Jen's Blog

Although I liked certain parts of this book, there were other parts I didn't like at all.  I loved the setting and the setting description a lot.  I also liked the premise of the book.  It was a fairly quick read, but I did have trouble with the flow of the story.  The writing seemed jilted at times, and it didn't flow as smoothly as I would have liked. The main part of the book dealt with young Olivia and her relationship with her recently returned father.  He had been largely absent during her youth.  I found him to be very unlikable.  I also wasn't super fond of Olivia's finance, he just didn't seem all that supportive.  I really liked Olivia and her mother and step-father though.  So an average book for me. 3/5 stars on GoodReads.

I have had several people ask me lately about my Sunday meal prep day.  This is something I have been doing pretty consistently for a while, not just since I joined Weight Watchers.  I spend a few hours in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon and prep as much food as I have the time and energy for.  Some weeks I am able to prep a lot, and some weeks just a little.  At the very least I prep my snacks for work and at least a few of my work lunches.  On a good week I can do all of my lunches and some dinner prep too.  Sometimes food prep just involves planning. I eat pretty much the same snacks every day.  My morning snack is a light string cheese, 7 almonds and an apple.  That is easy to prep.  I put the string cheese and almonds in a snack size bag and grab an apple each day.  My afternoon snack varies a bit more, but usually I have vegetables in some form so I chop as many fresh vegetables on Sunday as I can.  Easy to grab.  Sometimes I make a low point dip to dip my veggies in, and I mak

Oh John Sandford, you got me again.  The first few pages made me think Lucas Davenport was somehow reverting to his old self. What happened to Weather?  Did quitting his job with the Minnesota Bureau send him off the rails?  I vowed to stop reading if he was reverting to his pre-Weather days (even though I knew that wouldn't be true).  Thankfully Lucas was just on a new job!  Davenport is a new U.S. Marshal, free of all the things he hated about his last job. Lucas takes on an old case to track down a killer who likes to steal a lot of money and kill people in the process.  No one has ever been able to track down the criminal called Poole, but Davenport is determined he is going to be the one.  There is a lot of action, excitement and shooting in this book.  I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.  The 400 pages went by super fast, and it left me wanting more. Well done! If you haven't read this series, start today.  I am not kidding.   Rules of Prey is the first in the

I have been living with the Weight Watcher Smart Points plan for a little over three weeks now.  I shared a bit last week about my new journey.  It was hard (and a little embarrassing) but the wonderful and supportive comments I received made it worthwhile.  I know, despite how it feels sometimes, that I am not the only one who struggles with eating right, staying active and losing weight. My son  hunting eggs  So I decided to go ahead and keep sharing, if I motivate just one person it's totally worth it.  And since it's currently cold, cloudy and rainy at the end of April when I am writing this, it might just motivate myself to go down to the basement and hop on my elliptical. I weighed in Saturday, my third weigh in since joining, and was happy that I was down another 1.2 pounds, for a grand total of 7.4 pounds in three weeks.  Since it was Easter week and my goal was to stay the same I felt super happy to have a loss.  Especially since the scale was up more than I wo

Spring has sprung, and it's going to be a little harder to read for the next two months, until long summer days come back anyway!  I read two books in the last few weeks, both from Edelweiss, so thanks Edelweiss for the review copies!  Since I didn't give full reviews, I will just do a quick review for both and say I enjoyed them both. I enjoyed My One True Highlander by Suzanne Enoch quite a lot!  It was a fun, sexy story and as we all know I love any book set in Scotland, but it wasn't all that original.  I don't know why, but highlander's often kidnap their brides, although this time the kidnapping was indirect because it was done by Graeme's brothers.  Even though it wasn't super original, I thought the two characters were great together and had an instant chemistry.  I especially loved Marojorie's relationship with the youngest brother, who was so sweet you can't help but love him.  I am looking forward to another in the series!  4/5 stars o

Little known fact about me...I was blessed Mormon when I was born.  My mother is Mormon, and originally from Utah.  I didn't know this until later in life when I was searching for a baptism certificate before I got married.  I didn't grow up going to temple and I didn't know a lot about the faith until I did some research, but technically I was Mormon. I love genealogy and have been working on our family trees, it turns out I come from a long line of Mormons, and some of my relatives knew with Joseph Smith and made the long journey from Illinois to Utah.  Also, there is quite a bit of polygamy in my family tree when it was allowed as part of the Mormon faith. It was interesting to me to read about polygamy from a more recent point of view, and to learn about the dark side of polygamy, and why it was ultimately outlawed.  I loved how Anna told her story and admire her for her bravery in having survived growing up with such a public polygamist father.  In many ways she wa