This Body of Lies

It's always satisfying to read a new book by an author you've enjoyed over the years. The first Elizabeth George book I bought was in a book store in Trafalgar Square many years ago. At the time I assumed that George was a British writer since the books were based in England. At any rate, I've always liked her books, although as A Garden Carried in the Pocket noted, the last two weren't as good. I have liked the TV series, but never felt that Lynley was cast properly and Havers was much too pretty! But when I found I could order This Body of Lies from The Book Depository I jumped at it.

It's a hefty book - 594 pages - and it took me a week to read it, even though I stayed up late reading. It is very good. The 'mystery' is quite involved, but the characters make the story.

Now it's on to another author I learned about on a blog - Susan Hill. I've read some of her books already, and this is her latest, I believe - The Shadows in the Street. What fun to have good books waiting on the shelf! And the bonus of bloggers telling about new authors.

Computing

I seem to have trouble getting comments to my blog onto my blog. Does that make any sense at all? I had two comments waiting to go onto the blog, and thought I had let them "in", but only one made it!


Our computers weren't able to get connect to the Internet this morning, so poor hubby had to crawl around on the floor and turn things on and off. Then the emails and Internet returned and made us happy. We got some great pictures of our granddaughter who is in Argentina on a study-abroad program for the summer. We'll get to hear all about it when we visit the family in Honolulu this fall!

Reading Joys

 Lesley gave me a book years ago in which I started writing about the books I had read, but I'm not very disciplined and I soon got 'way behind and quit. When I discovered I was buying and re-reading books I had read years ago I decided the time had come to do better! So this year I've read forty-eight books and have given them a rating and a few brief words telling about the book. It has been something of an eye-opener. I have read mostly mysteries - not thrillers - but have a couple of 'chunkers' mixed in, and one that I just couldn't get into. There have been no non-fiction books, but that is by choice. I'm pretty old, and think that I should just enjoy reading and not try to become too enlightened by what I read. Non-fiction requires a lot of thinking, and I'm more into entertaining books!

 I still try to keep up with the news, and read a news magazine every week, but we have even given up our daily newspaper. This was not my choice, but our paper has become very expensive with very little real 'meat' to it. So dear husband said we should no longer buy it daily. We do get the Sunday paper, and that is one of my favorite times of the week. I love the lazy time of reading every section, and cutting out articles on travel and finance - some that I send to my children - whether they want them or not!

Since I volunteer at our library book sale every week I have a plethora of books to choose from. We have a good library, but can only check out books for two weeks. I usually finish a book within a week or less, but don't like having a deadline. So each week I take books back to be sold, and come home with a bag full of new books. Last week I brought four books home and discovered that one is written by the writer on the top sellers this month - Justin Cronin, the author of The Passage. The book I'm reading now is his second novel, I think, and I'm finding it quite enjoyable. Several weeks ago The Passage was in our "tall books" or trade paperback section and I grabbed it - for $1.00! I'll read it later this year, but after I finish Cronin's The Summer Guest, I'll read another mystery!

The Cove

We live in a beautiful spot on the Oregon Coast. Our house is surrounded with various very large trees - hemlock, Sitka spruce, Coast redwoods, shore pines, alders, and smaller Japanese maples and a stray dogwood. We've planted most of the trees although some of the spruce and hemlocks were here when we built the house. A large number of spruce are "volunteers." They just grew from seeds the squirrels drop, I think.

When we first built we needed to cut down thirty-five trees, and I was afraid the forest would never grow back in our lifetime. Wrong. Little rhododendrons we planted from one-gallon cans are now six feet high. The little cedars we planted in the front area are over ten feet high. They were less that six inches when we got them from the Forest Dept. So things grow quite quickly here in The Cove. Except for the rhododendrons, however, we don't get a lot of pretty blooming flowers. We just don't seem to have enough sun for them. My hydrangeas do bloom, and Bill took a picture of one covered in snow one year. They often bloom too late in the year!

So I have some flowering things in pots, and when I remember to water and fertilize them they look pretty for about four weeks. It hardly seems worth the effort. I once loved gardening, and still enjoy flowers and greenery, but no longer 'garden.' One great thing about living in the forest - I no longer have to weed!

Completion

We are finally getting back to a somewhat normal existence with the rooms painted and the furniture and furnishings back in place. A few pictures need re-hanging, but as Bill says - we have time to do that when we "get around to it." I feel as if we've moved into a new home - almost! The colors are just right. Our wonderful painter only took four days to do the job, and it was quite a big one. The very high ceiling in the "great room" as well as the 9' ceilings in the rest of the downstairs made for a challenge for him, and he did it all by himself!

We spent a good part of our days in the library/office room on our computers while the painting was being done. Bill has been making note cards to sell for our after-school program - The Kids Zone - so for the past several months we have traveled to various parts of Oregon for him to photograph Oregon's covered bridges. We'll be off again soon to get shots of four more. He'll have taken pictures of forty-seven bridges by then, with only three more to finish. Many of the bridges fell into disuse or neglect, but fifty remain and an Oregon Covered Bridge Society was formed to keep those remaining in repair. His photography has taken us over a variety of back roads and country vistas we hadn't seen before, and while he climbed up and down river banks to get that perfect view, I was able to read and enjoy the quiet.