Mom is Just a Nickname

Waiting for things to happen is the big news here at the moment. We’re waiting to see what Fay will do, waiting to see what Fay will bring, waiting to see what Thursday will bring.

The good news, despite my extreme dislike of waiting, is that the NHC has let the Hurricane Watch expire. Northeastern Florida is now only(?!) under a tropical storm warning.

Outside, the air is humid. It’s not all that hot, actually, but it is oppressively humid. The skies are gray and to the East, we can see the defined clouds of the storm. The winds are steady but not particularly strong at the moment. We are far enough inland that we won’t feel the full force of Fay’s winds, in any case.

I guess I’m somewhere in between the panicking people and the apathetic people as far as preparing for the storm. I’m worried about the storm, but I feel that we have most of the practical preparations made. We did pick up some more water, because we only store so much unless a threat is imminent. We did that before the Hurricane Watch was posted yesterday, though. We always keep a fairly well stocked freezer and pantry, but we also picked up some canned soups to supplement what we have. We brought in our lawn furniture and I will be pulling my patio plants before too long.

There are still some preparations I need to get done, but I’ve been tired and draggy all day so I haven’t been moving very quickly on anything. The adrenaline impetus of a hurricane watch is gone now, and I’m falling back towards the apathetic side of the waiting.

Here’s to Fay, in all her fickle and fraying glory. Hopefully, she’ll treat the First Coast kindly.

Just a day ago, I was worrying about my parents getting hit by Tropical Storm Fay. Turns out, they escaped with some windy storms. They said it wasn’t too bad.

Now, we’re the ones being targeted by Fay! We’ve got a Hurricane Watch here, schools are closed for the next two days, and we’re pulling together emergency supplies.

Oh yeah, I love living in Florida.

The Smart One by Ellen Meister

The Smart One was a fun read for me. The main character, Bev, was in the middle of a trio of sisters. She was always known as “The Smart One”, while her sister Clare was the “The Pretty One” and her sister Joey was “The Wild One”. One grew up to be a wife and mother, one a one-hit-wonder rock star, and the other has wandered through her life, always looking for what she was supposed to be doing. Being “The Smart One” didn’t make living life any easier for her.

A series of events lead the sisters to discovering a body, preserved in a barrel under their parents’ next door neighbors’ house. That discovery lead the three on a hunt to solve the mystery of how the body got there. Along the way they learned a lot more about each other and about themselves, and about their neighbors.

This book was fast paced and well written. Although the characters experienced tough (and sometimes unlikely) situations and spent time talking about a wide range of feelings, there was humor, wit and an honesty about life that kept it from ever becoming morose or gloomy. Although the situations did seem unlikely to me (innocent, naive me?), there was never a chink in the story, never a chance for me to fall out of my suspension of disbelief. And there was always a whisper of “It could happen…” there in the back of my mind too. Unlikely does not mean impossible, after all.

I was excited to get The Smart One to read and review. I had heard of Ellen Meister’s first book, The Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA, but I still haven’t read it…I have it from the library, now, actually, but I haven’t started it yet. After reading The Smart One, I am looking forward to reading it even more!

The Smart One is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. It will be released on August 5! This review was made possible by Lynn at Blog Stop Book Tours. For more information about the book, the author or how to become a reviewer for Blog Stop Book Tours, please click through the link and check out all of the information there!