chasing fire

In Chasing Fire, Nora Roberts introduces us to the Zulies.  A group of extreme fire fighters from Missoula, Montana who parachute into wildfires to wage the war from the inside.  It's nuts & crazy!  Rowan Tripp is the daughter of famed Zulie jumper Lucas 'Iron Man' Tripp and though it seems like those are some big shoes to fill she's got no problem with it.  When someone seems to be taking revenge for tragedies that happened a season before Rowan finds herself questioning the loyalty of the people around her.  Could one of the men or women she calls family be a killer?

This one started out kind of slow.  It wasn't until the last third of the book that I got into it.  It was a little predictable (I knew who the killer was right away), but it was entertaining nonetheless.  Once again Nora Roberts has taught me all about a subject I knew nothing about!  Her descriptions of being in the fire, the heat, the smoke, the sounds were detailed but not over the top.

I love the characters....all of them.  This is one of those books that I could read a series of just to get to stay with the characters for awhile.

If you're a Nora Roberts fan you'll enjoy this one.  If you've never read one of her books this is a good one to start with.

buried prey

When a house demolition unearths the bodies of two dead little girls the past comes back to haunt Lucas.  This time he's determined to find the killer and he has the ability and the experience to do it his way.


Buried Prey is being touted as Sandford's best Lucas novel and they may be right.  He shows us what Lucas was like back in 1985 when he was still in uniform and itching to get out of the patrol car and into investigation.  Back then two sisters go missing and everyone is scrambling to find them before it's too late.  But it's always too late and though the public and most of the police force thinks they got their man Lucas isn't so sure.  When the bodies are ultimately discovered in the present time all of his doubts are verified.  So now he's going to find out who really took those girls.


Sandford does something that I don't think he's ever done in all of the previous 20 books in the series.  You'll know it when it happens and while it was slightly shocking you'll realize he foreshadowed the whole thing pretty obviously.  Lucas is still one of the greatest characters in suspense novels in my opinion, but I don't know how much longer he can keep going.  He's edging closer to 50 so I'm wondering if at some point he'll just pass the torch onto Virgil.  I hope not.  I hope he keeps writing for Lucas.

to watch or not to watch

I've made it through five seasons of True Blood.  During the first season I started reading the books.  I'd always thought about reading them, but remember, I'm a book cover kind of girl and let's face it, those covers are awful.  So I started reading them and found a Sookie that was a million times better than the TV Sookie.  She's stronger, more independent, less pathetic.

The downside was that it made the TV show less appealing at the same time more interesting.  TV Sookie and Bill make me want to barf.  They both drive me crazy and I'm not sure if it's the actors (that I don't like anyway) or something else.  On the other hand the books really don't have much to do with other characters besides Sookie, Bill, Eric, Pam & Sam.  Tara, Lafayette, Andy, and everyone else has either made a quick & quiet appearance or doesn't exist at all.  So that makes the show more fun because let's face it Lafayette & Tara are awesome.

*******If you haven't watched the show and want to or haven't caught up you should stop reading & start watching*********

This last season was painfully boring.  I thought the Lilith story line might be a little interesting, but it was awful.  The Authority is a joke.  Everyone was really so easy to take out eventually.  And Russell & Rev. Weirdo are just obnoxious beyond all reason.  I don't like Pam & Eric apart.  I don't like Sookie & Tara at odds.  Even though I despise this Sookie, I love Tara and it's just weird to have them not speaking.

Granted, I understand Tara's anger, but these two (Sookie & Lafayette) are the two people who loved her the most.  Though the decision was mostly selfish on their parts, Tara was meant to be a vamp.  She kicked ass as a human so as a vampire she's perfect.

And Tara & Pam?!  I can't love that anymore than I do.  I LOVE PAM.  She and Eric are my favorites both in the books & on the show.  When he released her I died.  That was not what I wanted.  I need Eric & Pam together always.  Having Eric come through in the end was nothing less than expected.  He is the hero.  He is perfect, no?

And Lafayette.  My heart broke for him when Jesus died.  I loved him having someone.  When shit goes down it's always Lafayette that gets screwed.  And that was major.  But he's pulled through and he makes me laugh every single episode. 

The fairies started out completely ridiculous.  I mean really...but it's starting to get a bit interesting and Andy's involvement is priceless.  I like that Terry, Holly, Andy & Arlene are getting a bit more screen time.  They are hilarious.

Jessica, Jason & Hoyt.  That killed me.  Hoyt's leaving and his going away present was so so so sad.  And now Jason's got this weird thing going on and so he's pushing Jessica away, probably the best character on the show who didn't ever show up in the book.

So will I watch next season.  Yeah, probably.  I must find out what happens to Eric.  I suppose as long as he's on the show I'll have to watch.  We all know how I feel about that guy.  It better not be so slow next season.  I'll be sad.

77 shadow street

 At 77 Shadow Street you'll find The Pendleton.  A beautiful Guilded Age building that has been remodeled into apartments for the wealthy.  As gorgeous and opulent as it is it also hides a deep, dark secret that reveals itself every few decades with horrendous consequences.

This is the first time I can ever remember being let down by Dean Koontz.

The plot sounded good.  The first third of the book was promising.  The idea reminded me of The Taking.  Unfortunately, it wasn't The Taking.  There were so many characters to keep track of, or care about that I ended up really not caring for anyone.  Just off the top of my head I can think of 13+ characters.  That's entirely too many.

His descriptions of the things that were stalking the residents of the Pendleton wen on and on for pages.  Near the end I was skipping over entire paragraphs just to get through the story and make it to the end.

Basically, for a Dean Koontz book this sucked.  Sucked hard.

done and done

 A friend of mine sent me a new & cuter uterus from iheartguts

A week and a half ago I went through the final step to get through this cancer thing I've got going on.  Last Tuesday I had a hysterectomy.  It was un-fun.

We got to the hospital at 12:00 as we were instructed.  They got me back there and all ready to go and then told me that the procedure before me was running late and instead of going in at 2pm they were hoping to get me in by 4.  Boo

Luckily I had my own little TV on a swivel arm and it was Shark Week so I was entertained.

I think I ended up going in around 3:30ish.  I don't remember much about all that.  I think I remember going into the OR, but I'm pretty sure I'm just making that up.  The stuff they give you to knock you out is nuts.

I woke up at some point afterward, don't remember what time that was.  The nurse was insistent that I pee.  If I could pee than I could go home.  I wasn't sure I wanted to go home.  Ray and I had talked about how I should probably stay the night just in case something went wrong.  We live about 35 minutes away from the hospital, though there is a Kaiser about 20 minutes away that we could go to in an emergency.  But I was also feeling like I wanted to sleep in my own bed.

So I peed.  And I was pretty sure that they left something alive in my stomach and it was trying to claw it's way out.

But the nurse was really excited that I could pee.  Go figure.

They doped me up so I didn't feel anymore pain and sent me on my not-so-merry way.

We got home and I went to bed.  I woke up around 1:00 or so and had to go to the bathroom again.  Ray was fast asleep and I thought, I just have to pee.  I don't want to wake him.  So I made my way to the bathroom and went pee.

And pretty much died.

I wasn't sure I could make it back to the bed, but I did, barely.  I started trying to wake up Ray and explain to him that something was very wrong, but I could barely speak.  I can't begin to explain what the pain was like.  It was unreal.  They told me that they had nicked my bladder during the surgery, but I didn't even think that it would be so incredibly painful.  The advice nurse told Ray to give me both pain medications I had been prescribed and if the pain didn't lessen in a half hour to call back.

We called back and were instructed to head to the ER.  We chose to go to the closer Kaiser because I didn't think I could make the drive out to Santa Clara.  We got the biggest asshole of a doctor EVER.  He was very uninterested and didn't understand why we didn't drive the extra 15 minutes to the hospital where I had the surgery.  He also thought it would be a great idea to aggressively press into my stomach.  I wanted to punch him in the balls.

Finally, after Keystone nurses and asshat doctor did their thing the OB doctor on duty came in and took over and I loved her.  She was calm, gentle and perfect.  I just remember her telling me that she was admitting me.

So we hung out for the day and they inserted a catheter when they finally understood that something about going pee is what was causing the pain.  Sometime during my emergency room visit they sent me in for a CT scan and discovered some fluid hanging around where it shouldn't be and my blood level was low.  At least that's what I understood.

They checked my blood every couple of hour and I got mixed news.  Some nurses said my numbers didn't look good and others said they didn't seem that bad.  My mom thinks that the fluid was actually urine from the nick.  Gross.

Also, they gave me one of those IVs where I could push a button and make the pain go away.  It was so nice.  For the first good while I just kept watching the clock at the foot of the bed waiting for the 20 minutes when I could push the button again.

Finally, they told me 'Oh, you're not going home today.' when I asked and Ray went home and brought back some snacks and earplugs (my room mate snored).  I couldn't eat too much even though they upgraded me from a liquid diet to a regular diet.

My room mate was awesome.  Even though she snored.  She had 6 children and was a retired nurse.  She and her husband were spending their retirement traveling wherever they could.  I got to meet 5 of her kids.  It was a good time.

Good news was I got to go home the next day.  The bad news was I had to take the catheter with me.  It was not fun.  But I was glad to be able to see my babies and sleep in my own bed.  I had five days to let my bladder rest and then I would go take void trial to make sure that everything was working.

Monday I went to my appointment and not only got to leave the catheter there, but I also got news that pathology came back and found no cancer in my uterus.  I am officially cancer free.

It was a good day.

my ten month miracle

She's just so amazing.

 

We thought we were just lucky when Emma was born.  She was a good baby.  And by good I mean, damn near perfect.  She slept through the night at two weeks, she didn't make a peep when she popped out her first tooth and she was just a generally happy, easy baby.

 

So I was pretty sure that Olivia would be the opposite.  I mean, we couldn't be so lucky twice, could we?

 

But we were.

 

She didn't sleep through the night at two weeks and she did get a tiny bit fussy with her first teeth, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I had braced myself for.  We can take her to a restaurant and know we'll be able to eat our dinner without getting dirty looks from other diners.  We can skip a nap and she's no angel, but she doesn't become unbearable.

 

Her little personality is coming through.  She's our little owl.  She'll study someone until she deems them worthy of a smile and then she's cool.  She sets out with a goal and usually gets there.  She's taken her time.  She just started crawling a few weeks ago and she doesn't seem all that interested in pulling herself up, unless there's food to be swiped.

Baby likes her food.

 

She's perfect.  She's amazing.  She makes me smile every day.  I am so thankful that she's here, that she's ours, that she's mine.

Yes, no matter which way you turn it, life is pretty damn good.