Hello again

I will be back more frequently now that I can leave my puppies home and come to the library to post. I will see you soon!

Hiatus

I have been gone for some time due to circumstances beyond my control. I have not been able to post on my blog and I have missed it a great deal. I don't know if I have any followers but if so I am sorry that I have not been here. Many new and exciting things are going on with me. We now have our 2nd new puppy...so now two American Bulldogs in our home. They are approximately 12 and 15 weeks old. The female, Lyla is the oldest and weighs approximately 33 lbs and the male Remy weighs approximately 29 lbs. He is a beautiful white dog with brown patches over his eyes and three on his back. She is a beautiful creamy beige color with a black muzzle much like a boxer. He has light green eyes. They have quite different personalities but both are a joy to be around. I am having a great deal of fun with them. They are quite a challenge also, but I have never been so happy in regard to dogs in my life.They will be attending obedience classes and I hope the husband and I will be able to build agility pieces in the backyard for the dogs to work on in the back yard. They need a great deal of entertainment or they become anxious and destructive. While long walks are okay I think they need a great deal more than that to be truly happy in their environment. They can sit, give paw or high five in lyla's case, she also does down which Remy has not mastered. They need to be taught sit/stay and down/stay and very importantly, they need to be taught to walk more calmly on the leash. They are not the most cooperative when it comes to potty-training either but I have faith that when we master more behaviors they will follow with better potty behaviors too.

The Craft Room

I am happily sorting through my craft supplies and setting up a sewing/craft/writing room in my daughter's old bedroom. I hope to have it done nicely in time to submit my pictures for a contest featuring the rooms where "  Women Who Create...,"  do their creating. It has become a necessity with our new puppy. She is a great puppy ,but still...she is a puppy,which means chewing on everything and getting her teeth on everything I own. Putting baskets full of magazines, etc in the spare bedroom is certainly going to alleviate that problem. Now if I could just get some sleep...My husband is fond of Victoria Stillwell so we just watched a program on training puppy! I think it helped.

Ladybug thank you note to husband

Ladybug Note Generator

Word of The Day

doula-/doo-luh/noun- A woman who assists during childbirth labor and provides support to the mother, the child and her family after  childbirth

Doula derives from Greek doula-Servant-woman, slave

Book Review-The Day The Falls Stood Still-by Cathy Marie Buchanan

Cathy Marie Buchanan will be remembered for her evocative and tender debut novel. Her attention to detail, the novel's unique storyline and Buchanan's appealing characters combine for an emotional read. Niagara Falls is a setting of stunning beauty and frightening power, demonstrated unerringly by the force of the water and its influence on the lives of the town's inhabitants.The Falls play an integral part in the unfolding story of Bess Heath and her family, in which Bess grows from a self-centered child to a resourceful woman,capable of great love for those in her family who are most important to her. Buchanan is as adept as an artist while painting a scene  using the backdrop of Niagara Falls through the various seasons to depict the correlating changes in the lives of Bess and her lover, Tom. Tom is a man whose very existence is closely connected to the mysterious power of the Falls. He has an uncanny knowledge of its ability to give and take. He never loses his love and respect for the water. He believes too, that the water is made capable of great damage through the intercession of reckless and unscrupulous men. He eventually becomes so attuned to the river and Falls that he becomes a liability. Bess must choose between her love for him and her trepidation towards crossing those who want to harness the Falls for their own purposes, which will ultimately affect the lives of her parents and townspeople. Through careful research Buchanan immortalizes the destruction of Niagara Falls while she chronicles the lives of Bess and Tom and their friends and families. The Day The Falls Stood Still, unique in style and content is written with the authority of experience and I look forward to more from this far from fledgling author. ( )

Book Review-On, Off by Colleen McCullough- Audio Book

I listened to On, Off by Colleen McCullough on an audio book borrowed from the library. I found myself intrigued by the story and eager to listen every day for more clues to the identity of the brutal killer of a minimum of 14 mixed race girls. The body of a victim is discovered by accident in the refrigeration unit at the Hughlings Center, a research facility. Detective Carmine Delmonico is brought in to discover the murderer. McCullough soon involves Carmine in a romantic entanglement with Desdemona Dupre, who is in a management position at the Hug as the facility is called. I felt this part of the book to be the least interesting, mainly because while Carmine is somewhat intriguing, both characters lack any real appealing characteristics. The eccentric group of suspects are far more interesting. I found that the book took longer to find its way to the end of some scenes than necessary. This caused the action to slow down and made me want to fast forward until I found another action-packed scene. I kept expecting there to be a reason why McCullough set the story in 1965. I never did find one. After some research, I did find that McCullough was a neuroscientist for twenty years before she was published, so that explains the setting in a science research facility. Ultimately, I think the book was too long. There were many passages that did not seem to move the story along in the least. While it may have served the purpose of explaining some motivations for characters actions, it was not necessary in helping to discover the identity of the murderer. The two main characters, Carmine Delmonico and Desdemona Dupre were equally uninteresting and so, seemed well-matched for each other. Still, I did ultimately listen to the whole audio book so there must have been enough happening for me to finish the story. I don't think I can highly recommend it, but I would not discourage any of her fans from giving it a try.