A cloudy morning but the birds are singing. I broke down and bought a pair of capri length jeans. Steve is teasing me as I swore I never would - but they make sense down here. I will be climbing and crawling around shelves weeding out old books today so I needed something comfortable.

I was still in such a good mood yesterday after my excellent errand running morning that I got the whole apt. set up for company this evening. Steve is making his secret recipe (Gates sauce from KC!) bbq chicken for friends tonight. Couldn't even see the table, let alone eat on it, so I got that taken care of and set up the living room area into two seating areas. One to watch TV and and other so you can sit and look out at the ocean through the patio doors. Looks good but we still have a lot of unpacking to do. The boxes of my books are piled in the corners. :-)

Another Hyperion title I couldn't wait to read was Patricia McCormick's My Brother's Keeper. I was expecting something as edgy as her first novel, Cut, but it isn't. However, it is a very poignant MS novel about a 13-year-old trying to keep his older brother's drug addition hidden from his over stressed single mom and his blanket and kitty loving little brother. The dad left for California over a year ago and they had to move into a smaller place and money is tight and home life is less than happy. Toby finds solace in collecting baseball cards and spending time with the elderly Mr. D who owns the baseball card shop. This reminded me a bit of Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Haddix - the sibling trying to take care of the brother and hide from everyone what is going on. No matter how much you try to hide these situations, sooner or later the truth comes out. This is a must have in a MS library.

Off to work with an armload of boxes for the discards.