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The coolest thing!

The coolest thing!

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Last night as Matt and I were getting ready to go to sleep, I heard my email alert on my phone.  It was almost a quarter till 11 (yes, I know we are old 😉 ) and I normally wouldn’t bother looking at my phone but with all the showings we’ve had in the past few days I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a showing alert.  I grabbed my phone and saw I had a blog comment.  I figured it was spam until I read it.  Umm holy cow!

Not only was this NOT spam, ya’ll, it was someone famous!  Author L.N. Cronk managed to find my blog!  But not only did she find my blog,  she commented on my 2013 Book Review post that featured her Chop, Chop series.  A series of 8, or 9 as she graciously pointed out ;), books that span across the life of a boy and girl from highschool to death.  The series will tug at your heartstrings as you follow their journey through life.  I will say again, the series is rooted in religion though I didn’t find that it distracted from the overall storyline.

When I first started my blog like 5 years ago, I had dreams of being a “famous” blogger.  As time has passed, I’ve realized 1) I’m not a really good writer, not that I ever claimed to be and 2) this blog is for me.  Should people see it and find it interesting, YAY and welcome!  That would make me extremely happy but the days of me being a “real” blogger have gone to the wayside.

Can I just say, I’m still kind of freaking out that L.N. (we are besties now :D) commented on my blog.  I’ve had a huge smile since last night.  I really just think it is the coolest thing!

~k

P.S. I am going to try to do a house tour this week.  I finally have good pics and the house is basically done.  I also should have some updates on our current house.

 

2014 – A Year End Book Review

2014 – A Year End Book Review

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I did this post last year too and I like the idea of keeping a list of books I read throughout the year.  The current tally is 50 books!  WOO HOOO!  That was my unofficial goal for the year.  It was also a rather pricey year for books at Casa de E.  hehe.  Thanks to mint.com Matt was able to pull up how much I’d spent on books.  Whoops.  It was a little more than I expected.  I feel like this was the year of the series though.  I got sucked into several  numerous series this year.  Most of the books weren’t more than a few dollars but it adds up for sure.

A Demon’s Wrath: Part 2 (Peachville High Demons Book 8), Sarra Cannon

Demons Forever (Peachville High Demons Book 6), Sarra Cannon

Rival Demons (Peachville High Demons Book 5), Sarra Cannon

Shadow Demons (Peachville High Demons Book 4), Sarra Cannon

A Demon’s Wrath: Part 1 (Peachville High Demons Book 7), Sarra Cannon

Beautiful Demons Box Set, Books 1-3, Sarra Cannon

Hard to Come By: A Hard Ink Novel, Laura Kaye

Thirty-Three and a Half Shenanigans (Rose Gardner Mystery), Grover Swank

Conquer Me (Royals Saga, Book 2), Geneva Lee

STRIPPED, Part 3, Kellie Perkins

STRIPPED, Part 2, Kellie Perkins

Billionaire Unmasked ~ Jason (The Billionaire’s Obsession), J. S. Scott

Being Neighborly: a novella, Carey Heywood

One Night with a Billionaire, J. S. Scott

BROKEN SYMMETRY: A Young Adult Science Fiction Thriller, Dan Rix

Command Me (Royals Saga, Book 1), Geneva Lee

STRIPPED, Kellie Perkins

Crash (Billionaire New Adult Romance), Vanessa Waltz

Going Down (Wish Upon A Stud – Book 1), Elise Sax

Hard to Hold On To: A Hard Ink Novella, Laura Kaye

Shattered Hearts (Shattered #1), Octavia Wildwood

The Job Offer, Eleanor Webb

PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller, Michelle Muckley

Thirty-Two and a Half Complications (Rose Gardner Mystery), Denise Grover Swank

Thirty-One and a Half Regrets (Rose Gardner Mystery, Book 4), Denise Grover Swank

Thirty and a Half Excuses (Rose Gardner Mystery, Book 3), Denise Grover Swank

Twenty-Nine and a Half Reasons (Rose Gardner Mystery), Denise Grover Swank

Business as Usual (Off the Subject Book 3), Denise Grover Swank

Redesigned (Off the Subject Book 2), Denise Grover Swank

A Separate Peace, John Knowles

After Math (Off the Subject Book 1), Denise Grover Swank

Top Secret Twenty-One: A Stephanie Plum Novel, Janet Evanovich

Hard As You Can: A Hard Ink Novel, Laura Kaye

Hard As It Gets: A Hard Ink Novel, Laura Kaye

Presumed Dead (A Dylan Scott Mystery), Shirley Wells

The Back Road, Rachel Abbott

Only The Innocent, Rachel Abbott

Worn Me Down (Playing With Fire, #3), T.E. Sivec

Because of You (Playing with Fire, #2), T.E. Sivec

Sleep Tight , Rachel Abbott

A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire, #1), Tara Sivec

Here (YA Romance), Ella James

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes (Rose Gardner Mystery), Denise Grover Swank

The Last Year Boxed Set, Books 1-4, Trisha Leigh

Last year I kind of got on a paranormal kick.  I’m not normally one to read about things like witches, demons, or aliens, but this year found me reading about all of these things.  Mostly the books are well written and suck you in.  Here are a few highlights from the past year.

The Rose Gardner Mystery series by Denise Grover Swank

These books are similar in style to the Janet Evanovich series I’ve read for the past few years.  The difference being Rose has a gift for seeing things that will happen in the future.  It could be something as mundane as a dog running away or something big like a murder.  Her “visions” find her in a series of comical adventures which lead to a relationship with a local State Trooper.  Over the course of the series (which isn’t complete) Rose finds herself in numerous bad situations caused by her visions.  The books are funny and well written.  By the time I finished the last one, I’d say I was a tad bored with the series as a whole but I also read most of them back to back.  I will more than likely keep my eye out for the next book and read it when it comes out.

If you hadn’t noticed I’ve developed a little bit of a thing for Denise.  Something about her books draw me in.  If you are looking for a new author check her out!

The Playing with Fire series by T.E. Sivec

I stumbled across these books when I was looking for something a little more “adult” oriented.  I was pleasantly surprised that the storyline was actually good.  The sex scenes were steamy but played well into the storyline.  This series is about 2 friends who set out to find the truth behind what happened when one of their friends is tragically killed. Book 4, the last of the series, came out in Sept but somehow I missed that one so I will be downloading it later today.  🙂  You can now buy the series as a boxset if you’re interested.  I would definitely check out this series if you like a little spice and a fast moving story. (ETA: I read book 4 in a day and it deals with pregnancy loss. It was quite the tear jerker. I think you could read the first 3 books and not miss if you don’t read the 4th book)

The Hard Ink series by Laura Kaye

Not a bad overall plot but the individual storylines pretty much the same: troubled guy meets girl in some extraordinary circumstance and falls in love.  All of the books take place over the course of a week or two.  A group of dishonorably discharged Army buddies come together to find out what really happened on a mission gone wrong involving their commander when the commander’s son goes missing.  His daughter contacts one of the guys and the group is reunited in order to save the son and clear their names.

The Peachville High Demons by Sarra Cannon

I finished the year with this series about witches and demons.  Harper is a teen that has been bounced around from foster home to foster home when she finds herself at a home for girls in Peachville GA.  Once arriving, Harper starts to discover that Peachville isn’t your ordinary small town.  The town has secrets and she is about to be thrown right into the middle of them.  It turns out Harper comes from a long line of witches from Peachville.  The story unfolds as she falls for Jackson, a demon from another dimension.  Together they set out to right the wrongs being done the demon world by the Order of Shadows witches.

Happy New Year!

~k

 

 

 

Let it be?

Let it be?

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Did anyone else know there is an “other” message inbox in your FB messages?  Oh, you didn’t either.  Well you do.  Apparently this is where messages from non friends go.  You can only get to this from your computer.  I didn’t see it as an option on my mobile app.

I just discovered this little gem today.  Come to find out I had quite a few messages dating back to 2008.  Whoopsy.  😉  I’m mentioning this because there is one message I want to talk about.  It was from a former best friend.  When I lived in Austin this person interviewed me and when she called with the rejection, it was the nicest, best rejection ever.  She said I was more than qualified but she didn’t think it was the right school for me.  It was a position working in a high school helping kids with career counseling.  It was also a job I’d done previously with out of school youth in Alabama.

A few months later she called me with a position working with out of school youth.  I accepted and spent that summer locating kids that had fallen out of the system.  I must say, I was good at this.  Really good!  I found kids others couldn’t find.  I even tracked a kid down in Las Vegas (my prize accomplishment).  Anyway, S and I became friends and then we became really good friends.  We each dealt with a lot of up and downs while I lived in Austin.  Eventually I moved to Raleigh and we were still great friends but things started changing.  Her life was still quite dramatic and mine was starting to settle down.  Eventually we had a falling out. This was 5-6 years ago and some days I miss our friendship.  At this point there are no ill feelings, at least on my side, and I hope all is well with her.

Cue today.  I realized I had an “others” inbox on FB and found a message from her.  From 2012  She said I popped up as someone she might know and noticed I was married and she wanted to wish me well.  I feel bad I never saw the message and to be honest I don’t know that I would have responded but maybe I wouldn’t have.  I honestly don’t know.  I started thinking about it this morning and I think I’ve decided somethings are better left alone.  While I valued her friendship while I had it, she brought a lot of chaos to my life because she had a lot chaos in her life.  I feel like I’ve grown so much since then and hopefully she has too but I don’t think it’s worth diving into that again.  Plus that was over 2 years ago so it is really worth rehashing the past?

~k

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There are so many other things I could be writing about right now but I am stuck on something I saw on FB this morning. As I was scrolling a video started to play, I wasn’t really trying to watch it but I caught something being thrown into water. I paused for a moment and realized it was a video of a girl with a 5 gal bucket of puppies and she was throwing them in a river. My heart immediately sank and my blood started to boil. My first thought was OMG poor puppies. The next was WHAT THE HELL is wrong with people?!?!? And then I realized it wasn’t just some asshole girl, but there was someone recording the whole thing.

What is wrong with people today? Who gets joy out of something like that? More than that, how do you decide that seems like fun? There is something about people hurting innocent animals that just makes me want to hurt them back. It’s one thing to pick on someone your own size but in this case we’re talking days old puppies.

It seems like you hear so many bad stories these days of violence towards animals, or children and it makes me sick. Sick to think there are people out there who have no conscience, no morals, no regard for right or wrong. I can’t help but wonder if society itself hasn’t increased the problem with the explosion of social media. Now anyone (and everyone) can have their 5 minutes of fame especially if it’s violent.

I want to add that I hope these people are caught and thrown in jail where bad things happen to them!

~k

The day I was on CNN – flashback post

The day I was on CNN – flashback post

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Today some coworkers and myself were talking about various things and the subject came up of “being famous”.  I chimed in that I had been interviewed for CNN.  So with that, I’ll leave you with a #flashbackfriday post from 2010 when I was published on CNN. 🙂

Originally posted 11-18-10

I was so excited that M was home last night it made my head spin. Literally. I went to lay down with him and the room started spinning. Nothing says “Welcome home” more than, I have to vomit now. I woke up this morning still feeling ill so I called in to say I’d be out.

I finally moved to the couch in hopes I would start to feel a little better. I started surfing the net and saw a post on the DW board about a bridal shop in Chicago burning down. Then on FB there was a link to a google doc where you could put down your information if you had a dress you could donate. Gee, there is one in my closet. I immediately signed up and linked to pics of the dress. Within minutes I had an email from CNN asking if they could use pics of my dress and would I mind doing an interview. I responded that I had uploaded pics to the site and I would be happy to interview. A few minutes later my cell phone rang. OMG CNN is calling me. I spoke to the reporter about why I would donate my dress and how I would feel if that had happened to me. She said she would send me a link to the article once it was up.

I immediately called M, who didn’t answer. Next I called my mom, who didn’t answer, so I called back and told her the story. M finally called back and I explained to him what was going on.

A few minutes ago I got an email with a link to the article. And what is the first thing you see? MY DRESS! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I’m quoted on CNN! How amazing! And more amazing are all the girls willing to help and donate their dresses. I know not many people read this but I am including the link to the article which also links to the google doc.

If you have a dress please consider how you would feel if, before you wore it, it was destroyed in a fire. Help other brides.

http://ireport.cnn.com/blogs/ireport-blog/2010/11/18/acts-of-kindness-for-brides-who-lost-their-gowns

~k