Not Everyone's Mama

Today was a stay in bed and snuggle type of day.  Christiano is sick with a fever/throwing up and Alyce was happy to lay in bed and read books with me.  I decided to break open Sleep No More by Susan Crandall.

I did a giveaway on this book last week but hadn’t received the book in time to review it (totally my fault, I got to choose when the giveaway started and I was just too excited to wait!).

Let’s go with the synopsis of the book first.

The night was always Abby Whitman’s enemy. As a young girl she walked in her sleep, and one night, she started a fire that scarred her sister for life and left Abby with unbearable guilt . . . and a loneliness that echoes within her. Now Abby has begun blacking out again-with apparently fatal results. A car accident has killed the son of a prominent family. Even though the evidence seems to exonerate her, Abby is plagued by doubts-and soon by mysterious threats. Psychiatrist Dr. Jason Coble is intrigued by Abby and offers to help her explore the dark recesses of her mind. Through this terrifying journey, Jason’s interest turns to passion, and he yearns to give her the love she craves. But first, Abby must trust him-and shed light on secrets that will rock this Southern town and reveal a danger that threatens them both.

Remember I said I just opened the book this morning?  I’m done. 400 pages read in one day.  I’ll admit that I’m a fast reader, but I still had to stop to entertain children when they didn’t want to lay in bed, make lunch, make supper, all that good stuff.  This was just one of those fast paced, can’t put it down type of books!

Right from the first page I kept turning.  It started with the scene describing the fire that was started when she was sleeping and younger that horribly disfigured her little sister.  It’s a good backdrop for the issues that she now has, and poor Abby has issues.  You would too if her experiences had been yours.  She doesn’t have dreams of anything more than what she has now in her future for fear of something else happening when she is sleep walking again.  And it does, when she’s sleep driving.  There is an accident, she comes to in a marsh, and the senator’s son is dad.  She wasn’t the only one in the marsh though.  Someone had called 9-1-1 from the dead son’s phone and it wasn’t him.  He died on impact.

I’m a sucker for a good romance and the one between her and Jason has such potential.  You can taste it as you’re flipping through the pages.  You hate the thought of Abby throwing away this wonderful man because her fear of the past happening all over again is holding back from giving her all to this guy.

There are times that I guessed where Susan was going with the story, but that was ok.  I was not 100% sure until she wanted me to be 100% sure.

I’m also a huge mystery/thriller reader and I think Susan did a great job with Sleep No More.  The story is believable if you stretch your imagination just a bit.

One thing I missed in the book, and I’m hoping that I didn’t just miss that part was a resolution to her dad’s problems with dementia.  Her dad was there in the story and he reminded me of my grandpa when he was going through the beginning stages of it.  She went through the effort to start the process of helping him.  I just wish that there had been more to him and what ended up being wrong.

I really enjoyed the book, if anything (and I’m just being picky here) I would have loved more.  More to their relationship, more to Jason’s relationship with his kids, more to Lucy’s (his ex-wife) attitude at the end.  More to Father Kevin (now there was a surprise twist I didn’t see coming) and his niece Maggie.  Just more.  A couple hundred more pages more. (It really was such a good book I didn’t want it to end.) I’m one of those people who loves more than your average details in my books, I want to know everything about the characters, descriptive settings for every scene, etc. (Most of the books I love, I have read reviews where people though there was too much description, yet I thought it was perfect.)  Without my nitpicking though, it was an excellent book.  I really enjoyed it.  So much so that I plan on buying Susan Crandall‘s other books.

If you’re interested in other titles by Susan Crandall they are:

Seeing Red

Pitch Black

A Kiss in Winter (Warner Forever)

On Blue Falls Pond (Warner Forever)

Back Roads (Warner Forever)

Promises to Keep (Warner Forever)

Magnolia Sky (Warner Forever)

The Road Home (Warner Forever)

Definitely recommended if you like a good fast paced thrilling romance!

Thank you to the Hatchette Book Group for sending me the copy of Sleep No More to review!

In case you need auto insurance quotes, there is a site for that.  I’m just full of useful facts lately aren’t I?

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Winners!

(Click on image to enlarge) 

I used this random number generator since I needed to draw 5 numbers.

Congrats to Lily Kwan, Sean Pynaert, Benita G, Holly Johnson, and Jason!

Finding true love is possible in just 90 days. Renowned clinical psychologist, Dr. Diana Kirschner, uses the latest research, clinical and personal experience to show you how. Dr. Diana knows the questions single women everywhere face: “Why am I attracted to the wrong kind of guys?” “Why is he just not that into me?” “Why can’t I seem to find the One?” She also knows the unconscious mistakes that women make over and over again in love-regardless of age, work success, or the type of men they are dating.

Over the years Dr. Diana has received countless inquiries from single women about writing a how-to guide on her work. Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love is that book.

Love in 90 Days is fun, savvy and based on the latest research on singles, online dating and healthy relationships. Loaded with step-by-step instructions, checklists, and weekly homework assignments, this revolutionary love book is also an intensely personal journey for each reader. Love in 90 Days guides you along your own path towards self discovery with proven and effective dating advice and tough love. Dr. Diana dispels common misconceptions about love relationships and dating, and share personal stories from women who have successfully completed the Love in 90 Days Program. There’s also a chapter devoted to the special issues faced by African-American women, single mothers, and women forty-five and older.

Reviews of Love in 90 Days

“Are you just thinking about getting back into dating? Or is your current dating strategy getting you nowhere? Maybe you’re with a guy now and wondering if he’s “The One?” Or are you in a relationship now that you know deep inside is failing? No matter what is happening in your love life, Love in 90 Days is for you. Grab this book now. It truly rocks!” ~Steve Nakamoto, Writers Digest award-winning author of Men are Like Fish; What Every Women Needs to Know about Catching a Man

“A wonderful addition to any single woman’s library…I was thrilled with how many times Dr. Diana exceeded my expectations…Chapter Two (the Deadly Dating Patterns is mandatory reading.” ~Bonny Albo, Dating Guide at About.com

“The best-selling, how to book, flew off the shelves of bookstores and a copy seems to be on the coffee tables and reference material for many of my friends…”Love in 90 Days” is replete with pages of heart-filled ideas and exercises. Like the song: summertime and the reading is easy. Go for it.”
~Page Larkin, Examiner.com

Check it out on Amazon too!  There are some great reviews of it!

Can you think of a better time than Valentine’s Day to start reading this book?  I can’t!  I’m so happy that I can share it with you at this time of the year!

I am lucky in that though I haven’t gotten to read this book yet, (though if I didn’t have DH, I’d be chomping at the bit to get my hands on it!) I get to give one to five of you!

MAIN ENTRY:

Leave me a comment telling me what you think you’ll like about this book.

EXTRA ENTRIES:

• - Go visit Dr. Diana Kirschner and sign up for her free Love In 90 Days E-Tips.
• - Subscribe to my blog via email or reader
• - Follow me on Twitter (either @HeatherM74 or @GiveawayChick – you’ll get all the giveaways from other bloggers that I enter on @GiveawayChick, either one is fine.)
• - Tweet this giveaway (1X/day)

Win Love in 90 Days by Dr Diana Kirschner from @HeatherM74! 5 copies to win! http://bit.ly/5faLYL ends 1/30 Please RT!

• - Follow me via Google Friend connect
• - add my button to your blog (the 24/7 mom one on the right side)
• - comment on one of my other posts
• - blog about this giveaway with a link back to this post.
• - Digg, StumbleUpon, or any other social networking bookmark this giveaway.  (Not the site, the post.) There are links after each post.

Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

Giveaway ends on 1/30/10 at 11:59 PM CST. Only US/Canadian entries. Winner will be chosen by random number generator. Winner will be emailed and must respond within 48 hours or an alternate winner will be chosen. NO PO BOXES.

In this case, I didn’t receive the book to review, I am just giving it away because it looks like a great title. I have not received any compensation for this.

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I was going through the emails I get every day with blog updates.  I’m never good at checking an RSS feed reader thing, I subscribe to every blog that I read that gives me an email option so that I don’t forget to check them.  Then I set up message rules to put them in a special folder so I can go through them all at once.

Last night I got my daily update from Anti-Supermom with A Letter To Parents.  Go read it.  I’ll wait for you.  I adore her. 

She got me thinking about the boys’ birthdays coming up and what Pato wants to do. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you know that Jordan (going to be 11) and Christiano (going to be 1) share the same birthday.  Both of my boys were born on February 23.

Pato has these big grandiose plans for Jordan’s birthday.  Those plans are not baby friendly at all.  He has this bright idea of taking my 2 brothers, my 2 oldest nieces, Jordan, himself, and 4 of Jordan’s friends to paintball.  Do you know how much that costs?  I didn’t either.  He called and checked and it’s $225, it might have been $250. 

Let’s go through why this bothers me.  A – I don’t do parties at places like Pump It Up because I spend a lot of $$$ on my kids’ presents (probably too much).  I’d rather they have something they can hold onto and keep than 2 hours of fun that will soon be gone, yes, I know they can hold on to memories, but work with me here.  You might be coloring me cheap and that’s ok, I am.  Plus, if we go do things like that, some of my family members are left out (the older ones without any kids – the grandparents.  I’ve never seen my dad jump an an inflatable anything and my mom tends to hurt things when she’s is jumping, sliding, falling, etc. We try to keep her out of those situations when we don’t have her tied up in bubble wrap.  They end up not going when we have parties at those places.

[This posting was interrupted by a 10 month old who is running a fever throwing up all  over me.  Poor Nano.]

B – It will be Nano’s birthday too.  And it’s a big birthday.  He’s going to be 1.  You don’t just fluff that over.  How much fun is he going to have sitting home with mom and his sisters while dad and Jordan are out having a war with paint pellets?

I thought we’d do the normal party here for both of them with the whole family invited.  The kids always fight a lot over who is playing with who have fun when all of their cousins are around.

Pato has his heart set on Paintball.  And now he’s got Jordan’s heart set on it.  I don’t know how many times I’ve told him not to get the kids’ hopes up for something until it’s been decided.  He thinks they will help talk me into something just gets all excited over his idea and can’t contain it.

Then there is the cake dilemma. We usually order our cakes from Hy-Vee.  Their whipped frosting is the yummiest.  We all gather round my computer and the birthday kid to be looks through their designs and picks their cake.  Then I call and order it.

For the first birthday they give you a matching little round cake for the baby to dig into.  It’s tradition.  All of my kids have had that 1st cake.  The problem is the main cake has to say happy first birthday.  I can’t add and happy 11th birthday. Simple enough, I just buy the extra little round cake.  The other problem is, who picks out the way the cake is decorated?  Jordan doesn’t want a cutesy little baby cake and Christiano isn’t exactly in to Bakugan yet.  Maybe I could go with something like this –

Harley Davidson cake

Christiano likes anything with wheels.  Jordan likes motorcycles.  I think I just worked that out in my blog post.  Jordan just looked at the cake and said he liked it.  I’ll just ask them to make the baby cake to match.

You might ask why I don’t make the cake?  Because whenever I try to decorate a cake it ends in disaster. (Thank God no one has put me on Cake Wrecks yet.)

That was Kat’s 4th birthday cake.  Not so pretty.

Alyce’s 2nd birthday cake.  Not quite the disaster of pink lumpiness that Kat’s was, but still not as  cool as the decorated one.  (In my defense, the pink lumpiness came because I sat the decorating frosting by the stove when the cake was cooking and it was half melted.  Never mind, maybe that isn’t quite a defense, since I’m the one who put it there.)

I told Pato I did not want to have Christiano on Jordan’s birthday.  No, no, no.  I wanted them each to have their own days so that I wouldn’t have to figure out how to make one day special for both of them.  Think my body would listen? 

Oh well, it’ll all work out.  It’s this first one that will be hard when it comes to working out the logistics of all of it.  After that I’ll know what to do.

And the Ricky Martin tweet of the day –

Maybe that should have been yesterday’s tweet of the day but I didn’t see it until after I posted yesterday.

And I’ll leave you with an artist that I saw over on Mama’s Money Savers.  I saw the pictures in one of my email updates and had to go check out the giveaway.  Now I must have this CD.  I love her!  MoZella – Belle Isle.  The whole CD is only $5 for the MP3 version.  I think I’m going to have to get it.

Is her voice not gorgeous? I’m probably the last one to hear of her.  I always am.  I had her MySpace page open last night and listened to her songs over and over.  Love her!

I just noticed that video was recorded here in Des Moines, Ia.  Very cool!

PS In my surfing I came across prenatal vitamins reviews.  I take them still since I am at 10 months of nursing number 4.  What’s your favorite?  I can’t take actually prenatals when I’m pregnant.  I have to take Flintstones – a double dose each day.  Prenatals make my morning sickness so bad that I end up on nausea medicine.  After giving birth though and while nursing, I can take them just fine.  How weird is that?

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I didn’t have a lot of time to take a picture this morning.  Christiano is running a fever and throwing up.  I hurried outside, saw this tree with the ice crystals hanging off of the branches, snapped a few pictures, hope that I could work with whatever I got and came back in to hold my cranky little guy.  It took a bit of color editing because it’s dark and foggy out, but I like the end result.

I’ll have to take a picture tomorrow and compare the ice.  We’re supposed to have an ice “situation” starting tonight with up to 1/3 of an inch of ice to be expected by morning.  Fun fun.

Now might be a good time to check on the life insurance statistics.  Or do like me, don’t drive on the ice.  I hibernate.

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Cupid is kinda funny in his toga.

What do love and life insurance have in common? More than you might realize. The motivation behind purchasing life insurance is love: We buy it because we love people and want to protect them financially. Think of it as the ultimate act of enduring love.

To get Americans thinking about life insurance as an expression of enduring love, the nonprofit LIFE Foundation is sponsoring the Crazy4Love Photo Contest. From now until February 19, they are asking people to share digital photos that demonstrate how they’ve expressed their love to the ones they love. It can be a picture of you and your spouse or significant other. Or maybe a picture of you with your children or other close relatives or friends.

LIFE is interested in photos that capture the full range of emotions – from expressions of love that are crazy or embarrassing to ones that are romantic or tender. Your photo must be accompanied by a short caption – no more than 50 words – that describes what is particularly meaningful or memorable about the digitally captured, loving moment.

If your a shutterbug like me you probably have tons of photos showing love in one form or another.  Head on over to http://www.insureyourlove.org and enter their contest!

FTC Disclosure – I am receiving no compensation for telling you about this giveaway, I have been entered to win a $250 American Express gift card and Insure Your Love family Gift Basket filled with Valentine’s Day-themed children’s books, DVDs and toys by posting it.

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