New In Death Book

Okay so since we saved a lot of money buying books the cheap way for two weeks now we have to spend a little moolah.  Yes I know I said I would always post about cheap books but I have to divert a little today for a very important reason.

CELEBRITY IN DEATH CAME OUT TODAY!

Now hopefully those readers following me know that Nora Roberts has a pseudonym.  She also writes as J.D. Robb.  These books are still just Nora only with a slightly sharper edge.  These books are one of my most favorites.  Unlike her other series which usually stick to quartets or trilogies, this is an entire series that builds on itself book after book.  There are 30 something books out right now.

Here is the thing.  If you are just starting this series it is a must that you start at the first book which is called Naked in Death.  One needs to start there because if not, you will be missing character development.  The characters get introduced during certain points in the story and are always relative to the book as well as a building block to the series.

The main couple in the series is Eve Dallas and Roarke.  Roarke has no last time. I could tell you why but that is just no fun at all. Eve is a cop with a past.  Her childhood was bad and her life begins to turn on Christmas Eve when she is 8.  Roarke comes into the picture as a suspect in a case.  Turns out surprisingly enough, he didn’t it. What he does do is awaken parks of Eve she had no idea existed.  They start their life together and move forward solving cases and having a strong relationship.  Now since I have read the entire series I can confidently tell you that their relationship is not all roses.  That is the best part of a Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb book.  All of her characters are real and have a backbone .  You will not find a simpering Susie in th bunch. These books are futuristic and set just slightly ahead.  Enough that cars can go vertical and autochefs prepare some of the food.  It is enough to make it really cool and just different enough that it’s not hokey.  Prostitutes in the books are licensed and called Licensed companions (L.C.s for short).  Marriages are made up of many different types of arrangements. I love the way she writes people.  She has an understanding of people who I hope to convey when I finish writing my own book.  Right now, I have gobbly gook but its a start.  I have about 5 chapters worth of information.  It feels good to write and I hope my stories turn out like hers.

Getting back to the series,  The most recent book is called Celebrity in Death.  This book deals with a movie being made of an old case of Dallas’.  A book was written about her case and then a screen play from that.  One of the main characters writes both but I am not telling who.  Those who know the series will be able to sniff it out like a good reporter.  ( Therein lies a hint.)  Of course since Dallas is a murder cop, murder comes into play with the book.  She and her team will work together to figure out the whodoneit part of a mystery.  It is almost always not the person that you think it is,  she will turn a few times before delivering one hell of an ending. The time to read this series will be an investment but I promise you will love every minute of it.  The hardest part is waiting for the next one.  There are usually two in one year in addition to whichever series she is working on as Nora.

You know, I think I will talk about cheap books as a round-up.  I thought about where you can get the first part of the series if you wanted to start reading it.  Does your library have a Friends of the Library section?  This section is dedicated to books that the library has retired or that they just simply had too many because of donations.  These books are for sale for a very low price usually around $1.  Some as low as a dime.  I have bought MANY books this way.  My library  has an honor book section.  This section while owned by the library, has no strict due dates.  These books are just taken and returned as needed.  I have done both over the years.  I usually have at least 100 books running around the house so I try to recycle them.

Enjoy these new books and tips!  See you next week!

Irish Hearts

Ok so I guess this series is going to be next.  The Irish Hearts series is of course by Nora Roberts.  I am going to Ireland this July so it has been on the forefront of my mind.  I have always loved Nora Roberts.  Nora Roberts writes lovely books about Ireland so it becomes the perfect mix.

Irish Hearts starts out with Irish Thoroughbred.  This book is the beginning of the series as well as the beginning of the Grant Family.  Travis Grant meets a little lady from Ireland by the name of Adeila.  She turns out to be a little spitfire sprite of a woman who stands just 5′ 2″ tall.  One would thing that someone so small would not cause much trouble.  Well, being a leading lady written by Nora is just not going to let that happen.  Nora’s women are always strong and smart.  A reader will not find simpering weanies in her books.  Adeila is no different.  She is smart and very capable with Travis’ horses.  It’s these skills with the horses that gets here out and about in the stable where of course she bumps into Travis.  Travis, as owner of the ranch seems to be untouchable. Enter Uncle Paddy.  Adeila’s Uncle Paddy has worked for Travis’ ranch since Travis was a boy. The two men are more like father and son than boss and employee.  When Paddy has a heart attack, Travis offers marriage for to Adeila as he promises to protect her forever.  Little does he know that he is well past half way in love with her.

The story of Travis and Adeila is Nora Robert’s very first published book.  It was so easy to see that she was going to be an author to watch.  Since this book she has written many others.  I would have to say thought that this book is one of my very favorite.

Next post, I will finish telling about this book.  There is a second story in the book you see.  Adeila has a cousin named Erin.  She is going to meet a man named Burke.  But what will she do with him?  I guess you will have to find out what happens next week, or just cheat and go pick the book up at Walmart.

Amazon Kindle

Do you have an Amazon Kindle of some generation?  That is wonderful if you do!  They are wonderful little machines.  Are you without a Kindle but you have a smart phone?  Good news!  You can download the free app.  For me personally, I use the app on an Apple iPhone 4s.  Now let me give you a few reasons on why you should have one or the other.

You can get books!  Lots of books!  Instantly even!  This is unfortunatly, my down fall.  The app that I use makes it so easy to download books, I download a few a week.  For that reason, I have learned how to shop smart.  I don’t mean “Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.”  like Ashe from The Evil Dead.  I mean searching for the best deals on Amazon so that one does not go broke purchasing books.

My favorite cheap way of getting new books is the Kindle Lending Library.  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_10?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=kindle+lending+library&x=0&y=0&sprefix=kindle+len%2Caps%2C262  If you have Amazon Prime, which is a membership based service, you can get one book per month for free. Last month, I got The Hunger Games.  I have not been able to finish it because lately all I have been reading is textbooks.  It is still a comfort to know that it is there when I am ready as it does not go away after a certain amount of time.  It will just always be there for me to enjoy.

Amazon lists many books for low prices or sometimes for free.  Most of the classics are in fact part of a free service where a reader can have access to all of the literary classics for free so that they can enjoy them.  I feel this is nice because these books are the basis of our society and people need access to them.

One author I particularly love is Nora Roberts.  The fun thing about the Kindle is that many of her older titles are available for download.  Most of them are $3-$7.  The newer books are of course more but it is still wonderful to be able to get to some of the older series. The most recent series I read by her was her Born in Series.  Born in Fire, Born in Ice and Born in Shame tell the story of three Irish sisters and the village  they live in.  Nora’s books are always good for the heart.  Her sense of adventure gets it pumping, her tales of love keep it warm and her sense of humor keeps it happy. The Born in series is no different. I actually read all three books over the course of one weekend.  My Kindle app came in so handy when the last two books were not yet re-released in the store.  I was able to bip on over to Amazon and download the last two. Some might say this takes away the fun of anticipation. Personally, I say NEED MORE IMPUT!  So for now, I leave you with this final thought.  Reading Rainbow’s intro song  once asked us “to take a look inside a book.”  Now, any book you want is in the palm of your hand.  Enjoy the view!

New Focus

My blog is rejoining the lands of the living blog.  It is going to have a slightly different feel and purpose to it.  My new focus is going to revolve around finding cheap books or books that are lesser known.  One will be able to find reviews of said books and links so that a reader may enjoy the book too.  I will encourage  people to start conversations.  I only ask that it remain peaceful and that nothing is ever said that might hurt someone else’s feelings.  Here is a short list of items that you can expect to see around my blog.

1. cheap books this may be paper back or e-reader friendly.  The books will be high quality while charges for the books remain low. This is important because people shy away from e-readers because they feel they are too expensive.  It will be my goal to see that many different types of people get access to books.

2.Nora Roberts/J.D.Robb. Nora has been a long time favorite of mine.  I feel  everyone should read her work and show it to anyone who happens to stand still next to me.

3. Harlequin romance novels These books are cheap and short.  Most of them can be read in a day and are fun throughout the whole thing.

4. Random little thoughts.  It depends on what is going on with the world to

Mid Life Crisis

I sit here under this hair dryer with chemicals that smell like cat urine to make my hair a slightly different color. Richard calls this time of year my midlife crisis time. I am a little over a month away from my 35th birthday.

This year though is different. I am actually happy. Yes, I want to do something new with my hair, yes I want a tattoo, but these things are not to make me change the way I feel  they are just things I want to do.

Lets take a little look at what is good. I am closer than I have ever been to my poor husband who I never get to see because of school. Our relationship is stronger than ever. Yes, we argue, fuss and fight but overall we are happy. Plus, I give him lots of sherbet to make him happies!

Now lets look at school. I am a member of TWO different honor societies, an “A” student, and just a little ways out from being a graduate. It has taken many years but I am making progress.

Third part of my life right now is work. I work at Lab Corp in the referrals department sending out urine. Rather gross job sometimes because they leak but all in all it’s a good job. I am making enough money to stay solvent and that’s all I need.

So yes, I am getting pretty colors in my hair and I will soon have a new tattoo but I will still be me and I am happy that way. It feels damn good to not be stressed out about life.  I am going to figure it all out eventually.  One baby step at a time.

Still- midlife crisis is really funny! 🙂

P.S.  Note to the world.  No post written on my phone shall ever be directly published to the world without extreme editing on the computer.  Geeze Louise that had a lot of silly typos before I fixed it! ( Knowing me it still does, thank goodness hubby looks over stuff before it goes out.  He is a smarty!)

P.S.S.-  Another funny note-  ABC check wanted me to change the word Damn… Apparently it doesnt like it.  LOLZ!

A Hundred Bucks

Everyone knows that the value of a hundred bucks is well, a hundred bucks.  You can buy a hundred things at the dollar store for all that.   You can buy a ticket to Disney.  You can buy a simple piece of technology to back up all of your life crap.  Today, a hundred bucks became more than that.

A hundred bucks is what my parents gave me for all my hard work at school.  They gave me this money so that I could buy a maid, or have all my laundry done by someone else.  Basically, they just gave it to me because they wanted me to have a way to get a leg up.  I love this idea because right now I am going fairly nuts.   I mean really, I did not even pop on to wish Mike Shinoda and Taylor Lautner happy birthday! ( Both on Feb 11, 2011)  If I can’t take time out of my life for two seconds to salute hot guys, I am just too damn busy.

One day, I will either finish school or they will perfect cloning.  I am not always sure which one is going to happen first.  The good thing is knowing that its all in the works.  Just have to hang on for the ride.

Thankfully, I have wonderful parents who allow me to get a little bit better grip on the ride of life.  Now if they could have made sure I was wrapped a little tighter I would have been better off. Then again, If I was wrapped tighter I would not fit into my family.  :o)

So the moral of this story is major thanks to mom and dad.  Not just for the money but for always being there for me.  That is priceless to me.  Love you both!

In other news… YAY!  THE NASCAR SEASON IS FINALLY STARTING TOMORROW.  GO TONY STEWART, DALE JR, KYLE BUSCH.  oh hell, just anyone win but fricken Johnson.  (I take nothing from his skill, he is an awesome driver with a great crew but damn it, we need change!)

Getting the Itch to Write

Well, there is good news in the world.  I am getting the itch to write again.  It’s so hard to think about topics to write about.  Inspiration comes and goes.  It depends on my mood I guess.  I don’t want to write long boring emo blogs about how I have no money and my life sucks… Only half of that is true.  Trying to figure out which half now aren’t you?  Well its the no money part of course.  The question is does anyone really ever have enough money?  Well I don’t know but I am willing to try being rich just to do the research on it. I am just that kind of nice.

So for my PR class at school I have to do a project.  I have to do a day of volunteer work.  Now, I am not against this because there are very worthwhile projects that need people to help them out.  I am going to work with the Great Urban Race in Tampa.  This is a fund-raiser for St. Jude’s children’s hospital.  I figure this will be  a good charity to work with because its one I can stand behind.  I feel like if I am going to give a day then I should want to be there.

There were many other choices of places to go but this one seemed to be the most rewarding.  Some of the other opportunities were the State Fair and the Strawberry Festival.  Neither of those two things held any interest for me because as Redneck as I am, those two places are over my head.  It just seemed like a way to see scary people.  At least with St. Jude’s the people who will be helped are sweet children who are sick.

I guess I am going to be writing more again. Hopefully someone will actually read it.  Don’t be afraid to comment if you do actually read it.  It makes me feel good to know someone is out there.

Linkin Park Show-Tampa

So I had to come out of retirement for a little while to talk about the awesome concert we went to last night.  I will be popping up from time to time to blab about something or the other.

Last night we went to the Linkin Park concert. It started out with a group called Does it offend you, yeah? Personally, I think they should drop the Yeah part. Its annoying. As for their performance? OMG they rocked. I had heard of them before because they are on the Nine Inch Nails cd from Lights in the Sky. The song on there is We Are Rockstars. That is the song everyone knows from them. They played for about 25 mins. We didn’t catch the whole set because I was buying a T-Shirt. hehehehe. That’s my favorite part of the show. They had great energy and were an enjoyable opening act. So often, one goes to a show and the performer has horrible openers. This was not one of the horrible ones. You know one thing sticks out with me. They have a girl guitar player.  She flippin rocks! Just a tiny little thing wailing away out there. She gives the guys a run for their money. I think she was my favorite part of the show.

The next band to open was a group called Pendulum. They were really good. I loved the lead singer’s voice. They really rocked hard. The funniest part of this group was this dude whose purpose on stage is not really defined. I describe him as a head cheerleader. He seemed to be back up vocals on many songs but mostly he just ran around making gun slinger motions and saying are you ready???? The weird part is I can see how he added to the group. I guess its good to have a cheer leader. He kept the crowd pumped up. I will probably try to find more of their music.

Now for the good part. OMG!  Linkin Park was sooooooo much fun. My throat was sore at the end from trying to keep up with Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington singing and screaming. They played all of my favorite songs. They opened with one of my very favorites. Wretches and Kings.  Mike Shinoda has two of the best lines in that song, First he says that  a blueprint is a gift and a curse… everyone wants the next to be like the first. That is so true,  Everyone wants another Hybrid Theory or Metoria. It’s not going to happen.These are different men, They are husbands and fathers and grown-ups now. They are in a different place in their life than they were 10 years ago when they wrote the first stuff. One can say though that they have gotten better with age and experience. Their music last night showed that whole heartedly.

One of my other favorite songs is Iridescent. It just hits me right in the heart. It’s about letting go of pain and disappointment.  Those of you who know how my last two years have been can understand why I feel this way. Maybe I will find a good YouTube video of it and post it on my  Facebook page. I think part of the reason I like this song so much is because Mike Shinoda sings more of the intro and he and Chester sing together more. I truly just think the meaning of the song just hits home so much. I remember the first time I heard the song, I was thinking my goodness, Chester and Mike wrote me a song. I loved it.

They also played several of my other favorite songs such as Waiting for the End and The Messenger. ( Acoustic with Chester.)  :o)  They did Crawling and Numb and a few other oldies that were just great to hear. And now for the final song…

THEY PLAYED BLEED IT OUT!!!! That is probably one of my top 5 favorite songs from them. Chester added a little bit of Burning in the Sky and then  Mike added another verse to the rap from A Place for my Head  and everyone just went nutso. It was such a good show. I am glad I spent the money to buy the tickets and if I had the chance, I would do it all over again.

Speaking of our tickets…  The seats should have not been so good. They were off the side of the stage. The funny part was they were great seats! We were in the first row of the section so we could see everything that happened. We could also see behind the stage so we could see them when they came out and went back in. I ended up loving our seats. The guys were also very good about using the entire stage. They played to us just as much as the front. Plus, their stage was kitty corner so it was not straight on in any direction.  They also have these risers that look like step benches from a step class that they jump up on regularly. Mike mentioned in his blog post from the first show that they had sore necks and backs and I understand why. Those fools are all over the stage and hopping up and down. Poor sweeties. I sure hope they don’t hurt for long.

I guess my final thoughts are these:  When you have the chance to see a band you really like live, just go. Money comes and money goes. The experience I had last night will never ever be forgotten. When bands play live you get different versions of songs and added verses. You get what they are in the mood for and you get to see another side of them than you would if you only had the studio albums. For this I am grateful.

So for all that and more,  Thanks Linkin Park for rocking.

Hello world!

Get out your virtual U-Haul truck, I am moving my blog.  The best part about moving a blog is that I do not have to pack it up or unpack it .  Well, I am sure at some point Richard will pack up all of the old posts from the other blog but again, it’s not something I will have to handle.

So right now I am almost finished with the semester of classes and have a few weeks before the next one starts.  This means a few different things.

First, it means that I may be able to breathe for a second and relax.  I have been running around so much between work and school that I lose days of the week! Just for example, today, I was driving home from my exam and I noticed a lot of traffic around the football stadium.  They had tail-dragger airplanes flying around and people everywhere.  It actually took me a minute to put it together what was going on.  It’s Sunday dummy!  The Bucs are playing a home game.  The scary part is I was about to get off at the exit to pop into Wal-Mart.  Thankfully, I figured this out before I got stuck in a year’s worth of traffic.

The second thing that being out of school for a little while means is that I will have time to write a little on my blog.  I have missed it for many months because I just did not have time. I am sure that I will slack off again when the semester gets started again but at least I can have some fun for a little while.

The third and final thing break between semesters means is that I will be able to get my house cleaned pretty-like and happy again.  I have so much stuff to get rid of its going to take forever.   Its ok though it will be great when its done.

So, this is a good start for a welcome back post.  Stay tuned for later when I think of something more brilliant to write.

You know, I just had a thought, perhaps I should mention something about the address.  Well, it’s a little different but the old site should link to here so that people can find me. I don’t want to end up in internet oblivion after all.