With A Good Book, You Can Travel Anywhere!

Nov 292011

Have you read any good books lately? I haven’t gotten to read as much lately as I would like to. I have so many books on my Kindle that I have downloaded and want to read, but haven’t had the time. Reading is one of my favorite things to do, and relaxes me. I love books! The smell of them, the feel of them! Books can take you anywhere that you want to go, without ever having to leave the safety of your home.

When my children were little I bought them books all the time. They had a bookshelf filled with books. I used to read to them every night before they went to sleep, but of course that faded with the time. Now they’re 19 and 21, neither one of them like to read. When I talk to my daughter on the phone, she will ask me “what are you doing?” Reading, I’ll say, and she comes back with “reading is for nerds.” Well, if that is the case, then I’m a big nerd!

Here are just a few of the books I have read lately, that are worth mentioning. Maybe you will find something new to read, and get taken away, if for only a little while.

The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan- I enjoyed this book so much that I read it in 3 nights, before going to bed. I didn’t want to put in down, but I had to get some sleep so my brain would function for work the next day.

Mary McAllister is a widow and lives in Mill River Vermont, in a white mansion. She hasn’t left her home in almost 60 years. Mary was disfigured by a blow from her husband and now suffers from a severe social anxiety disorder. The only contact Mary has with the outside world are her bedroom window, where she can watch the small town below. With an elderly priest, who has a habit of stealing spoons for his collection, and the mail and her television.

Most of the residents think of Mary and her white marble mansion as weird and peculiar. Mary gets to know the people of the town through the local news paper and her television. The people of Mill River do not think of Mary much at all, to most she is insignificant.

An arsonist, a covetous nurse, and the endearing village idiot are among the few who have ever seen Mary. Newcomers to Mill River–a police officer and his daughter and a new fourth grade teacher–are also curious about the reclusive old woman. But only Father Michael O’Brien knows Mary and the secret she keeps–one that, once revealed, will change all of their lives forever. (description for this book, taken from the Amazon website)

A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux is an excellent book. A Knight In Shinning Armor is a time travel, historical romance. I stayed up way to late several nights, just to finish reading this book. I could hardly wait to see what happened next. This book has it all, romance, history, conflict, drama & time travel. I don’t believe in time travel, but it is an exciting thought though! This book will take you to 1960′s England and back to England in 1988. Great read!

While on vacation in England, Dougless Montgomery is abandoned by her live in boyfriend, Robert and his spoiled teenage daughter. Dougless is left behind in a small church yard with no passport, money or any of her clothing. So she does the only thing she can do, she goes inside the small church and walks near the tomb of Nicholas Stafford, an earl who died in 1564. Dougless begins to cry, and wishes for knight in shinning armor. Almost immediately Nicholas appears, and Dougless does not believe he is who he says he is, the earl of Thornwyck. Nicholas was hung for treason in 1564 in England.

Dougless thinks that Nicholas dresses and speaks weird, but she doesn’t believe he is from the 15th century. Nicholas tells Douglass that he was wrongly accused of treason and betrayed by someone, but he doesn’t know who. He wants Douglass to help him search for information so he can clear his good name. Douglass does not believe him, but eventually Nicholas convinces her to assist him, and their adventures begin. Douglass is intrigued by Nicholas but mainly agrees because she doesn’t want to call her parents to help her out ‘one more time.’ They already think she is constantly messing up her life with bad decisions.

Dougless and Nicholas become lovers, and then suddenly Nicholas is gone. Dougless gets taken back to the 1560′s, when Nicholas was a young man, before he was the earl of Thornwyck. She is still determined to clear his name even though he does not remember who she is.

A Kingdom of Dreamsby Judith McNaught is the first historical romance that I ever read. I loved this book so much, that I still read it once every year. If you like medevil knights, castles, romance, betrayl and great conflict, this is the book for you. When the story was over I didn’t want it to end. Royce Westmoreland, Duke of Claymore is the knight in shinning armor that all women dream of, but only few ever find. Judith McNaught wrote 2 more books about the Claymore men, Whitney My Love and Until You. All 3 books are excellent, but A Kingdom of Dreams is by far my favorite.

A Kingdom of Dreams is about Jennifer Merrick & Royce Westmoreland, Duke of Claymore (know as the “Wolf”). Jennifer is feisty, beautiful and loyal to a fault. Royce is handsome, dark, and feared by many. Jennifer along with her sister, Brenna are kidnapped from her convent school by Royce’s brother Stephen.

Jennifer is very headstrong and defies Royce at every turn. She is forced to marry Royce, and does not give into him easily. She has sworn to never love Royce to her father and her clan, and feels she is betraying them when she does start to love him. This is a story full of emotion, loyalty, betrayal and pride. A must have book!

Take advantage of the cooler weather and curl up on the couch with a good book!

Happy Reading-

My Review of the New Amazon Kindle Fire

Product Reviews 7 Responses »

Nov 262011

Have you seen the new Amazon Kindle Fire? It is awesome! I per-ordered mine from the Amazon website in September, and just received it last Wednesday. I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas morning to get here. I was so excited when it finally came! I was on my way home from the DMV when my husband called me and said “Where are you at? Can you stop at the store before you get home and get a coke?” Sure, I said. Me, “hey did my kindle come today?” No, he said. Then I heard him giggling (yes he giggled), and had the nerve to play with me about my kindle not coming. I said “don’t play with me, did it come or not?” Him, “can you just stop at the store and get a coke?” Me, “I am going to smack you when I get home for terrorizing me.” (No, I did not really smack him but I did fuss a bit)

My kindle was delivered that day and he was trying to aggravate me, because he knows I have been patiently waiting for it. Alright, back to the review. I would first like to say that I am not being paid to give this review or compensated in any way. I just love the Kindle Fire and wanted to share my review with you all.

When you take the Kindle Fire out of the box, the battery is already 1/2 charged. Which was cool because you can start playing with it right away. Registering the Fire was a snap. If you purchase the Kindle Fire from Amazon it comes to you already registered to your account. When you turn the Kindle Fire on for the first time it starts to update the software. Of course you can choose to stop the download of the update and do it later, but I chose to go ahead and let it update. When you click ‘Web’ it will ask you to connect to a wireless network. After you find your wireless network and put in the key code you are ready to go.

The display looks great! It is clear and bright, and the graphics are wonderful. Everyone is comparing the Kindle Fire to the Ipad, which I can not do, I have never used an Ipad. This is the first tablet that I have ever had or used. I wanted to see what a game would be like on the Fire, so I downloaded Angry Birds. AWESOME! The game installed fast and play was smooth. I must admit that I also wanted to see what all the hype was about with Angry Birds. I can see how flinging little birds and smashing them into little green pigs can become addicting. So with my curiosity quenched on the Angry Bird game, I moved on. Now my husband is addicted to Angry Birds. (it could be worse, right?)

I next set up my email account. You can easily set up your gmail, hotmail, yahoo mail and a few others in just a few clicks. Put in your username and password and you are ready to read mail. The controls are pretty simple to use. You can delete, reply, forward and even send new mail. ~~The only thing that I see you can’t do is move your mail to different folders. Which is ok, I can use my laptop for that later.~~ You can also move your mail to different folders, which I originally didn’t see this option available. You have to touch the sync icon at the bottom of the screen, and then you will be able to move a message if you choose.

I have read a few reviews that said the Amazon Silk browser was slow and unresponsive. I didn’t find that to be true. All the websites I viewed loaded pretty fast and looked great. I really didn’t expect the websites to look just like they do on my laptop (but smaller) and they did. I can even read my blog on the Kindle Fire. I also typed in the address for a few of the other blogs I follow and they loaded pretty fast also. You can also open multiple tabs on the Silk Browser, which helps when viewing several sites at the same time. I am very impressed!

With your new Kindle Fire you get a free month of Amazon Prime. I wanted to see how movies streamed on the Fire, so I chose ‘My Best Friends Wedding’ and touched play. The picture was crisp and clear, and looked just as good as a movie streaming on my laptop. There was no lag or buffering time. Yep, you guessed! It was AWESOME! I am not sure if I would ever sit and watch a whole movie on the Fire, but it is good to know that I would be able to if I chose to. You can also purchase movies and download them on the Fire, and carry it with you to a doctors appointment to watch in the waiting room. Which I may do, you never know.

Now as for reading a book on the Kindle Fire… at first it was a shock to my eyes. I don’t think I will be able to read as long on this device as I did on my Kindle Keyboard. There are 3 different setting for the screen color when reading a book. You have the black text on white back ground, white text on black background, and brown text on light tan background. I prefer the last one. It is easier on my eyes and I can read longer with that setting. There is still all the same features when reading, dictionary look up, highlighting text, adding your own notes. It’s all still there, only better.

I like the carousel. With a swipe of your finger you can search through all your books and applications. You can also add books and apps to your favorites. The only feature that I do not see is that you can not create ‘categories’ for your content. If you can I have not figured out how to do it. If you figure out how to add categories, please feel free to share it with me.

I know there are office apps that you can purchase and download, but I haven’t done that yet. I am not sure if I am willing to pay $15 for the application either, especially when I have Microsoft Office on my laptop. All in all I love my Kindle Fire. The price is great for what you get. The only thing that was not included in the box was a usb cord, but we can purchase one of those pretty cheap on eBay or amazon.

How do you like your Kindle Fire? Please feel free to share any tips or tricks you may know. I love learning new things!

Happy Reading!

How To Make Cabbage Rolls

Recipes, What's Cooking 8 Responses »

Nov 222011

My Aunt Mary used to make Cabbage Rolls all the time for us. I never thought about how she made them or how long it took to cook them, until I did it myself. It is pretty simple and straight forward. The only part that is a little difficult is pulling the leaves off the cabbage without taring them. Yep, that’s the tricky part. I suggest you buy 2 heads of cabbage, unless you can find 1 really big one. I promise though that all the time you spend pulling leaves off the cabbage will be well worth it. Cabbage Rolls are delicious! I usually don’t measure when I’m cooking, only when baking. So I am going to do my best at giving you measurements, so let’s get started!

2 lbs of Ground Round (it doesn’t have as much fat, but feel free to use ground turkey or ground beef)
1 1/2 to 2- 28 oz. cans of diced tomatoes (you can use fresh tomatoes, crushed or any tomatoes of your choosing)
1 medium sized onion
4 garlic clove
Olive Oil (vegetable oil is fine also)
1 large or 2 small heads of cabbage
3/4 cup cooked rice
4 oz Tomato Paste

Chop up the onion and garlic, add about a 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and saute on medium heat until the onion start to look clear (use half the onion and 2 garlic cloves). Then add the tomatoes and cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes (10 minutes if you want a thicker sauce), letting the sauce cook down a little bit. Turn stove eye down to warm and put a lid on the pan.

In skillet add 1 tbs of olive oil. Then add the remaining chopped onion and garlic, and saute until the onion starts to look clear. Add the tomato paste and mix together well and then set the pan aside til later.

Remove the bad leaves from the cabbage, and then take a sharp knife and cut out the core. Be careful not not to cut it in half, because we need the leaves whole. Then remove cabbage leaves one at a time. Be careful to keep each leaf whole, because we will be using them to roll our meat filling in.

Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Place the cabbage leaves in the boiling water and blanch for about 5 minutes. We want the leaves pliable, so we can roll the meat mixture in them. Take the cabbage leaves out of the hot water and put them in a bowl gently, and run cold water over them until they are cool to the touch. Strain all the water off the leaves and sit aside while we prepare the meat mixture.

In a large bowl mix together your hamburger meat, the cooked rice, onion, garlic and tomato paste mixture. Add about 1/2 tsp salt and pepper and mix well. (I mix the hamburger mixture with my hands. It is messy, but it works best and gets all the ingredients mixed well).

Ok, now we’re ready to put together our cabbage rolls. First preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and get out your baking dish. Line the bottom of you baking dish with a few of the cabbage leaves to keep from burning your cabbage rolls. Take your first cabbage leaf, lay it on a cutting board or plate. Get you knife and cut a little bit of the hard steam along the bottom of the vein. You will want to do this because it will make your cabbage rolls, roll more easily.

Take a scoop of the meat mixture (be careful not to put too much or you want be able to close it), and put it along the bottom, middle of the cabbage leaf. (I should’ve put a picture for this step, but I didn’t take one, sorry) Now we are going to roll it like you would if you were making a burrito. After you roll it up, tuck the ends under and lay it in the pan, folded side down. There you go you’ve rolled your first cabbage roll. Repeat, until you have all of your cabbage rolls rolled and in the baking dish.

Now take your tomato sauce mixture and pour it all over the top of your cabbage rolls. Make sure they are all covered. Pop them in the oven and cook them for about 1 hour, or until the meat is fully cooked, and enjoy!

Eat and Enjoy!

What I Am Grateful For

Family, Thoughts and Life 2 Responses »

Nov 172011

"I am thankful God gave us the tranquility of nature"

This may seem like a simple list to write for most people, but for me it is sometimes difficult to remember to be thankful. No, I am not ungrateful for what God has blessed me with. I am one of ‘those’ people that always sees the ‘glass half empty.’ It is just that the day to day stress and struggles of life sometimes take control and make me forget that I have lots to be thankful for. Things could be worse, and most of the stress an struggles take place inside my own mind. I know that I am not the only one that feels this way at times. I have started telling myself daily the things I am thankful for. Do you find yourself forgetting that you have lots to be grateful for?

What I am grateful for…

My physical health. (even though it could be improved by more exercise and eating healthier)
My 2 (almost grown) children that are responsible, sensible and finding their own way in this life. (they are hard workers and responsible, and have never been in any trouble or gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd. I just wish they had stayed ‘little’ longer.)
My husband, Jose! (He is always smiling, and looking on the bright side of things, which is a little annoying at times. I couldn’t imagine life without him.)
The roof over my head and food to put in our bellies. (A home and food is something that we sometimes take for granted. So often there are others that don’t even have these simple necessities.)
My family, all of them. (I thank God everyday that they are all still with us. I love them all, even the ones that make me crazy beyond words. I wouldn’t have chose them any different if God had allowed me to hand pick them myself.)
Laughter! (Without the gift of laughter, life would sometimes be unbearable. Laughter releases endorphins, which in turns makes us feel really good. It also eases tension and gives us a new perspective.)
My dogs, Molly & Beauty.(They are my constant loyal companions. They are always there, and act like they understand every word I say to them. I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.)
My Kindle Fire. (I love my Kindle, especially the new one. Reading books takes me to places that I’ll never physically be able to go. Reading relaxes me more than anything else.)
Coffee! (I absolutely love coffee, all kinds and all flavors! Without coffee my mornings would not be good. It is a necessity in the morning! When it gets colder I look forward to a excellent mug of hot chocolate!
The ability to see, hear & taste God’s creation. (I can’t imagine not being able to see or hear. I look around at the trees, the sky, even my own hands and appreciate all the more the gift that our creator has given us.)

I am grateful for so much more. That was my quick list, and the most important. I need to remember everyday the simple things in life. The best are the people in my life, and the four legged ones too. Without the people life would have no meaning or happiness. I did list the kindle fire above and coffee and my laptop of course. These things are not people but they are important to me and make me happy also.

What are you most grateful for? Share with me, I would really like to know! Til next time… take care!

(Nature photo taken by Aacool, Smokey Mountains, TN)

Grandmother Another Word For Love

Family, Thoughts and Life 7 Responses »

Nov 022011

My Granny, Taken About 1949

I think one of the greatest gifts that we are given is a ‘Grandmother.’ Some of us have 2, some 1, and some have passed away. No matter how many grandmothers you have, there is always ‘that one’ that is special. That one, that has always been there for you no matter what. The one that loves you when you think your unlovable. She has been everything to you. A mother, a father, best friend and she has even been your therapist when duty called. There is nothing that she wouldn’t or hasn’t done for you. A grandmother is like home. A Grandmother is another word for love!

Grandmothers go by many titles. My grandmother was ‘Granny’ for me, and for my cousin she was ‘Nana’. Some go by Grandma, Gram, Grammy, Nanny, Gran, Mimi, and Me-maw, Ma-maw. There are many more name for grandmother. I found this neat site that has 100′s of names that grandmothers go by. It is called Banana Nana. I never knew there were so many names to call a grandmother. What do you call your grandmother?

My granny was like a super hero for me. It seems that she would swoop in and save the day, without having to be asked. If there were shoes that needed to be bought, she bought them. If there was a book that needed to be read, she read it. One of my most favorite books that I loved to hear her read was Walt Disney’s Uncle Remus Stories. I loved to hear about the Tar Baby, Brer Rabbit & Brer Bear. She did the accents and voices, and made the tar baby com’ o’ live for us! I still have that book to this day.

Grandmothers are full of wisdom! They have lived longer that us, and been there and done that. We may not always like their advice, but we would be very smart to heed it. When I was younger I thought I knew what was best for me, and thought I knew it all. I thought I was smarter than my granny, I wasn’t. Here is a few of the things she has told me over the years. A few of them may seem silly, but she meant what she said, and she means what she says.

A marriage is work! It is never like the movies or romance novels. If you want it
to last, you have to work hard at it to make sure that it does.
Always make sure you have on clean drawers (underwear), because you never
know what could happen.
Stay away from no account boys.
If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.
If a boy tries to boss you around or tell you what to do, then do the opposite
just because he said not to.
If your husband gives your cat away to someone, just because he doesn’t like cats,
then give his dog away just to get even.
If a boy tries to touch you in private places, knock the crap out of him.
If a man is good to you and loves you, it doesn’t matter what he looks like.
(It doesn’t hurt if he’s good on the eyes, though)
Always tell the truth, and if you say your going to do something do it.
Treat others the way that you want to be treated and better.

I am very lucky that I my Granny is still with us. She is the only Grandmother that I have left. I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like to because we live it different states now. If you have a Grandmother, hold her dear to your heart and never forget to tell her how much she means to you. You never know what the future holds, and you don’t want to look back and have regrets. What name do you call your Grandmother? Grandmother is another word for love!