Young Indiana Jones his father, is in Georgetown lecturing at the university on medieval literature. Indy, however, travels to the Carolinas where he follows the trail of a Civil War slave in the underground Railroad.
FORMAT: Paperback
This Review is being done by my middle son, 10.
REVIEW:
It’s about a boy named Indiana Jones. His Dad and him moved to Georgetown and there is where his adventure begins. Indy finds a girl running away from some villains and he helps her get away. After there little encounter with the villains Indy finds himself helping the girl he just saved find her family treasure. I think this was a very good book and that everyone who likes adventure would like this book.
Hey, look at me! I’m writing a post! :-P It’s been ages I know and I miss it. But life has been crazy. Spring is always my crazy time. It’s baseball, baseball, baseball. Oh and wait…more baseball. And when I’m not doing baseball…I’m doing baseball! Blah!
Okay, you’re right, I’m not always doing baseball but I can assure you my free time is centered around doing baseball…you know scrubbing grass stains out of baseball pants and things. How lucky am I?
Three more weeks and I’m free of baseball! (Imagine me dancing here. Well, hmmm, I’m imagining it too…too tired to actually do it…too tired from running to baseball games!)
Do you see the “You’re leaving again?” death expression in this look?
Yeah, Kia is NOT happy with us being gone day in and day out. Believe me, she lets us know.
Oh I HAD to share this with you because it is just sooooo countrish!
Directions to North Washington….
Take 63 to Highway 18 turn off.
Turn right as if going to Charles City.
Go about 5 miles till you see a little brick school house then turn right.
Go about 4 miles till you see some big augers (this is North Washington)
Turn right on Pine St. which is a dead end.
Turn left on Wapsi
You will go around a corner and over a bridge about 1/8 of a mile and there is the Diamond.
You may want to make sure to pack a lunch . Also bring chairs and Bug Spray.
It’s directions to 12’s game last evening. Is that just too funny or what? The sad part is, if you ever do come to visit me, expect the same kind of directions. Normally though I don’t expect to see this from a coach emailed out to an entire team. Personally I’d have gotten out the old map for a few more road names aware of how many people were going to be reading it. I mean this was emailed to us so it’s not like we were receiving the directions as we drove. But hey, this is Iowa! :-) Oh and the game was at the neatest little diamond out in a corn field! Well, maybe I shouldn’t say ‘little’ but it was really nice and perfectly ‘countrish’, bugs and all.
UPDATE on things: 10 is posting a book review tomorrow. I’m still not finding time to update my exercise log BUT I am running. :-) LOVE IT. Scared about how fast October is coming but…one day at a time. Almost done with my synopsis…dang thing is taking forever to get done! But as soon as I do I can send things in! :-) Tried our other wine I have listed here and really like it! Hubby doesn’t though. But that is just fine–more for me!
Mr. Cyclops, home. Cute ain’t he? :-) It is a potato with fuzzy ears and grass for hair. Remind you of those commercials? Cha, cha chia! I have absolutely no idea if that is how you spell it but…my kids were estactic over this little guy. :-) Then we went on vacation. Only for four days but new grass needs water and my husband was positive it was dead when we got home. It looked dead. A one eyed monster…dead. He assured me my watering efforts were a lost cause. Nonetheless…I watered. And watered. And watered. Keeping him right threre in my kitchen. Every day he was inspected by all the family. Talked to, turned around, studied for any sign of life.
Personally I think it was all that attention, but suddenly he was FULL of hair! :-) And actually in need of a haircut.
And of course Kia had to see what all the excitement was about.
And now…he actually is in need of a little…hygeine matinence.
‘Warts’ as 10 has declared the spourts shooting out of Mr. Cyclops’s face are NOT allowed. Yeah, I know that was a little fuzzy, but I only took one and who wants to really get a close up view of a ‘wart’ anyhow?
‘Warts’ appearing on Mr. Cyclops though is a sign his life span is almost through. :-( 10 is wondering if it can be extended. I believe we are next going to be trying to ‘plant’ him in the garden. Do you think we’ll have potatoes?
I’ve never grown potatoes so I have no idea if its too late or anythign but its worth a try!
EXERCISE: I’ve finally updated my xLog page! YAY! Good thing–an hour run, about 5-6 miles, feels awesome! I did a two hour run last night…didn’t feel good afterwards. Felt great during but afterwards…not so good. One day at a time!
WRITING: By Thursday last week I simply gave up even opening my word program–life was too crazy. And a true testament to how it keeps on ticking despite disasters…we still had baseball! AHHHH! Today though I’m catching up and am determined to get this story in the mail this week!
As I mentioned in my first post of today, there are tons of towns being flooded, evacuated, left with no water and electricity besides the big cities being spoken about on the national news, like Cedar Rapids. A friend over at Harlequin asked about Mason city, a town a bit north and west of where I live–they were flooded. I wanted to share a short clip but couldn’t get it to post over at Harlequin, so am posting it here. One thing to keep in mind—any pictures you are seeing being covered on Cedar Rapids can basically be applied to many of the towns around here.
Okay, first as most of you might already know, I live in Iowa–northeast Iowa in what seems to be the only little island of land around which seems to not be flooding with 6 feet of water. I actually feel guilty even saying that. Everyone surrounding us is. We’ve been getting the severe storms, the tornado weather and in our town, homes are getting water damage but when one compares this to what everyone around us is experiencing…
As of this morning the water was 5 1/2 feet ABOVE any levels ever recorded. Ever. That just boggles my mind. I don’t know what these people are going to do. We’re talking homes under water in areas never even considered for flood damage. Entire towns flooded. Cedar Rapids, being the big city around here gets the news but there are all these little towns that experienced this flooding. So often and I’ve found myself in this same thinking pattern, we think of people living along the rivers as asking for it when they get flooded and live only a few feet from the water line. But this is not the case here. We are talking areas that have never flooded before. Its shocking. Hard to take in. Hard to believe.
One thing I think is remarkable about all this is–people are evacuating when told, are responding and taking this serious. And if you look at the low numbers of rescues taking place, you’ll see how truly incredible this is. I personally believe that the whole thing with Katrina helped people realize flooding is serious. Water is dangerous. 2 feet of water can knock a grown man on his butt, float a vehicle… 2 feet of water does not look like much and add to this the violent force with which it is flowing…it’s scary. I know many may think that whole thing with Katrina was handled badly and I’m not disagreeing but when in history have we had to deal with such flooding? We have now. We learned. I do believe one good thing came out of Katrina and its constant coverage…it helped the rest of the country be better prepared. We here have been respecting the warnings, preparing days in advance. Just take a look at Iowa City and all those surrounding towns. Maybe you guys don’t get it on the national news but they have been sandbagging for days already. They have been evacuating for days already. They are preparing. Of course as the water flows downwards it gathers force and water. One area astonished me, they had sandbags stacked about 12 feet high, are still stacking but–they don’t expect it to hold.
My husband works in Cedar Rapids and his company went to help fill sandbags–sadly in the end they did not work but being a part of trying to help…there are no words. Of course my hubby then needed major massage because of course he was determined to keep up with the young, in shape guys… :-) Silly man!
They are forecasting sunny weather with scattered showers today and tomorrow–YAY! All this funky weather has affected my running. Its not been happening. :-( Can you hear me growling? Today looks like the first day I can go in a week! And I plan on finding a way to go from here on out–I HAVE to. Though granted its hard to force mother nature to listen. :-) But I just had to share what happened last week.
I was so excited to be feeling great, not sick(see last post) and able to go out for a run! I couldn’t wait. AND the schedule said I only had to go 30 minutes. What a bonus. True, I could have done whatever I wanted but I wanted to get back on schedule.
So, off I went with Kia telling my kids I only had to go for 30 minutes, I’d be back before they knew it. (This is mostly for the youngest who didn’t really want me to go.)
In a steady stream of storms lately, the day was beautiful, sunny, a bit windy, a bit hot, a bit humid…okay a LOT humid and hot and windy but…I felt great! I was running!!! I kept a steady watch on my time and counted down my time…15 minutes left…10 minutes left…5 minutes left…whoohoo! 30 minutes done!!!!
I turned around and man you wouldn’t believe the strength of that wind! I was kissing the ground trying to move! I took a couple of pictures of the grass laying flat from the wind(all there was to show you–I live in Iowa remember ) but they’re on my phone and I haven’t figured out bluetooth yet. I will though. :-) Oh and for our area not having any hills, we do have steady inclines/declines. Well, going away from my house its all downhill(why we personally haven’t been flooding). Thus it doesn’t take a genius to figure out, I’d run downhill with the wind at my back all the way out. Now going back I was against a wind I could hardly stand up in, muchless run in and was going steadily uphill.
But it gets better. Did you happen to notice when I turned around?
Yeah, at 30 minutes. In other words, I ran for 30 minutes in one direction–away from home THEN turned around.
Can we say diddle brain!??!
AHHHHHHH! LOL. *sigh*, I do love to run but for the first day back after a week and half off from being sick… an hour run was NOT ideal. I made it and my kids had a good laugh at my expense. Heck, I’m still laughing.
30 minutes in one direction—Dang but I thought I was smarter than that. No wonder I’ve had a hard time learning my new phone out!
I’m breathing. And what do you know, it doesn’t hurt in the chest to climb a flight of stairs! Amazing! Yep, I’m finally over my cold! A cold no one else got I might add…not that I want them to get sick but why me? What in the world had I done to deserve it? And for that matter…where did it come from? I knew no one sick? :-P Good news though is, I’m feeling like my old self again. Emphasis on the old.
I must have wrote 200 post to you guys over the last couple of weeks in my head–but obviously none of them made it to the computer! I still want to share them, heck a part of me ‘thinks’ I already have. How goofy is that? I do want to skim over a few because to not would mean posting, like 10 a day and well, I just don’t have that time.
So first up–Iowa has been hit hard by storms lately–thankfully my family personally has been unhurt by it. But we do have several friends who were hit hard. Lives, the most important thing, were spared of those we know, but entire homes have dissappeared. Tornadoes. Do I need to say more? We made national television with the largest tornado in twenty years to hit the states. So often I have thought of posting pictures and thoughts on this of homes only 4 miles from mine that were destroyed, completely wiped away…but to be honest, its simply too much. I’m just so thankful that the death and injury tolls weren’t higher and my heart goes out to those who did lose loved ones and homes.
Next up — exercise? What is that? I couldn’t even walk up my stairs slowly without feeling whipped, without hurting, without thinking I needed an oxygen tank! I miss it and feel like I’m starting over. My exercise log doesn’t refect the actual missed time… I REALLY need to update that–I only missed the last week and a half. But today…today I’m starting again.
Diet — what diet? I’m on a diet? Oh yeah, I think I was on a diet. :-) This might be a good thing to get going too. ;-) Lucky for me its been strange weather with storms every day or too cold on the others so that fitting into a swimsuit has not been demanded of me. But, um, my luck WILL run out won’t it?
Writing — I LOVE to write did you know that? :-) I do! I slashed thousands and thousands of words, discovered that my hero has a real smartass attitude and that he did NOT like how I had things playing out towards the end of this book. To top it off…though I argued for two whole weeks with him…I hate to admit it, he was right. Dang man! So not only did I do the slashing which I had expected in the first place from my first draft…I had to change pov’s, change who initiated what, what was said, and how people reacted yet keep the same scene and results. Possible? Oh yeah. And it does ring true. I do love it. And when I did this, my gorgeous hero had the unmitigated gull to sit there smugly smiling at me, I swear. Men!
I was able to put together my blurb for the book and my query letter–YAY! My first three chapters are as polished as they are going to get and I’m FINALLY working on my synopsis. Goal? To have it in the mail next week. With only a couple chapters left to polish, I feel great in sending things in. Life is good for my writing!
Kids— did I tell you they are home for the summer? I love it. Of course we are now fighting for computer time. :-) Which reminds me…I convinced my hubby I HAD to purchase a laptop BEFORE they stopped selling windows XP which is at the end of this month! I’m a getting a laptop folks! YAY!
Phone — I updated to a razor and for the most part love it. I can’t say I love accessing my emails. That is a royal pain in the rump! Of course it might simply mean I can’t figure it out…okay so it most likely means I can’t figure the darn thing out…but it sounds so easy when everyone else talks about it! And I don’t get this…first you pay for easyedge then still have to pay for say aol mobile or gmail and it looks the same? Why? And I looked at gmail because then I could combine all our emails in one addy…but….not that simple it would seem and they say I could have to pay more for some pages. ? How do I know if I’ve hit that? And does this count for my minutes? Totally lost in case you can’t tell. I tried it with the trial thingy maggigy and studied the HELP section…still don’t get it. I could list to you the reasons but frankly I don’t know why anyone would want to spend 20 minutes typing in their addies to look at their mail. And yes I hit save, but it never does. Next time I open my phone, I have to retype. So, the point is, I seriously doubt I’m keeping this feature–I’m just not smart enough for it. And how about this texting thingy? I’m thinking, does email work with that or is that something different? Is that what I’m really looking for? Who knows. I really thought I was smarter than this! :-) Hey, I like fooling myself! ;-) Most of the time I can be quite content in my little land of lala.
Well, since this is looking a foot long I had better stop for today. :-) Hope you all have a great weekend!
A while ago a friend on the Harlequin boards made a teasing comment which got me to thinking…attitude makes a world of difference in everything we do.
She’d noticed I’d been over at Jill Shalvis’s blog…maybe a tad too much. ;-) I took it as a HUGE compliment. If only I could sound so funny and appealing as Jill. I don’t know how many of you have been by her blog but what she has is great attitude. And yeah, you bet I’d really like to emulate her example of seeing the funny side of things in everything we do.
You see every story can be told in more than one way. Most things that happen to us I suppose could be told in a negative way…woe is me…this day bites…feel sorry for me type of attitude. That’s easy and perhaps even a bit natural for a lot of us. Well, for me anyhow. ;-) For example, my story about taking my dog for a run for the first time could have been totally different. Instead of putting it in Kia’s(my dog’s) perspective, I could have lamented about all of my irritation at being drug halfway across the county. It was frustrating. Truly. But after I’d thought about it for a while I’d also seen the humor behind it. That was what I chose to write about. Yeah, I had to look for it, but wouldn’t you rather recall things with a bit of humor even if it is at yourself? Makes life more enjoyable.
And on that thought comes part of the reason I look for ways to put that kind of spin on my postings, why I keep reading Jill’s blog–Personally, I love to read things that make me smile. Puts away the grumble monster and lightens my outlook for the day. Who wouldn’t? I mean, I have found I do not go back to blogs that rant and rave and have ‘issues’ they are constantly gripping about. Yuck! I might try for a bit but little by little if that’s all they are dishing out…I drift away.
As for my own posting—I’m not a funny person, I can’t tell a joke to save my life, nor have I ever been the life of a party. But I have always been an optimist and being able to write, to post things here has been a gift in many ways allowing me try and find a way to express that bright outlook with a bit of humor in things. On here I can edit and edit and edit until I feel that maybe, just maybe I’ll get a bit of a smile out of you. :-) Though I don’t doubt there are days when like today, I’m just simply talking, rambling and maybe being a bit like I am, boring and you are all probably wondering when, if ever, I’m going to get to my point…stop talking…Hmmm, maybe I’d better do that now.
Life isn’t easy but with the right attitude it can be sweeter.
Not that you were probably wondering this but…coffee does not taste very good with medicine. Blah. And I SOOOOOO love my cup of coffee in the morning. It’s funny really. I keep trying it and thinking in the back of my mind apparently that the next sip is going to taste as it’s supposed to. Except it still doesn’t and I mentally find myself sighing with deep disappointment. But then…I do it again.
Well, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find the right words that do that one scene I told you about yesterday–actually I’d been thinking about it before yesterday even, knowing I was coming to it. And I’m excited to say–I found them! Incidentally I also found the beginning of a story for the character who plays a major roll in this scene. He’s the hero’s best friend and I’ve always known he could have his own story someday…just didn’t think about it yet. And I’ve had these bits and pieces of scenes in my mind for a herorine but totally disjointed. Just knew they’d be cool in a story sometime.
So here I was trying to figure out a better way of saying some 10 pages worth of stuff in one and I should mention that when I originally wrote the scene some three months ago it was to take place in Thailand…moving it took away the initial reason for why Rafiq(my hero’s best friend) would say what he said which then in turn put the two main characters into the conversation they were in. I figured out a way to get there but…just had to get my mind over the hump of location I guess. :-) Anyhow…it occurred to me that maybe knowing a bit more about this guy would help me find the words he’d use to get me where I wanted to be. And suddenly…I KNEW a lot about him! I don’t have a complete story arch in mind or anything like that, but I do have essence of the beginning conflict and I’m just soooo excited. I had…HAD to write it down. So I did.
It’s kind of cool. I mean, I’m not working on his story next. I have a ST which is suspense that I have been holding at bay from a while ago which was never finished because the character archs were off and I didn’t know where to go. I’ve since figured things out and can’t wait to get back to it. Also, I really want to have both category and single title length books going…I like the mix. It works good for me and my brain. Point in case, I’m missing dead bodies and paranormal touches right now. But I know when I get knee deep in that stuff I will then start to yearn for a book more normal…well, mostly normal. ;-) How many billionaires do you know? :-) So it’ll be a while for this new idea to really get going but knowing I have a beginning, an idea which excites me for him…is just too cool.
It’s been quiet I know but life has just been way busy. Even this morning I probably wouldn’t be here but for the fact I can’t seem to wrap my mind around a one page scene alteration no how. Probably because I’ve been so lucky to have acquired a lovely little head cold. Or that’s what I’m blaming it on anyhow. ;-) Not that fact I just don’t know what to say. So with not having a clue what to say I thought I’d hop on here, say hello with a bit of rambling.
The two older boys finish school this week–YAY! Can’t believe summer vacation is almost here. We went away for the weekend to visit my grandmother and father up north and had a great time. The weather was a bit cool for fishing(didn’t catch anything) but I did get to go out for a nice run on a trail. Miss the trees I have to tell ya. We took my grandmother up to Duluth where there is a Barnes and Noble, spent some money and already my oldest has finished his book. :-) Guess we will have to make another trip to a book store soon. What a hard ship.
I haven’t done any reading lately, been catching up on things but the boys will have some more reviews to add to Harlequin’s Charity Challenge and I’ll have them add them when school gets out. Which is good as they were hoping to hit 15,000 books read by the end of this month…last I checked it was around 11,000. That’s a lot of books not yet read!
I’ve been getting running/walking in, though I’ve not recorded it lately–maybe today I will get to that–but its not been to schedule. It’s been all mixed up for one reason or another. I’m thinking though that since the kids won’t be in school starting Friday, I should be able to get back on a regular schedule.
On my writing, I’ve been making a steady progress. My main thing at this point has been taking the scenes I already have, carving them to an eight of the size, tightening them up and then adding a ton more ‘meaningful’ words. If that makes sense. :-) I’m working on the ending chapters which always seem to expand with possibilities way beyond the scope of whatever book length it is I’m working on. The last chapter which I just got back from my cp was one of these…about 40 pages made into 12 with a whole lot more impact. I ramble though so I expect this. Its just the way I write. I write all kinds of things not essential to the main story. It helps me get to know my characters I guess and then I sum up the ‘discovery’ in a word or two. I was extremely happy to discover all those hours of ‘cutting’, ‘tightening’, ‘polishing’….paid off though–my cp really liked that chapter. :-) And yesterday I made some really great progress on the carving the next chapter–cut about 4,000 words. (Doesn’t that just sound wrong??? LOL) But now, as I mentioned in the beginning of this post…I’ve hit a road block. Thinking I’ll skim it and move on. Maybe something during the day today will trigger an idea. Maybe.
Well, my rambling is done for now! Have a good one!
Engadget noted last week that FINALLY there are some ebook readers coming out that are under $300 with Wifi and the usual ebook readers compatabilities. YAY!!!! This is what I’ve wanted all along. Of course I have my PDA and its only a few months old.
I like my PDA. I use my PDA all the time but for three things only really–reading, my calendar and checking my emails. Since it goes wherever I go, the Family calendar is always with me too and since I’m always going in three different directions…this is awesome! I can use the PDA for tons of other things but don’t. I like that I could though.
I look at these new ereaders coming out with wifi and think several things.
I had THOUGHT I’d be buying books directly to my PDA and wanted wifi for that reason. Well otherthan maybe two books, all have been bought while on the computer and then transferred to my PDA. Why? Because looking for books while on the PDA is not fun. The screen is way too small. Its possible but a pain. So I guess in one sense I wonder, would I want the ereader to be compatible with my computer? Yes. Though if the screen is bigger…maybe that wouldn’t be an issue. Maybe then I would buy more directly onto the PDA.
One thing though, I’ve always wanted versatility…being able to buy while on the computer or the PDA was one of its selling points to me. I didn’t/don’t want to be boxed in, restricted. So the new reader would HAVE to do this for me.
Calendar. I have my calendar on there, coordinated from my computer and considering I’m using it all the time, I’d want that to still be possible without having to ‘reenter’ the information(I am NOT entering all that stuff twice).
I check my emails with the PDA all the time–I’d want to be able to do that too.
I LOVE the bigger size –I’ve always been sold on the bigger size.
Someday I might retire my PDA–in the meantime, I’m excited to see the readers heading in what I consider to be the right direction both in capabilities and price. YAY!
I'm sharing a bit of everything, from my writing, to daily life, to my attempt to live a bit healthier through a blending of words and photos. =) And this year I have a new venture to add to the mix--
I've signed up to run in a marathon come October! Crazy fun or what? =)
BLURB:
however, travels to the Carolinas where he follows the trail of a Civil War slave in the underground Railroad.
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