My motto all year has been: 30, flirty, and thriving. The past year has not been good to me: I gained a lot of weight and outgrew everything I owned and on top of all that, about a month before my 30th birthday, I took a fall and broke my elbow. But I’m bouncing back and now I’m healthier than ever. After a long and stressful 2015, the universe helped me get my fitness and health back in focus and it all started with an unexpected physical.
Fleece Navidad too soft for this cozy fan
Fleece Navidad is a Christmas-themed, Knitting Mystery cozy that I picked up at a book sale a few months ago. Set in a Colorado college town, the main character, Kelly, is determined to prove that newcomer Claudia is not a murdering gold-digger, and certainly didn’t kill her romantic rival.
The knitting crew at Lambspun have an addition when newcomer Claudia joins the group. Widowed three times due to accidents, Claudia decided it was time to make a fresh start by leaving behind her life in Florida. A flirtatious and friendly older woman, Claudia quickly joins clubs at the Senior Center in addition to the Lambspun knitters. Her incredulous background makes some of the knitters suspicious that maybe Claudia is a gold-digger after her next victim.
A May to Remember
Way to go, Alex! I was fitness-ing too hard.
On May 1, I woke up in a cranky mood. It was one day until Joey’s birthday and a week until Mother’s Day and I still had some shopping to do. I was concerned about what to get for Mother’s Day because I couldn’t find exactly what my mom wanted and I was afraid that she would be disappointed. We were also two weeks away from going to Laughlin and spending the weekend on Lake Mohave and I had yet to start looking for a bikini. If I thought I was cranky before, I had no idea that by 6:00 p.m. that night, I would be puking in a park and holding my broken elbow up for support.
From the Library’s Shelves to Mine
Two weeks ago, Joey and I walked in the rain down to the annual Friends of the Library book sale, an event going on at every library within the county. I am a big fan of getting books for cheap. I have found some of my favorite books at thrift stores for less than a dollar, so I was excited to see what awesome finds would be waiting for me at the library sale. At the top of my list were any old mysteries I might enjoy.
In a Dark, Dark Wood is a Dark, Disturbing Web
Let’s travel to the English countryside for a weekend away, spent in a private, isolated glass cottage in the woods. The floor to ceiling windows capture the natural enclosure of the backwoods. No cell reception means no interruptions. Sounds lovely, right?
Now let’s add the burden of attending a bachelorette party with a bunch of strangers for your estranged high school best friend. The one you haven’t spoken to in nearly 10 years — after an awkward falling out. You’ve been invited to the party, but you’re not quite sure why, since you haven’t even been invited to the wedding. And why would you be? You two haven’t been friends for a long time. She has a new best friend now. Not so lovely anymore.
Daydreaming of Utah
I may not be a Mormon, but I hear the universe calling me to Zion. As a native Southern Californian, it seems outlandish to friends and family to want to leave the sunshine and move to the Deseret, but I’m looking forward to the quiet days of living in Utah.
This was the view from our hotel when we stayed near Zion November 2014.
A Year in the Life of a Bookworm
After a year of my reading challenge, I have finally reached the end. In 2015, I set a goal to read 50 books and although it was a sluggish beginning I read a total of 25 books. My reading list had a mixture of cat stories, old stories, some tedious stories and some great finds. The majority read were, no surprise, cat-themed cozy mysteries.
Even with the Weekend Wednesdays, I was only able to accomplish half my goal. The problem I’m having with reaching my goal is it’s set too high. With my social obligations and time spent gaming, it’s just not possibly for me to read that many.
But the goal wasn’t always about hitting 50; it was about dedicating myself to reading more books and discovering new worlds.Continue reading
It was the best of years, it was the worst of years
As I sat drinking my Martinelli’s apple cider and waiting for midnight, I checked Facebook and saw the outpouring of recaps of the year from friends and family. Some were very heartfelt while others were total eye-rolling clichés. But what did I have to add? I looked at the draft of my latest blog post written about 2015, and decided not to publish it.
The draft was melancholy attempt to summarize the year as one the worst so far, only second behind the ridiculousness of 2010. Working less than full-time haunted me daily and the fear of being a disappointment as a wife weighed heavily on me. Last January, I was ten months into my marriage and felt like I had let my partner down. But Joey and I got through it and turned it around. As mentioned in my earlier posts, we had lunch together on my extra day off and I started this blog.
It was Joey who pointed out that I was so focused on the negative events that occurred in 2015 that I forgot about the extraordinary ones.
Why did the black cat cross the road?
Did a black cat ever cross your path? If it did, it’s probably just looking for some petting or food, and most certainly is not interested in causing you misfortune.
With the superstition that a black cat crossing your path will bring bad luck still prominent, I try to educate people that fur is just a color and that black cats can be some of the sweetest feline companions. This is a subject close to my heart, so it was with great enthusiasm that I purchased my latest read, Black Cat Crossing, A Bad Luck Cat Mystery by Kay Finch. I would like to highlight this story because I feel it is an important one to tell. It isn’t just another cozy mystery with a kitty sleuth pal. There is a message of loving and adopting black cats.
This time of the year, when the sun sets earlier, is when I like to keep the fur babies inside. I also like to keep my cats indoors on every Friday the 13th, just for safe keeping. People can get some crazy ideas and may even try to harm the cats out of fear. This is something the main character, Sabrina, experiences first hand when she finds the neighbors in Lavender, Texas referring to a feral black cat as El Gato Diablo.
Reading in Overdrive
The day before my week-long vacation on Lake Powell, I had a decision to make: bring a real book on the boat, bring my broken (not holding a charge) NOOK or experiment with borrowing an eBook from the library and reading it on on my cheap android tablet.
I decided to go with borrowing an eBook.