stories), and Kindred in Death is #35 (duh.) (For a complete list in order of the In Death books, click here.) This is one series that I think you should read in order, so that you understand the relationships between the reoccuring characters. I have an awful memory for plot, so if you were to talk about Thing X happening in Book #Z, I'd have no idea what you're talking about, but I do remember the arc of the characters as it progresses along the books. I also have no idea how the titles relate to the plot, and the titles do nothing at all to help me remember what happened in any one book.

Promises in Death and Kindred in Death actually turned out to have a lot of similarites. In Promises, it's a cop that is murdered, and in Kindred it's the child of a cop, so in both books you have a lot of interdepartment cooperation and Eve barely has to bribe anyone to get faster results. I'm not going to go into great plot detail, but I will say that both books follow the series well, and most of the characters behave as past books would indicate. Robb is able to flesh out one of my favorite characters (Morris) quite a bit more, and there are a couple of nice scenes with Trueheart and Baxter. Once again I'm a little tired of the Eve/ Summerset antagonism (get over it already), and I'm really bored of Eve's fear of Trina.  I thought that these two both has instances of humor between Eve and Roarke that seemed out of character, even if they were funny. Obviously, little things like this won't stop me from reading, but I would kind of like to be completely current on the series. It looks like there are five more published and one coming out in September. Sadly, I think two in a row is about all the Eve I can handle in any given period.


(Please excuse the complete incoherence in this post. I'm not quite operating at 100%.)

The Good, the Really Good, and the Should Have Been Expected Bad.

First, the Good news- the angiogram showed no blockages, no heart damage. The cardiologist said, and this is a quote, "his heart looks fantastic. I wish I had his heart."  No stent. They were able to go through his wrist for the angio instead of the groin and he was released last night.

Second, the Really Good- the positive stress test last week was a false positive. He heart is no worse off than it was  years ago, he did not have a heart attack, etc. His cholesterol is fine, seems the problem will be mostly hypertension. (I wish we weren't going to have to pay a billion dollars (after insurance) to find this out, but YAY.  Yes, it's a warning, yes Mike is taking it, please, no more lectures to him (OR ME.) Good grief people, we KNOW.

Last, the Should Have Been Expected Bad- between last night when he came back to the hotel, and this morning when I drove us 3 hours home, I got sick. I feel like total crap. I took a 3 hour nap and woke up feel much the same, like crap. Hey! Mike's healthy? you held it together for a week and shuttled patients and kids around? Great job. Here, let's break your immune system now. Blergh.  Not sure yet if I'll be back tomorrow for Random Friday or not.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and thoughts, it was greatly appreciated by us both.

Update the second

We are in Rapid City where Mike saw the cardiologist. The cardiologist doesn't feel that it was a major event, but he and Mike decided that everyone would feel better if they did an angiogram to check everything out. They are doing that procedure today at 2:30. Mike will be released tomorrow and we will go home.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Bookish committments

The last couple of months have  been full of tempting book commitments. I'm not usually one to follow challenges, and I don't commit to reading a lot of books that friends recommend. I'm much more likely to add a book to my endless list and eventually pick it up. I did promise (myself) that I would read all the books on Janssen's best of 2011 list, and I'm doing the personal challenge, but I'm not usually much of a read-a-long joiner. However, I find myself suddenly committed (or really interested in committing to) reading several books with or for my friends. It's been a while since I have you a bookish list, so how about one now?

• First, the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. A local friend lent me the entire series, and I really enjoyed the first three. I should review them, hm?
• Andi Can. Not. Stop. Talking. About Outlander . I read the first 200 pages, apparently I'm just at the point where it takes off. I promised her I'd pick it back up.
• My next commitment for the BlogHer Book Club launches on May 31st. I haven't started the book yet, but thankfully it's not a chunkster.
• Last, everyone's favorite rock star, Trish is hosting The Standalong, a group reading of Stephen King's The Stand to take place over two months in June and July.

If I just read those books and nothing else, that'll take me right through the end of the summer! Have you see how thick some of those are?? Tell me, did Andi or Trish convince YOU to read one of their pet projects? Have you read The Black Dagger Brotherhood? What do you have on tap for the next couple of months?

Update on the heart patient

Mike was released from the hospital on Friday afternoon under order to REST all weekend. While his natural inclination would be to go to work, someone hid his truck keys. And her car keys. Whoops!

My mom group friends kept my kids for a while Friday morning so I could visit, and my husband's brother's wife's sister watched the kids on Friday afternoon so I could go spring him. Today my brand new friend JoAnn brought us dinner.

We have no more details on what happened or why, but hopefully Monday afternoon we will know more. There is not a cardiologist in Pierre (if you needed more proof of how small this town is), so the doctor here has to consult with Mike's doctor from Rapid city.

And unrelated but also upsetting, last night I dropped my phone and shattered the screen. That turned out to be my breaking point and I completely fell apart. With any luck it'll be repaired on Monday. It still works, but I can't shove it in my pocket or anything.

And that's where we are now!

Heart Attacks, ICU, Exercise.

• On Wednesday Mike tried to have a heart attack, literally. He's still in the ICU. We're hoping he gets sprung this evening.  He feels fine physically and is bored and irritable, and not really himself. (EDITED TO ADD: He came home Friday night.)
• I have barely even been to see him, because I have no one to watch the kids during the day. I am tired and stressed. If you have a friend whose husband is in the hospital, the first question you should ask is "Can I watch the kids for you?" I do not understand people.
• Today I'm going to clean the living room and bring the exercise bike back into the house. You know, the one he bought after his first heart attack.
• So if you're thinking you are out of shape and should get healthy? Today's a good time to start.
• This is a great collection of Children's Book Week posters on Pinterest. (This was the only thing I marked to share before all this happened.)

What I Read This Week and other Bookish Thoughts:

• It's been another week of comfort reads. I'm gonna have to stop calling them "comfort reads" and start just calling them "reads" soon.
• In the Midnight Rain by Ruth Wind. This was a reread. It's still one of my very favorite books.
• Promises in Death by JD Robb, almost done with this one. This one has a lot more humor in it, joking between Roarke and Eve. While it is funny, it seems almost out of place for them.

Sandra Boynton's dinosaurs broke my daughter's heart (Video!)

The Princess recently found a copy of Sandra Boynton's Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs! in the bookshelves.   The boys were never really impressed with this one (though they we both huge fans of Doggies, so much so that we are on our third copy) so I don't think we'd ever read it to the Princess.  We sat down to read and she forced me to read it about eight times before she got fixated on page two. Dinosaurs starts with "Dinosaurs HAPPY (with a picture of a dinosaur birthday party) and dinosaurs SAD (with a picture of two sad dinosaurs and their popped balloon.)  The Princess was VERY upset about that balloon. She was so sad for the dinosaurs. Her little face just collapsed and she was nearly in tears. (And they say toddlers aren't capable of empathy.) After a good ten minutes of this, I finally turned a light on and tried to catch it on video. It's a little backwards, she's talking about the picture first, and then I tried to get her to say it again and she wouldn't, but I think you get the idea. At this point she'd calmed down a good bit and was no longer quite so emotional about the situation.



I also couldn't get her to repeat the word "dinosaur" for the video, but she was pointing at every page and saying "Dinosaur, dinosaur!" A 20 month old saying dinosaur is about the cutest thing ever, I'm sorry you have to miss it.

If you have toddlers and you don't have any Boynton, I highly recommend that you fix the situation immediately. We also really enjoyed Moo Baa La La La ("three singing pigs say La-La-La") and Blue Hat, Green Hat ("oops"). You can get a pretty good feel for Boynton on her website (the splash page alone made me laugh, but you should really poke around at the rest) and on Twitter.

WW: Braaaiiinsssss.

This is why I didn't blog today.

1. I took my children to the park this morning, because I could always blog during naptime. (We met my new friend there. The Bug terrorized a group of kids from a daycare while the Princess stood at the top of the slide and didn't go down. It was fun for everyone.)
2. While at the park I had the thought that if my house only stayed clean ALL THE TIME, we could go to the park guilt free every day. (Well, every day that I could stand it.) (Did I mention we went to the park yesterday too?)
3. So when we got home I flew around and swapped laundry and did the dishes and fed the kids and took out the garbage and then when the Princess went down for her nap I collapsed at the laptop from all that exertion.
4. Which is when the Bug insisted that I "play" Risk with him. (He makes up his own rules.)(I was only allowed to be the "girl colors". I chose yellow.)
5. Ok, so then I was gonna blog. I was. But first I followed this link to a great post on organization. 
6. That led me to renew my dedication to tracking my blogging on Google Calendars, so I made a new calendar. (It's called "Blogging" cause I'm creative like that.)(I made it pink.)
7. I "played" another 30 seconds of Risk with the Bug.
8. Then I discovered (again) that your (my) (an) iPhone doesn't default to showing more than one Google Calendar.
9. Much googling led me to these instructions for syncing all your Google Calendars to iCal, so I did that, and WAHOO! they all showed up. Eventually.
10. While I was waiting, I played another few minutes of Risk. ("Played")
11. But the colors didn't match, so I had to fix that before I could blog. (Blogging is orange now.)
12. And then it was time to wake up the Princess to go get the Pirate from school, so you get this picture instead.

Doesn't it make you want to be on a boat? (That's the Missouri River on the other side of that big tree.)

Pinterest Challenge #1: Almond Bars

I choose to do this pin for Almond Bars from Write Meg for my first entry in the Pin It and Do It Challenge.

Source: writemeg.com via Lisa on Pinterest

It looked tasty and miracle of miracles, it's all ingredients I actually have on hand. I mixed them up during naptime with the Bug, and he was the first tester. He LOVED them.  Success!

Here's my version of food styling:



Not quite so pretty as hers! 

I did have to increase the baking time from 20-25 minutes to almost 35 minutes, and then  they still didn't cut into pretty bars like hers did (as you can tell.) They still tasted terrific though, and that's really all that matters.

I'm also linking up to Weekend Cooking with this one.
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend.You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.
-- Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Maureen Johnson, Pinterest, Dallas

• The Bug picked out Lincoln Logs with his birthday money. He's such a little builder.
• Do you see the wrinkles in my rug in that picture? Does anyone have any ideas on how to stop the rug from wrinkling? It's driving me insane. I've tried to weight it down with the furniture, but no dice.
• Maureen Johnson talks about photoshop and advertising. "Altering the image creates something truly and profoundly OTHER. It creates the unattainable, which means you have the endless carrot and stick."
• This is an absolutely wonderful post on Motherhood. Seriously. Especially if you've struggled in those first few months.
• I love Pinterest, I really do, but I'm starting to wonder just where all these crafters are getting all their pretty thrifted wool sweaters (my thrift store has a nice selection of pilly acrylic ones) and decent used furniture. At some point there's going to be more play kitchens made from bedside tables than there are bedside tables.
• On Tuesday I had coffee with a new friend. It was terrific. I can't wait to do it again.
• Trish and Andi are agitating for me to drive through Dallas on my way from Alabama to South Dakota later this summer. This is only possible if I find a place to spend the night in the middle of Kansas, or southern Nebraska. Suggestions?
• I did not get the perfect job. I was very confident that I would when I applied. I'm pretty bummed. However, I'm now suspending the search for the perfect part time job until after the summer.

What I Read This Week (and other Bookish Thoughts):

• Speaking of Andi, she's persuaded me to pick Outlander back up.  I haven't yet, but any day now.
• My library copy of Insurgent came in, and I hope to start it today.
• My library still doesn't even have The Last Boyfriend: Book Two of the Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy in the system and it's making me crazy. I keep walking past it in the store and hovering over the link on Amazon.
• I read Midnight Bayouby Nora Roberts in two long sittings this week. It was good, but the ending was very rushed and left me unsatisfied. You can find more thoughts on it here.
• Last night I finised up First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh. I'm pretty sure I've read another Balogh, but I couldn't tell you what. This one was quite good. If I had a complaint it would be that the heroine is a tad too philosophically introspective. I might write more on it later.
• I'm also lugging around The Digital Mom Handbook: How to Blog, Vlog, Tweet, and Facebook Your Way to a Dream Career at Home, because it can't hurt to read it, right?

Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts

It seems that lately whenever I'm feeling a bit aimless about my reading, that I reach for a contemporary romance novel by a tried and true author. One that I know will a) have a happy ending and b) compell me to read it almost straight through. There is a certain type of romance that fits this slot nicely for me, typically they are full length novels that revolve around a town or a family, and are often part of a series. Examples of this feel-good, quick read, series that I've loved include:

• Nora Roberts' MacKade brothers
• Nora Roberts' Cheasepeake Bay brothers
• Susan Mallery's Fool's Gold Series
• Many of Nora Roberts' stand alones
• Robyn Carr's Virgin River series (even though I have some quibbles with them.)

So despite having quite the haul of library books, and the entire Black Dagger Brotherhood series on stand-by, I picked up Midnight Bayou.  Midnight Bayou has been on my TBR shelves for years. I'm pretty sure I got it from Paperbackswap and it's managed to stay on the shelves through the moves and the purging. Due to Ms. Roberts incredible success, her paperbacks often have tons of blurbs, and a glossy full length picture of the author, but no easy to locate plot summary. So I knew it was a romance, and I knew it took place in or near New Orleans, and I knew I could expect some paranormal activity. I'm a huge sucker for a New Orleans/ Cajun / Bluesy setting (In the Midnight Rain by Ruth Wind being an all time favorite book, not just romance!) so I dived in.

Midnight Bayou is a standalone romance (I wonder if Remy and Effie might have their own book, but have been too lazy to figure out). Our hero, Declan, has purchased a large plantation in a state of disrepair and has moved from Boston to restore it. Lena is a descendent of the house, and is now a moderately successful bar owner. Dec is down right perfect. Seriously, no flaws. None. And is rich. Lena isn't perfect, she's pretty cynical and distrustful of love, and it takes her a while to come around. I love that the conflict is never about how they feel about each other, or how much they trust each other. There is no big misunderstanding. In fact, there's very little conflict at all, except with the ghosts, and I liked that.

Here's the thing though, while Midnight Bayou hit the spot exactly, I didn't really love it. It did have quite a few flaws- the paranormal aspect is heavy heavy. Really heavy.  If you don't want a story with ghosts, skip this. Unlike Roberts' new Boonsboro Inn series, the ghosts are very very prominent.  Additionally, it seems that Roberts has recycled Lena's mom Lilibeth into Mac's mom in Vision in White. In both cases, I think the new versions are better, but overall I hate that I noticed at all. And last, the book ends very abruptly. I read it in two long sittings, but for several hours after I finished I kept having that feeling that I was at the very end of a book and needed to see how it ended. It was annoying.

In the end, typical Roberts, I'm glad I read it, but not a favorite.

New Clothes!

If you follow BlogHer's Life Well Lived series of posts, you know that this week they are asking the following question:

What are your favorite ways to dress well for your size and shape? How do you make your wardrobe work through transitions?

And you know, I've had transitions! I have three young kids and am perpetually broke, so I have some experience with making regular clothes work as maternity clothes, and then back again. I've finally gotten rid of all my maternity clothes and am slowly weeding out the elastic waist pants and baggy shirts and am replacing them with some other basics. I don't have much of a clothing budget at all, but I've found that by hitting the thrift store and the clearance racks and by being really picky, I've built up a solid core of a wardrobe. Granted, I don't work in an office, but I do like to not be sloppy all the time.  For me, the key is patience, not to get something just because it's a good deal. I like knowing that when I walk into my closet that I like almost everything in it, even if it's not totally full.

For example, I recently had to get a new pair of jeans. (I always end up blowing my out just above the knee. I don't wear tight jeans, and they don't rip elsewhere first. I can't for the life of me figure out how I do it.) So just before we went to Colorado we went down to a local store and I found a pair of straight leg, dark wash jeans. They aren't high rise, they aren't low rise. They don't have whiskers or bleaching or faded parts or rips in them. They are pretty much perfect with everything I own, except the most casual of tees. Oh, and I probably won't wear them to the lake. But for everything else? They look great and are flattering. This pair wasn't on the clearance rack, but because I don't care about the label and didn't want anything flashy on them, they were very reasonably priced. (I think they were $21.)



See? Versatile AND flattering.  The shirt was on clearance at JC Penney for $2, in case you're curious.
Head on over to the BlogHer website to see what other people had to say in answer to the question, and be sure to go enter the Life Well Lived Sweepstakes as well, they are giving away an iPod Touch and a $50 iTunes card!

Star Wars, Wil Wheaton, Kittens

Source: facebook.com via Misty on Pinterest

• Nice review of Divergent here. This was probably my favorite book of last year and the sequel came out this week! Yay! (I found it at Walmart but decided to wait for the library instead.)
• This is such a great blog post by Wil Wheaton on why Google+ sucks. Stop trying to MAKE us use your products, Google! I'm the world's biggest fan of gmail, and blogger, and google reader, but I hate the way Picasa is now, and have exactly zero desire to use G+.
• Yesterday the Pirate walked home from school with his best friend. This would not be worth noting, except that I didn't know he was planning to do that and I was waiting for him on the other side of the school in my car. Fortunately, the friend's mom was cool with it and called to say that my kid was at her house. (They live two houses from school. I am jealous.)
• I was informed this morning that if I could find a babysitter for tonight that we could go out to dinner.  Then he promptly called candidate number one and asked for a different favor. This only leaves me two options, cross your fingers for me. (ETA: As I was finishing up this post the school called to say the Pirate was sick and needed to go home. Guess no babysitter for me.)
• My baby brother's birthday was this week. That means MY birthday is less than six weeks away! (Fun fact: One year our cat had kittens on his birthday. They were exactly six weeks old and ready to give away on mine.)
• I wish someone would give me a kitten for my birthday.

What I Read This Week, and other Bookish Thoughts:

• Once again I find myself with more books than time. (Don't we all.) Occasionally it happens that there are quite a few very compelling books in my stack, more so than usual. Sadly, what usually happens next is that I freeze up out of indecision and read nothing.
• I finished up Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 3) by J.R. Ward. This was easily my favorite of the first three. I was thinking I'd review them in sets of three.
• Then I ran through Fair Game (Alpha And Omega) by Patricia Briggs in pretty much one sitting. I didn't intend to, but as I was stopping for the night the Pirate got up with a nightmare and I had to stay up with him, and then lie in his bed reading while he went back to sleep. By that point I was close to finishing, so I did. It was probably my least favorite of both the Alpha and Omegas and the Mercy Thompsons. It was still good.
• I started First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh. I don't think I'd read any Balogh. I've read two chapters, there are a LOT of characters with no explantion of who is who.
• The Digital Mom Handbook: How to Blog, Vlog, Tweet, and Facebook Your Way to a Dream Career at Home I'm not sure what I expect from this one, but it was there so I grabbed it. I've only read the intro.