October 09 Book

I have a list of all the books I read each month listed on my reading blog, but I've decided that I should start choosing a "book of the month" so to speak. Something that I've found really interesting, was well written, or was just really entertaining and helped me de-stress a little bit.

This month I've chosen:

Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife.

It was a beautiful story that was very well written. It's about a man who can travel through time (although, he mostly only visits the past). As an adult he travels back to meet his future wife when she's a child. They get to know one another in a very well organized and wonderful story. Time skips around - seeing how he's a time traveler - but it all comes together in the end. I'm impressed that this is Niffenegger's first book. It made me laugh and cry more than once. I think that this book would appeal to almost everyone. I hope the movie is done as well as the book.

It took me some time to pick this one up, but thanks to Mo, I gave it a shot. Thank you for the recommendation!


Other recommendations:

Frostbitten (Women of the Otherworld, #10) - Kelley Armstrong
Tempted (House of Night #6) - P.C. Cast
Evernight (Evernight, #1) - Claudia Gray
Beauty (A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast) - Robin McKinley
Evermore (The Immortals, #1) - Alyson Noel

Tomorrow

Yeah! P.C. Cast's new House of Night novel is out tomorrow. Go buy it people! I'm going to go visit her while she's on tour. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

Alone

I spent this week completely alone. My husband had a work trip and I got to have the house for myself for the first time since we have been married. I use to love living alone and I was able to take care of myself (cook, clean, fix things), but since I've lived with my husband things have changed. If something needs to be fixed I call for him, if I'm hungry he's always kind enough to cook, he goes to the grocery store and takes care of any errands. I still clean, but not as much as I did when I was by myself. The second he left, I immediately reverted back to my old self. I tried recipes, I made sure all of the animals were taken care of and spent extra time with them, and even ran errands. I work two jobs so I'm always burnt out and I don't want to deal with all of the basics most days; however, I made time for it the minute it became imperative. It's nice to know that I can juggle my schedule and get by if I really needed to. Hopefully, I'll keep this up and won't put as much off on my hubby. It's kind of easy to do when you work fifteen (or more) hour days. However, my new work schedule gives me more than one night off a week so I can actually start helping out. Maybe we'll find a routine that works out better for us now...

Stray

I found a stray dog in front of my home today and I walked it all over the neighborhood trying to find its home, but I couldn't. I thought about leaving it and let it wander home (since it can't get home from my backyard), but it got dark and the dog almost got hit by a car. Also, if she didn't wander home after a few hours she might not go home. Of course, she's now in my backyard. She's a beautiful, kind collie mix that's very well behaved and I'm trying desperately not to fall in love with her. Tomorrow I have to call the pound and see if anyone reported her missing. I don't want to send her to the pound, but if I don't find the owners in a few days I'm going to have to. I already have 3 dogs and that's the legal limit where I live. Plus, I don't have the ability to bring another dog into my home.
Everyone else in my neighborhood said they'd seen the dog wandering for hours, but not one bothered to do anything about it. Why are people so self-centered? The dog kept almost getting hit, it wouldn't have survived the night. I'm disappointed in humans tonight.

Rock City and Ruby Falls

Rock City

Ruby Falls

Fall

There are leaves in my front yard. Icky, wet, soggy leaves. I'm happy fall is here because I'm hoping that means the mosquitoes will go away, but I'm not looking forward to raking leaves. We also have the attack of the killer acorns to worry about. One fell from a tree and hit Josie in the head pretty hard. I've been hearing them ding off the roof for weeks now. It's impossible to get them out of the yard so I'll spend next spring weeding for baby trees.
Last night we turned on the heater for the first time. It wasn't particularly necessary, but my toes were cold so Curt was kind enough to turn on the heater. He's always burning up so that's a big deal in our house. He drives in the middle of winter with the windows down and the ac on. Absolutely crazy!
Well, off to a 15 hour work day. Hopefully the kids are calm today. (crosses fingers)