Author: Karen

Hi! My day job is a CMA in the Precertificiation Department (I work with insurance companies). I'm a mom to two young men. I've been married to the same man for 34 years. I have a lot to say about nothing. Lucky you.
Book Corner

Story Sentence: The Girl Beneath the Sea

Karen

The frogs are chirping as the sun sets, casting a pink glow across the sky. I paddle my kayak slowly, watching the mangroves on either side. Occasionally I spot the headlights of a car as it goes down the road to my right.

Those are the first two sentences from chapter twenty-one of “The Girl Beneath the Sea.”

Blurb: Coming from scandalous Florida treasure hunters and drug smugglers, Sloan McPherson is forging her own path, for herself and for her daughter, out from under her family’s shadow. An auxiliary officer for Lauderdale Shores PD, she’s the go-to diver for evidence recovery. Then Sloan finds a fresh kill floating in a canal—a woman whose murky history collides with Sloan’s. Their troubling ties are making Sloan less a potential witness than a suspect. And her colleagues aren’t the only ones following every move she makes. So is the killer.

Stalked by an assassin, pitted against a ruthless cartel searching for a lost fortune, and under watch within her ranks, Sloan has only one ally: the legendary DEA agent who put Sloan’s uncle behind bars. He knows just how deep corruption runs—and the kind of danger Sloan is in. To stay alive, Sloan must stay one step ahead of her enemies—both known and unknown—and a growing conspiracy designed to pull her under.

My thoughts so far:

Interesting character. Sloan is a tough-as-nails character and I liked her immediately. She has an off again, on again, boyfriend slash baby daddy that she loves but for some reason yet unknown, she doesn’t feel worthy of his love. She has a daughter who is a spitfire and basically a miniature version of Sloan and again, I just like that character arc. I like women who are strong, know their mind and aren’t afraid to get a little bloody. Sloan has a really interesting job, she’s the go-to diver for evidence recovery – meaning, she dives into murky waters and searches for crime-scene evidence and often finds dead bodies in those searches. The book opens with her diving to find some archeological tidbits for her professor and when she hears an ominous splash, she just assumes it’s an alligator and she draws her knife in preparation. She doesn’t panic, she doesn’t squeal like a girl and try and get out, she just braces herself for battle.

I love her job. I don’t recall ever following a character with that type of job before and I’m looking forward to seeing what other treasures she finds throughout the story.

I’m at the part where she discovers money has been missing and/or been stolen from the mob and somehow they think she had something to do with it. They are now starting to hunt her. I also find the legendary DEA agent that turned her uncle in sort of being her unofficial bodyguard an interesting aspect of the story and I’m looking forward to seeing how that relationship pans out.

Run, which is Sloan’s love interest, sort of, has a hot temper and it’s been foreshadowed that he might end up doing something off the cuff that could potentially help, or hurt, Sloan. We’re still in the early stages of the story but basically, we’re trying to figure out who killed Samantha, the girl that made the splash in the water at the beginning of the story. (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t an alligator).  I’m about 35% of the way through the story and I like it so far.

Book Corner

Book Review: The Last Goodbye (ARC)

Karen

Pre-order on Amazon

How can you move on if you can’t let go?

Spencer was the love of Anna’s life: her husband, her best friend, her rock. She thought their love would last forever.

But three years ago, Spencer was tragically killed in an accident and Anna’s world was shattered. How can she ever move on, when she’s lost her soulmate?

On New Year’s Eve Anna calls Spencer’s phone number, just to hear his old voicemail greeting. But to her shock, someone answers…

Brody has inherited Spencer’s old number and is the first person who truly understands what Anna’s going through. As her and Brody’s phone calls become lengthier and more frequent, they begin opening up to each other—and slowly rediscover how to smile, how to laugh, even how to hope.

But Brody hasn’t been entirely honest with Anna. Will his secret threaten everything, just as it seems she might find the courage to love again?

This was an ARC, (advanced reader copy), and I must say, this is the best ARC I’ve read thus far.

If you’ve ever lost someone close to you and had a hard time letting go and moving on, this is the story for you. It’s beautifully written and the characters are thoroughly fleshed out so that I was fully invested in both Anna and Brody’s journeys by the end.

I admit, I’m brutally honest in my reviews, and I will be with this one, too, so trust me when I say, this is worth the read.

Anna was married to Spencer, he was the love her life. They had been married a few short years before tragically, Spencer is hit by a drunk driver and killed. Anna struggles with his death and doesn’t know how to move forward, she’s stuck on a hamster wheel of grief and she doesn’t know how to get off and when she has a chance to get off, her grief and guilt keep her there. This story is not only about Anna, but about Anna’s relationship with her best friend, Gabi, and struggling to hold on to a relationship with her in-laws. So I appreciated the fact that the story was more than just Anna’s struggle but included her struggles with her friendships and extended families and finding a new normal within her sad little world.

I thought Brody’s introduction to the story was terribly clever. I’ve always thought, and even encouraged, people to get to know one another sight unseen – then you have no choice but to get to know the person before allowing the external package to influence your impressions. And once Brody was introduced, I wanted to know more about him immediately, not only because he was willing to listen to Anna, a perfect stranger, and her grief but because the author does a great job of surrounding Brody with mystery that I was dying to know what event caused him to be a recluse and afraid to be around people.

Gabi is the requisite breath of fresh air. Her concern for Anna is genuine and I admired her attempts to get Anna to break free of her zombie state and start living life again. I think the story would have been too depressing and sad without Gabi’s interventions and I appreciated Gabi’s persistence and hard work to look out for Anna. Everyone should have a Gabi in his/her life.

Jeremy is a man she meets while taking salsa lessons (one of Gabi’s many attempts to get Anna out into real life again) and she’s instantly attracted to him. But with that interest comes the guilt and she fights the attraction for quite a while. She knows she’s physically attracted to him but she can’t help but compare him to Spencer and that guilt sabotages any relationship strides she might make. I appreciated the fact that Anna didn’t immediately fall in love with Jeremy as that would have somehow diluted Anna’s sorrow and made her struggle to love again seems frivolous. But her journey with Jeremy was necessary because it gave her an opportunity to grow into the person she needed and wanted to be.

Anna’s relationship with her in-laws was an interesting aspect of the story. I found myself getting a little impatient with Anna’s willingness to endure her mother-in-law’s (MIL) coldness but I understood her need to remain a part of the life she had before Spencer’s death. Her MIL is really struggling with her son’s death and she partially blames Anna. They have bi-weekly luncheons where Anna, her in-laws and Spencer’s brother and his wife get together to remember Spencer. They talk about him and routinely flip through photo albums of various stages of Spencer’s life in an attempt not to forget him.

This is a part of the story that I struggled with. Not with Anna’s motivations, but rather, with her maintaining her relationship with her in-laws. I confess, I’ve never lost anyone super close to me. I’ve been very fortunate, thank God. So reading about Anna’s guilt, though touching and poignant, I had a hard time relating to her struggles, though I could certainly understand her journey. I guess, what I’m trying to say is, would most people, do most people, maintain a relationship with their by marriage family if the link to that family is missing? I can see it continuing shortly after the death, you’re all grappling to come to terms with the tragedy and helping one another through the loss, but would one expect to keep that closeness after three years? The time frame almost seemed too long to me – the fact that Anna was having such a hard time coming to terms with what happened, her insistence on keeping her relationship with her in-laws seemed ….. overkill. Then again, can one put a time stamp on grief? I know everyone deals with grief in different ways and everyone’s journey is different, there’s definitely not a set template that one must follow when dealing with the death of a loved one, but judging by the intensity of Anna’s grief, I think the story might have been more … impactful if Spencer had only been dead say … a year?

Again, I don’t have any experience to say whether one would most likely, or should most likely, have that much grief after three years but I did feel a little impatient with the intensity of Anna’s grief she maintained for so long. I can’t imagine how exhausting that must have been for her, and for the people around her.

I think Anna’s determination to hold on to her relationship with her in-laws is what truly holds her back from moving forward. I do wonder if her reaction to seeing Brody would have been so dramatic if she hadn’t maintained that connection. To me, it almost stunted her growth and perhaps that was the reason she was still so stuck in her grief after three years.

And speaking of when Anna finally meets Brody – her reaction was disappointing. I lost a little respect for Anna at that point and I felt she reacted childishly. My sympathies definitely shifted to Brody though perhaps that was the author’s intention. Again, I feel like Anna’s insistence to hang on to the past and build some sort of close relationship with her in-laws stunted her emotional growth and that would somewhat explain her reaction when seeing Brody. I get why the author did that, but the story, in my opinion, was near perfect until that scene. I get that Lucas likely wanted to toss in a surprise, and she certainly did, and I wasn’t exactly expecting a happy ending at that point, but Anna’s reaction was not only the last thing I expected, it was the least desirable scenario. But let’s be honest, people are flawed, imperfect and unpredictable. Who’s to say something like that wouldn’t happen in real life?

Regardless, that part of the story left a bitter taste in my mouth after being used to chewing something sweet but it wasn’t a big enough deal to make me dislike the story, overall.

I also found it interesting that the lead character, Anna, grew much more quickly than the secondary character, Brody. It was as if the story started as Anna’s story but ended up being Brody’s story by the end. I thought that was an interesting twist.

In summary:

The Last Goodbye is a story of loss, grief, depression and the power of human connection. It’s been three years since Anna lost the love her life, her husband Spencer. He was killed by a drunk driver while running an errand for Anna. The story centers around Anna’s depression and her inability, or unwillingness, to move on with her life. Anna’s best friend, Gabi, tries hard to maneuver her friend out of the depression stage of grief but for every triumph her mother-in-law succeeds in sucking her back into the shadows of sadness. She knows she needs to move on, but she can’t let go of her guilt long enough to give herself a chance to move past on.

On New Year’s Eve, in sheer desperation and loneliness, she dials Spencer’s number to listen to his voicemail message and is shocked when she hears a male stranger’s voice pick up. At first, she thinks it’s Spencer’s ghost come back to haunt her, but she soon realizes that, in her grief, she forgot to pay Spencer’s phone bill and the phone company had closed the account and had given the number to someone else. Unbeknownst to her, the man on the other end of the line is just as lonely and sad as she is and together, they form a precarious and curious bond. Anna continues to call the number and the man continues to pick up, to listen and offer her advice and they build an unusual friendship.

Gabi, in an attempt to help her friend to start living life again, signs them up for a salsa class and Anna meets Jeremy. She’s surprised that she finds him attractive and she tentatively tries to build a relationship with him but she can’t get past the notion that “he’s not her Spencer.” The relationship dies before it’s given life but the experience teaches Anna that she’s capable of living a normal life, however that may look for her.

Anna continues to maintain a relationship with Spencer’s family though in a lot of ways, her desperate attempt to keep them in her life prevents her from moving forward and she continues to struggle to keep Spencer alive in her memory but desperately searching for normalcy.

Though the story moves slow at times, I feel it’s necessary to show the reader the importance of coming to terms and dealing with various degrees of grief and depression. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that has had trouble navigating their own difficult journey with the death of a loved one. Lucas does a really good job of exploring and processing the stages of grief, specifically depression, guilt and the complexity of living one’s life and moving on from a personal tragedy.

The characters are well rounded and the story is beautifully written. I appreciated Lucas’ attention to Brody’s story and dealing with the aftermath of his personal tragedy. In a lot of ways, this story begins as Anna’s story and ends completing Brody’s story. It’s a lovely twist and I would highly recommend this book if you’re looking for a story that deals with love, loss and new beginnings.

Language

Fun Facts About Language #1

Karen

In case you didn’t know, I love language. I studied language in college and I suffered through an Aristotle class on the origins of language.

It was a painful class, but I learned a lot about language and the art of communication in that class.

So when Kevin brought home the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, I was pretty excited.

Have you ever wondered where a word or phrase came from? No? Just me? Well …

I’m going to share some of the ones I found interesting with you because, well, I like you … (can you imagine how I would treat you if I didn’t like you! You’re welcome).

I’m so glad you asked. Read on …

American English – Why was English chosen as our language after we broke from England? Why wasn’t it Indian or something else? At first glance these look like frivolous questions, but it may surprise you to know that at the time of the founding of this nation many of its leaders debated very seriously whether or not English should be carried forward as the official language of the United States, as it had been of the colonies. Never was there any serious consideration of an American Indian language as a substitute for English. For one thing, the various Indian dialects were spoken tongues. Not until Sequoyah, in the early nineteenth century, devised an alphabet for the Cherokee language, did an Indian tongue become a written language.

But the bitterness of the colonists against the British was strong enough for many to feel that they should rid themselves of the British tongue, as well as of “the tyrant’s rule.” So some members of the Continental Congress solemnly proposed that English be banished and Hebrew substituted. The fact that few colonists could read or speak Hebrew and that it had not been a living language for centuries sufficed to kill that suggestion. Another proposal was that Greek be adopted as our official language. That idea lasted only long enough for one patriot to remark that “it would be more convenient for us to keep the language as it is and make the English speak Greek.”

What finally happened, of course, was that we continued to speak our own brand of English, which, after a century or so, became known as “American English,” or “The American Language.” The differences between our version and that spoken in the British Isles are great. Even the influences of movies, magazines and television have not removed many of the inconsistencies between the two versions of the language. In the end Britain and American find themselves, in George Bernard Shaw’s paradoxical phrase, “one people divided by a common language.”

A-O.K. was invented by a NASA public relations officer, Colonel “Shorty” Powers. The occasion was our first suborbital flight in May 1961 and the astronaut involved was Alan Shepard. But Powers, relaying to newsmen and the radio audience what he heard from Shepard, mistook a simple, “O.K.” for A-O.K. He fancied the sound of the term so much that he repeated it several times and it caught on with newspaper headline writers, if not with the astronauts themselves. According to our best information, no astronaut ever used the term and it was been notably absent from radio and TV reports of subsequent space flights.

Apple of One’s Eye – The first apple of the eye was the pupil, which in ancient days was thought to be a round object similar to the apple. As recently as Anglo-Saxon times, the same word, aeppel, meant both “eye” and “apple.” It goes without saying that the pupil of one’s eye is very previous indeed – and that’s how the expression the apple of one’s eye came to mean something greatly treasured.

Podcast

14: Ultimate Revenge: Name a Rat or a Cockroach After an Ex-Lover and Watch it Be Fed to a Larger Animal

Karen
This is not a drill: Black Lives Matter organization gets nominated for a Nobel Peace prize, the media claim there’s only one side to a story – their story, Dr. Fauci recommends wearing THREE masks and Senator Hawley stands up for the right – FINALLY. Book review this week is an ARC called “The Last Goodbye” and as always, I offer a few story ideas. And yes, the title of this podcast is a REAL thing.
Mentioned in podcast:
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Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US
Take me on the go! You can hear my podcast on the following platforms:

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I upload a new podcast every week. Thanks for listening!

*TALK” to you soon!

Bullet Journal

February Bullet Journal Cover

Karen

So – January is gone – POOF. Eleven more months until Christmas. You may smirk, but ya’ll know you’ll be pulling your Christmas decorations out within a few blinks. It’s amazing how fast time flies.

And January 2021 is over, never to return.

Only 47 months to go until Biden is gone. Assuming he leaves. Please God, MAKE HIM LEAVE.

*ahem* Anyway …

Time to move on to February, As usual, I didn’t get much done in January. My work life … it consumes me. I wish it didn’t, but it has. The big question is, how do I NOT allow it to consume me? I’m still working on that one …

Here is a glimpse of my sorry bullet journal pages this month:

I didn’t do as well with my steps this month. You can definitely tell when the weekend comes around – I barely hit 3000 steps. But whatever. I’m cool with it. However, I DO need to get back to walking and NO I didn’t get back to walking this month.

Is anyone really surprised?

I’m not doing a productivity tracker this month. One, I don’t have room because I just couldn’t make myself not use the remaining pages in my journal and two, my productivity trackers are boring. I don’t really DO anything and it’s always the same stuff. I think I’ll give it a rest this month. I like the tracker, it’s just depressing to look at it. Care to count the number of YouTube icons?

Yeah, me neither.

Self explanatory. We had three snow days and one ice day in January this year. I’m the only one who cares to remember that.

Not crazy about the mood/writing trackers – mainly because the writing side looks pathetic. Might do something different next month. I may have to break down and just draw some books as opposed to using the stencil – it depresses me that I’m not filling that up anymore. Four books this month – wow. And not wow in a good way.

The majority of my pages are journaling and of course, I don’t want to post the details – I get pretty raw and uncut in my journal but I wanted to put this in because look Ma! A quote! (Side note: that calendar sticker I bought from a little side shop and though I really like the girl, it took two months, TWO MONTHS, to get my order. Dude – come on!)

I started a book review section in my journal. I’m really digging it. It helps to look back on my impressions when I go to write my reviews. I will definitely be continuing that.

Here is this month’s best plan-with-me video, in my opinion. I think this girl needs WAY more followers. She’s so creative and imagine the patience it took to make this pop-up!

 

There is NO WAY I could ever do something like this. I’m just not creative enough and there is NO WAY I would have the patience to try this but wow, it is so fun to watch her do it! Have you ever attempted a pop-up in your journal?

random stuff

What Does Your Sleeping Position Say About You? Also, Naps are Good.

Karen

Video Summary:

1. Fetal position – comfort, safety, shy, sensitive and introverted – kind, soft hearted

2. Stomach – skydiver position – open, playful, fun loving, brash, straight forward, take risks, bold, sociable, sensitive to criticism

3. Back – sleepy soldier – strong, silent personality, disciplined, hard working, structure, take themselves seriously, perfectionist.

4. Side – the log – talkative, charming, friendly, trusting and warm, gullible and naïve

5. Back, arms overhead – starfish – amiable, mild-mannered and easy to get along with, supportive, good communication skills, loyal.

6. With leg raised – unpredictable and adventurous personality, emotional, temperamental, moody, driven, competitive and charismatic, leaders, center of attention

Me? My sleeping position is actually not mentioned here. I sleep sitting up.

I know, weird! But it’s comfortable for me and I breathe easier sleeping up. There will be nights that I will jerk awake and am STILL sitting up nearly six hours later. When that happens, I know I got some deep sleep. I also sleep on my back, (but wake myself up snoring so I don’t keep that position for long), side and with my leg raised. I NEVER sleep on my stomach, (that’s actually not a great position for your back) and rarely in the fetal position because it makes my legs sore.

 

Video Summary:

1. There are different types of nappers
A. Habitual
B. Planned
C. Emergency

2. One bad nap can throw your entire sleep cycle off

3. Naps cannot fully make up for lost night sleep

4. Naps have an ideal duration
*Experts suggest drinking caffiene before a power nap since caffiene takes approxmately 20 minutes to kick in.

5. Your body has an ideal nap time
*Best time to nap is in the middle of your wake cycle

6. Naps can improve your immune system

7. Naps have a positive impact on your memory

8. Naps – full night’s sleep for learning

9. Naps improve alertness and performance

10. Naps can lift your mood.

11. They are good for your heart
*Decrease blood pressure

12. Naps have a positive impact on your physical health

I thought the naps information was interesting. I used to take a lot of naps, not so much anymore now that I am drinking caffeine on the weekends and taking iron. (Iron has REALLY helped my fatigue). I also found it extremely interesting about drinking caffeine, then taking a nap allowing the caffeine time to kick in by the time you wake up. I’ll have to remember that.

So how about you? What is your primary sleeping position and do you take naps? Why, or why not?

Podcast

Podcast: Hospitals Overwhelmed?

Karen

This was published 11-29-20

Sorry, it’s a little blurry. We’re still learning. We are currently using three cameras so that’s why the lighting is off. There is a camera on me, a camera on Kevin and a camera on the both of us. I’m still not sure how I feel about filming our podcast but here we are, in all our flawed glory.

Please be patient as we (and by we I mean Kevin) works through camera issues. He’s getting better and better and he learns a little more each time. He is playing around with transitions and I think he taught himself how to insert pictures/graphs.

Our channel is Right From Us on YouTube. I know at some point he’s going to make an account on Rumble simply because we can’t trust YouTube to eventually find us and censor us as we’re right leaning and obviously critical of radical left wing agendas. I’ll link that account when that happens.

Anyway. I hope you enjoy two mature (ahem) people shoot the breeze about today’s politics. We are working on making our podcast more lighthearted and fun as we don’t want it to just become a bitch fest. And we’re also working really hard to challenge ourselves to think objectively and present ALL sides to an issue, not just OUR side.

Thanks for watching!