Our lawn looks great.........my hubby has had so much time to devote to it. Never before in the history of our marriage has he even really cared about the lawn.😂. It’s been raining a great deal and he mows every few days....... I have been busy listening to audiobooks. I finished another Psy Changling by Nalini Singh and have checked the next one out already. I also have managed to get halfway through another Kim Harrison. I am listening to number ten A Perfect Blood and finally feel pretty confident that I am reading completely new material. I think I may have skipped ahead at some point in my initial reading of the series which has made my reread rather informative. I wish I had kept a book journal for myself when the kids were little......I spent so much time recording every single thing we read together it would have been so easy to keep track of my reading! I also finished Clockwork Samurai https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36277094-clockwork-samurai for my recently added 10 catorgory of Steampunk.....need to work on a better name. 😂 I have Justina Ireland’s second book started in her Dread Nation series https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45486444-deathless-divide. Deathless Divide should be classed as one of my most anticipated books of the year and is pretty good so far. It’s genre is unique, think alternate history with zombies .....told primarily in the first person through the eyes of a young lady that I can’t help but like a lot! I plan to pick a new book out without zombies to read before bed!

I buddy read it when it first came out with a church friend........as in she handed it to me one Sunday and said read it this week so I have someone to talk about it too. I found it powerful and eye opening.......it made facts I knew intellectually come to life.

Praying

How cool......I bought a set of reproductions when the kids were little from a speciality bookstore and it was my best book purchase ever. I love all the clever characters that appear in the later books....the Patchwork Girl and Jack Pumpkinhead are my favorites.

I have my list ready! My kids did help me........ The Boxcar Children, the original This was the first book I remember ever checking out of the library and reading myself. I was rather obsessed with it and checked it out frequently from the school’s library. I had no idea that it was part of a series btw I actually discovered that when hunting for it for my children. Winnie the Pooh makes me happy! One of hubby’s friends gave us a beautiful set when Dd was born and we placed it on the table beside the rocking chair. I started picking them up and reading to her as we nursed and rocked almost from day one. The 20th Century Book Children’s Book Treasury https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238068.The_20th_Century_Children_s_Book_Treasury?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=91OItXRJwj&rank=1 I actually own an earlier version of this that contained Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. This book came to me via my antepartum roommate when pregnant with DS. It was perfect because I collapsed each night in exhaustion after four months flat on my back. Dd would climb in bed beside the baby and I and we would read. Eventually we feel into Goodnight Moon, Chicka, and Madeline each night before bed. The tradition continued for years. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum I read the complete series four times when my children were small. I love it! The Magican’s Nephew by CS Lewis My favorite Narnia. I read this series more than once too! Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16331.Murder_at_the_Vicarage Marples are my favorite Christie’s. Hard to pick which one. Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93575.Gaudy_Night. The first Sayers I read and Dd and I agree it’s the best. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10210.Jane_Eyre?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=iIPu6O4z59&rank=1. Hard to pick which Bronte........ The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6218281-the-sweetness-at-the-bottom-of-the-pie. This book made Dd think the ladies at BaW are the best! Dracula by Bram Stoker https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6250997-Dracula. I love Whitby, what more can I say! Ready Player One by Ernest Cline https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20603758-ready-player-oneThis was such a fun book to share with my teens. Brought back my teenage years but I knew many of the games because Ds learned to program games replicating early games. So fun for all! Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6457081-remarkable-creatures We had a serious Fossil obsession and even hired paleontologist in training as a tutor for the kids. This book was popular during this timeframe...... Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16119931-angelmaker This book stretched my reading taste greatly. I plan to reread it this year........ Where Serpents Sleep by CS Harris https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3142581-where-serpents-sleep?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=CqCmA40U0d&rank=1. Possibly my favorite book in my favorite series.....Hero starts here. The Cat who Played Brahms by Lillian Jackson Brahms https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/582856.The_Cat_Who_Played_Brahms?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=ekbMSSkzP4&rank= I love cozy mysteries and this is a favorite series......this is the first set in Moose County The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30236962-the-historian?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=y2V8BJ8t3d&rank= Not sure why but I like to reread this.....a modern Dracula 1Q84 by Murakami I start each year reading Murakami. This one is possibly my favorite...... Anna and Her Daugters by DE Stevenson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2426655.Anna_and_Her_Daughters. I love romance novels. Stevenson is a favorite and this is one that I really enjoyed. Patchworks of Lucy Boston https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4906712-the-patchworks-of-lucy-boston. This is a book that set beside my bed for years. I love the picture of Lucy Boston’s incredible English Paper Piecing. How to Read a Church by Richard Taylor https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/694806.How_to_Read_a_Church?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=hEdZDxIwzL&rank=2 I love Church architecture and visiting churches is a hobby. This is one of those books that I enjoy reading a few pages at random.

There was discussion here regarding if the similar names made it too hard to listen to for the first time through. I had a choice of a hard copy thicker than my hands like book (I rarely finish these) and an audiobook with the fat book in the house. I never needed to even look at the book because I found the book was well enough narrated so I could tell which person it was seconds after the names were spoken.....there are two main characters whose names were similar even pronounced to my ear. One was good and one was bad so that made it easy for me!

I enjoyed it also.......your Dh might want to read it too! I also think your Dd will like it. I actually listened to it...........lots of very similar names.

I need to put some thought into this......when I buy books it has almost always been so I can have the entire series at my finger tips. So narrowing things down to twenty books is hard and a bit odd for me. I started the habit back in my Nancy Drew days. My initial thought was to put all the series books I love on my bookshelf and I would fill several bookcases. 😉. At this point The Well Trained Mind would be on it.........

I am glad you are both doing OK today. Again hugs......hope hubby gets his test back soon so you know. fwiw, I had a lymph node/ear thing going on a couple of weeks ago with lots of congestion. I am prone to ear infections so had everything to self treat and did. The lymph nodes were noticeable......as in my oblivious son noticed my jaw was swollen on his own.

Pretty much, we had some adjustments at the start of our marriage but things go pretty smoothly now.

Praying........sending hugs too.

Just wanted to check on you today. I hope both of you are feeling a bit better!

I was able to read a few of those....I don’t think ever I owned any. My mom had a friend who also had a daughter who loved to read and we would meet places and trade books. I think Dana Girls came to me via her. Another one of my mom’s friends had an older daughter (in high school) who had the entire Nancy Drew series in yellow cover.......I collected brown and blue covers but read hers for the later books. I think my covers stopped around book 30...... It was really fun to relive my obsession with Dd, although she didn’t love Cherry Ames 😉. I reread Cherry Ames when she should have been! Glad I kept them......now I am saving them for grandchildren! For the less popular Stratemeyer series many used to be out there on Kindle free.....I know I have all the Bobsey Twins on my kindle for free. Tom Swift is out there free too. The recommendation program used to be willing to take you to other series. It was quite an adventure and I spent my evenings downloading books until I filled up my kindle. My original reader was maybe second generation. Yes, I did end up putting them all in my kindle account, hopefully they are still there! https://www.lib.umd.edu/nancy/influential-authors/stratemeyer-syndicate https://daily.jstor.org/the-secret-syndicate-behind-nancy-drew/

My tea bag habits were really bugging Dh. So now he keeps a cup on the counter for me to put them in. He takes care of the rest so I am not complaining.......I hate trash duty.

I still have my collection of Nancy Drew’s, Cherry Ames, and Trixie Beldons. I didn’t have all of them but collected many of the originals from a little used book store with my mom. Great memories.......

We read her books so many times.......I actually think I have the series on dvd someplace too.

So The Mountains Wild https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51529983-the-mountains-wild has a great cover and sounds like the new Tana French but really isn’t. An American murder detective returns to Dublin to search for her cousin’s killer twenty years after her disappearance. She was in Ireland during the initial investigation btw. At some point I picked the weirdest person to be the murderer out of the cast of characters and was right.....my being right just made for a truly bizarre end. 😂. It will probably be really popular with the masses....I disliked Gone Girl........I didn’t actually dislike this one. My feelings are mixed with sort of a head shaking “ that was bizarre” feeling.

I have read several Catherine Aird books over the years and find them rather uneven. The ones that are good are quite good but the others were not. I know I have read the Religous Body but that’s all I remember! According to Goodreads I really liked it so keep reading.......

Sort of off topic slightly.........I have always wanted a cockatoo......a rose breasted one to be exact. 😉 I know you (Australians) consider them pests.......is it legal to keep them as pets there? https://www.petguide.com/breeds/bird/rose-breasted-cockatoo/

We had that happen on a flight over 20 years ago. They subdued her with her family’s permission and a doctor on board monitored her for the rest of the 4 hour flight. She kept screaming the plane was going down. It was so stressful.

He was so smart. Could learn new words after hearing them once.......”help me”was very unfortunate. Drove my husband nuts because the bird screamed it in my voice. His vocabulary was about 50 words and he could create new sentences with those words......the sentences were not always grammatical but certainly expressed his opinion! Old Mic got a Bird was his favorite song with lots of EeeeeeeIIIIIIIIIIIOoooooooo’s.

We had a blue fronted Amazon for years. Lots of fun.....I really miss him.

I like this series too. 😁 I finished The Missing American by one of last year’s featured author’s Qwei Quartey https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53172044-the-missing-american and thought it was quite good. The cybercrime scams being described as originating in Ghana really shall we say struck home in terms of just how easy it is with all the tech availiable. In the book the cyber criminal simply tried his con on the wrong person....one who had lived in Ghana and had serious ties there. The crook’s tale of woe was so good that the nice American decided he could be more helpful in Ghana........ I am currently reading The Mountains Wildhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51529983-the-mountains-wild which is set in Ireland. So far it’s a good one. 😉 I am almost done listening to A Most Novel Revenge which is the third in a cozy series set in 1920’s England. Alison Larkin narrates these extremely well......the main character is a not so pampered socialite turned detective who pairs up with her philandering husband to solve crimes. I love them on audio but am confident I would hate reading them! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32727522-a-most-novel-revenge.

I hope your family member is OK. Hugs!

We just drove down to the Disney area to see how busy things really are and I have to say the hotels etc are quiet at least from the safety my car. Only DVC hotels and Coronado appear to have any activity and those are far from capacity........maybe 40% from the parking lots. Way less cars then normal. We think the NBA players are at Coronado which makes sense as the older section has no indoor corridors. We could see about 10 Mears buses lined up. Large police presence......as in all over the place. The non Disney hotels and businesses in the area appear to be re-opening but none were busy. Not sure what else to say beyond but that I really hope it works........it sure wasn’t a business as normal type reopening from what we could see.