A Philippa Gregory novel

I just finished Philippa Gregory's "The White Queen." She is great at Historic fiction and I'm a great fan of hers. This novel was about the War of the Roses or the Cousins' War in the mid to late 1400's. King Edward has won the throne away from the White Rose Lancastarians. He meets and marries Elizabeth Woodville, a widow with two sons. They marry in secret till he is sure of his reign. Their rule is rocky. Constant fighting to maintain the Red Rose rule. At Edward's death his son, Edward, is to become king with King Edward's younger brother, Richard, acting as regent until 12 year old Edward comes of age. Richard declares himself king and young Edward disappears. To this day, no one knows what happened to King Edward's sons. The story ends with Henry Tudor making his return to England to battle for his rightful place as king. Gregory does a great job of filling in the missing pieces even though they are fiction. This is the first of a new series set amid the deadly feuds of England.

Poor brother

Like my elder brother and I haven't experienced enough heartache this summer but to top it off his house was robbed this week. Homeowners insurance in Florida is a rarity since the hurricanes have made it impossible to have it. A lot of people were cancelled and he was one. So nothing that was lost will be covered except his one purchase that we made at Bass Pro Store in July when he was here. Fortunately I put it on a Visa card and it has purchase protection. With luck we can recover at least one of his loses. His laptop, camera, GPS, many guns, tools, etc. are gone. I feel so sad for him. They went through all his drawers and dumped them. They definitely knew what they were looking for.

On a lighter note......41 years ago I met a great girl when I started my first real grown up job in corporate America. We were just newly turned 19 and we hit if off wonderfully. I soon discovered I was pregnant with my first child and didn't stay on that job for very long but we stayed friends. She came to visit quite often and we've kept in touch over the years. Not seeing each other a lot but when we do we make up for the years in between. She came yesterday early evening and stayed overnight till around noon. What a great visit it was. I'm hoping we get to make a trip to her place in the near future. It's a nice drive to Cumberland, MD.

Finally getting the training as a bookkeeper at work. They dragged their feet but I managed to get a couple days worth of work in the vault. Of course they aren't scheduling me in there for at least the next few weeks so I'll probably forget everything I learned. I've been managing to work at least 40 hours lately but I noticed they're trying to cut that, too. My latest schedule is on 26 hours. Can't remember how long it's been since I had such short hours. I was hoping for more since vacation is in a few weeks and the money would have been nice.

Almost done with my latest book.

Finally........

I think this is the longest I've ever taken to read a book. It was good......just long and being a paperback it was difficult to get into a groove. The fact that we got Directv and I was also making a baby afghan were also distractions. Anyway, it was an old Dean Koontz book called "Strangers." I figured out the ending a few chapters into the book so it was surprise at the end. A handful of people from different areas of the country were experiencing different changes in their lives suddenly. Sleep walking, fear of the dark, fugues, obsessions with the moon to name a few. Their common denominator was a stay in a motel in Nevada two summers ago. Something happened there that caused the government to brainwash them to keep them from talking. Someone is helping them remember with little hints. This novel was written in the 70's and was probably the longest novel Koontz ever wrote. I thought I'd read all his novels and suddenly I discovered I'd missed some so I was on a quest to fill in the blanks. I don't think I'll succeed since there are so many out there that he wrote under different names and may be hard to find now. Anyway, good book and fun read.

Roof's all better

With the help of my son-in-law and my son, we got our roof fixed in a few days time. It's still obvious that something happened. New shingles on a roof that is 10+ years old are definitely something that stands out. A great job was done by all. The guilty guy never showed up to help even though he promised. He also hasn't showed up to finish his job. The good thing about having the roof demolished was spending time with my son for two evenings.

Haven't had much time to read. I've been working on a baby afghan for a co-worker's grandson who will be born in September. It's finished now so I should be able to get caught up on my reading now.

Tragedy on the roof top

I hired a co-worker to cut down some dead trees to prevent them from falling on our house. He said he had a lot of experience so we hired him to do the job. He cut us a deal on each tree and we set the day for Saturday. Hubby was here in the morning and early afternoon and I was due home just after he was leaving. The tree guy showed up at 8 and got to work. First tree came down okay and the second one went right on top our roof. What a mess. Two giant holes in the garage roof. The ridgevent is crushed, two trusses are splintered, the soffit is crushed, plaster on the inside of the garaged is crumbled, the lantern is bent, the garage doors are dented, and the rain spouting is ruined. I work with this guy so I could hardly come home and yell at him and tell him he was worthless. No matter how much I would have liked to do that. I was very kind and told him that "stuff" happens. Fortunately my son-in-law is a great builder and came to our rescue. He starts the reconstruction tomorrow evening with some help from my son. Our dread is that even though we have a bunch of shingles leftover from the original roofing job, they are new and the ones on the roof are 10 plus years old. Fading has taken place and it will be obvious. Sad day for Hubby and me!

Entering a new era

We were forced to sign up for Direct TV. After years of avoiding cable, we've been forced by the government to go another route other than the old fashioned TV antenna. The stupid converter box that we had to start using in June did nothing but pixelate (?) ever since we were forced to start using it. If it rained we lost channels. If the wind blew we lost channels. If the sun was shining we lost channels. Stupid! Being forced to pay for something which we've managed to do without for all these years. Now we're hooked up to 200 plus channels and it's overwhelming. I can just see us sticking to the old standby channels that we're used to watching. NBC, CBS and ABC. I was hoping for high speed internet but that can't happen where we live. Unbelievable! If we decide to upgrade our television we'll have to pay to upgrade our dish and box. Another ripoff! Oh for the old days!

We celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary yesterday. Wow! 31 years that just flew by. We didn't spring for gifts. I got enough for my big birthday last week and I didn't need anything else. Dinner out was the plan. We decided on The Left Bank in York. The food was good but the prices were sky high. We ate cheaper in Paris where the real Left Bank is then in this restaurant. I really wanted to go back to Michael's in Timonium. We were there a week ago with my brother for his birthday and I fell in love with their seafood club sandwich. Been dreaming about another and thought we might go there for the anniversary dinner. We would have gotten better service and a special dessert for our anniversary. No dessert offered at The Left Bank. Back to the anniversary! We eloped! Yes, just headed to the courthouse in Maryland during lunch to pick up our license and decided to go get a ring and head back and get it over with. No frills! I was wearing a peach jumpsuit and Hubby was decked out in polyester double knit. We went from there to his house and shared a root beer and then headed to PA to pick up my kids and break the news to all concerned. Everyone took the news well except my son who was upset he didn't get to wear his new suit.

Back to Florida

My older brother headed back to Florida this morning. I had to work at 5:45 am so he got up to hug me goodbye before I left at 5:05. It was a very sad time! I hate to see him leave. I had hoped for some extra days with him but since it didn't happen we tried to fit a lot into what we had. One day we took him to Bass Pro Store and it cost him about $1400 to get out the door. More shopping later in the week added a few more hundred to his losses. Yesterday we had a mixed day of emotions. We went to see our only surviving Uncle on my Father's side and surprised him with my brother's visit. He's quite fond of my Aunt and they had a good time teasing one another. They are now 80 and I thought it would be a good thing for him to have that visit. I had hoped to also get to see the only Uncle on my Mother's side but we didn't get that fit in. We had to attend a viewing last night of a childhood acquaintance who happened to be the brother of our younger brother's ex-wife. We felt it was necessary to go for our niece and nephew's sake. In with the sadness there was some happiness. We got to see quite a few old friends that we hadn't seen in more years than either of us wants to admit. Anyway, he's on the road now headed south. Sure hope we can get together again soon without it being for a sad event.

Not getting a lot of reading done. I took up my crochet hook and am trying to get a baby gift out of the way. Bad time of year to be making an afghan. HOT!

Breaking down and getting direct TV on Tuesday. I found out I can eliminate our second phone line and end up saving about $40 on the phone/direct TV combo. Still no high speed internet available. Sure wish I could have bundled the three things together. At least we won't have to fool around with the stupid converter boxes anymore. We've missed so much TV with the pixeling that happens with those stupid boxes. We're headed to the age of electronics!