My latest book

I finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is about an island in England during WWII. The entire book is made up of letters written to and from people on the island after the war is over but written about what happened to the people on the island during the war. It has the same feeling as a Jane Austen book, which I love. So... if you like Jane Austen and historical fiction... here ya go!

We've had some wind.

We've had some wind lately. Uh... we've had ALOT of wind lately. Now usually in the winter time our yard gets neglected alot and looks pretty scraggly about this time of year. But, the wind has blown some tumbleweeds around in the yard and it's looking especially bad. Take a look:

This is just outside the front door.

This is next to the spa.

This is between the yard and the front drive.

This is the front yard next to the kids fort.

This is my poor porch swing after the big wind.

This is all the tumbleweeds I had to sweep off the driveway before I could get my car in the garage.

I asked Alan if we could burn them today and he said that it was supposed to be windy again tomorrow and that these would be gone and new ones would take their place so... we left them. Attractive lawn ornaments.. dontcha think?

Sunday Adventures

This weekend I went to Phoenix to see Mom and Dad on Saturday. Mom and I went to a quilt show in Mesa and I thoroughly wore her out but we had a nice time and saw lots of beautiful quilts. Then on Sunday, Lain, Shayla, Amanda, Varity and I went geocacheing and to the zoo. Well, at least that was the plan. We wanted to do just a few geocaches at Papago Park then go to the zoo afterwards. Lain had a new GPS and had loaded hundreds of caches onto it so we just expected to use it and find some. As it turns out, the area we were in didn't seem to be loaded onto her GPS. So, she used her phone and found a couple caches and we used my GPS and headed out. We just parked on the side of McDowell Road and started walking on a trail into Papago Park where we thought the cache was. After we got close to where we thought it was, Lain looked it up on her phone and it said it wasn't there! So, we tried to go to a different one but it was almost a mile away from there. We all got discouraged and decided to go to the zoo instead.

The desert really is pretty in this area and the day was warm and sunny.

Shay and I when we first got to the zoo. We're not tired yet so we're still smiling.

I actually got some nice pictures of some of the animals. I guess they were enjoying the weather as much as we were and most of them were out so we could see them.

Otters... always so cute.

Monkeys... did I mention that I hate monkeys?

Varity enjoying her drink.

Shay making friends with a goat.

Varity and Shay posing with an Orangutan. Don't worry... he was friendly. Till they stuck their fingers in his nose.

We all had fun at the zoo and we were pretty tired when we got done. Lain and Shay and I even went shopping for awhile after we left the zoo. Then I still had to drive home! Needless to say, I took a nap the next day.

Just Finished This Book

As you may have noticed, I post books that I am currently reading and books I've read over the past couple of years. I actually listen to these books on my Ipod so I can do other things while reading.. like quilt!

Anyway, I finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and I just have to say something about this book. Usually I'm pretty picky about books I read because I hate stopping in the middle of a book so if I'm going to read the whole thing, it better be a pretty good book. Well, I finished this book... and I'm sorry to say, it really stunk. I kept reading thinking it was going to get better and maybe have a great finish, but I can't believe how disappointing this book was. The dog training methods mentioned in the book were interesting. And the relationship that Edgar had with an older man he met after running away from home was interesting.. Ok, that's about all I can say positive about this book. Anyway, if you pay any attention to the list of books I've read, please don't pay attention to this book. It's not worth the time it takes to read it. AND... I just found out it was a Oprah Book Club book! AAK!

My New Room

We've lived in this house for 13 years but I've never really felt like we've completed very many rooms. All of the rooms are still the original white walls and the same carpet. I'm tired of it! So.... this weekend we started working on one of the upstairs bedrooms. I wanted to make a room sort of an office/exercise room. We tore up the disgustingly dirty and stained old carpet, had a "wood" floor put down and I painted the walls. It's not done, but it's well on its way and I really love the color and the floor. Take a look:

Before:

After:

Alan needs to organize his desk and I still have some things to put in the closet and I want to hang some stuff on the walls. We're also putting a Murphy Bed in there so we can still use it as a guest room. It will be a busy room!