Ketchup!

Remember in school when you'd have "ketchup" or catch up days? Here's the Tracy version of a ketchup blog! Work has been all consuming for me so very little has been getting read here at my house. The latest book I'm reading is:

So far this book is extremely riveting. I can't put my finger on exactly what's going on & that's a good thing. Luce has had an incident involving shadows she's seen all her life & a boy she was crushing on. They were hanging out and the next thing Luce knew that he was on fire and she couldn't stop it. Afterwards she's sent to a reform school where she meets Daniel, a guy she knows she's met before. The shadows begin showing up more & more and Luce is determined to face them this time.

I decided since I like the Vampire Diaries TV series so much I'd try reading the series by L.J. Smith.

A word to the wise, they're extremely slow! I got through the first two books before I put them down. I'll come back to them later I'm sure but for now I'm content on just watching the TV show :)

Sunday Saga

Yesterday was a complete and utter disaster. I got up at 10 and couldn't find Bella. Mom had let her and Beethoven out so I thought maybe she'd snuck back out since she has this bad habit of coming inside then shooting back out the door & you never realize that she's out until later. We promptly flipped out it was extremely cold outside and she's so small. After tearing the house apart we found her under the recliner hiding, which was strange. I finally got her out and she got sick & wasn't acting right. We called the vet and the vet thought maybe she'd ate something she wasn't supposed to and was just passing it. After about 4 hours I realized we had a bigger problem then her just eating something. It was sleeting & snowing outside and I wanted to go to the vet before it got too bad. As soon as we got to the vet & I took Bella out of the carrier she had a bowel movement from the stress of the vets office. The vet immediately said, "She has parvo, that's the number one sign of it" & I started crying.

We always get our dogs vaccinated but because of my job issues I've not had the money to get them done so she'd only had the first round of puppy shots. I was planning on taking her this Friday when I got my first check since going full time (because I only get paid once a month). Well needless to say I was upset that a simple vaccination could have prevented this whole ordeal and that she could die because of it. The vet gave her a shot to keep a secondary infection from coming in and killing her. She also said because Bella was still able to stand up and move around plus she wasn't dehydrated yet that she had a 50/50 chance if she made it through the night then if she made it to today she had a 75% chance of making it. The vet also said there'd been an outbreak of it recently which was abnormal since it's winter....

I left with orders to get pedialyte and to give her a syringe full of it hourly until she urinated then I could do it every four hours, needless to say I knew I was in for a long night. We headed to Wal-Mart which was right down the road to get the pedialyte and headed home. Well it was snowing extremely hard and the roads were a mess by the time we got home we couldn't get up our hill. After going to the police department and getting no help from them & then trying to get up either way to our house for an hour we weren't very happy. Eventually we called my Uncle Joe who lives a few houses down from us and he came down and pulled us up the hill.

When we finally got home & I got Bella out I was surprised to find she had only had one accident in the carrier and we'd been in the car for quite awhile. We got her settled and began her hourly dose of pedialyte. I went to bed around 11:30 and mom & dad stayed up giving Bella the pedialyte til 4am then dad woke me up and I took over. Finally around 9am Bella had to pee & we began the every 4 hour dosage instructions. I made her a poached egg which she gobbled down at around 9:30am and she went number 2 at 11am. I was ecstatic. I called the vet and let her know what was going on and all she could say was "I'm impressed! You did so well". I cried again. She said to keep giving Bella bland foods for the rest of the day and that tomorrow she could start her normal diet and to keep the stress on her to a minimum for another 3-4 days. Then in 2 weeks she can get her vaccination. Needless to say I feel like it's all been a dream. She's doing really well & I'm just happy she's ok. I don't want to be to optimistic but I think she's going to be fine.

Yesterday I couldn't stop crying because I knew a simple shot could have prevented the entire ordeal but I also know that we weren't able to do it financially. I'm just glad my little buddy is ok :)

Book Review: Vampire Diaries.

After falling in love with the CW series I decided to check out the books. I have to say they're decent. Nothing that I "love" but they're a good read. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is about them but they're interesting and sometimes aren't. They're a quick read and aren't all that predictable which is nice. However sometimes the writing seems too simple and a little dull. I'm now reading the 2nd book & we'll see how that goes.

In other news they've hired a screen writer for Shiver. Hopefully this comes full circle and becomes a movie! I know Maggie Stiefvater, the author, is psyched as am I.

Linger.

In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other.  Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack.  And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love -- the light and the dark, the warm and the cold -- in a way you will never forget.

Comes out in stores everywhere July 20th. Pre-order here.

Enter to win an advanced review copies of LINGER, Sisters Red, The Dead-Tossed Waves, and The Replacement on Maggie's blog.

Sharing, is it caring?

Blogging for the last few months has been difficult, to say the least. I don't want to be a negative nanny so I just don't blog. I try to think of something I could blog about that would be interesting but I just can't. Things are nutso right now and hopefully they'll calm down soon. I just don't want to blog daily about things that have gone wrong ya know? So I just keep it off of here then it kinda looks like I've disappeared when I haven't. I'm just choosing not to throw it out there and have people think I'm a pessimist when I most definitely am not. In this case not sharing is caring :)

On another note I started reading again, I had about a month or 2 lag where I just didn't want to read anything. I do that sometimes but this was a tad longer than norm but onto the books!



Such a great book! I can't wait til the 3rd one comes out. It left you on a cliffhanger which I figured was going to happen however I loved it. This is a series that sucks you in from the first page and just won't let you go. The characters are amazing and you can't help but love them.



This is the 3rd book in the series and I just skimmed it to be honest. I was still getting out of my non reading phase and I've found myself over historical romances for the time being. I think I've just read so many of them they all seem about the same now. However with that said I love this series (LOL). The Hatahaway's crack me up. They're a family that's real & you can relate with them because they're not perfect. They're not a everyone is sunshine and roses family which I love. Each one of them have their problems and they love each other unconditionally. Definitely a good series to read!



Ah the Bride Quartet. Nora & I have been hit and miss lately so I was hoping this book was a good as the first one and it was. Four women who are best friends started a wedding planning business and each one manages something different in the business. The first book was about Mac who is the photographer of the group. This book is about Emma who is the florist find her true love.



I accidentally read this book first & it's actually book 2 of a series. Don't you hate when you do that but it seems like any book now a days is a series & I hated it until I went back and read the first book. Ha. Shame on me. tsk tsk.



I'm a huge JR Ward fan, I loved the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, however this book was just too long. It felt drawn out and I couldn't get into it at all. I skimmed through it and got the gist of the book but it just didn't grab my attention :(



This is the book before Hunting Ground & I loved it! I love Patricia Briggs's ability to make the characters seem everyday and amazing at the same time. Charles and Anna are another couple who you just want to stand up and cheer for. Can I have the 3rd one yet please? Kthksbye!

Birthday Blessings.

Today was amazing! Tanya came over first thing this morning & she'd made me a carrot cake. Yum. Her, Dad & I then went to Jose Peppers (my favorite restaurant) to have lunch then it was off to the movies to see New Moon. We had a blast just hanging out and goofing around. They're my two favorite people in the world & they made my day amazing. Tanya got me a copy of WOZ & a candle. Then Dad got me Snow White on DVD. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

Blood Promise by Richelle Mead

I finally finished this book yesterday. I've had this cold for almost 2 weeks and it's made reading difficult. Plus I'm in a reading slump you could say where I just didn't want to read for about 2 weeks before I got the cold. Anyways onto the book!

This is book #4 in the Vampire Academy series, here's the synopsis.
"Rose Hathaway's life will never be the same.

The recent attack on St. Vladimir's Academy devastated the entire Moroi world. Many are dead. And, for the few victims carried off by Strigoi, their fates are even worse. A rare tattoo now adorns Rose's neck, a mark that says she's killed far too many Strigoi to count. But only one victim matters . . . Dimitri Belikov. Rose must now choose one of two very different paths: honoring her life's vow to protect Lissa—her best friend and the last surviving Dragomir princess—or, dropping out of the Academy to strike out on her own and hunt down the man she loves. She'll have to go to the ends of the earth to find Dimitri and keep the promise he begged her to make. But the question is, when the time comes, will he want to be saved?

Now, with everything at stake—and worlds away from St. Vladimir's and her unguarded, vulnerable, and newly rebellious best friend—can Rose find the strength to destroy Dimitri? Or, will she sacrifice herself for a chance at eternal love?"

Rose is bound to Lissa, her best friend and in this book they're separated which made this book difficult. It was slow at the beginning because of them being separated and it took about 50-60 pages before I was really into the book. I saw the ending coming with Dimitri and that wasn't a surprise to me. However, the Avery/Simon/Reed trio was a huge surprise, but a good one. The plot progressed well & overall I enjoyed the book but this was not a favorite of mine in the series. I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars. Next I'll be reading Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.