I finished reading Any Way You Dream It by Monique McDonell. HUGE need of an editor for this one. Seriously, does it not embarrass one to put a book with so many errors up for sale?!?! The story was predictable. It ended precisely how I wanted it to end. However, the two main characters got so irritating that by the end I didn't much care if it ended the way I wanted it to.

Yesterday I finished Intrusion by Mary McCluskey. I am still kind of shaken by it. It's about a couple who lose their 17yo son in a car accident and focuses on the wife's grief. A woman she grew up with shows up. She knows what grief is like as she recently lost her husband of 18 years. The woman inserts herself into the couple's life and seems like she's being so helpful and loving and caring. The ending is not what I expected in the least. It was so disturbing.

I've met a few minor celebrities. Most I don't remember who they were. I was on a local cable kid's show when I was a teen and we occasionally had slightly famous people on there. I once ran into Meredith Brooks (singer) and we talked for quite some time and that night at her concert she totally did a shoutout to me and dedicated a song to me and handed me one of her guitar picks. That was pretty cool.

Cute Poses: Lola does this thing where she curls up and looks exactly like the dragon from Neverending Story. Our turtles sometimes sunbathe standing on each others' backs. Kids: Cameron sleeps in the strangest positions and doesn't seem to care which is the head and which is the foot of his bed. It's more amusing the positions he gets into now than when he was little since he's now a 6' tall almost 16yo. NaNoWriMo: Nah.

No. I'd take my cues from my grandfather. Chances are very, very good his bio father was the man who raised him's older brother. It was kind of an open secret. But he did not care one bit. He loved the man who raised him and considered him his father no matter what the truth of his parentage was.

Travelling: Nope. I don't think I'd want to be either. Know Any: Yes, I do. One family travels because they enjoy it and dad can do his job anywhere. The other family travels to locations where the dad is sent to work so they stay in one place for anywhere from a month to six months before being sent elsewhere. Favorite Toilet Paper: Cottonelle or Charmin.

70s, but I don't remember even one second of them.

Exhausted: Fritz woke up at 6 freaking out because he was coughing and was convinced he was getting croup yet again. He's got some serious PTSD from all the times he's had trouble breathing because of croup. Plans changed: Nope. It looks like the day will go as planned. Thread: I didn't see it. It's hard for us to go on vacation at all because of the kids' work schedules.

I read Scaly Tale, a Ripley's Believe it or Not book, to the boys. The story was pretty dumb. They even thought the story was dumb. It had a lot of weird facts throughout which were much more interesting than the story. I also finished Aaru by David Meredith. The author contacted me on Twitter and asked if I'd be willing to read and review it. Wow. It was one of the most thought-provoking books I have never read. The premise is a company has figured out how to save all dying people. And by save they mean to a hard drive. The people, after they pass away, arrive in Aaru which is the company's mainframe. There they continue to live forever. The people left behind can call up their loved ones and talk to them. But is it a life? Are they real? Is it just our memories and personalities that make us human or is it something more? And for the people left alive on earth, is it enough to just talk to their dead loved ones? Does it hold them back in their growth and development? And so on. The story focuses on a 13-year-old sister of a "saved" dead girl. She becomes Elysian Industries' spokesmodel in America and deals with a crazy schedule, meteoric fame, and a creepy stalker. All the while, her sister in Aaru is struggling with coming to terms with what she now is and what it means to only ever be happy. It's an excellent book. It's planned as the first in a series. The end of this book is completes the story, but leaves plenty of openings for the next book. I appreciated that it didn't end on a cliffhanger.

Many do quit once they reach 1st degree, but it's not a "graduation." There are a lot of degrees after 1st degree you can pursue. Training as a black belt, honestly, is completely different from training as a colored belt in my experience.

It's not even like the Supreme Court decision was recent. It was decided in 1943.

Working out of the home today: Nope. I'm not even working in the home today (I baby-sit T/Th afternoons). Weekend: Quite good. Jamie and I went downtown and walked around a bit on Saturday night. We didn't even go down to the River Walk. We just stayed on the surface. Pro-tip: When walking around a city in a dress, avoid the air vents in the sidewalks. You will end up doing a Marilyn Monroe. Favorite Movie Quote: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should." -Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park ETA: No one here will be watching football tonight... or ever. Because we don't like football lol

That's the way mailboxes are here (except in some of the VERY, VERY, VERY expensive neighborhoods). It's not even a new subdivision thing. Our neighborhood was built 1999-2001. Our cluster of boxes is across the street from our house. I do feel sorry for the people on the other side of the neighborhood, but they don't seem to mind. When they get home from work, they just drive around the circle, stop and get their mail, and drive on to their house. Some grab it while walking their dogs. I actually find it nice to have a locked box holding our mail. We have a tendency to only get it once a week and I've noticed that our mail carrier, because our box would otherwise get completely full, doesn't give us the stupid circulars they have to put in every box so we get less junk than we would if we got our mail every day. FedEx, UPS, and Amazon delivered in personal vehicles all come right to our door as do USPS packages too big to fit in one of the package boxes (or if the package boxes are all being used - and we only have three for our neighborhood because they leave the fourth open for the bird that nests in it every year).

Mom-ninja, that's hard :( Poor kitty and poor you. I finished reading Wild Thing by Dandi Daley Mackall to the boys. It's a book aimed at kids and it was one of the poorer of that type of book that I've read (and I've read many). Winnie was into horses, Barker was into dogs, Catman was into cats, Lizzie was into lizards. I felt like the author wanted the book to have religious elements and so it would be going along and suddenly something religious would be inserted that didn't actually make sense. It was really not authentic and quite forced. It was extremely predictable. In fact, my 11yo - who is in the age range it is for - was able to accurately predict what would happen in each chapter.

EDS is fun! We're a parlor trick. A sometimes painful parlor trick. Seriously, though, if it would help for proper medical care, get diagnosed. I have mild EDS. My daughter is much worse than me and has POTS, too. My uterine prolapse and subsequent hysterectomy a couple years ago were likely EDS related. There's not really much they can do for EDS (other than managing issues as they come up), but for my daughter the actual diagnosis helps a lot in getting the insurance company to approve the physical therapy sessions she needs. Without the EDS diagnosis they likely would not allow as many as they do.

I think the most important thing is for them to just know what they are up against. What their chances of passing things on are, etc. The thing is, genetics are weird and a bit unpredictable. But then, people reproduce all the time not knowing there is a genetic soup thing going on. Our family has a lot of issues. My dad, my daughter, my youngest son, and I all have Celiac. But we didn't know that was the problem until my daughter was diagnosed in 2014. All the testing I went through in my teens revealed nothing (because Celiac wasn't on people's radar back then). My husband is mildly allergic to wheat, too. We had all our kids before we knew about the Celiac. My daughter has EDS and POTS and it was only when she was being tested for stuff earlier this year that we found out that my cousin also has EDS and POTS and we can pinpoint many people on my dad's side who likely had EDS. So, again, kids were born before we had a clue there were genetic issues. My daughter has been sickly her whole life and she has all these problems and she has concluded, on her own, that she probably shouldn't have kids herself. Partly because it would be very difficult on her body and partly because she could pass on all this stuff. I could never have told her this. She really had to conclude it all on her own. She is all for adoption (though, even then, you could end up with a kid with genetic issues, just different ones).

Since this is a JAWM post, I'll just say people deal with grief in different ways and I will never try to tell someone what they should and shouldn't do with that grief.

High Temp: 89* Leaves Changing: They don't do that where I live. Weekend Plans: Not sure. Ani and Cameron work tomorrow. Sunday is church. Otherwise, no idea.

Not tacky at all. I mean, friend will certainly soon find out about the car right?

I read Pants on Fire by Clayton Smith. It's a collection of completely untrue stories. It was weird. Some were better than others. Some were creepy, some were funny, some made you think. Odd book it is.

Barkety Bark Bark: Her name is Lola. Bigger Property: Nope. I have. I don't like dealing with the upkeep outside. Dog: Lola is a jack russell chihuahua mix

Non-Fiction: None. The last non-fiction book I read was Hary Truman's excellent adventure. Fiction: Almost done Pants on Fire, a collection of short stories that are all definitely lies. Next is Aaru. I was asked to read and review it by the author.

Do brides and grooms normally pay for destination weddings? I thought the guests always have. Anyone going to a wedding from out of town has to pay quite a bit to attend. It looks like they actually negotiated some pretty good deals for their guests. Our wedding was quite cheap and we even paid for the bridesmaids' dresses, but if people are willing to pay to go to a wedding, then I honestly don't see the big deal. If you are invited and don't like it or can't afford it, don't go. That's always an option with weddings.

Today's schedule: Cameron taught taekwondo this morning. I watch Ani's littlest nanny kid while Ani takes the older two to gymnastics and then goes to work this afternoon. Looking forward to: Jamie getting home Friday and that being the last of his travel until December (hopefully). Breakfast: I made cinnamon sugar donuts.

YouTube Red gets rid of all the commercials. Thank you to my son and daughter who share the cost of a Red family account (cheaper than two individual accounts) so I get to go straight to the videos, too.