How did I miss Kristen Hannah???

Lately we have been having stormy weather and I have discovered a new (to me) writer that I simply love her. More than that, I trust her.  I don't know how I managed to miss her for so long, but I consider it one of the supreme luxuries of my life that I have found a writer I love who has many books yet unknown to me.  No offense, Stephen King, but I left you for your wife years ago and frankly, I've never looked back.  It was just too long a wait, and I never got over the Gunslinger series that started out so great, only to disappoint me after waiting for years.  I mean, honestly, what the hell WAS that????  It was beneath you, and it was certainly beneath me.  I don't regret walking away because I had just stayed too long.  It was just too much for me.  We had a lot of good years together, SK, but I have moved on.  I know you don't care, and that's fine.  You might spend more time with the Rock Bottom's.  You deserve some time off.

Now that I've got that off my chest, back to the fabulous writer.  Her name is Kristin Hannah and if she wrote it, I will pick it up and read it.  I'm still overly loyal but I've learned to look before I leap.

Last week I found myself in a second hand store and picked up Firefly Lane, I would say that it's light reading but it's really not.  Her style is light but her words go very deep.  I have not-been-hurrying-through-it on purpose, and I'm already dreading the end of the story.  So I looked her up trying to copy a picture from her website, but the keypad remains a challenge for me, so I just put the link if you click on

THESE BOOKS.

To my great surprise and joy, Firefly Lane is the only the first part of the story, soon to be continued with Fly Away.  I highly recommend Firefly Lane for young women as this is the story of a deep and abiding friendship that illustrates beautifully the struggle between staying and home and raising children and having a career.  It has been one of the biggest disappointments of my life to see women turn on each other over this issue in my lifetime.  Get us out of the kitchen and what do we do?  Tear each other apart. Greeeeaaat.  I myself am not too proud of that.  I hope anyone who reads this blog is able to see beyond these trifling idiots and realize that life is better when we are all on the same team.  Divided, we fall.  Any "we".  Think about that and have some respect, why don't we?  Have we not all worn various bodily fluids on our clothes?  Is that not a bonding experience????   What is WRONG with us, anyway????  We could at least try it before we have to sign up in order to have a child grown in a lab, which looks like where we are headed to me.

Firefly Lane is the story of two best friends grew up in the 70's and 80's.  They were "liberated" women who chose for themselves, respected each other's choices, and got to about my age and were very disappointed to discover that whatever choices they had made never felt like "enough".  Which begs the question "what is enough, anyway?" and I could go on forever on that.  I think we all could, actually.  The decades they grew up in were that same decades I grew up in, so for me it's not only a soul searching novel but I was there, I remember all the music and what passed for styles.  The 80's were just so bizarre I don't think they would be  easy to understand if you weren't there but she does a great job.  She just sets the scene and you get it, she doesn't waste words trying to explain "why" things were the way they were.  Who could, really?

You will love this writer, I think. I do.  The first book I read by her was called Home Front, about a woman who flew a Black hawk helicopter in the war AND had a family and husband.  Again, you might think it's a light read.  Her books look like light reads, whoever designs her covers does a very good job at selling to people who don't actually read (take no offense, Danielle Steele fans, but you know who you are*no judgement*) but her stories go right to the heart, with your brain fighting all the way.  She spares nothing, leaves no stone un-turned, and I have found each one of her books to be a gift.

It's almost summer.  Get your reading list made, and pick up one of Kristin Hannah's books. You won't regret it.  If you do, I'll bake you a cake. ;D

Blizzard - Seriously

We are having a blizzard.  This blizzard was predicted, prepared for and anticipated madly for at least two days.  The kids came home from school early yesterday and joyously proclaimed that they were not having school today.  Indeed, the blizzard was supposed to start last night here. 

I stayed up until almost midnight reading because I fully expected to wake up and be in the middle of a blizzard.  I marveled at what a difference a "snow day" can make in your life.  We all remember the feeling from childhood of course, but as an adult with a job, snow days are few and far between.  If there is even the slightest suggestion that you may not have to get up and do that same thing at the same time, suddenly everything changes.  Normally I have to drink coffee when I get home in order to stay up until 10 pm, so "tired" am I.  Last night I wasn't tired at all and hated to stop reading even then, but I did because I knew there was the outside chance that the blizzard wouldn't come. Many years of experience has taught me this.  It may not hold true in your life.  I hope it doesn't.  But I do not count on "snow days" until they actually happen.  That's just kind of the way things go with my life.  I 've learned to roll with it.

I think I live most of my life under some kind of deadline pressure, only the deadline never comes.  It's just the perpetual pressure of what I have to do next with a clock ticking, ticking, ticking down in my head.  That needs to stop.  Enough is enough.  Why do we do this to ourselves?  DO other people do that to themselves?  Is it just me?  I know intellectually that there is no "finish line", no "prize", no point at which we will ever be "done", as long as we still live.  But I can't seem to shake the constant checking off of that list and the adding to it. 

So, this is one snow day that will not be wasted.  It will be treasured.  I give myself permission to take a break from the list and the pressure and especially the review of what I did wrong or didn't do at all.

I give you permission too.  

So I wake up this morning, nothing.  Not a thing.  It's just started snowing in KC and Joplin is already buried.  So I figure ok, I'll go to work and stay there till noon or it starts flying, whichever comes first.  Due to the delivery of the new doghouse, I have gotten my car back in the garage, and I am just reveling in the fact that it's inside out of the weather when I push the button to open the garage door and it doesn't work.  See what I mean about my life?  I shelled out the money for a new garage door opener last year and it has never worked right.  The remote almost never worked.  About 1/2 the time you can open it with the keypad on the outside, but most of the time the button works.  Not this morning, but most of the time.  So I sit there and keep hiting the button, which is my technique for things that don't work, and eventually, after stopping and starting repeatedly, it goes all the way up.  I back out the car, have to get back out, hit the button, repeatedly, again, and then have to beat it to make it under the infernal thing before I can even leave to go to work.  I was exhausted already.

So the great Blizzard of 2011 started about 9 am.  It grew steadily worse all morning, cancellations are rolling out of the radio, local law enforcement is advising that visibility is dropping rapidly and basically begging people not to go out, and still no one is calling off work.

I left at noon. I think most people did.  Eventually they all left, thank God, I do not know what time.

What I do know is that we had about 6 inches on the ground when I got home at noon.  If you can believe this, I got the car back in the garage and we battened down the hatches.  I changed my FB status to "let us put on our mother's aprons and cook it up!" and got busy.  I baked brownies, made hot chocolate and got baked beans and tenderloins ready to go for supper.   All this time the snow fell like crazy and the wind blew until you couldn't tell which way it was coming from or going.  We brought in the dogs and attended the Snowpocalypse on FB, ate brownies and watched movies. 

We just went out to check and see how bad it was (and I'm sorry I don't have pictures, but I tried and all I got was a wet camera), and we are officially snowed in, man!!  In front of the garage there is a drift at least 3 feet deep.  There was 8 inches on the porch, most of which I managed to get off.  You cannot tell, at the end of the porch where the steps are, where the steps are.  It's just all snow.  You have to step off and wait till you hit bottom.  The dogs went out and were up to their shoulders.  They had to make it to the street before they could pee! They were pretty excited about it and ran first up the street, then down the street, chased by my Youngest Baby.  He did not have his hat. gloves, or coveralls on either.  But you probably knew that.  The one concession he made was boots, and if he wore them you can bet that there was no other way he could make it off the porch.  He is short on preparation but long on dedication, and between him and me using my meanest voice yelling at the dogs to come back, we got them to come back home.  They had less enthusiasm breaking through the 40 feet of driveway drifted in 3 feet of snow. Never underestimate the effect that the sound of food being shaken in the container  you feed them from.  I recommend using metal container, as the sound carries better through blizzards and stuff.  We are all safe and sound, surrounded by food and many, many blankets.

It's supposed to go on into the night, they are saying.  I don't know when it will stops, but when it does, I am going to have to find someone with a tractor and blade or something to dig me out. 

I talked to my family down south and Neosho is reporting 18 inches.  It will be interesting to see how much we end up with.  I can't see either one of the wagons in the back yard anymore, but with it blowing like this it's really hard to tell how much is on the ground.

Enjoy the blizzard if you are in it.  It kind of makes you feel sorry for the ones who didn't get a snow day, doesn't it?