It has finally gotten cold here and I am loving it!  I get to pull out all of my sweaters and scarves and bundle up - delightful!  For the past how many months now I've been wanting it to get cooler because it's so much nicer to run when it's cool.  And now that it is cool, it's frickin' cool - in the 30's early in the  morning and my fingers are FREEZING!  I looked for some battery operated/heated gloves - and I found them alright - for $300!! Not happening here.  So...I will resort to those little heat packets and hope they do the trick.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been out and about and quite frankly I am shocked at all of the Christmas stuff.  It was out before Halloween - seriously?  I was in Kohl's this week and they had Christmas music playing!  I am sorry, but October is too early for Christmas stuff.  I love Christmas and all.  It's fun to decorate and wrap and give gifts, but they're wearing me down - and not in a good way - when they start it all so early. What happened to defined seasons and keeping it closer to the actual holiday?  It really makes me want to stay out of the stores when it starts so early.  I want to enjoy each holiday in its own right.  This is one thing that's wrong with our society.  We are never just enjoying the moment - we're always pushing ahead to the next thing.  If we'd just take a few minutes to enjoy the present, we'd all be so much happier and satisfied.  And that's my two cents.

Sunday I finished reading "Shadow of the Night" by Deborah Harkness - book 2 in the "Discovery of Witches" trilogy.  Good news and bad news.  Bad news first - always.  The bad news is that "Shadow of the Night" was just released in July.  So...no telling when the next one will be released.  But chances are it won't be anytime this week, which is when I'd like to be reading it!  Sigh.  So, I'll just have to wait.  And wait.  And wait.  The only problem with really good books - and the authors that write them - is that they can never write as fast as I can read. Maybe some day there will be a technology solve to all that.  OK, so back to the good news, I guess.  The good news is that the books carry all of the things that I love about a good book - a little bit of history brought to life so that I feel like I'm also learning something, but in the best way possible, a little time travel, and lots of pages.  No wimpy books for me!  Now it doesn't really get much better than that.  In the trend of the day, it is about witches and vampires, which I am finding intrigues me.  I haven't read any of the other "vampire" series, so I don't know how these books compare.  Is the vampire lore consistent across books/authors?  I am curious to know if the same protocol applies to all the various vampires on the shelves these days.  Does anyone know?  In any event, I enjoyed the story line about a witch trying to lead a "normal life" without witchcraft, and how she's really finding she can't avoid it (can any of us really ignore who we really are?), her forbidden involvement with a vampire and their quest to find a magical book with the secrets of creation contained therein.  I don't know how this can possibly be wrapped up in another book, but I am sure Ms. Harkness has a plan.  Enjoy!

Introduction

Good day!  Is anyone out there?  A brief introduction as we get started on this journey.  There should always be an introduction, shouldn't there?  How else will we get to know each other?  I am a 50s something married mother of one grown daughter, living the life in southern California.  SoCal native as a matter of fact - first generation.  Now there's something to be proud of!  I have a variety of interests that I will share with all of you as time goes by.  I am in the midst of exploring my worldly options, meaning, what do I do next with my life, so this is a good time to join in and see what happens.  I don't know anymore than you do about the direction everything is going, so it should be interesting