Last night after dinner, I took the girls on a walk. I was trying to get some wiggles out (after how many days stuck inside in the rain?), and also trying to get them a bit tired out before bed. My mom offered to run a warm tub, and the girls had their bedtime stuff all set out. So off we went into the rain, with slickers and umbrellas and some of us in rain boots.

We walked to a local pond and visited the white goose, and then started back, with a lot of puddle jumping by the folks in rain boots. When we got close to home, there was a huge puddle, and I was feeling jealous of the puddle jumpers. Since we were close to home, I held hands with MG and we jumped into the puddle. Then we kept jumping over and over! Great fun was had by all, and we were all quite wet by the end of it.

As we started walking away from the puddle, LG’s boots had water in them, and they made wonderful “squelch, squerch, squelch, squerch” noises, just like the ones made in We’re Going on a Bear Hunt as they walk through the mud.

This inspired me, and the rest of our walk had We’re Going on a Bear Hunt as a spoken word accompaniment.

“We’re going on a bear hunt, we’re gonna catch a big one! What a beautiful day, we’re not scared!”

Going through the river, the mud, the long grass of the meadow, etc – then bumping into the bear and running all the way home back through the meadow, mud, river, etc.

I highly recommend reading We’re Going on a Bear Hunt if you haven’t already (such cute pictures! what a catchy refrain!), but more than that, go re-enact it and take your kids for a walk (whatever the weather), and incorporate the obstacles on your walk into the retelling of story.

Now, what other books would work well for re-enacting on a walk?

My reading choices vary by mood – some days I might want a suspenseful novel, and others a romance. Sometimes a mystery will hit the spot, and others a chick lit novel is more to my taste. If you are in the market for a novel that will lift your spirits without being saccharine sweet, pick up Earthly Pleasures, a new novel by Karen Neches. Earthly Pleasures will enchant you with its storyline about the inhabitants of heaven, but you’ll keep turning the pages to see how the romantic storyline unfolds.
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When you’ve been reading romantic paranormal novels for a while, there’s a point where you think you’ve seen every storyline. Prepare yourself for something new this time, a concept I haven’t seen in print in about 15 years, and an execution that is engaging, endearing, and unique. Bound To Love Her is a novel in which the worlds of the elves and the humans collide by new author Esri Rose. If you aren’t accustomed to paranormals, you’ll want to give this a try, as it doesn’t require as much of a suspension of disbelief as many other novels in this genre.

In Bound To Love Her, the elf and human worlds collide when Erin is walking her neighbor’s dog and happens upon a handsome injured man in the park. She helps him up off the ground, and ends up bringing him to her house before bringing him to the hospital with her housemate. While Erin’s housemate Jed is collecting his things, Erin brushes Galen’s hair off his face and uncovers his pointed ear, and Erin learning that elves are among us.
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I’ve written several times about the fabulous books by Katie MacAlister. If you’ve been waiting for something great to read, don’t wait any longer – Katie has a started a new series! If you liked the Aisling Grey Guardian Series, starting with You Slay Me, the Silver Dragon series will pull you in quickly, as it is a spin-off of that. We’ve seen Gabriel, the leader (wyvern) Silver Dragons before, and we see him in new lights and shadows in Playing with Fire (Silver Dragons, Book 1).
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So, I just finished a book. It’s the fourth in a series, and I enjoyed the first 4. YA Chick lit, basically. The series made a big bang when another author ripped entire sections out of it for her “novel” over a year ago. So, I’ll happily recommend Sloppy Firsts especially.

You know how some books end with the reader crying? And it’s a “good” tears, because there was some type of resolution? I never realized that you could cry at the end of a novel because it had no resolution, and just ended with everyone feeling worse. I do not recommend Fourth Comings. Bah, humbug.

I know I’ve gotten a bit of crap here and there for being focused on a happy ending. Maybe I am. I’m becoming more and more OK with that, especially since I was looking for escapism after a long week. I believe that a book with wedding rings on the front that has a marriage proposal in one of the first chapters shouldn’t spend the whole book breaking up the couple. That’s my perspective at any rate.

I ended up skimming parts because I was getting too upset, too fed up with the over-thinking of everything. But I figured the ending would be happy, or at least on the road to happy. I don’t think I could’ve been more wrong. I feel so let down by the author, especially after following the character through four books.

What a waste, especially when there are so many good books waiting on my shelf. I’ll admit to being up too late (wanted to finish the dang book), and getting overly emotional is often my own PMS; a couple months ago I started crying about the fate of the characters in the soundtrack for Wicked (2003 Original Broadway Cast). I may care a tiny bit too much about the fate of characters in novels and plays. Y’think? It’s good I keep some feel-good quick-read books around. I need a cleansing-palate book before I read the next book for review!

I’m ending with a happy, lovable picture. Ra’s coloring is changing for some reason (we’ve had blues before, not red cattle dogs, and I guess reds change color a bit?), and he now has a beautiful heart-shaped mask on his face. Who can be sad when they look at a cute puppy? <3

Megan Crane’s Names My Sisters Call Me is her newest chick lit novel. If for some reason you haven’t read Megan Crane’s novels, go do so, as she has written some fabulous novels you shouldn’t miss; they are engrossing and entertaining. With her most recent novel she revisits the theme of family dysfunction, but in Names My Sisters Call Me she focuses on the relationship between three sisters.
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Blood Moon is an intense soon-to-be released novel by A. W. Gryphon. Blood Moon is Gryphon’s first book, and it is also the first novel in the planned Witches Moon Trilogy. As with several other books I’ve read recently, this one is hard to categorize. It deals with Wicca and Witchcraft, so it could be paranormal or urban fantasy, yetBlood Moon is also a mystery, and it could also fit as a women’s fiction novel as we uncover a woman’s childhood and the facts of her mother’s life. Regardless, this is a book that will capture your interest from the beginning, and it will be hard to put down before the story is complete.
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Have you ever read any books in the Urban Fantasy genre? Some mystery fans may be leery of reading paranormals or vampire books. However, there are some very intense mysteries published that are also paranormal/urban fantasy/vampire books as well. A Rush of Wings, by Adrian Phoenix is one of those hybrids, containing an intensely suspenseful mystery, vampires, as well as a touch of romance.

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Some authors use the same main character for all the books in a series. Other authors use one book’s minor character as the next book’s main character. It’s rare, though, to find a series where the first two books focus on the same character, yet the third book makes main characters out of people who were on the sidelines. Michelle Rowen manages that feat in her newly released book in the Immortality Bites series, Lady & the Vamp, which follows her hits Bitten & Smitten and Fanged & Fabulous.

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A few things that have been rattling around my brain today…

• I love it when i find a great new author. My 3 newest author crushes are Jane Porter, Megan Crane, and Claire Cook. The first two have new books coming out next month that will have book reviews posted, the books are already in my hot little hands.

• Puppies are cute. Owning a puppy makes my girls understand why i said “no puppies!” for so long, though! teething, ugh!
• it’s hard to get everything done. Especially when your body rebells halfway through whatever you’re doing.
• Why is my almost 10 year old hearing about kids her age dating? yeeeeesh
• If you’ve ever bought something from woot!, you can vote for the cool shirts at the shirt.woot! derby each week. There are some great shirts, there!
• I’m too late for the Spring Reading Thing contest, but I still need to redo my reading list for Spring. Gosh, I’m behind on stuff!
• I like to revamp this site each season, so I’m looking for a new spring theme and springy pics of the kids & pets.

Some days it feels like my brain is moving through sludge. It’s hard to keep moving and not get stuck in something. So many things to think about and worry about.

Thank goodness for the sunshine and the puppy sunshine! Tired kids and dogs are always a good thing, they all look so angelic in sleep!