bad ideas, 100% follow through.

Everyone has a friend or family member that has crazy ideas but (thankfully) ZERO follow through. My brother for instance, wanted to get married in Vegas, and then changed his mind a few weeks later before any real damage could be done. Anyone who knows me can attest that I am the exact opposite. Whether it be in the moment, or completely planned out, I come up with ideas, some good, some bad, some really really dangerously stupid, and no matter what I ALWAYS go through with them. Let's see, I can walk home from the bar by myself. Sure, I can take a rest on this persons front yard. And why not crawl up on to their porch and into a giant dog crate and sleep it off until morning. Let me just get a ride by the lady who found me at 7AM. All seemingly terrible ideas, executed by me in one night, Spring, 2008.

Now Chris Gethard had the right idea when he compiled all of his tales of poor judgment and made a book out of them in, A Bad Idea I'm About To Do. Hello, genius. Self proclaimed nerd, Gethard (that's a silly last name) shares with us the awkwardness of his first kiss, he hilariously describes losing his virginity, how he fought the law and the law won, and how Italian ice gave him herpes.

And no, I have no intention of explaining any of the above.

detective series.

 

J. A. Jance is known for her mystery writing and does not disappoint in her latest thriller, Left for Dead. Once we are updated on returning main character, Ali Reynolds life, the action picks up immediately as two separate crimes (one) a seventeen-year-old prostitute left to die in the desert is found and (two) a sheriff's deputy, Jose Reyes is shot by an unknown assailant after a routine traffic stop, keep our heroine pretty occupied throughout. Reyes is a friend of Ali's from the academy, and after drugs are found in his police vehicle, she is determined to uncover who is really behind the mayhem. Set near the seedy borders of Mexico, there is more crime awaiting our girl Ali in the deserts of Arizona. It's a very suspenseful series, with investigations that are logical and worth solving.

the latest nicholas sparks.

Nicholas Sparks novels are every woman's guilty pleasure. OR every woman's normal pleasure, just guilty for me because I pretend to NOT be the hopeless romantic mush type of female, when in all reality I own every Sparks novel and cry every time I watch The Notebook, just like the rest of you saps.

In Sparks latest The Best of Me he sticks to his usual style. Teenage boy meets teenage girl, parents get in the way, college gets in the way, jail gets in the way, and grown up boy sees grown up girl twenty years later and they hash it all out. Dawson Cole grew up in a family of criminals, it was literally built in to his DNA. The Cole's are the type of people who would murder their own kin, just because they felt like it. Dawson grew up wanting to be anything but a member of that family, receiving beatings instead of hugs for his efforts at school. Amanda Collier grew up in a family of over-privileged snobs. She had a beautiful fiery spirit and would never be given her parents blessing to live happily ever after with a Cole. Amanda went to college, an accident sent Dawson to jail, and their love (a passionate Sparks novel kind of love) was not strong enough to survive. Both of them now forty-two, the death of a close friend brings them together again. Amanda in an unhappy marriage with three children, and Dawson in a content but not exactly happy life, alone.

You see, there are some people who fall in love over and over. And there are others who can only seem to do it once.

happy valentines day lovers.

You wouldn't know this by looking at me now, sitting in my bed, eating a bagel, drinking hot chocolate with a little debbie on deck for dessert, but I DO try to eat healthy. I have been trying to even more recently, but Valentine's Day makes it's own rules. However, I will take the time to review Weight Watcher's One Pot Cookbook for when I begin to watch what I eat again....tomorrow.

As you can see by the title, Weight Watcher's created this cookbook specifically for the different "pots" we cook in on a regular basis. The casserole dish, the crock pot, the wok, the dutch oven, etc. I'm a simple eater, I am not drawn towards frills and cheeses that I cannot pronounce. This cookbook has extremely easy recipes that are also are more interesting than your average grilled chicken and salad type dishes.

Sneak Peak!

A healthy and delicious meal idea to make for your valentine.

Or if you're single, to keep you from gorging yourself on chocolate.

You're welcome.

seniors and technology.

I don't know about yours, but my family is pretty technologically savvy. We get it from our mother, who has also influenced our grandmother. My grandma has a Facebook and a Smart phone that I don't even know how to work. My dad on the other hand signs his texts "Love, Dad" because he still has no idea that his phone number and contact name comes up on our phones when he texts us. My point is, not all old people are tech illiterate, and some people (like my dad) are just hopeless.

If I was seventy years old and someone bought me iPad 2 For Seniors for Dummies, I would probably kick them. Well, I would take the book and then kick them, because it's actually super helpful and really easy to read. Author Nancy C. Muir explains (in a very not obnoxiously large size print) how to use iCloud, E-Reader, Videos, Maps, iTunes, FaceTime and other social media and applications. Every aspect of the iPad 2, iPad and iOS 5 is covered in this resource.

I recommend it for EVERY age. Don't worry eldery folk, I have your back on this one.

i prefer my thrillers to be odd and non-fiction....as well as my boyfriends.

In the novel, The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco, we are introduced to the spy Simone Simonini through the pages of his diary. He decided to keep a diary, not for the present, but for the past. Searching for a traumatic event that took place. The story has multiple narrators, mainly Simonini and Abbe Dalla Piccola, who is ALSO Simonin. Two men, same body, do I even need to continue?

After reading, calling The Prague Cemetery a novel is not exactly right. There is actually not much fiction included. The narrator of this story, Captain Simonini is the only character that Eco says is fictitious, all the rest are real historical people with a few minor exceptions. Most of the events recounted really did happen in the 19th century and the characters and their speech and actions are well documented. It was a history lesson within itself. It is extremely entertaining, and I found myself laughing out loud at the madness, even though most of the contents in this story were awful, evil, disgusting, etc. Hmm, strange.

read to your kids. listen to me, i'm a teacher and related to abe lincoln, so listen to me twice.

The Magic Tree House series is an award-winning series of children's books written by Mary Pope Osborne. In the first series, consisting of the first 28 books, Morgan le Fay sends Jack and Annie, two normal children from Frog Creek, Pennsylvania, on numerous adventues and missions with a magical tree house. Mary Pope Osborne started a second series called the Magic Tree House "Merlin Missions". In these missions, Jack and Annie have quests from the ancient wizard

In Magic Tree House #47: Abe Lincoln At Last! Jack and Annie travel to the time of the Civil War, and they must help a friend of Abe's in order to find the third gift for breaking Penny's spell, the friend, is an orphan named Sam. It's a race against time as Jack and Annie try to decide to do what is right. But they must have hope. That is what Abe was mostly known for, after all.

My advice? When your kids hit second grade, start with book one. Read to them, or listen to the audio books in the car. They'll love the adventures, learn a lot, and so will you.