Vacation Reads Giveaway Hop: Winners Announced

At this leg of the giveaway hop, you can enter to win one of three ebooks of Bound! Here's a few details about the book:

After her mother dies, Elowyn Challis would do anything to bury the pain, but being shipped off to boarding school isn't what she had in mind. Things could be worse. Wyn finds a place for herself in the academy and living in the capital is just sparkling. But under it all, her mother's death still haunts her. Then Wyn discovers a secret that changes everything she believes: the bedtime stories her mother told her as a child are real, the faerie realm exists, and she is the Binder—the one mortal on earth with the power to seal the gate to Fae. It's a power Wyn's not sure she wants or can even wield. But she must confront her nightmares and her grief, or two worlds will be torn apart.

Just enter using the rafflecopter form below. Also be sure to check out the linky list after the form for some other great book blogs and prizes. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monsoon

When hubby and I first moved to Phoenix, I started hearing crazy talk about monsoon. And I immediately thought, "What? There's a monsoon season in Phoenix? Doesn't that only happen in, like, the Sahara?"

To which I was told: "Monsoon implies season. It's just monsoon. Though you can call them monsoon storms. And yes, we have a rainy season. It starts in July."

So after I stopped the redundancy, I started really looking foward to it, because it was only a month or two away. Lower temperatures? Yes, please. Lots of rain, you betcha. Thunder and lightning, bring it on. I was born and raised in Ohio, and we had some pretty spectacular thunderstorms. After going to school in a desert (Utah), then moving to more desert (Phoenix), I was quite ready for some rain. And cooler weather.

Now monsoon has rolled around again, and it's only (gasp!) 88 degrees right now, cloudy, and rainy. Yup, it's humid and my hair is so frizzy I don't know how I ever lived in a humid climate before. Funny...I don't remember my hair ever frizzing growing up. Maybe my hair is just too used to the dry now. But frizzy hair aside...

I love monsoon, and I love the clouds. The rainy season needs to come around more often.

Enforced Phobia

So hubby and I took the girlies to the Ronald McDonald magic show at the library a few days ago. (As a side note, I love the Chandler Public Library. This summer they've had great free activities for the kids.) Ronald was there, did a few tricks, did a few gags, talked about loving to read, got my girls smiling and laughing, so it was a winner in my book.

The thing that I really liked watching? Seeing which kids were going to grow up to have a fear of clowns. There's a -phobia word for that, though I can't remember at the moment what it is. The thing that was the most interesting to watch? Which parents made their kids suffer through it and which parents took their kids out. I mean, if my child were hysterical and covering her ears and crying and begging to be taken out, I would find the nearest exit. For her sanity as well as mine.

Do some parents want their kids to be afraid of clowns? Maybe they're the parents who are in fact afraid of clowns themselves and need to pass that fear on to the next generation. Who does that to a child?

Which brings to mind the old saying that the only way to overcome your fear is to face it. Which in most cases is a load of hooey. But some people just don't believe that.

Let Freedom Ring

I went to a flag raising ceremony and pancake breakfast this morning at my church. I love the 4th of July. Looking around me at my friends that were also there, I love the sense of belonging we all have to this great country. More importantly, I love the principles that this nation was founded under, the principles that great men gave their lives for.

We are one nation, under God.

Happy Fourth of July!

Handy

Hubby is handy with just about everything. It's been something I've forever been grateful for ever since I married him. Car needs an oil change? He's happy to do it. Need ceiling fans installed in our house when we moved in? He's up in the attic feeding wires and cutting holes and voila! Ceiling fans. Need bunk beds because we have a baby on the way and my two girls will be sharing a room in a matter of months? No problem. He comes home from Harbor Freight and Home Depot with the tools and the wood to do it.

(Which, by the way, is a fabulous solution, because Craig's List was just not forthcoming with the bunk beds. Why do people think their junk is worth so much money? Ugly junk, too.)

And while I think that all this is fabulous and he has my eternal gratitude and love forever and ever, the cutest thing about it is seeing my four-year-old be his best helper and shadow because 1) she's been begging for bunk beds, 2) she always wants to help her daddy, and 3) hubby took the week off, and any day when dad is home is a holiday.

So this morning he and I were talking about how we wanted the bunk bed ladder to look. My cute girlie quietly gets a pen and paper and sits at the table. I'm thinking she's just drawing. She comes back a minute later and says, "This is how I want the ladder." She had drawn up her own plans. And we're going with them :)