Happy Thanksgiving!

And here follows the obligatory gratitude post. ;)

But seriously, I have a lot to be thankful for. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you'll notice that I don't do the daily gratitude thing in November because, well, why try to do something I know I'll forget to do two days in?

So here follows some things that I am grateful for this year.

1. My family. Daniel is the most amazing husband and father ever. My boys are gems (most of the time). I'm so lucky that I live near my sisters and that my parents are able to come visit us, as well as being not too terribly far from Daniel's family. Oh, and Happy, I love my dog. :)
2. My job. I'm so grateful that I get to be a stay at home mom. As hard as it can be sometimes, I love being home with William and Jacob. Also, I love being able to spend a whole day in my PJ's. ;)
3. Writing. I love to write and create new worlds and characters to populate those worlds. I love coming up with stories. Again, it's not always easy, but it's worth it.
4. All the material things I take for granted. I live in a nice place. We have a good car. I'm able to buy food, clothes and other, less essential things. I love the internet and the TV. And books, so many books!
5. My religion. I'm grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints. It gives me peace and direction in my life, as well as connecting me to good people and new friends.

Well, I think that about covers it. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it) and try not to over eat.

Oh, a programming note: Starting next week I'm going to start a series of writing tips over at Kricket Writes. I've been thinking about doing this for a while and I finally figured out a plan. So look forward to that. :)

And Happy Thursday! Thanks for reading!

Kricket's Happy Korner: Family & Books

Last week was a very busy week. Lots of running around, lots of cleaning, lots of visiting with people. I think this week will be more relaxed.

So here's what I'm thankful for:

• I got to see my day last week. He was in town on business and we got to celebrate his birthday with him as well. The boys loved hanging out with Granddad and we can't wait to see him and Grandma again in July.
• Will got his new glasses and he loves them. It's nice to have frames that fit and lenses that work.
• I love good books and I love finding new ones.

Speaking of good books, here's a review!

I'm giving The Enchanted Forest Chronicles 4 Stars. I used to consider this five stars when I was younger, but now that I'm an adult and a more experienced writer I see flaws that I didn't notice before.

This is a four book set that is a quick and easy read. It's very funny as it takes a lot of the classic fairy tales and turns them around on themselves. It's a great series and pretty solid story telling. What got to me was the third book. It felt like there were just too many characters in any given scene and they all had to say something. You have a pregnant queen, a witch, a magician, a King of the Dragons (who is female), 2 cats, a  talking rabbit that got turned into a blue floating/flying donkey, a fire witch, and all the villains. That's a lot of useless talking.

But the whole thing picks up again by the fourth book.

It's a great read and I highly recommend it to anybody, but especially middle school age girls.

So there's a dose of happy to take with your drink of choice as you continue to face this day. Happy Monday!

My Sister's Keeper

So I finished reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult the other day and it is quite possibly the saddest book I've ever read. I'd been reading it mostly at work because the book actually belongs to one of my co-workers. I picked it up about a week ago and started reading the first couple pages to just see what it was about; and then I got hooked.

I've never read Jodi Picoult before, but if all her books are as good as this one, then I think I’ll be reading more of her. She's a master of first person and really getting into a characters mind. This makes it really easy to care about the characters and fall in love, or hate, them.

For instance, I can't stand the mother in this book. I just want to choke her and ram her head into a wall. She is so dead set on saving one daughter that she completely forgets about the other. For those of you who haven't read the book or seen the movie, the basic plot of the story is that there is one sister who has leukemia and one sister who has been donating her blood and bone marrow to the sick one since she was born. Now the sister who isn't sick is suing her parents so that she doesn't have to donate anymore, thus sentencing her sick sister to death. Twisted but really good at the same time.

Anyway, it's a super sad story. I finished it here at work and I had to work really hard to not cry at the end. Now I want to go and see the movie and I'm sure it's going to be a sob-fest.