First An Earthquake And Now...Hurricane Irene?

I am not very happy right now...

I don't understand weather.

My husband is freaking out.

He is sputtering and muttering words like gutters, generator, evacuation, fill the bathtub with water, put furniture under the deck, get the lawn mowed...get the lawn mowed?

check roof...his big concern is the roof!!!

Every year we are going to buy a generator.

We still have not purchased a generator.

I am quite certain that this is not going to be a good week end.
Does one jar of Italian tuna in olive oil, a half of a jar of peanut butter and some crackers count as hurricane supplies?  I think Lucy has claimed the tuna...
We are reduced to watching the news and looking out the window...and knowing how miserable we will be when we lose power.  And we will lose power.
Most certainly.
We lose power when there is a slight wind.
Irene is a big wind.  And water is attached to Irene.
Lots of water.
More water than we need.
And there are no inns, country inns, motels, hotels or B & B's with any rooms within miles of us. 
There are also no batteries, lanterns, bags of ice, or basic supplies any where!!!
That...in a nutshell...is how this week end is going down.
What fun things are you doing this week end?

What A Fun Book!!!

Book Summary...from Goodreads...



Bonnie Pinkwater is a teacher, a good one. She cares about her students. So when Peyton Newlin, a thirteen-year-old math genius, disappears, Bonnie starts nosing around. One by one, students who were competing with the young g

enius start turning up dead and Bonnie suspects Peyton may be narrowing the field. Then Peyton himself turns up murdered. Bonnie's investigation ratchets up.What she discovers is a coven of witches, a teenage comic book magnate, a skinhead Neanderthal with violent propensities, an abusive father, an amorous science teacher, and a mistranslated medieval mathematics manuscript. Somehow, all the pieces have intersected at the tragically brief life of her math protégé. As the body count mounts, Bonnie realizes she may have bitten off more than she can chew. Because whoever is eliminating her beloved students, has now decided East Plains, Colorado would be better off without one aging math teacher.

My thoughts...

This was a delightful and totally fun mystery series. I absolutely love it when the main character has a fierce and aggressive yet lovable personality with a penchant for putting herself
in places and situations where she does not belong!!!

Bonnie Pinkwater...main amateur sleuth and sharp tongued math teacher...is just such a person. In this first book of this series Bonnie's
math students are being killed!!!   One by one...
Bonnie digs in to determine who is responsible. She is clever, sarcastic and fun!!! I loved this character.
She has quirky pets and a new man friend and annoys most people she comes in contact with...particularly former student police detectives and mothers of students who practice witchcraft.

Readers who love Lillian Jackson Braun books or the Goldie Bear books or the Alan Bradley series starring Flavia de Luce will love this series.

It was fun, really intense and very clever!!!
I loved it...I plan on reading the next two books in this series as soon as I can.  Is it the teacher in me that made me love this book so much?   I continue to ask myself that but I think that Bonnie will be appealing to lots of readers.  This book was a refreshing one!!!

It was a perfect post earthquake pre hurricane escape!!!

There Is A Whole Lot Of Shakin' Going On...

This is what I discovered yesterday.

When you live on the East Coast in a place where earthquakes are almost an impossibility...

you can still have one.

When you are in an earthquake...never follow your cat.  We were relaxing with a book upstairs in my bedroom.  I heard a rumble.  I thought it was the washer because it has a tendency to shake and be off balance.  But it was really loud and the entire house was shaking.  Then I thought Lucy was playing under the bed and I then wondered how such a small cat could make such a loud noise under our bed.  Then I saw her on the night stand.

Her ears were pinned back.  Her eyes were ridiculously wide open. We sort of looked at each other in slow motion.  

She ran. I ran. She led me to the basement. I actually thought it was a good idea. 

I think I was thinking tornado.

Cupboard doors opened.  Bowls came off of open shelves.

And then it was quiet.

I can not even begin to imagine how awful it must be when an earthquake is ten or twenty times worse than the baby one we had.

Whew!!!

Now we have to survive the hurricane and gale force winds this Sunday.

LucyGrace is in a time out for sending us to the basement yesterday!!!

If you have not met Brenda Youngerman...she is profiling me on her blog!!!  She is a lovely blogger and an esteemed author.  I think she has a heart of gold!!!

Tomato News...

As of today...Aug. 21st...every tomato in my house and or yard has a home.

Most of them are in the freezer.

I have learned that it is fun to cut little slits in their bottoms.

Then put them into a bowl.

Cover them with boiling water.

And...

wait for their little skins to just sort of pop off.

It is very soothing.

Then I squish them and cook them on top of the stove for a bit.

They sort of simmer gently for awhile.

The squishing part is my favorite thing to do right now.

I just squeeze them as I put them in the pot.

Very stress relieving.

Because my husband is the one who is totally responsible for this bounty...

he does the next part.

He uses the stick blender and smooshes them out until they are a smooth sauce.

He adds fresh leaves of basil from our garden...yet one more out of control crop he is responsible for.

He then ladles the "sauce" into baggies and takes them to the basement refrigerator to freeze for pasta sauces this coming winter.

Unless we forget that they are down there and continue to buy cans of sauce the way we normally do.

Happy Sunday!!!