After A Very Long Absence.....

I'm back!!

Yes, after a very long (much longer than planned) absence I’m back again.  The reasons for the lengthy time away are many.  First off, because of the Very Evil Person who was the manager for the department I worked in, I had to leave it.  I was heartbroken that I couldn’t stay in a place I truly believed I was meant to be.  And it took a while to completely understand I was a victim of workplace harassment and that no one would do anything.  I went to the union and they tried but the HR department kept putting us off again and again and after a while in the new department, I had to let it go to get past it.  I wish now I hadn’t as she struck again and my dear coworker I worked with also recently bid out as the Very Evil Person cast her spell on my friend – to the point of calling her into her office and telling my friend she wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone unless it was work related and especially me and another person.  The irony is I barely spoke to my friend at work, not wanting to draw the attention of the Evil Person to her.  And my friend has returned (early) after taking time off from dealing with breast cancer.  That didn’t stop the Evil Person though and so far the union hasn’t really helped my friend though she has gone to them too.

But I love the department I’m in now though I had never seen busy until I went there.  For a few months I was working overtime just about every day and weekends in an effort to try and catch up on the massive amount of work that pours in – and another reason I wasn’t blogging.  I finally burnt out and faced the fact that we were never really going to catch up.  Since the manager knows this too, though the pressure to work hard and fast is there, the NEW manager is a good one and is very supportive.

Then there was the fact I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. I think I mentioned that, but I started going to the gym more and more in an effort to get myself out of the terrible shape I’d managed to get into over the years.  Combine that with a whole lot of overtime and I’d come home and zombie like watch some telly, read some and crash.

Then, when I was getting ready to make a return, the gym I belong to had a weight loss challenge I signed up for and that meant even longer hours at the gym.  The prize for first place was $10,000 so as you can imagine, that was an excellent incentive.  One of the conditions was you had to have so many sessions with a trainer.  Way back when I first joined, knowing if I didn’t do something like work with a trainer, I would drift back into old habits.  That kind of happened over summer.  Although I was still working out, bad food was creeping back into the diet.  But now I’m straightened out again and discovered much to my amazement that I LOVE roasted veggies and that a salad with some cooked chicken thrown in tastes very, very good with a vinaigrette instead of say Thousand Island dressing.

I ultimately didn’t win, the person who did lost 66 pounds next to my measly 23, but better than winning was stopping at the gym and eating healthy has become a lifestyle now which is good.  And while I still have quite a ways to go, I’ve lost almosthisclose to 50 lbs – probably by next week it will be *official*.  And as I said on Twitter – yep I came back there tonight – it’s being healthy that’s the best.  It’s being able to go 10 minutes on the elliptical, ride the bike over 5 miles, walk a mile on the treadmill, that makes me feel really good.  It’s knowing my heart is healthy and getting healthier, that I’ve lengthened my life expectancy I think, that I’m not so short of breath I even scare myself that is the wonderful thing.

I really do have so much to say that I think I’m going to have to do this in 2 parts.  What I’ve wrote so far is much of the outer of me, but the inner me has undergone changes to so that’s up next post.

Recent Read

About Last Night by Ruthie Knox

Why this one: I read a pretty good review for it at AAR.  The reviewer said it had been "recommended" by Amazon if she "liked" Sarah Mayberry.  I was getting the same rec and once I read the AAR review, was convinced to try it myself.

Steam Level:  Oooh, it's a steamy one alright.

Blurb:  Sure, opposites attract, but in this sexy, smart, eBook original romance from Ruthie Knox, they positively combust! When a buttoned-up banker falls for a bad girl, “about last night” is just the beginning.

 
Cath Talarico knows a mistake when she makes it, and God knows she’s made her share. So many, in fact, that this Chicago girl knows London is her last, best shot at starting over. But bad habits are hard to break, and soon Cath finds herself back where she has vowed never to go . . . in the bed of a man who is all kinds of wrong: too rich, too classy, too uptight for a free-spirited troublemaker like her.

Nev Chamberlain feels trapped and miserable in his family’s banking empire. But beneath his pinstripes is an artist and bohemian struggling to break free and lose control. Mary Catherine—even her name turns him on—with her tattoos, her secrets, and her gamine, sex-starved body, unleashes all kinds of fantasies.

When blue blood mixes with bad blood, can a couple that is definitely wrong for each other ever be perfectly right? And with a little luck and a lot of love, can they make last night last a lifetime?

My Thoughts:  I thought this was a very enjoyable read. It was the story of two opposites, Cath, an American with ties to the Mafia living in England and Nev, a uppercrust businessman with the soul of an artist. Although a contemporary and while not titled, Nev kind of reminded me of how  an author might right the second son of a duke or earl or something.

 

Both Nev and Cath were well done characters.  Cath was a bit on the prickly side, not wanting to get involved with Nev because of her screwed up past and certainty that someone like him was too good for her screwed up self.  When done right, a prickly heroine is one of my favourite kinds and Cath is done very good.  I love the way Nev, a wonderful Beta type heroes admires so much about Cath.  He is completely gone for her and I love when the hero is so take with the heroine and has to battle to 'win her over'.

And I appreciated that despite his upper class upbringing, Nev, far from being the starchy banker Cath thought he was by the very nickname, City, that she gave him, was very unpretentious and down to earth.  And I also enjoyed the fact that Cath worked so hard to overcome her early mistakes.  I got a kick out of the inner battle she wagered between earlier, wilder Cath and wiser and more mature Cath.

Although I've read English set historicals for years, this is the first contemporary book I can remember reading that is set in England and that made it even more interesting. I like that she was an American trying to make her way in the art world in London.  

I'm glad I have Ruthie Knox's other book, Ride with Me in my queue.  It saves me the time in having to go back and read it.  This is the second LoveSwept title I've read recently and both have impressed me quite a bit.  I have a few other ones in the line now on my Kindle, both new releases like Ride With Me, Slow Summer Kisses by Shannon Stacey and Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry along with some older books rereleased under the LoveSwept line such as Lightning the Lingers by Tom and Sharon Curtins and the next one I plan to get asap, The Last Warrior by Kristen Kyle.  Love those two books!

Recent Read

Because of You by Jessica Scott

Why this one: To be explained below

Steam Level: Just about perfect

Blurb: From the war-torn streets of Baghdad to the bittersweet comforts of the home front, two wounded hearts navigate the battlefield of coming home from war in this explosive eBook original from newcomer Jessica Scott.

Keeping his men alive is all that matters to Sergeant First Class Shane Garrison. But meeting Jen St. James the night before his latest deployment makes Shane wonder if there's more to life than war. He leaves for Iraq remembering a single kiss with a woman he'll never see again- until a near fatal attack lands him back at home and in her care.  Jen has survived her own brush with death and endured its scars. And yet there's a fire in Shane that makes Jen forget all about her past. He may be her patient, but when this warrior looks her in the eyes, she feels - for the first time in a long time - like a woman. Shane is too proud to ask for help, but for Jen, caring for him is more than a duty -it's a need. And as Jen guides Shane through the fires of healing, she finds something she never expected - her deepest desire.

My Thoughts:  Not long ago I got an email from this author asking if I would do a review of her book.  I don’t always respond to requests to review, but something prompted me to this time.  As I was reading the email and then reading the synopsis she had included, it did sound like a book I would enjoy so the next time I went out to a place with WiFi – yes, I still can’t get the WiFi working at home – I bought a copy and sent her an email saying I didn’t like accepting books but I did buy a copy and hopefully I’d be in a mood to read it and would let her know what I thought.

Well, I was in the mood sooner than I thought I would be and started reading Because of You yesterday.  Once I started, I could hardly bear to put it down.  I worked today – I’m working overtime like crazy these days – but even as I was working I was looking forward to getting home so I could read some more.

 

I’m not quite sure where to begin in describing this book.  From the very first page I appreciated that the hero, Shane Garrison, was a regular soldier.  It’s not that I don’t like SEAL’s but they are becoming the dukes and viscounts and earls of contemporary romance and a little are starting to go a long way.  So I found it refreshing that Shane was a Sergeant First Class.

Another thing that really struck me from the beginning was Because of You has such an authentic feel to it.  Apparently Ms. Scott is a career soldier herself and you can tell with every word and every nuance that this is real.  The characters may be fictional, but they don’t come across that way at all.  They truly come to life, from the hero Shane and the heroine Jen St. James, a nurse who works as a nurse in the army hospital, to the men under Shane’s command and the friends of Jen, each one is so fully alive, you could swear you are reading about real people.

And while this is a romance, it’s a romance plus so much more.  It’s about loss, the loss of a way of life for Shane when he is severely injured and shipped home to recuperate.  His whole identity is wrapped up in leading his men and he’s lost when he can’t be there to protect them.  It’s about physical loss with Jen.  She has lost a part of her body and hasn’t come to terms with it yet.  She is unprepared really for the desire that flares between her and Shane.  It’s about the loss of a partner that Jen’s best friend feels every time her husband and good friend of Shane’s is shipped into combat and it’s about the loss of friends that plagues one of the men under Shane who has also been seriously injured while fighting for his country.

And it’s about healing. It’s how Shane and Jen heal each other.  Shane is a loner who hasn’t had much of a personal life; he didn’t know who his father was, his mother was a drunk and his ex-wife cheated on him and took him to the cleaners.  So he is awed by Jen and who she is.  And with Shane, Jen is forced to confront her own issues that have remained unresolved.

While this is an intense and emotional book, there are wonderful moments of humour, especially in the hilarious character of Carponti, one of Shane’s men and the bane of his existence.

I don’t know what it was that caused me to linger on this one, but I’m sure glad I did.  I missed the buzz when it first came out due to my terrible online track record lately so I’m glad I found it now and will be waiting eagerly for her next book.

Grade: 4.75 out of 5

I went missing again didn't I?

So I owe an update I think.  I've still been busy working out a lot lately but I've also been dealing with another issue that's had me somewhat stressed.  It seems my manager and I don't get along.  It's been like that since she started last summer, but it's really been magnified since I went back to work full time.  It became very apparent to me that she 'had it out for me' and I never knew when I would get into, well, I'll say it, shit.  It happened quite a bit but I never knew what would set her off.  As one can imagine, living under that kind of pressure was somewhat taxing.

After one particular ugly incident, I realized that I could no longer work for her; that one of use would have to go.  I was starting to get that feeling when I got up in the morning that I didn't want to go to work, that I was almost afraid.  And of course once you start feeling like that it was downward spiral.  After the incident, though it almost broke my heart to do it, there was an opening in the department I previously worked in and I applied for the position and got it.  I don't expect everyone to like me, thank goodness I've reached the point where it doesn't bother me if they don't, but I will not work in the kind of environment I was working in.  I had my performance evaluation as one last kick at the can so to speak and it was the worst one I've ever had in all the years I've been working.  I wasn't surprised though.

So the new/old department is crazy busy and unlike where I came from, the manager appreciates the people who work for her and already it's like a heavy boulder has been lifted.  The department doubled in size today and in preparation for it, we have been working quite a bit of overtime.  So much so that last week I only worked out ONCE all week!  The rest of the nights I worked late.

I also did something that was very, very unusual on the weekend.  My son we shall call Ryan and daughter-in-law we shall call Kara came over and Kara and I went out to a garden centre and bought some plants, most of them for me.  The three of us then spent about four hours planting them.  Now people who know me will be laughing and laughing and laughing because I'm so not, or at least I so wasn't a plant person.  In fact I used to tell many of my coworkers who could discuss plants and flowers for hours on end, that they had been taken over by the Flower Pod People and warned those few of us who didn't discuss flowers to be on our guard in case they tried to get hold of us!!  

Well, the Plant Pod People found me.  At age 57, I planted my first flowers.  And if that's not scary enough, I went out the next day and bought a few more to plant.  And I got three bags of soil!!    

And tonight I terrified myself when I stopped at a hardware store and bought a shovel to dig a whole to plant the plants I bought yesterday.  See, Ryan dug the holes before and he had some strange looking implement that was in the shed and said it would have been a lot easier if I had a shovel.  And seeing as they spent almost the whole day with me minus the evening on Saturday, and Kara showed me how to plant flowers, I want to try these ones on my own.  And for that, I figured I'd need a shovel.  And as if I'm not scaring myself enough with this sudden and perplexing urge to "garden" and buy plants and shovels, I also bought a specialized implement to get rid of weeds and one of those kneeling pads for when I *shudder* weed the garden.

See!!!  I'm scaring myself.  I've been taken over!!  Good think I've been working overtime to pay for these new tools and plants and things.  I really must take pictures once the weeds are all gone.  Pod Kristie thinks it looks very nice and is very proud of the work done.

So that's what's been keeping my from blogging.  And oh, one more thing.  I took the wobble cushion off my chair in the computer room and it's ever so much more comfortable sitting down now.  The wobble cushion may be good for my back, but it sure is uncomfortable to sit one I tell you!

I hope to be back much sooner this time.  I have rather a large number of books I want to blog about that I'm most excited about.

So, until later......

For those who haven't seen this yet

I hadn't and my son showed it to me outside a restaurant yesterday and I was laughing so hard tears were rolling down my face!!

Ponderings

 

I don’t understand this new hair style on guys – the bald style.  There are a number of trainers at the gym and I think they are young dudes, but they all have their heads shaved so it’s kind of hard to tell.  I do not like this look.  I try to imagine them with hair to tell if they are cute or not, but I can’t imagine it.  While I thought Yul Brenner was fine in his day, Vin Diesel, the Rock and other famous head hairless guys are a turn off for me.  I don’t know why, if they have hair, they shave it all off.  It’s one thing if they really are bald.  My youngest, should he let his hair grow, would be half bald, and don’t think I didn’t give him many a warning when he was a kid and trash talked to his dad and his lack of hair.  I told Rye chances are he would lose his too – and sure enough I was right!)  My older son on the other hand, also keeps his hair to an almost nonexistent level, but he does have it should he let it grow.  I just don’t get this trend.  I may have pondered this before – but if so, I’m still pondering on it and the why of it.  Short hair on men I've come to grips with, but no hair????

 

They have a pool at the “club” I go to so when I go to the locker rooms, there are many women in various stages of undress.  I’m very disconcerted that this disconcerts me.  I don’t know why I’m rather unnerved at the sight of half-naked women.  The lockers are in short rows and if there is someone sitting there minus their clothes, I automatically move to the next short row and look for a locker.   I think I maybe should talk to a shrink about that.  I'm sure they would be fascinated

At the risk of sounding redundant, I hate the word haters.  In so many areas anymore if you don’t like something, you are called a “hater”.  I may not like the Kardasians but in no way shape or form could I be called a “hater”.  To me to hate something involves strong passion.  And I don’t have a strong passion against Kardasian family.  I think the mother (who most annoyingly shares the same name as me) is your typical stage mother magnified many times over; the girls are somewhat annoying although I do have a certain fondness for Chloe.  Poor Bruce has made a mockery of what was once a fine face and I did like Rob on DWTS.  As for the younger girls, I’ve never watched the show so I have no opinion on them.

But my point is I think most people accused of being haters aren’t – they just don’t give a rat’s ass.  Of course you have your nut jobs, you will always have those.  But in general, “hater” is a misnomer.

I am bound and determined to cut down on my TV reality show watching.  I watch way too much of it.  From Sister Wives to Toddlers and Tiara’s to DWTS, it’s taking over my life and sucking time I could be cleaning the house or reading or any number of better time management things.  I started last night when I turned the TV off after DWTS and refused to give in to another season of the Bachelor/Bachelorette.  I will allow myself So You Think You Can Dance – and that’s it!  I’m going to have to get my Wi-Fi working at home again though as there are some of us who live tweet during the show; apart from the main hash tag group.  I prefer the group smaller and more intimate.

But other than SYTYCD THAT IS IT.  No more reality TV for me!

On a further note about not getting Wi-Fi on my IPad – it’s driving me batty!  I have tried everything I can think of to get it going.  It works when I go to a wireless place such as McDonalds (only for coffee these days, only for coffee – I haven’t had any real fast food other than the very healthy choice at Subway going on 2 months now – and surprisingly enough, I’m not missing it.  I’m not missing cola either).  Wireless worked at my sister’s place though I didn’t use it that often as she isn’t limitless.  Should someone with an IPAD come to my place it works on theirs.  I have had a technician over twice – and have the bill to prove it – but to no avail.  It cut out on me again the last upgrade and I haven’t been able to get it back again.  I miss my tweeting.

It just seems wrong that healthy food costs more than garbage food.  My food bill has skyrocketed since I started eating healthier.  And a nice bag of chips last ever so much longer than a tray of strawberries.    This just seems grossly unfair to me.  The more I eat healthy, the more it's costing me.  Apparently there is an epidemic of obesity going on in North America but the food producers and restaurants aren't helping things out any!

The ANTI 50 Shades topic

There is a ridiculously long thread over at one of my favourite places to visit, AAR on this series of books.  Mind you, I think most of the pages are kept going mostly by two particular posters, but that’s neither here nor there.   I think 18 + 18 + 12 (and counting) PAGES of this book is a record. I’ve only made one post during the whole thing and that wasn’t really connected to the topic of the book.  So I think us ANTI 50 Shades need a voice.


Reason #1: I have no intention at this time of reading this book. Nothing in the VAST number of posts there has convinced me otherwise. First off, and I mean this as no judgment, but the conflict of the book; the hero is into BDSM has zero, zip, nada interest to me. Again no judgment but for me personally, this is a lifestyle I have no interest in. I prefer a relationship that is balanced between the protagonists. That’s reason number one why I don’t plan on getting/reading this book.


 Reason #2: From what I gather, this is not unlike a Harlequin Presents line – only hotter and by many accounts, better. I enjoy many a Harlequin line but I never have tried and do not really want to try this particular one. Again, they strike me as slightly unbalanced in power between the uber rich Greek/Italian/etc. Tycoon/Millionaire/Billionaire and the baby mama/secretary/dog walker – whatever.


Reason #3: From some of the posts I gather the hero/heroine don’t talk the way Americans/Canadians would. They talk Brit speak. One particular poster said she just had to think they were actually British and not Americans to get past some of the peculiar phrases and terms. I’ve no desire to play that kind of game in my mind. I have no trouble suspending belief on many a subject in romance, but I don’t want to do it because the author doesn’t get the difference between the ways the two cultures talk. Set the book in England for Pete’s sake and don’t make us pretend we are playing ‘airplane’ in order to swallow things.


Reason #4: One of the big discussion points/controversies on this book is it stated as a work of fan fiction and then took off to the stratosphere. I haven’t read the Twilight books it’s based on and I don’t care to. So I can’t say how much it may resemble them. But I’m not interested in fanfic. I know some authors, such as Meljean Brook started off writing fanfic. But then she developed her own brand new world. I may be wrong but it seems to me like fanfic was her springboard onto other things.  She then went on to completely develop her own entire worlds and characters, which in my opinion makes the two authors totally different cases.  But I do believe the author of 50 Shades is selling her fanfic work. Where once it could be found free, now it’s over $11 a book here in Canada. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that, though I tend to think ‘good for her’ but I still don’t want to read this series of books.


Reason #5: I think its first person – someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I have a much harder time getting into first person as a rule. Of course there are exceptions; the Stephanie Plum books, Lisa Kleypas trilogy and the Blair Mallory books by Linda Howard. But those authors I trusted having read many of their previous books – well, not the Evanovich books but they aren’t really romance so for some reason it’s a bit different. In romance, I also want the hero’s POV and you just don't get it in Fifty Shades.  Some books where I know the author, while disappointed, I can accept and even love the book.  But in this case I don't really want to try.


Reason #6: The price. As I mentioned, they are over $11 here for the eBooks and as there are 3 of them, that’s $33. I’m not about to spend that kind of money anymore on an unknown author. There are two of them and only two that I will go over $10 and they are JD Robb (not Nora) and Linda Howard. It drives me crazy not buying authors I love if they are charging over $10 for an eBook so I certainly won’t be paying over that for an unknown to me author.


Reason #7 I’m just perverse. I’m not sure if I can exactly say this to come out the way I want to, but the attention this book is getting is just SO overblown to me. I was on the stationery bike today at lunch (yes, I’m still a beast) and Access – the hour long one – and Billy Bush and Lisa Rinna were on talking about this book and speculating about who should play the roles.  I have been reading romance for all my life in one form or another and romance almost exclusively for the past 20 years or so. For a good deal of those years I wouldn’t tell other people my genre of choice but in the past few years, I’ve not only been telling people, I’ve been proud to tell them. And now this book comes out and all of a sudden it’s ‘cool’ to talk about sex and 50 Shades.

I’ve known all my life what a wonderful thing the romance genre is so I’m not going to go jumping on some particular book bandwagon just because Billy Bush and so many other people are talking about it. It may be the most wonderful book ever, but I’m not a wagon jumper, and I often don’t want to go along with the crowd. So those are my reasons why chances are very good I won’t be reading this book. Unlike what some of the more prolific posters have said on the never ending thread, it’s not about jealousy, it’s not because I’m a fan girl of other sites that have discussed this book; in fact the only place I’ve actually half-assed followed any discussion of this book phenom is at AAR.

In the past couple of days since I started this post, the 50 Shades discussion has started where I work and even still - I've no desire to read it.  


Some on that lengthy post have said us who don't plan/want to read the books really don't have the right to talk about it.  But I say we do!!!  And I'm here to say why this is one romance reader who will be passing these by.