Decided I needed a day at home to just catch up on "stuff" and actually slept in until 8:30. It was heavenly to not need to jump out of bed and get ready. Curled up with the cat and read for a bit. Now I am on the desktop computer with the Martina McBride Timeless CD playing. Sure makes me think of my Mom. It is all the old country music. Her favorite was Lynn Anderson's "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden". I can close my eyes and see our old livingroom and that album playing on the stereo. Anderson was on Lawrence Welk so we had to watch that show too. Oh, those bubbles! And a one, and a two! :-) Mary told me about www.yourmusic.com and I love it. You create a queue of CDs you want and they send one a month - I think it s $7.95 or something like that and they even send to the VI. Had to cancel it until I get settled in Greenville, but I love getting the little package and knowing it is a CD I picked. Like a mini musical Christmas.

I am a big fan of Orca books and I love the Canadian authors - they just don't get enough attention! The cover of Waking by Alyxandra Harvey-Fitzhenry is very attention getting, with one drop of blood dripping from a blood red rose. A combination of straight narrative and dream sequences take you deep into Beauty's grief over her mother's suicide. The Shadow Lady and Beauty as a little girl appear in the dreams, filled with the smell and sight of roses, roses, roses, and her child self begging for protection from the Shadow Lady. Since her mother's suicide Beauty has been left alone in school - the others don't know how to interact with her - but new girl Luna doesn't have any reservations. She is the daughter of a free spirited artist and Beauty is welcome in their eclectic home, where she feels more at home than with her over protective father who will not allow Beauty near anything with a blade. She cannot even cut up her own fruit, for fear she will hurt herself. Harvey-Fitzhenry writes a enchanting tale of a young woman, opening up like the most delicate and beautiful rose in the garden, accepting her mother's death and opening her world to both Luna and Poe, the dark haired boy with the guitar, whose music fills her Sunday nights as it wafts through the trees between their yards.

Mary called to tell me about all the houses she and Scott have looked at in the Green Bay/De Pere area. Guess both mother and daughter have the nesting bug. Her lease is about up, and like us, a house payment is about the same as the rent on a nice apartment. She looked at 10 houses in 3 hours yesterday and now can't remember what was in what house. That happened with me and the condos. But I did get the dishes done while I talked to her! Now on to grading.