Book Review

My book reveiw this time is Arms of Love by Kelly Long. This book was supplied to me by Thomas Nelson Publishing Company to read and write a review. This book is an Amish setting during the Revolutionary War time. The book starts with plenty of action. Lena's father has been arrested because he would not provide his last cow to the revoluntionists. At that time if a person was arrested, he was not provided food and water unless the family or friends provided it for him. Lena's mother is pregnant ready to deliver the baby. Lena is probably 17-18 years old. There is a brother 11 years old and younger sister. The mother thinks she will have a difficult delivery. The delivery is in the very first of the book and the mother dies. Lena is too inexperienced that she does not know what to do for her mother. Lena has a boyfriend, who has been providing money for her father in jail. During that time when someone died they were not embalmed, so the funeral had to take place soonafter the death. . Then too, the baby lived so Lena needed a wet nurse for her.
The mother has told the boyfriend not to marry Lena unless he made some changes in his life. His father was a very physical man, beating his son unmercifully at times. I think Lena's mother did not want her daughter or grandchildren raised in that kind of environment.
The boyfriend arranges for the burial, then goes to town and finds a woman who had just had a baby and her house had burned down. Her husband had been killed in the war, so she really needed a place to live. He brings her to within 1/4 mile of Lena's house and lets her walk in the rest of the way, so it would not look like he had found her. She comes in and takes over and helps Lena with the children and especially the two babies.
The story involves the two families: Lena's family and her boyfriend's family. As the plot goes along the problems with the members of the family are worked out.
This is a good book. The grammatical markings are strange. For instance, the quotation marks are not correct and you have to wonder at the beginning of the book who is saying what, or if anyone is saying it. But then you get used to the incorrectness of them and you are not puzzled all the time.

I Have Been Hacked!!

I guess this bad thing comes to one and all if you use the internet and email sometime in your life. And I thought I had gotten by for so long, that I was exempt from this. I did not know that my Norton Virus Security would not catch it and keep me safe. So when I went on my email yesterday morning, I had posts from my two older sons, informing me that I had been hacked. The perpetrator had sent a post that said in essence that I was in Dubai! One place I would never ever go! And that my suitcase, credit cards, money, etc had been lifted and I needed money to fly home. Also my passport had been taken but the government was going to let me fly without a passport!! Now no one in their right mind would believe that. Of all the heightened security in the US I just don't think they would ever allow anyone to get back in the US without a passport.
This all took place from my Yahoo email account. I don't use that account for hardly anything. Had some lessons stored there, and some posts that I wanted to keep. That is all gone now along with my address book. My plan is to close that account very shortly and not have yahoo accounts at all. They are so insecure and I always had about 100 posts a day that went to my spam box that I never even saw.
The first thing I did was change my password, so if the person in Nigeria who hacked into my account is reading this: Ha ha, I foxed you! Then I called my ISP provider to see what else I needed to do. The tech said to run a full virus scan. Nothing there from that.
The up side of this, I received phone calls and emails from people I had not talked to or corresponded with in several years, but who were still in my address book. I told one friend who I had not talked to several years that the good part of all this was that he called me and I got to talk to him. He told me some things to do with the Yahoo account that might make it more secure.
So don't ever think that you will never get hacked. It comes to all if we use modern technology.

New Refrigerator

Is there any thing worse than going to get your before bed snack of ice cream and when you take the lid off the Tupperware ice cream keeper, the ice cream is milk? That is what happened at our house last night. Our refrigerator was more than 20 years old. The ice maker had not worked for about a year. I was lucky that I still had 3 ice cube trays. So I became the ice maker. I put water in the ice trays, let it freeze and put in the bin for the ice cubes. Simple!! I just had to remember to dump the ice and put more water in the trays. Luckily we have a refrigerator in the laundry room, so we carted everything down stairs and put it in that refrigerator/freezer. Then this morning early we make a quick trip to Lowe's. Lowe's is the only appliance store we have that sells new, not dented, not scratched appliances.
I had been watching the sale papers Lowe's sends out and had in mind what I wanted. The amazing thing is that a silver refrigerator costs about $1000 more than a solid white refrigerator. For $1000 I can take a white refrigerator.
We were lucky enough to talk the salesman into having the refrigerator delivered today instead of having to wait until tomorrow. That way I did not have to trapise up and down the stairs everytime I prepared a meal. The delivery men were really nice, removed the old refrigerator, and installed the new one all in a matter of minutes. I had planned to steam clean my living room carpet at the door today, so I waited until they left. Now I not only have to clean the carpet at the door but also over in the middle of the room where their dolly got something black on it.
The new refrigerator has made a lot of groans, grunts, pops and strange noises. The instruction booklet says that is normal. I can't wait until tomorrow when I can have ice and cold water from the dispenser in the door. Hope this one lasts twenty years, but I am not counting!

Book review: Need You Now: by Beth Wiseman

The book, Need You Now by Beth Wiseman was given to me by Thomas Nelson Publishing Company.
This book is really good. Darlene and her family have moved from a big big city in Texas to a small town in Texas. They have moved to Darlene's grandparents farm. There are 3 children in the family and they don't exactly like living in this small town. They have a few acres and the one child wants chickens to raise. She brings her school grades up so they get her four chickens.
The children all have problems that are worked through as the book progresses. Darlene has no friends, but does become good friends with the woman who has the large ranch next door. Brad, the father and husband is still commuting to his job 1 1/2 hours each way each day. Darlene feels she needs a job, so she gets hired at a very small school for children with autism. She loves her job, but she quits after just a couple of months.
The story is a story that moves from one problem of someone to another problem of someone else. Keeps you wondering if everyone will get their problems solved, but of course they do in the end.
I really enjoyed this book.

Another book review

This review is Cowgirl Trail by Susan Page Davis. This book was really good. The book was furnished to my by Moody Publishers to read and reveiw. It is one of Morgan Family Series.
In the story, Maggie just comes home after 2+ years caring for her mother in a sanitorium. Her mother has died, funeral is past and Maggie has just spent 7 months with a cousin in California. Maggie finds her father with a totally changed personality and not for the better. She later learns that her father is gravely ill and that their ranch is heavily in debt. It is roundup time and all the cow punchers go on strike. Maggie decides she can get some of her female friends to help her finish the roundup and drive the cattle to the market. She does and it amazing what these women can do and especially their stamina to keep on going. This was a very good book and when it comes out in a few months anyone would do themselves good to buy it.

A Book Review: Brush of Angel's Wings

I was given the "Brush of Angel's Wings" written by Ruth Reid, by Thomas Nelson Publishing Company to read and write a review.
This is a book written about the Amish people. I had never read a book by Ruth Reid before, but I will be looking for more of her books. She is an excellent writer.
I like books about the Amish, for their simple way of life and for the fact that they are always clean books. The Amish are a very religious people.
This book is about Rachel Hartzler and Jordon Engles. In Amish country the men do the farm work and the women do the housework. Each Amish girl is taught how to cook, make a garden, can and preserve foods, and sew. They are expected to have learned this by the time they are marriable age. Rachel had reached the age of 21 in the book. But she would rather be out farming with her dad than cooking and sewing. When she prepared a meal it was usually a disaster. She rarely went to quilting or sewing frolics because she did not enjoy sewing and she could not sew well. Her quilting was usually sewed crookedly.
Since her brother had died she had been helping her dad with the farm work. Then an Englisher whose mother was Amish came to the settlement. He was hired by her father to work on the farm with him. Her father sent her to the house to help prepare the meals, etc. The Englisher was also given the grossdaadi haus to live in. She was very disappointed that her father had someone else to help him on the farm and especially that he would be eating meals with them and living just behind their house.
The story develops around the Hartzler family and Jordon Engles. The Hartzler's have had a sad life and it doesn't get much better for them. This is a very good story and I would recommend it to anyone to read.

Calico Joe--A Book Review

Callico Joe is written by John Grisham. Mr. Grisham usually writes books dealing with attorneys. I have read every book he has ever written and I own most of them. He is a really good writer of fiction dealing with the law.
One of his books was about a football team in Italy. It was different in that it had nothing to do with attorneys. I liked it.
Now he has written a book about baseball. I had no idea when I offered to review the book that it was about baseball. Baseball is not one of my most favorite sports. So I didn't know how this book would go after I realized it was about baseball.
I had a difficult time getting "into" the story. I think this was because I don't particular care for baseball and therefore don't know the rules and regulations of the game. Once I started reading the book though, it was pure Grisham. I could not put it down. The story line goes from the son of the baseball player as a child in one chapter to the son of the baseball player as a grown man in the next chapter. It iss a very good book.

This book was sent to me by Doubleday, a division of Random House. Incidentally the book goes on sale publicly tomorrow, April 10, 2012.