I'm Holding On!

It's almost over but I'm in deep denial.

Summer was not good enough!!

Although I did really well with my getting out and about thing but still, I needed more heat, more sun, more time!

So I'm going to be clinging to the last few weeks for the next bit. I'm not sure how much reading I'll get done but you better believe the minute Must Love Hellhounds is out I'll be snapping it up. Tell me that cover doesn't rock? And I need some short stories so I can read in between guests and plans.

I have one of my best buds coming for a visit. I can only hope this dire stomach thing I have going on will just calm the hell down. Even if only for the day.

My tummy declared war about 8 weeks ago now. Apparently Honey Dijon Salad Dressing is a HUGE no-no and we've been feuding back and forth since.

Even tonight, I had my comfort food and my tummy rebelled. I see lots of toast and water once the Labour Day Weekend is over.

Until then I have my friend coming (mentioned above), will go shopping with my Godboys to pick up some school clothes (think that will be on Friday) and then WOOHOO, the weather for the weekend is showing hot and humid so we'll definitely have as many people over as possible.

On Tuesday of next week I'll be in a Cindy coma.

Crap.

Or going in to get my friggin' Health Card, my passport (it's across the street so may as well) and my Driver's License pictures all taken and filled out.

Then Cindy coma.

Emma's Belly

So I told you about the shaving of Emma, our long haired kitty back about what, 2 months ago?

Well, talk about being just a happy monkey. She now sits with me while watching TV and will be upstairs in the 'loft' when I get up in the morning and will chirp at you to say hello. She's just extremely happy cause well, she can't have 'hanger oners' (long haired cat people know what that is) so she doesn't feel dirty so she's so much more social.

Course, the last few days she's been looking for Amber so now she's talking to me. Funny to hear a cat meow when it's not something she does normally. She's got a cute meow.

But being the cat mommy I am I had to get a video of her when she's standing up. Seriously, she's all, 'did you see my tummy? Isn't just he cutest?'. Almost every time I come across her during the day she'll be standing up. She's like a penguin. It's hard to catch on the camera though. I think she knows it will be digital evidence and doesn't wish to be caught.

But I got her! I'm talking to her in the video so sound off or at least way down.

Addictions? I've Had A Few

Okay, let's get back to business.

Reading has not been happening. Birthday week with Bob home 24/7. No reading time for me.

Lots of fun things were done though and even boring mundane things like hanging out watching TV together. I really am all about the small things.

Okay, I like the big ball buster things too but sometimes I take a moment during the small things.

Anyways, the topic is addiction.

Not in a bad way because I figured it out pretty young. I have an addictive quality in that if I start something the odds are I'm going to obsess about it for a while.

We've discussed addictions with me before.

I'm not allowed to go to a casino.

Seriously.

Thing is I'm very good about going to casinos. Okay, I've been like once. And I went after the time I was at a race track during university.

University years were slim pickings for money and I worked throughout the year. Let's just say losing the money I came with was bad. Hitting the ATM for another hundred bucks hurt for more than the usual reasons.

Bad ATM.

Having learned a painful lesson a few years before it was no surprise that I took precautions that my mother and her best friend thought were hilarious before entering the casino. I took my 20 dollars (yeah, still slim pickings for money) and ID out and then hid my wallet under my car seat, locked the door and told the ladies to not let me leave the casino without one of them. My mom and her BF didn't understand why I didn't just take my wallet in with me. I explained that I knew about ATMs and that I would spend more than I had if I let loose. I ended up leaving with 60 bucks which was awesome but then I know (logically) that's very unusual.

My mother discovered the hard way where I got my addictive nature when my dad went to the casino with her. His ATM card got a work out and mom was forced to put her foot down. Dad hasn't been back since but I'm tellin' ya, my father and I would be high rollers if we had money to burn.

Just sayin.

It's in the blood!

Lucky me, it doesn't just have to do with gambling. Nope. My first credit card was about wore out before I realized the consequences. Ouch. Luckily I'm not nearly as addicted but I can get in trouble so I have a card that has a 500 dollar limit so that if I lose control they'll cut me off.

I know. Personal willpower for me can be a fleeting thing so I have to put in special obstacles to help me keep it together. But I do put in obstacles because I know consequences and logic and hell, I know myself. It's probably a hard thing to understand if you don't have an addictive personality.

It's also the reason I don't drink. I've had the odd drink and when I turned legal my best bud took me out and we got 'tipsy'. Let's just say that the 60 bucks I spent in drinks just made me stupid and pee all night like a race horse. So it didn't stick. Phew!

Now I'll drop you another 'quirk'.

I can eat the exact same food day after day for months on end. My thing right now is toasted bacon sandwich with fries and gravy. After 14 years of marriage Bob knows when he's in trouble. I was addicted to McDs for about a year, A&W was probably the longest with 2 years, Tim Horton's sandwich lasted about 9 months etc. I could go a day or two but sooner or later I was going to give Bob some serious grief and he was going to drive me to the destination with C-Rex crawling through the cab of the truck.

The good news about my addictions is that they can run their course. I can go to McD's but it's not the same. I still love A&W fries but I don't need them every day and I long ago lost interest in the TH sandwich.

I just never know when something will lose it's grip on me and that can be frustrating because trying to force it doesn't work.

My latest addiction is Yoville on Facebook. I think I've gone over every nook and cranny in the joint. Bob will ask me if I need to go to my 'job' in Yoville - have to go every six hours to get coins to buy fake stuff for your fake house online.

Thing is, you can spend actual money on Yoville to get the stuff you want. I can't tell you how many times I've hovered over the 'purchase coins' option. I explained it to Bob thinking maybe he would say 'you know what, go ahead and buy a few dollars worth'.

Uh, no.

Bob told me he'd call our internet provider and tell them his wife had lost her frickin' mind and they were to never, ever, ever put internet in our house again.

Meanie.

I just have to let this new addiction run it's course.

The funny thing is Blogging and Reading were never in the 'addiction' categories for me. Although I do have to be careful as sometimes I'll be reading and wishing I didn't have to go out and visit people or do laundry or uh -

I do other stuff!

I do know when I first started reading romance books I read them back to back to back and I resented time taken away from reading. So I think I was addicted at first.

Luckily for me, it still holds it's shine after 20 some odd years.

Now, if only I could get addicted to salad, exercise, running marathons, cooking, cleaning.....

Sweet Amber

Today we had to say good-bye to our sweet kitty Amber.

We knew it was coming. In the end, she wasn't even half her normal size, she was blind and we think she may have become deaf also. She could no longer purr and seemed to be having a hard time breathing. I worried she'd had a stroke and didn't know who we were or why she was picked up every once in a while.

I asked Bob to get one of his t-shirts that he had worn recently (she loved Bob so much she would crawl into his dirty clothes to sleep) and we wrapped her up and carried her to the vet.

The vet felt a mass in her tummy, from a previous visit she thought her blindness (her pupils didn't dilate) could be from a brain tumour and in the end, we asked her to tell us what was best for Amber period. Our vets are great (there are two who know us and our pets very well) and so supportive and know we'll do what it takes but she believed it was time. It was our decision of course but if she had said 'oh no, she'll be right as rain in a week' then we would have done it. Sadly, it was not to be.

Bob was a mess and that's normal. I always keep it together until later and boy, later hurts.

Neither of us could come home right away so we went out and browsed and had dinner. I was nauseous before we went but I thought maybe it was because I hadn't eaten yet. I was worse after dinner so I figure it was the 'denial'.

I keep seeing her orange fur and I want to hold her just one last time.

We came home and went to see Emma immediately. It was so weird. We were a family of 4 pets for the longest time and now Emma is the only one. I told Bob I could never come home to an empty house and he understood.

I don't know that'll we'll wait too long to get another kitty. We already had the void of not having a dog and now that void feels like a canyon.

We have some clean up to do. Our beauty Amber was such a clean kitty all her life and we knew it probably killed her to have accidents. Our entry way became a urine spot, another was in the pantry and then there were times she just couldn't find the box in the basement. There were times I would see Amber wandering around and I would pick her up and carry her to her litter and her relief was genuine.

We'll have to neutralize those areas. And I think the basement subfloor will have to come up so we could be a month before adding a new family member.

But onto my favourite memories of Amber.

Amber was put in a cage at an animal shelter and that's where Bob and I found her. Bob and I weren't married yet so whenever I went home to my parents she would caterwaul around the house for hours. (I actually think she was in heat but Bob likes to say she was looking for me). She was so skinny when we got her and compared to Bob's two older cats she looked like a china pet.

Amber loved to bathe and if another cat or dog got in the way of her tongue she was more than willing to clean them up too. Bewildered Rocky cause he was a dopey dog but you had to love him and Amber did. She also loved to tease the dogs. She would walk right up to Rocky and scoot him off his bed only to lay full out and reach out with her toes to his nose. It was comical to see how 2 large dogs catered to her every whim and when they got out of line she would hiss and thwack them in the nose (she was declawed).

Whenever I had 'the' cramps she would lay on my hip or against my back as if to let me know she was there. She also climbed up on us when we were sick. She learned the art of being annoyed by her older sibling Bunny. Bunny would start puking the minute he saw Bob's suitcase. Seriously, coming home was a nightmare cause who knew what Bunny had decided to do while we were gone. Amber, being a clean kitty found better ways to let us know she was upset. A well placed sit down with her back facing us was her way. Bob would snuggle her until she started purring and in reality she was a push over for a kitty.

Even though she was the youngest of the pets in the house at the time she was like a mother hen. Cleaning and scolding. When Emma showed up a few years later, Amber stopped talking for a year. All the same, she cleaned that kitten whenever it crossed her path and Emma became used to having her head washed by her bestest friend Amber.

It was heart breaking in the last year to see Emma walk up to Amber and lower her head. She would wait for Amber to acknowledge her but Amber just didn't know she was there. In the past few weeks we noticed that Amber would clean Emma's head even if it was just for a moment. We don't know if Amber had lost her sense of smell so had no fear or if Emma had somehow positioned herself just perfectly so that Amber's tongue managed to stroke her head a few times.

Amber's routine later in life was to call out to Bob before bed. No being late! He would tuck his hand around her and she would purr while he went to sleep. She could sleep with him for hours but then Bob doesn't move much in his sleep. She barely tolerated me cause I move too much in my sleep. But when Bob was gone for the night Amber would find me and let me know she was turning in and that maybe I should be going to bed also.

I think it was Amber who taught me how to nap.

I'm just saying.

An orange kitty curled up on a white down comforter in the middle of winter was hard to walk away from. She looked like she needed company and that's my story.

I loved that little monkey and I'll miss her every day.

Birthday Winners!

I'm late!

Good reasons though, I was having fun and that's what Cindy Week is all about.

Now, I started Birthday week last week on Tuesday night. Why do I say this? I bought myself a two pieces or art (not like real art but things you hang on the wall) and I don't normally buy myself stuff like that so I declared it the beginning of Birthday week. Tuesday to Tuesday.

Tonight Bob says he thinks Birthday week should really be the week the birthday falls on so last Tuesday through Sat shouldn't count.

I'm in.

Seriously, my man spoils the hell out of me!

But enough about me, it's about YOU! Who gets to have a Birthday Week today?

Thank you to all those who 'played' and it's good to know some people still love a good paranormal.

I'm going to make you watch the video - Bob picks the two winners (poor sleepy monkey).



Did you watch the video?

To the two ladies who won, where would you like your gift certificate from? I happen to know both ladies are Canadian which leaves me with Chapters or Amazon.ca but maybe there is another bookstore online.

E-mail me - rsmith41 at cogeco dot ca

Thank you all for my birthday wishes. It was wonderful to get up on my birthday *cough*4pm*cough* and see that people were thinking of me.

I'll re-cap this last week later. Bob's been off since Thursday and tomorrow is his last day off and we have grand plans for tomorrow. Well, grand plans if you're me ;)

OMG, get this, tonight I told Bob while with my family that I was going to get really skinny and become a clothes horse.

Bob: A what?

Me: Clothes horse

My Mom: It is kind of an odd phrase to use isn't it.

Bob: You're not a horse! *Poor guy thought I was talking about my weight - usually I use 'cow' as my descriptor*

Me: A clothes horse is someone who buys tons and tons of clothes (my definition) and I need a new goal.

Bob: *wheels turning* So I'm a Home Depot horse.

Me: No, you're a Home Depot Ho.

*family is all laughing*

Bob: So you're a book ho?

Me: No, I'm a bookworm. Wait. Why do we call people who love to read bookworms? I need to google this stuff.

Mom: They ('they') used to get worms in the cover of books.

*dead silence*

And being the family of thought train engineers that we are, we veered off onto another subject altogether.

If you made it this far and that damn video didn't load or co-operate the winners are Nath and Mary G!!

Sneaky I am.

Birthday Week!!!

It's here!!

It's birthday week around these here parts which means I've been spending money and having fun.

My birthday is on the 25th and I normally do some wacky give away but this year I decided to just cut to the chase.

I've got two 25 dollar book gift certificates to give away. I'm probably going to do them online so you can even pick the bookstore you want the certificate from! Overseas, where ever, it's the equivalent of 25 Canadian dollars because the British pound and the Euro would break me.

Just leave a note in the comments about your latest 'glom'.

What are you gobbling up as you read? Are you neck deep in vampires and loving it? Are you holding out for a western hero? (Kristie J, Super Librarian and Syb (With a blog name of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, you had to know she would love westerns) have some suggestions!) Are historicals still making you hot under the collar?

Or is it a new vice? You finally cracked open the first Anita Blake book and can't believe the glory or maybe you decided Ward can write up a grocery list and you'll be there to buy it.

That's it.

Super easy!

Open until my birthday! So we'll close it at midnight on the 24th (central time) so I can pull the names out of the hat on my B-day.

Good luck everyone!

I'm Here but Gone

I'm still here but Bob is now on vacation until next Wednesday so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post.

I've definitely got a foggy brain lately and everything feels like too much work.

We have had extremely high temps so the air is on in the house. I think too many ins and outs can make you feel ill. Your body can't just adapt.

Ear infection is tons better but it's not completely cleared up so no under water swimming. Amazing how I miss being able to go under the water to swim. I have ear plugs but the ear canal has been in a bad place so I'm just keeping my head above water until I know things are all cleared out.

I can't believe it already so late in the summer. Makes me a bit blue but I'm going to just soldier on and hope that Bob and I can have some sun shiny days over the next week!

Hope all is well with you guys!

Weekend Blitz

You know how on Tuesday you'll think about the up coming weekend and realize you have absolutely no plans?

And you sigh in contentment?

We ruined it on Wednesday.

Apparently this weekend will be family palooza.

Time and place? My house, before I manage to get my ass out of bed.

I'll start from the beginning because I know you hang on my every word and must, must, must know what happened.

Fine, stick around anyways, maybe I'll end this post with candy.

It's the middle of August - everyone okay? I know! How could it possible be the middle of August when the sun just decided to show up and bring some of it's wonderful heat to this part of the planet!?

So yeah, the heat and humidity finally decided to show up this week which I'm loving cause I have a pool. Sure, I've also managed to score myself a killer ear infection but as long as I don't get my ear wet, I can swim around and get refreshed. True, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I was not up to anything including basking in my pool due to the pain of the damn ear but I did get in the past two nights.

The heat wave is going to continue (YAY!) and Bob and I know that it's kind of wrong to not share the pool with those suffering with the heat. So we invited my family for Saturday afternoon. Too keep it simple I'm making tacos and salad. I'm going to cook the meat tonight and then tomorrow I'll pop it in the crockpot and it will be there when people want to get out of the pool. No muss, no fuss.

Bob came home tonight with the news that his family was going to come out on Sunday.

That's two days from now.

Remember that anxious woman who shares my body? Normally her head would explode but hey, whatever, burgers, potatoes and salad. I can handle it.

Then Bob says 'no worries, they said they would take care of the food since they know they are a lot of work (they really aren't, there is just more of them so it's busier).

I should be loving this.

Anxiety woman however doesn't seem to like living life without a plan. What are they bringing? Will I have to cook it? What if I don't know how to cook it? And let's just beat to the point, what if I don't feel like cooking!?

Basically my back up plan is pizza. The delivery peeps will even come into the backyard so I don't have to wait in the house for them to show up.

So I need to calm the hell down.

Remind me to tell you about the printer I just bought. It just never fails.

If you stuck around for the candy, I lied.

But I'll post pics of the books I just bought:

I got an e-mail from Kat O+ (Book Thingo) recently telling me about this book.

The heroine Grace is obsessed with counting and gets into panic attacks when her counting system falls apart. Kat, knowing I have panic attacks and anxiety thought I might find this book interesting and any book featuring such things is always something I'm interested in.

Obviously the book is about much more than what I've said but let's just say the panic attacks were the 'hook' for me. I found this book in the general fiction section of the bookstore so I'm not going in expecting a romance or a HEA. I'm just very much intrigued.

And knowing my rule of not buying just one book at a time I also picked up Written On Your Skin by Meredith Duran. I bought this one before reading Bound By Your Touch because AAR is hosting their first Book Club event and I was planning on joining in.

Remember how my weekend was empty?

Yeah, so I can't join in even though I bought this book this week in the hopes that I could read it in time.

And then I couldn't read it in time.

Ugh.

Anyways, if you have read this and want to see what the AAR Book Club is about you can go here Saturday, August 15th from 6 to 8 p.m. eastern time to see a live feed and join in the discussion.

AND!

We're done!

Don't Tempt Me by Loretta Chase

I wanted to love it.

Really I did.

Cindy Blurb: Zoe Lexam had been missing for 12 years when she is delivered to her family's front door. Of course, other woman had tried to pretend to be the missing Zoe and had been shown the door quite quickly. This time however, the gossip hounds were abuzz with the tale of The Harem Girl and how this time, it looked like Lord Lexam had finally found his real daughter.


Lucien de Gray has lost everyone he ever loved including a stubborn little girl he knew as a young boy. Hearing she had gone missing when he was seventeen shut Lucien down and he believed her to be dead. He continued on with his life, or as much of one as he allowed himself. Since Zoe must be dead, Lord Lexam was surely being fleeced and it was his job to go and oust the impostor.


Only the minute he saw her he knew it was Zoe. It just wasn't the Zoe he remembered.


What I loved about this book was Zoe. She is a breath of fresh air but then, she would be. She was kidnapped and sold into white slavery at the age of 12. She became a gift for a powerful man's son and was married to an impotent man. What happens to Zoe for those 12 years is very much glossed over or the story would have been far darker. In fact, I imagine it was far darker, we just don't get to see that. Zoe escaped her captivity and finally made it home where she was going to live a life of freedom and obviously not look back at her past too closely if at all.

The problem is her mere existence is scandalous. Put her in a room with people and she'd be ruined in minutes.

In comes Lucien, the boy she once knew as a child, who is now a duke. Lucien decides he can make her acceptable by presenting her to the Queen and having her acknowledge Zoe.

Lucien and Zoe accomplish all of this with some cute banter and maybe a few longing looks. Although I don't remember that many now.

I can't say I warmed to Lucien. I think he was supposed to be charming when I thought he was just dull. Sure, he'd lost everyone he loved but it didn't seem to grant him very much character. He just seemed to flow with life and as long as he wasn't bothered he was fine. So having Zoe come into his life didn't seem to affect him all that much. Sure, she discovered a bunch of stuff happening in his household and he was forced to become a grown up and handle situations but for the most part - meh.

In the end I wasn't bowled over by their story. I think Zoe may have got the shorter end of the stick while the duke made out like a bandit. I mean, Zoe is fun and while the duke likes fun, he's still kind of flat.

And all the stuff with the servants. Bah.

C+

This one was missing the zip for me. It wasn't the trainwreck that was Miss Wonderful and it certainly wasn't the beauty of Mr. Impossible.

If you are a Loretta Chase fan girl, have fun, if Ms. Chase is more hit or miss for you as she is for me, you've been warned.

I Gotz The Warm and Fuzzies!

Today there was a surprise in the mailbox.

There was a book.

This was funny because I haven't ordered any books.

Then I saw the return address.

Bob stood there dumbfounded as I tore into the package.

After all, Bob had already said 'I see you have a book'.

'I didn't order a book, it's from Rosie!!'

And TADA!!!

A book that brought tears to my eyes and a high pitched squeeing sound up from my lungs.

An Anne Stuart Harlequin First signed by none other than the Goddess of Tortured Heroes and the Heroines who have the bad luck of tripping over them!



















Bob stood back and said with awe, 'You have such great friends. None of mine send me stuff from Home Depot.'

I do have such great friends. Truly blessed I am.

Rosie the Book Angel had struck again!

Great Big Burly Bear Hugs and a Gazillion Thank Yous!

Eeeep!

Sunday night and all is quiet again.

We had a friend with his two young sons come for the afternoon and I played hard. Both my elbows are aching when only one was aching before they came (I hurt my elbow earlier this year and need to do a week of Ibuprofen but I know it upsets my tummy so I've been waiting till no one is coming around. This week may be perfect). I had to keep lifting the light 4 year old up out of the pool and onto floaties and such.

I'm beat.

I don't know how people have kids 24/7 - they have energy to the max.

Yikes!

Now, my poor ear that was hurting earlier in the summer (but got better with a week of me using over the counter drops) is in full blown pain. I don't know if it's swimmer's ear or another type of infection. It hurts! I have a Doc's appt on Tuesday for regular stuff so I'll wait till then but the pain is starting down my neck. I have some over the counter drops for ears but I'm not sure they are getting into the canal like they should. Feels like the canal is either swollen or inflamed.

I have my best bud and her son coming tomorrow but it's supposed to be crazy rainy. Maybe we'll get out of the house for a bit which would be nice but the temperature may feel as high as 40 C. Yeah. I wilt in that kind of heat.

But I'm not complaining!!! Nope, I want the heat. Just let me have clear skies too so I can swim like the fish I am!

Anyways, I'm 3/4 of the way through the Chase book and I'm enjoying it. Hopefully something a bit deeper will happen in the next 1/4 but it's kept my attention.

So that's my weekend update. Hope everyone found some 'me' time.

Alright, I think tylenol is in order for the ear.

Bad Ear.

Things to Come

Thanks for all the blogiversary wishes!

It's a sure way to get the lurkers to come out and comment.

Onwards!

We're having friends come visit tomorrow and I can only hope that it's gorgeous out and they don't need to come into the house too often. With a blind kitty, there are areas of the house that don't smell all that great. Not her fault poor monkey but it definitely makes me self-conscious. All things would be fine except my hubby tore up the flooring in the hallway and well, it's plywood and it's porous.

Ugh.

Not enough bleach in the world.

Anyways, I'm soon off to bed as I've been up all day. Yep, daywalker hours showed up today. And I guess a good part of tomorrow will also be daywalking so I figure Saturday will be a wash.

On that note, I've picked Don't Tempt Me by Loretta Chase for my next read. I can only hope I find some time this weekend for Cindy Time. If not, I guess Monday won't be coming soon enough.

Happy weekend everybody!

Blogiversary - Really 4 Years!?

Holy cow!

I've been blogging for 4 years as of today.

That's nuts.

Considering I never finish anything I start I would have to say I've been showing some dogged determination with this little endeavour!

Four years ago I took a leap after being banished from one of my favourite blogs - Maili told me I wasn't allowed to comment on her blog again until I had my own blog. Me, being me, figured what the hell, the net is ginormous and nobody would really find me.

Let's just say I was shocked when six people actually commented on my first post.

From the title, Nocturnal Wonderings, I obviously made no promises.

I can't keep one train of thought rolling long enough to make sense most days so I knew that anything I posted was going to be whatever the brain wanted to play with.

Book semi-reviews (I'm not a professional and have never made out like I could be one), book shopping, pets, friends, anxiety, memes, movies, clothes, weight, anxiety, Christmas (yikes!), food, parents, loss of parents, anxiety, family, loss of pets, errands - well, life in all it's glory and slop - it was all going to be out there and I'm honest about who I am and who I'm not.

And it's been a blast!

Some of you have been here from the beginning and some have filtered in over the years but you have all been so wonderful and supportive of who I am. And I'm so grateful to have met some of you in person.

This past year I had wondered if I had lost the blogging mojo. I started to worry about how boring I was and the fact that I had been in a reading slump for so long did not make blogging any easier.

Well the good news (poor bastards) is that I have that spark back. I've found my will to read and the will to blog has come home with it. Not that I'm any less boring but now I'll write about it and let it go. Like I did in the beginning.

So here is to 4 years and counting.

Who knows?

Blogging may be the only thing that never gets old!

Edited: Damn picture! I so want a cupcake now.

The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley

Phew!!

Another book read and it was awesome!

This was my first Jennifer Ashley book and I can say it won't be my last. Although the other brothers in this story couldn't possibly be more interesting the Lord Ian himself.

Cindy Blurb: Beth is a newly rich woman after the elderly woman she had been a companion to left her an inheritance. Beth has not had an easy life but she's known love and understanding but it's been 7 long years since her husband died and she's ready to be a wife again. At least, she thought she was.

Lord Ian Mackenzie is believed to be mad, after all he was declared so in a competency hearing when he was 12 years old. Everyone knows he was released only because after his father's death his brother, a right powerful duke, made it happen. Ian states things as he sees them, has a photographic memory, can re-play any music he hears and is unable to stare anyone in the eye.


The minute he sees Beth he decides he must save her from a horrible betrothal and proposes to her on the spot. Beth, a sensible woman, declines the offer but can't stop herself from being curious about the man who seems unable to tell a lie.

And then came love.

I don't know that I can do this story any justice.

What I can tell you is that in the beginning I was stumbling with my perception of Lord Ian and that's because I had seen someone put a diagnosis on him and I thought it was autism. Not knowing an adult with autism but knowing plenty of children I couldn't get the image of Ian 'the man' right in my head. I was prepared to stop reading the story but decided to head off again in search of what Lord Ian might be suffering and discovered I had made a mistake and it's believed he has Aspergers. I have seen adult men portrayed with Aspergers so after that I was able to see 'the man' and not a child.

And it was awesome.

But I think I've mentioned that.

With the many nuances of Aspergers, there is a million ways for Beth and Ian to not understand each other but neither seems to want to walk away from the other. This is not just a relationship between Beth and Ian but also between Ian and his brothers, Beth and Ian's brothers, Beth and her previous relationships and finally between Ian and his awful father.

Like I said, I can't do this story any justice, just know that I really enjoyed it. I ended up staying up past my 'bedtime' to finish reading the story the night before Bob's family was to come for the day. And you know how I need to sleep!

All that said, there were a few things that quirked.

There is a mystery to be solved and it took Beth to figure it all out which seems a bit silly but I guess with the assumptions the brothers made, it would take an outsider who believed. There's a TSTL moment but I remember feeling invincible at the age of the heroine so maybe it's acceptable.

I also have to say I'm not sure the rest of the brothers are at all likable which makes me wonder if I'll like other books.

I know I would love to re-read it again in the future but I'll go with a B+ as a grade.

The Ugly

If you don't care to see a crap load of bitching and complaining click on out of here because I'm about to go nuclear.

C-Rex is up and pissed off.

I'm sick of waking up to a house that is constantly messy. I clean, I put shit away and bam, the next morning I wake up and shit is all over the place.

Seriously, I can't take it anymore. I'm doing laundry constantly and putting the baskets away - Bob meanwhile has decided the baskets make great storage areas for his clean clothes and putting the clothes away doesn't occur to him.

So nothing is ever really in a spot.

There's this damn green satchel thingie that's been sitting in our den for months. It has dust on it and I've cleaned around the damn thing and everthing and finally last week while in a mood I asked Bob where the damn thing belonged. Bob knowing I was in a mood just said to stop worrying it'd been gone by the morning.

Guess what's still in the den?

Right now I want to do up a huge bon fire. Seriously, just burn up all this clutter and get it over with. Where does all this stuff go?

Then there are the weekends. Poor Bob can't win. He has been helping his brother for months now doing up a reno in their basement so they can get a renter in. It's become even more imperitive because the brother just lost his 20 year job. I know it's important. I know I'm being a bitch. But just one weekend - this one in particular, could you please stay home and help me get ready for YOUR family to come for a visit.

He actually said to me that I should clean the place up before his family shows up.

Seriously?

This from the guy who walked through the house a million times with his dirty boots when I've asked him not to. I've cleaned and vacuumed the floor enough and seeing the work *I* do be discredited by being stomped all over just makes me pissy. Why should I bother cleaning? It's just going to be a mess again by tomorrow.

The kitchen island is a sticky mess but can I clean the damn thing? No. My husband has had his tools and crap all over it for a few weeks and on the day we're going to have company I get 'can you clean up a little.'

THEN, when Bob asked me what time to tell his family to come to our house I said 'You said they were going to follow you home so 1pm'.

Bob: Well I need a few hours in the backyard to get some work done.

Me: *silence*

Me: Well, I've been up since 3am and I'm not going to be cooking dinner at 5pm for your family as I probably won't be up.

Bob: *realizing I'm in a fine mood* Okay, they'll follow me home so 1pm at the latest.

Yeah, no shit.

Not only does he want me to clean the house, he wants time to continue working on the damn fence which he's been working on for weeks.

Fuck no!!

One day. I just need one day of you NOT thinking about only what you want to get done!

So yeah, C-Rex is ready to bounce but I have to go get groceries and stuff. Then I need to clean the house up and pray that my poor cat doesn't have an accident so that the house smells like urine.

In a nutshell, I guess it's a good thing Bob just left for his brother's house (an hour each way). There's a part of me that wants to do jack all. Just forget it. When everyone shows up and asks what the fuck I've been doing just shrug.

Okay, I have to go shopping. Pray some poor soul doesn't cross my path.

I decided to just type it out and get the anger out of my system. So far, the anger is still raging in my belly. Let's hope I can keep it together and not burst into tears next.

Ugh.

Edited: It's 2 hours later and the family has decided they will come tomorrow and I talked to Bob and told him why I'm super bitchy. Poor guy. Now I feel like I'm going to vomit which is never a good feeling and Bob says I need comfort food. I think he's right. I also told him about how I was going to pitch this satchel on the front lawn with a bunch of his stuff but that I refrained because I didn't want the neighbours to have evidence that I'm white trash. Good thing that man loves me. And he does. He really does. He's going to come home and calm C-Rex down.

Long Weekend

It's a long weekend up here in Canada so you might notice some of your peeps disappearing for a few days.

Thankfully Bob and I are only expecting his family on Sunday and the forecast is rain so they may cancel which would mean it's all about us! (I know, I'm horrible)

This week hasn't been all right as rain what with my tummy deciding to roil over and beat the crap me. Stupid tummy. So I'm sitting here hungry but unsure of what I could possibly eat. Not only that I don't really have meat in the house so the last few times I boiled up some beautiful local potatoes I ate them alone and well, the tummy rebelled.

I was considering a McD's run but I'm too tired to get behind the wheel.

Which is ironic because the minute I take my sleeping pill I'm all bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Seriously. Not happy.

And now I'm floundering on whether I'm going to continue on with the Ian book. Maybe it's just not speaking my language at the moment. I might be looking for something darker but I'm so not cracking the Anne Stuart nut I have in back up. Not ready for extreme intervention.

AND, just as a complete aside:

Nalini Singh has put up a schedule of her upcoming books in the Psy series. I will now copy and paste from her site:

Upcoming US releases

Next in the Psy/Changeling Series

BLAZE OF MEMORY (Dev's Book)
November 2009
Now available for pre-order!

AN ENCHANTED SEASON
(mass market release)
November 2009

Psy/Changeling #8 (Max's Book)
July 2010

Psy/Changeling #9 (Indigo's Book)
November 2010

Psy/Changeling Novella (Ria's story)
2010

Psy/Changeling #10
(It could only be one person...)
2011

Ho-kay, you still with me?

Did you see book 10? It could only be one person?

Uh, it better be HAWKE!!

Why am I worried?

Cause there is a Ghost guy with no name running around, I think there are a few other Psy running around looking for stories and seriously, 2011!?

2011 people!

OMG I'll be turning 41 when the damn book comes out.

Okay, I just can't...

I have to go breathe in a bag.