I think....

I need to come to the realization that I'm not good at blogging anymore.  It just isn't a priority for me.  I either need to decide to accept that I'm gonna post randomly, get on the ball and back to my schedule of posting 5 days a week, or just give it up all together.

I think the the first and last options are going to be the way to go, but if I decide to just randomly do it, I have to give myself the permission to do that.  I walk around guilting myself about blogging...it is pretty ridiculous.

Not sure what I'm gonna do......

Family Frenzy Friday

The kids have been out of school for an entire week and they are already bored...of course.  There initial task is to finish unpacking.  Tony and I have managed to unpack the entire house and yet our kids (responsible for only their rooms) are still sitting with boxes in the corner.  For the most part they are done, but there is still a box or two.

I started going to the chiropractor this week and had my first acupuncture last week.  I'm still hurting, but this is not going to be a quick fix.  The doc has me coming in 3 times a week for 4 weeks for massage and adjustments.  The massage is fantastic.  The adjustments are just weird.  They haven't hurt, but to hear your spin crack like it does it really crazy.  I have to remind myself to continually relax.

The kids both got haircuts yesterday.  I think they both look great (but of course I'm a little partial).

We have a big weekend planned, so I'll have lots to talk about next week.  Have a great one!

Balk Talk Tuesday

I've been lucky to read some pretty good books lately and this next week is now at the TOP of my list.  Reconstructing Amelia is about a single mother, Kate, and her fifteen year old daughter, Amelia.  Kate is an attorney and workaholic.  She has a strong relationship with her daughter even though she isn't always there.  During a work meeting, Kate is pulled away to take a call from Amelia's school.  Amelia has been suspended.  They won't give her any details and tell her to come to the school to pick up her daughter.  After what seems like a "murphy's law" kind of trek to Amelia's school, things have drastically changed.  There are police everywhere and something is wrong.  This is when Kate learns that her daughter has fallen from the roof of the school and is dead.

So...that is basically how the first couple of chapters plays out.  I was immediately hooked.  The story continues on with Kate trying to find out why her honor roll student...her perfect daughter...had a reason to commit suicide.  

I thought this was a very in depth and intriguing story.  It does make me wonder if I know my kids as well as I think I do.  Read this book! It is easily a 4 1/5 to 5 star book!

from barnesandnoble.com

Litigation lawyer and harried single mother Kate Baron is shocked when her daughter's exclusive Brooklyn private school calls to tell her that Amelia—her intelligent, high-achieving fifteen-year-old—has been caught cheating. But when Kate arrives at Grace Hall, she's blindsided by far more devastating news: Amelia is dead. Despondent, she's jumped from the school's roof. At least that's what Grace Hall and the police tell Kate. It's what she believes, too, until she gets the anonymous text: Amelia didn't jump. Now, Kate is going to find the truth—no matter where it leads. Sifting through Amelia's e-mails, text messages, and Facebook posts, Kate reconstructs the pieces of her daughter's life and the people in it, uncovering why she was on Grace Hall's roof that day—and how she died.

What I'm Thinking Thursday

Just a few random thoughts today...

***Why do I love chocolate so much?  I mean seriously, it makes it really hard to lose weight when Hershey Kisses are so divine.  I managed to keep the Kisses out of the house for about two weeks...but I just couldn't do it anymore.  So I bought a bag last night and it is already halfway empty.  Urgh!

***My hair. Is. Driving. Me. Nuts!  It is currently at a funky length and I'm in the position of having to decide if I want to continue to grow or cut it back off.  I was desperately looking forward to my hair appt yesterday, but my hair girl had to leave town for a family emergency.  So, now I have to wait another week and hope to goodness that I don't end up cutting it myself.

***I've done something to my shoulder/neck and I'm really tired of it hurting.  It happened on Tony's birthday...it was like a charlie horse right at my shoulder blade.  It seriously paralyzed me for a bit.  I couldn't move without excruciating pain.  I'm considering going to a chiropractor and having acupuncture done, but I'm a little nervous about it.  I need to just bite the bullet and get it taken care of.

***I think I'm gonna dig out my scrapbooking stuff this weekend and let the creative endorphin juice flow.  It's been since before we put the house on the market that I've even thought about scrapbooking.  Unfortunately, I'll do it at the kitchen table, another miss from the bigger house.  But if it will help put me in a better mood, I guess it's worth having the mess out for awhile.

Book Talk Tuesday

Several months back, I read a book by Jennifer McMahon...Promise Not to Tell.  I realize now that I never did a review on here.  The writing and story remind me of Gillian Flynn and how her stories have a twisted nature to them.  Since then, I've read another Jennifer McMahon book...Island of Lost Girls.  Equally as twisted and complex.  They were both easy reads, but so dimensional in her story.

Promise Not to Tell is about a forty something woman, Kate, who returns to her hometown to help care for her mother who has Alzheimer's.  On her first day back home, a young girl is murdered...the murder is extremely similar to one that occurred when Kate was young.  The twisted story brings Kate back to the past she fled so many years before.

I easily give Promise Not to Tell four stars.  I like to read before bed and on one particular night, I had to keep going to get the creepiness out of my head and find out what was happening before I could turn the light off and go to sleep.

Island of Lost Girls is about Rhonda....and begins with her sitting at a gas station where time sits frozen as she watches a person in a white rabbit suit kidnap a young girl.  Distraught over the fact that she didn't do anything to help the girl, Rhonda joins the search party in hopes of finding the girl alive.  What she doesn't expect is for the evidence to lead her to her best friend's brother.

This one is another four star read.  If you like twisted, you'll love the stories that McMahon weaves.  And have I mentioned that both books have pictures of some pretty creepy girls on them.  All the more reason to read them.

frombarnesandnoble.com

Forty-one-year-old school nurse Kate Cypher has returned home to rural Vermont to care for her mother who's afflicted with Alzheimer's. On the night she arrives, a young girl is murdered—a horrific crime that eerily mirrors another from Kate's childhood. Three decades earlier, her dirt-poor friend Del—shunned and derided by classmates as "Potato Girl"—was brutally slain. Del's killer was never found, while the victim has since achieved immortality in local legends and ghost stories. Now, as this new murder investigation draws Kate irresistibly in, her past and present collide in terrifying, unexpected ways. Because nothing is quite what it seems . . . and the grim specters of her youth are far from forgotten.

More than just a murder mystery, Jennifer McMahon's extraordinary debut novel, Promise Not to Tell, is a story of friendship and family, devotion and betrayal—tautly written, deeply insightful, beautifully evocative, and utterly unforgettable.

frombarnesandnoble.com

While parked at a gas station, Rhonda sees something so incongruously surreal that at first she hardly recognizes it as a crime in progress. She watches, unmoving, as someone dressed in a rabbit costume kidnaps a young girl. Devastated over having done nothing, Rhonda joins the investigation. But the closer she comes to identifying the abductor, the nearer she gets to the troubling truth about another missing child: her best friend, Lizzy, who vanished years before.

Family Frenzy Friday

I've not done a FFF post in a long time.  Not sure why...it certainly isn't for a lack of things going on.  So, here's a breakdown of what's going on in our house...

Ashton...
She is wrapping up 7th grade...only one more week.  Dance competitions are over and she only has the recitals left.  I'm proud of how she has grown this year and can't believe she'll be in the 8th grade.  7th Grade was a challenge...especially science...but boy did she kick butt in math.

She and I have had some pretty major squabbles lately...teenager girls and moms don't get along real well.  I'm hoping these are simply blips on the screen and not going to become the norm.  I'd hate to have to ship her off to boarding school.

Quinn...
This boy!  Wrapping up his sophomore year.  I'm in huge denial that he only has two more years of high school left.  There is something seriously wrong that.  He's achieved another 4.0 year and just took his first AP exam yesterday.  We're all anxious to find out what his score is.  He finds out next week if he will be part of the band leadership.  He's hoping to be section leader.

The National Student Leadership Conference is coming up in July.  I booked his flight this week and quickly burst into tears.  It is physically painful for me when I think about him going that far away from home on his own.  (There is still time to help support his trip too...http://www.gofundme.com/8bzsn4)

Tony...
My darling hubby is burning the candle at both ends.  I'm not sure he knows how to "take it easy".  He is presently working 3 jobs...and might possibly take on fourth.  He's at the fire station 10 days a month, works part-time at Dick's Sporting Goods and takes care of the lawn for his two "girlfriends" (sweet little ladies from church).  The fourth job he might take on is being a coach at Crossfit.  I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  And he does all of this for me.  So I won't have to go back to work full time.

We had our 19th wedding anniversary this week...and I count my blessings every time I think of just how lucky I am to have to him.


Me...
I love my part-time job.  Working from 9-1 is perfect.  I feel guilty that I'm not working full-time though.  (Especially since Tony is working an unbelievable amount.)  Tony says it's my turn and he would actually prefer I don't work at all, but after 15+ years of bring home the bacon, it's weird to not...ya know?  I seriously miss my days of just laying around in my pjs though...I did get spoiled to that pretty quickly.  

Somehow, being out of the house and not just laying around has caused me to gain a few pounds...ugh!  So, I'm tracking my calories on the MyFitnessPal app and I've started trying to exercise some.  I seriously think my POTS is getting better, but I'm still scared to push myself too hard.  I refuse to go through a fatigue crash where I'm stuck in bed, but I also refuse to let this syndrome control my life.

On top of trying to eat better and adding exercise back into my life, I've also starting drinking a Zeal Wellness drink each day.  Zeal is pretty fantastic if you ask me.  I've been on it for a month now and I can tell the difference.  I can tell that my body is doing better at fighting off sicknesses too...especially with the serious fluctuation in temperatures lately.  You can visit zealforlife.com for more about what is actually in the drink.

I promise to try to do better at keeping up with my FFF posts.  Especially with summer fun coming up!!!

Book Talk Tuesday

This week's book is Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys...and no, this book has absolutely no relation to the 50 Shades of Grey books.

The story follows a fifteen year old Lithuanian girl at the start of WWII.  Stalin reigns in the Soviet Union and he has taken over Lithuania.  All of the people that they believe are anti-Soviet have been rounded up and are being sent to work camps in Siberia.  The conditions are cruel, the work is hard and there is little to no food.  But the heart of the people remains strong and their strength is what gets them through.

At the end of the book, I was initially in shock.  I couldn't understand why I had never heard of this happening.  It wasn't taught in my high school or college history classes.  Then, after reading the author's note at the end, I understood.  The people that were rounded up were considered criminals.  So when they were finally released and allowed to go back "home", they were treated as such.  Their homes were no longer theirs...Soviets had taken them over.  In some instances, the Soviets had even taken over their identities.  Lithuania and the Baltics were still Soviet run and so they weren't even allowed to discuss what they had endured.  If they did, they could be sent back for Anti-Soviet statements.  It wasn't until the 1990's that the Baltic Nations were finally freed from Soviet rule.  Not until then had anyone even known what had been done to the citizens of the Baltic Nations at the hands of Stalin.  

I cried and held the book to my chest when I was done.  I have no doubt I will read this again someday and I hope I can get my kids to read it too.  It truly is an amazing story of strength and survival.

from barnesandnoble.com

Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life—until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive?