A life update....

I am still around and actually have read a few blogs in the last week.  Thanks so much for the kind words and support regarding my sister Rhonda's health.  She is home from the hospital and receiving both radiation and chemo treatments.  Her attitude is good and she is very calm.  I wish I could say the same for myself, but I am improving.  It seems that this event has brought forth some really icky feelings that still lurked inside of me, most harking back to the time when both my folks were declining and there was so very much to deal with.

I'm getting better though and slowly working through what I need to in order to function normally.  Sometimes life can really surprise you.  You think that you know how you'll react to something and then - boom - you don't feel or act at all as you expect.  Fortunately, I have a very, very supportive husband and a good counselor that I have returned to.  She helped me in so many ways several years ago when my mother and father were so ill. 

My husband and I are going to take a trip to our favorite oasis in the desert, Scottsdale, Arizona.  I look forward to relaxing there and visiting a great bookstore and perhaps being able to see a few blogging friends.  I'll take a few pictures and read some books.  We'll be away from all the worries for a little bit and then I'll be back here, refreshed and renewed. 

So, see you about mid-March.  Don't have too much fun without me!

Extended break....

Thank you all so much for your kind words and good thoughts and prayers for my sister, Rhonda, and also for me.  We found out today that she has lung cancer - a very fast growing variety.  There is a large mass on her right lung and so there will be much for she and her family to consider and decide.  I saw her yesterday and told her that people she didn't even know were keeping her in their thoughts and prayers.  She was grateful and said to thank everyone and she asked that the good thoughts and prayers continue, please.

I'm going to take an extended break from the blog.  I'm kind of reeling from the news, although I had suspected that this might be the case.  I need to be able to take stock within myself, gear myself up to be the supportive big sister that she needs and help out where I can.  I'll take care of myself and pull out my journal and my yoga cd's and my prayer and gratitude list.  I'll continue to visit my trainer and let her push me to exercise until I can't think of anything else but my next breath. 

And I'll be grateful that my little sister, who has had a hard life, has come full circle with her addictions.  My folks would be so proud of her and I am too.  She has a husband and family who love her and she is on good terms with all of them.  She is a fighter and she will fight this.  And I will remind her that we all love her and that God holds her in the palm of His hands.  Again, thanks so very much.

On a time out for a week...

I've got some challenges to be dealing with for the rest of this week.  My sister is in the hospital for the second time in just a short while and things don't look good.  Testing is happening - she's had a bacterial lung infection - but it's possible there may be a lot more to it.  Could I request that if you are a praying person, please add her to your list? 

The company my husband works for is being bought out by a competitor and his job situation is murky right now.  The possibility of a job change for him is not completely horrible, but there are lots of decisions to make regarding what would come next for us.

And, I've been in a very blue place the last couple of weeks.  Think it's probably a combo of stress, the time of year, and likely some hormonal issues.  I'm working on keeping positive and using some exercise as a mood lifter.  I'm also pulling out some of the suggestions that a counselor gave me when my folks were both so ill.

I'll be back by next Wednesday when I'm going to be featured on Cathy's blog, Kittling: Books in her weekly event, Scene of the Blog.   

Waiting on Wednesday - The Next One to Fall

This event is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and features books that we are eagerly anticipating. My choice for this week is:

The Next One to Fall

by Hilary Davidson

Publisher: Forge Books

Available on February 14th

2nd in the Lily Moore series

      Hilary Davidson’s The Next One to Fall takes place three months after the events of her debut novel, the Anthony Award–winning The Damage Done.
     Travel writer Lily Moore has been persuaded by her closest friend, photographer Jesse Robb, to visit Peru with him. Jesse is convinced that the trip will lure Lily out of her dark mood, but Lily is haunted by betrayal and loss. At Machu Picchu, the famous Lost City of the Incas, they discover a woman clinging to life at the bottom of an ancient stone staircase. Just before the woman dies, she tells Lily the name of the man who pushed her.
     When the local police investigate, the forensic evidence they find doesn’t match what Lily knows. Unable to accept the official ruling of accidental death, Lily hunts down the wealthy man who was the dead woman’s traveling companion and discovers a pattern of dead and missing women in his wake.
     Obsessed with getting justice for these women, Lily sets in motion a violent chain of events that will have devastating consequences.

Hilary Davidson is a former travel writer who won an Anthony Award last year for her first crime novel, The Damage Done.  I am very interested in reading both of these books and have had a copy of the first since last year.  Sigh.  I'll get to it soon.  The location of the second in Peru at Machu Picchu is very appealing.  Can't wait to see all about Lily Moore.  This series has been recommended highly.

Home Front by Kristin Hannah

     All marriages have a breaking point. All families have wounds. All wars have a cost…
     Like many couples, Michael and Jolene have to face the pressures of everyday life—children, careers, bills, chores—even as their twelve year marriage is falling apart. Then an unexpected deployment sends Jolene deep into harm’s way and leaves defense attorney Michael at home, unaccustomed to being a single parent to their two girls. As a mother, it agonizes Jolene to leave her family, but as a soldier she has always understood the true meaning of duty. In her letters home, she paints a rose-colored version of her life on the front lines, shielding her family from the truth. But war will change Jolene in ways that none of them could have foreseen. When tragedy strikes, Michael must face his darkest fear and fight a battle of his own--for everything that matters to his family.
     At once a profoundly honest look at modern marriage and a dramatic exploration of the price of war on an ordinary American family, HOME FRONT is a story of love, loss, heroism, honor and ultimately, hope.

I've read and enjoyed several books by Kristin Hannah.  Last year, I enthused about Night Road.  I was anxious to pick up Home Front, which give a twist to a military family facing deployment scenario.  The mother is the one going to war and even though she tells her family that she'll be way behind enemy lines, things don't quite work out that way.

Home Front is a very, very emotional look at a family in crisis.  I was caught up in the story and had a hard time setting it aside to take care of daily life.  Some readers may feel that this author pulls at the heart strings too firmly and she does in some ways.  She also does a good job, in my opinion, with opening our eyes to some of the trials and frustrations our military families face each day.  I was very touched by the sacrifices depicted and it tore at my heart reading some of the "daily" duties that soldiers must perform when they are "in country".  How could we possibly repay them and how could we expect them to just come home and slip back into the fabric of their lives?

I grew up with a father who spent many, many years in the Army Reserve.  He did not ever have to go on active duty, except for his training weekends and camps in the summer.  If I had been growing up now, with the heavy use of the National Guard and Reserve forces, I would have had a father who was deployed, probably more than once.  We have some young friends who have faced 4 deployments by the husband, who is a Marine.  He's near the end of his time in the military, but he's gone into harm's way 4 times and come home unscathed, physically at least. 

There are many heavy themes included in Home Front.  Kristin Hannah spent a lot of time with a female Black Hawk helicopter pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Five Teresa Burgess.  She interviews her here:

 

For me, this was a solid family story and I can recommend it.  Here's a last quote:

"Heroes...they are heroes, our soldiers, the men and women who go into harm's way to protect us, our way of life.  It doesn't matter what you think of the war, you have to be grateful to the warriors, of whom we ask so much.  To whom we sometimes give too little."

"A soldier is taught to be strong and brave...not to need anyone...but how do you help someone deal with horrors you can't imagine?  And how does a soldier come home from war, really?  As a nation, these are questions we need to ask ourselves."

Saturday Snapshot - February 4th

Alyce of At Home With Books is the originator of this weekly event. Feel free to post any photos that you or your family members have taken and then go over to her blog and add your link.

Not really sure what I should call this, but I knew I had to show a picture of it.  Cactus in a tree - not only in a tree, but growing in a tree.  This old live oak is near a Chinese restaurant that my husband and I frequent, often after church on Sundays.  I will admit this is a new one to me.  Not sure if this grew naturally or someone put it there, but I'm thinking it must have been "natural" - hmmm...maybe not.  What do you think?  The electrical conduit that you can see is there because this tree is right by the outdoor patio area, which is lighted at night.

Defending Jacob by William Landay

     Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.
     Every parental instinct Andy has rallies to protect his boy. Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. Andy must. He's his father. But as damning facts and shocking revelations surface, as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, as the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own - between loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between a past he's tried to bury and a future he cannot conceive.

Defending Jacob by William Landay has been compared to Presumed Innocent, one of my favorite legal mysteries.  I can see why and I'll admit that I picked up this book partly based on that comparison, along with several reviews that urged me to do so.  The story is very readable, compelling - yes, unputdownable.  It takes you on a twisty turny journey and to places you might not be comfortable with.  Many questions - big moral questions - come to mind.  What would you do to protect your child?  How much does any parent know about their teenager?  And even, how well can any of us really, really fathom the thought processes of our closest family members?

And then, there's the ending.  Shocking.  Jaw dropping, I guess.  I....hated....it.  Looking back on it after a few hours, I still hate it, but understand it a bit more.  One thing I will say is that I'll be thinking about the story for a long time - the questions raised - the moral dilemmas.  I'd like to think I'd know what to do in such a horrible situation, but I'm not sure anyone could know exactly.  I can recommend this one as an absorbing legal mystery.  I just wish I liked the ending better.  Sigh.  It begs to be discussed and would make a great book club selection.

Waiting on Wednesday - The Gods of Gotham

This event is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and features books that we are eagerly anticipating. My choice for this week is:

The Gods of Gotham

by Lyndsay Faye

Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam

Available on March 15th

     1845. New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City. Forever.  
     Timothy Wilde tends bar near the Exchange, fantasizing about the day he has enough money to win the girl of his dreams. But when his dreams literally incinerate in a fire devastating downtown Manhattan, he finds himself disfigured, unemployed, and homeless. His older brother obtains Timothy a job in the newly minted NYPD, but he is highly skeptical of this new "police force." And he is less than thrilled that his new beat is the notoriously down-and-out Sixth Ward-at the border of Five Points, the world's most notorious slum. 
     One night while making his rounds, Wilde literally runs into a little slip of a girl-a girl not more than ten years old-dashing through the dark in her nightshift . . . covered head to toe in blood. 
     Timothy knows he should take the girl to the House of Refuge, yet he can't bring himself to abandon her. Instead, he takes her home, where she spins wild stories, claiming that dozens of bodies are buried in the forest north of 23rd Street. Timothy isn't sure whether to believe her or not, but, as the truth unfolds, the reluctant copper star finds himself engaged in a battle for justice that nearly costs him his brother, his romantic obsession, and his own life.

I'm always interested in books that start at the beginning of a known element - such as the beginning of the New York City Police Force - or books that start at the beginning of the study of psychology or the beginning of a specific religious belief .  I like to try to puzzle out how things come to be.  You could probably come up with other examples.  Add in a serial killer and I'm hooked.  This seems to be the second book for author Lyndsay Faye.  Her previous effort was Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson.  I have not read Dust and Shadow, but the idea that Sherlock Holmes attempts to track down Jack the Ripper sounds interesting as well.  I've got both Lyndsay Faye's books on my list.