Just A Little Red

Confessions Of A Bookaholic – Guilty Pleasures Edition #47 – Sweet Valley High Super Thriller #3 – No Place To Hide

Posted on November 30, 2014 by DMW

Another Super Thriller (I confess, they’re always my favorite) for your reading (guilty!) pleasure. They’ve covered crazed killers, witness protection and the mob hits so far, next up: A wannabe ghost story. Is it a ghost story or is it real life? Read on and find out! 😉

“No Place To Hide” (Super Thriller)

Sweet Valley Scale: 4.5 out of 5 Twins

When Elizabeth Wakefield invites Nicholas Morrow on a picnic to help cure his blues, her plan has some unexpected results. Nicholas falls in love with Barbara, a beautiful girl who is involved in the twins’ most dangerous mystery yet. Barbara tells Nicholas that they must hide their relationship from her uncle who she is staying with. Hearing the fear in Barbara’s voice, Nicholas decides to tell the twins and the three of them start investigating. The more they find out… the more desperate Barbara’s situation seems. Then Elizabeth is threatened by an anonymous caller. Now the twins face a terrible choice: either give up their search and leave Barbara in deadly trouble, or save Barbara’s life – and risk their lives, and Nicholas’s!

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Posted in Book Reviews, Books, fiction, Guilty Pleasures, Reviews | Tagged "book review", "long lost past", "mistaken identity", "past secrets", "reading list", "super thriller", "sweet valley high", "unrequited love", book, ghost, kidnapped, lookalike, murder, obsession, prisoner, sweet valley | Leave a comment

Black Friday Madness – Emphasis On The MADNESS

Posted on November 28, 2014 by DMW

Every year I shake my head in utter disbelief at the craziness that is Black Friday. I mean I love saving money. I am incredibly frugal and taking advantage of a sale or buying something for less makes me see all the dollar signs of the money I am saving and gives me a happy feeling. But not such a happy feeling that I lose sight of the big picture and put those saved dollars above all else.

I remember when I was a kid and all of the (adult) women in my family would go shopping together on Black Friday. It seemed like they had a good time, and they knew what stores they were going to and were very strategic but it was a day they saved money, went out to lunch and enjoyed themselves. This was twenty years ago, before people would wait outside the night before. Or the week before. Or two weeks before! It was before Black Friday meant hearing about at least one person being injured, either from the mob waiting for doors to open, or getting into a brawl with a patron at some store. I mean I was left at home to play with my cousins, so I never experienced Black Friday in happier, more innocent and less cray cray times, but I find myself longing for the return of that innocence.

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Posted in Christmas, Holidays, Life, Personal | Tagged Black Friday, deals, madness, save money, shopping, tradition, waste of time | Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving! The 2014 Edition

Posted on November 27, 2014 by DMW

So this Thanksgiving we are doing something a little different, and that is – we’re not doing much. I’m surprisingly okay with that, in fact I don’t want to do anything big or be social or go out or have a bunch of people over. The funny thing is that my husband, Roy, feels the same way. Usually he wants to try and spend time with his brother, his brother’s wife and their two (make that three as of September 30!) children. Sometimes it is easy to do things with them on the holidays, and other times it is like pulling teeth out of someone. And then of course his brother thinks it’s me making a big deal about how they should come over since they’re family and local, when it’s really not. My husband wants them over because they’re family and isn’t that what Thanksgiving is all about? Etc. etc. But this year between a new baby, and a planned trip in the mountains (their trip, not ours) Roy didn’t even bother and while I love my in-laws and nephew and nieces, the idea of a quiet laidback, we don’t give a crap Thanksgiving seems so blissfully wonderful, I seriously can’t wait.

We’re making food, because we both love food, but we’re not making so much that we could feed fourteen people. We just decided to make our favorite sides, and a ham. Roy was all about the ham, and I honestly prefer it to turkey nine out of ten times, so I was not a tough sale, and it also seemed like something that would be much lower maintenance when we’re not having a bunch of people over. The ham is all Roy, and quite honestly… Thank God. For our sides, we’re having sweet potatoes (Roy’s favorite), green bean casserole (my favorite, and attached to my memories of the holiday, more on that in a minute), stuffing (we both love that, and we make our own, we even make our own bread to use for the stuffing) and mashed potatoes and gravy. We’re doing the last one simply because I love gravy, and since we’re not doing a turkey, and gravy doesn’t really go with ham, we need to pair it with something. We’ll have a pie (or three!) for dessert.

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Posted in Events, Family, Holidays, home, Life, Thoughts | Tagged "food times", "good food", "laid back", comedy, dinner, friends, fun, gratitude, thankful, Thanksgiving, tradition | Leave a comment

Best Friends Forever: You’re Never Ready To Lose Your First

Posted on November 24, 2014 by DMW

Everyone remembers their first – their first love, their first best friend… that first fill in the blank, is always a big deal, so incredibly special… My first best friend’s name was Matt. And when I think back on all of the great times we had, I smile. 372 days after I first found out he was gone, and remembering is more happy than sad. My breath still catches in my chest, I can’t speak and there is a heat behind my eyes, and I know my body is readying itself for tears, but they don’t come anymore. And I don’t really stop smiling. Time doesn’t make the pain go away or make a person forget, but it does seem to turn what was sharp into something dull and much more tolerable.

I have been thinking about Matt a lot lately, and it wasn’t until I went through some old writing that I realized why. Because a year ago last week was when I found out he was gone in that terrible permanent sense. And though we fell out of touch along the way, the grief gripped me as if no time had passed. It surprised me – how fierce it was… This is what I wrote, eight hours after finding out he was gone, still trying to make sense of everything, still trying to accept that he really was gone.

Wrecked

Last night I was wrecked. I gathered my things so as not to let on that I was anything but okay. My husband had dozed on the couch; I needed him but my friend was at the table on his computer. I grabbed my water and a book in hopes I could lose myself in it and forget. But that was a pipe dream because I had just found out.

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Posted in Life, Love, Personal, Relationships | Tagged "best friend", "brain cancer", "friends forever", anniversary, Cancer, death, firsts, friendship, grief, loss, memorial, memories, wrecked | Leave a comment

Confessions Of A Bookaholic – Guilty Pleasures Edition #46 – Sweet Valley High #50 – Out Of Reach

Posted on November 23, 2014 by DMW

This book tackles real-life issues like racism so you know it is going to be awful – like “I can’t turn away from this train wreck” awful, and this book does not disappoint! 😛

“Out Of Reach”

Sweet Valley Scale: 4 out of 5 Twins

More than anything else, Jade Wu wants to be as all-American as the other girls in Sweet Valley – just blend in. But her traditional Chinese father refuses to allow his daughter to stray from the old traditions of the country he is from. He won’t let Jade date or do any of the things other teenage girls do. Jade is a talented dancer and when she wins the solo part in a dance show she takes the role despite her father’s objections. Soon she is happier than she dreamed she could be, especially when the show brings her together with handsome David Prentiss. Jade begins to confide everything in David – until it suddenly looks as if he has betrayed her deepest secret about her family. Can Jade really find happiness in her two worlds, or was her father right all along?

Have you ever heard the song “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist” from Avenue Q? Because that is kind of this book, everyone just seems to be a little bit racist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMeU_szhZ6E

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