Forty-Eight Days And I'm Here...

I am participating in Six Word Saturday, hosted by Cate at Show My Face.

The Hour I First Believed

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Now that my beach vacation is over, it's time to let you know what my choices were for beach reads. Many of you made suggestions, when I ran the great Everyone's a Winner POPrs Contest, everything from the Bible to teen vampire books.

These were my picks...


Lots of you suggested My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult. It will be released as a film, starring Cameron Diaz, soon, if it hasn't already been released. Loved it, and didn't see the ending coming. Wow! No matter how good the movie will be, READ THE BOOK FIRST.

I also read Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas. It is the story of how a woman adjusts and carries on after her husband was struck by a car, and is left with traumatic brain damage. It's relatively short and easy to read, and not as depressing as you might imagine. Rates as OK; it's not bad and not great either. Which leads us to...

My favorite is The Hour I First Believed, by Wally Lamb. It is a fictionalized story about the aftermath of Columbine for one family. It mixes fact and fiction beautifully, and also spans the time of the Civil War to the present. Sounds weird? Well, I loved it. It's long-725 pages-and I confess, I have about 50 pages more to go. Walking on the beach took precedence over reading.

This was not a suggested title, but I had read another book by Lamb and remembered liking that, so I gave it a shot. Loved it.

If you take my advice and read The Hour I First Believed, also try I Know This Much Is True. It has been reviewed as "the saga of the century. Best, most wonderful, most dramatic, most powerful..." It's the other novel by the same author I referred to above. Gee, maybe I need to read that one again!

WILD on the beach!

FYI: Voting has opened in the Mommy Blog of the Year Contest. Vote for Veggie Mom and Aunt Julie...Pretty please? Thanks!

I'm back from my beach vacation, and am slowly getting back into the swing of things. Today, I must have done 14 loads of laundry! The little black skimmer isn't the only wildlife we saw on the beach. Check out these photos...

Guess the Keep Off the Dune sign only applies to you if you can read!

My niece, The Wild One, and I took a jeep tour of the northern beaches, north of Corolla, in hopes of getting a glimpse of the wild Spanish mustangs. We were successful, as you can see. In all the years of going to the Outer Banks, I can't believe we hadn't done this before. We had a ball! I get excited at home when I see a deer in my neighborhood. Just imagine seeing a wild horse.

More about them another day. Gotta "hit the hay," as my horsey friends would say. It's way past my bedtime.

Thanks for all the book suggestions, too. I'll be letting you know what I ended up with.