What's Behind the Door that is One Door Away From Heaven?

Any guesses?  Well I'm not going to tell you.  You'll have to read the book to find out.

Neener from bunco got up on her soap box, rang her cow bell, and said that everyone, absolutely everyone, should sit down and read One Door Away From Heaven by Dean Koontz.  That it's the kind of book, once you finish it, that makes you sit down on the couch and think "What am I going to do with the rest of my life?"

So of course, I read it.  I really enjoyed it.  It is more suspenseful than the books I usually choose.  Which is good and bad for my poor little heart.  Here's the part where I also tell you that I am kind of a weeny.  A weeny in the "I only watch scary movies with the lights on" kind of way.  I had to make sure that I didn't read this book too close to bedtime or it would keep my mind awake all night.

It is the story of a young, physically handicapped girl and her life with a mercy-killing stepfather.  He is on a mission to prove that extraterrestials exist and get Leilani Klonk cured of her physical ailments.  Except Leilani is pretty sure she is destined to wind up in a shallow grave in the woods along side her currently alien abducted brother.

Watership Down

Have you read Watership Down by Richard Adams?

Did you know that it is Penguin books' best selling book ever? (According to wiki anyway)

And that oodles of high school aged students around the world have had to read it or suffer the consequences?

How did all these nuggets of information escape me for so long?  I jumped on the every one's read it bandwagon and I'm glad I did.  At first I thought this was going to be another Animal Farm type story, but the introduction quickly told me I was over thinking it.  That this was just a little story invented to keep the author's children from driving him to madness on long car rides out to the country.  Except if you listen to the critics they will tell you that this story has all kinds of great literature undertones (Homer, Odyssey, Aeneid, Troy, Robin Hood).

It's a story about a group of rabbits that follow Fiver, a future-seeing rabbit, away from the home they grew up in.  He predicts the end is near.  They make their way across the countryside to find a new home for themselves.  Along the way, they encounter a rabbit farm full of traps and a militant compound that want to make them prisoners.

So, if you haven't read it, you should.  You're 10th grade English teacher would have wanted you to.  And I won't make you write a report on it.

Just passing it along

Happy Mother's Day to all those who are called to that path in life.  I'll be spending the day with my two favorite kids and my better half.


~Zeke


I took this from here:
(It was too good to trust that you'd follow the link)


When you thought I wasn't looking

by Mary Rita Schilke Korzan


When you thought I wasn’t looking
You hung my first painting on the refrigerator
And I wanted to paint another.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You fed a stray cat
And I thought it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You baked a birthday cake just for me
And I knew that little things were special things.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You said a prayer
And I believed there was a God that I could always talk to.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You kissed me good-night
And I felt loved.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
I saw tears come from your eyes
And I learned that sometimes things hurt—
But that it’s alright to cry.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You smiled
And it made me want to look that pretty too.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You cared
And I wanted to be everything I could be.

When you thought I wasn’t looking—
I looked . . .
And wanted to say thanks
For all those things you did
When you thought I wasn’t looking.

Are We Having Fun Yet

2nd bloody nose in three days...I was told it was MORE humid in Illinois

You say Potato, I say Tomato

"Just because I am wearing cowboy boots, it does NOT make me a cow girl, Brother!"

p.s. The girl-child is already plotting ways to knock off the old mama so she can have the entire collection of precious moments.  Her name is practically crayola'd in on the bottom of each and every one.