Here is a quick summary:

Battling his own personal demons, Police Chief Jonah Westfall knows the dark side of life and has committed himself to eradicating it. When a pair of raccoons are found mutilated in Redford, Colorado, Jonah investigates the gruesome act, knowing the strange event could escalate and destroy the tranquility of his small mountain town. With a rising drug threat and never-ending conflict with Tia Manning, a formidable childhood friend with whom he has more than a passing history, Jonah fights for answers—and his fragile sobriety.

But he can’t penetrate every wound or secret—especially one fueled by a love and guilt teetering on madness.

From best-selling author Kristen Heitzmann comes a spellbinding tale of severed connections and the consequences of life lived alone.

If you want to start reading, you can download the first chapter HERE

This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

Here is a quick summary of the story in case you are interested:
Inspired by the engaging stories told through her grandmother’s photographs taken at the turn of the century, award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick provides a portrait of the tension between darkness and light in the soul of a young woman pursuing her professional dreams.

Jessie gains footing on her dream to one day own her own studio and soon finds herself in other Midwest towns, pursuing her profession. But even a job she loves can’t keep those painful memories from seeping into her heart, and the shadows of a forbidden love threaten to darken the portrait of her life.

I am looking forward to finishing this book… someday… and seeing where she ends up!

This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

This book has been great because the writers are both so honest. It’s a husband and wife team and they each share from their own perspective. First off, they admit that marriage is not going to be easy. Do you know what a relief it is to hear someone actually say that? It’s not just us. We’re not the only ones who struggle. I struggle to be nice to my husband on a daily basis, to appreciate him, to show him respect. With the way my hormones have been lately, I’m guessing that he struggles to not strangle me!

Love and War talks about how marriage won’t be better until we learn to seek fulfillment from God and not our spouse. It discusses dealing with hurts and insecurities, working as a team, learning about our differences… stuff I’ve heard before. But the way the message is conveyed is captivating and really got under my skin. It made me want a change, to want something better, to believe it’s possible. I honestly recommend this book for anyone who is married or about to be married. I think it will change the way you approach your relationship. If you want to borrow it when I’m finished, just let me know.

And I just wanted to share some of my favorite quotes from this book:

“God created marriage as a living, breathing portrait laid out before the eyes of the world so that they might see the story of the ages. A love story, set in the midst of desperate times. It is a story of redemption, a story of healing; it is a story of love. God give sus marriage to illustrate his heart toward us. It is the deepest and most mythic reality in the world–that love is true, that God pursues us. Our love is meant ot be a picture of both his love and his fight. The masculine and the feminine, the courage and sacrifice, and yes, the blood, sweat, and tears–these play out for us and for the world the story of truest Love and his Beloved. God is fighting for the hearts of his people. He is a valiant king and lover, who will set his people free.”

“So there you have it–we live in a great love story, set in the mindst of war. We need each other, desperately. We have been entrusted with the heart of another human being. Our loving will prove to the world that love is real. We will play out before watching eyes the Great Love Story of the ages.”

This was book was provided for review by WaterBrook Multnomah.

She is also really into “big girl books” with real pages. She looks at board books sometimes but has to be in the right mood. Her current favorite books are anything princess (Especially Cinderella!), Wocket in my Pocket, Where the Wild Things Are (she calls it “Wild Fings ARE”), Sneetches, Dora Visits the Dentist, and Berenstein Bears Big Honey Hunt. She used to like the Little Mermaid but we were at a friends house one day and the movie was on. She saw the part where Ursula turns back into the Sea Witch at the end and now all she says is, “I don’t like the bad lady!” and she won’t have anything to do with it anymore. We have to be really careful what she watches and what parts of the books we “edit” when we read because she has such a big imagination!

Another thing she loves is her new colored pencils. She likes to draw with them. She doesn’t like coloring books much anymore- she would rather draw her own pictures and have us draw/color with her on blank paper. I guess that’s a good thing because it gets her to be more creative. She also likes to pretend to wrap presents for us. Anytime she can find a piece of tissue paper or scrap paper she starts folding it around a small object and then brings us the present to open.

She has just started learning the “grownup names” of people in our family. I think it’s good that she knows what our real names are, including last names, in case she ever needs to get help or talk to another adult for some reason. We are also going to start working on a phone number soon. She can say her full name and we are starting to learn how to spell it. She really likes knowing what adults’ names are, and she knows not to use their names but for some reason thinks it’s fun just to know.

She loves talking about her baby brother, and talking to him while he’s inside me. She always tells him, “Hi, Baby _____ ______. I’m your big sister! I love you and I will take care of you.” She puts stickers on my tummy for him, and talks about how she will hold toys for him to look at and read books to him when he is too little to hold the toys by himself. I love to see her excitement about him.

Tomorrow I am going to deliver ONE Avon order (not wasting the whole day with work stuff!!) and then I am going to go to the new CVS and use my coupons! We are just starting to get CVS’s in our area but I am assuming it’s pretty similar to Walgreens. Only they mailed me some pretty sweet coupons! Like $10 off $20, which will be used for diapers…

Then I am planning on going to a book sale at the library and hopefully getting some new books for Bailey (25 and 50 cents each, if you are local, email me and I’ll tell you which branch!) and then I am going to enjoy a lunch alone with a book at either Macaroni Grill (Chicken Scalloppine) or Uno’s (deep dish pizza and dessert). I’m leaning toward pizza!

I should also note that since I took this picture, she ATE the spout of her sippy cup. So now we are minus one sippy cup. But it was an annoying one anyway- she could bang the stopper out of it and then dump milk out to fingerpaint in. I know, I’m getting un-wordless…

I think her bangs turned out decent. I like bangs on little girls, especially little girls like mine who don’t have small foreheads

And the back. Much better than the shagginess that was becoming a mullet.

And one of her actually looking at the camera, even though she’s fake smiling. I think she’s just tolerating me for a minute so that I’ll let her go back to reading. She’s lifting all the flaps looking for Elmo’s Blanket. This kid sure does love to read. If you’ve been around her for any amount of time at all you know it’s her absolute favorite thing to do.

This isn’t a blog carnival that I always do, but sometimes I have something I really love that I want to share with my five readers. So, here’s my “thing” for Things I Love Thursday.

Fisher Price Little People Board Books. We have been lucky enough to get Bailey a decent collection of Little People stuff at yard sales. Well about two months ago my mom got B a Little People Our Town book at Sam’s.

She absolutely fell in love with it. There are so many little things to “find” on each page, like frogs and bunnies and trees and balloons. It is the greatest vocabulary builder. Bailey can point out so many things now after working on this book with her. She is now 15 months old but I think these books would be great for any baby/kid up to like age 2 or 3.

I decided to look for more of these books, and retail is around $10 each. There are a bunch of different titles, including Fuzzy Farm and Things That Go. I was lucky and found 3 books NEW on eB@y for $10 plus shipping. Each book has over 40 flaps to lift- and they are REALLY sturdy. Bailey hasn’t ripped or bent a single one yet. And you know how kids that age are with books, especially flappy books. She would rather read these books than anything else. If you have a kid around this age I seriously recommend these!

For more Things People Love, check out The Diaper Diaries.

1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2. Italicize those you intend to read.
3. Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE – Mine are Red.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling -
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible – Um, some of it.
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare – has anyone read all of them? I’ve read Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet…
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy – I actually had to read part of this once for a class and thought I was going to die of boredom.
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck – boring book about wandering in dust.
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy – Does seeing the movie count?
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres – saw the movie
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan -
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel -
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov -
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker -
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce -
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath -
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad -
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery – had this as a kid!
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams -
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

*I also read a pamphlet about Phentermine 37.5 mg today, and finished a chick lit book. If those count for anything.

Bailey is just like her daddy when it comes to tv. She would watch anything that was in front of her, I think. I have caught him watching late night infomercials for stuff like pet supplements, or 2 a.m. documentaries on Korea in the 1940s… right now she likes Baby Einstein a little bit still, but it has to be the “older kid” videos. She is starting to enjoy Dora but only for about five minutes at a time. We try not to watch tv more than once a day but it’s usually either while I’m still waking up in the morning or while I’m getting ready. Okay this is getting not so wordless. I suck at being quiet.

When she frantically waves, she sometimes says “Haaaaaaaaaa” or “Hehhhhh” which we are interpreting to be “hi.” It is always in a very excited and slightly squealy voice.

Today I kept telling her “book” every time (all four million of them) that she handed me her Moo, Baa, La la la book. Finally when she handed it to me she said, “Buh.” Several different times.

I know these aren’t huge words or anything, but it is a sign that she is trying to make words and communicate!

Also, Jonathon has become “Dad-deeeee” and everyone else, including me, grandparents, and random strangers, are called “Da da.” I try over and over to tell her that I am Mama, but to no avail.

She is definitely understanding more. We were playing in the living room today and she was really busy at her learning table. I told her Grandpa was coming, and she immediately crawled over to the top of the steps to watch the front door. I couldn’t believe that she understood that! She also understands nurse and will try to lift up my shirt or lean her face against me if I say it! Also when I said, “See ya later” tonight she waved to me. Her receptive language is really improving.

The first one I read was Something Borrowed, and the next one was Something Blue. I am getting ready to start Baby Proof. They are light and easy reading, but have a decent story. The characters are likeable. I would recommend them if you are in the mood for a girly book with maybe a few tears here and there.

I think one of the reasons I keep filling my life and time with crap is that I am struggling with the issue of being “just a wife and a mom.” I need to realize that I don’t have to be everything to everyone, and it’s okay to just focus on my little family for right now. Sometimes I feel like my world is just so small lately- but I guess that’s not a bad thing. My main responsibility should be to Bailey and Jonathon and sometimes I do so much other crap that I am too overwhelmed or tired to give them what I need to.

But this is getting lengthy and tangent-y and I should probably just go to bed instead of trying to get philosophical with myself so late at night. Thanks for listening, if you even made it to this point.