Of Sweet Animals, Emails That Go Unread & Long Lost Cousins!

How is that for a title?!!


First of all, I am always excited to find a new author and I think I have found my newest favorite! Katrina Kittle. Her latest book and the one I just finished reading is "The Blessings of the Animals." Her book was featured in the "Twin Cities Live" Book Club as a selection to read and since I love the co-host of "Twin Cities Live", Elizabeth Ries, (isn't she lovely??) I decided to put it on my To Be Read List. And, I am so glad I did!




The book has everything--heartwarming animals (even a goat!), a divorce, complicated relationships, a gay couple, adoption, Alzheimers, etc., etc. The main character is Cami who finds herself after her husband leaves her. She finds herself through her animals and learns from the animals in her life and others what makes her happy and what doesn't. I just cannot recommend this book enough and am probably not doing it justice with my review. So just read it! I promise you that you will love it!

And in other book news, I am really bad about reading one of my personal email accounts. Okay, it is my hello kitty email account and the email address that I give to readers of this very blog! But my secret is I seldom check that account. I mean, I can go months! It is not my primary account or even my secondary account-it is my tertiary account! Anyhow, I recently got around to checking it and.......drum roll....I had the sweetest email from writer, Sally Koslow! She had read my blog review of her book, "The Late Lamented Molly Marx" which by the way, I also loved and immediately added Sally to my list of favorite new authors and I rushed out and got her other two books, With Friends Like These and Little Pink Slips.

But I just have to say I love her eleventy times more for sending me a personal email and wishing me a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and then I didn't even read her email until a few months later.

Anyhow, she is absolutely lovely so you need to read her books, too! And follow her on Twitter and Facebook!

And as for me and checking my Hello Kitty email, I got another surprise when I decided to start going through some very old emails that had not been opened. 1,240 some to be exact! When I got to September of last year, I found one that asked, Are you my cousin? And it listed the names of my mom and my grandmother and complimented me on my fashion sense....and it was from a long-lost cousin that I had lost touch with. She lives in a different state and is 10 years older than me, but she used to babysit me and she is a Libra like me!

I instantly emailed her back, explaining how I never check that email account. Well, maybe every few months, but now I tell you people, I am going to check it every single, solitary day! And then I tracked her down on Facebook. And, inpsired, I tracked down two other cousins, this time on my dad's side of the family.

My own immediate family is quite small--just me and my brother and my mom these days. I don't have children. I have my husband and I have his whole family. But there is something special about cousins. All female. I always wanted a sister (I had a sister who died before I could know her) so I kind of feel that maybe my new found cousins could be like sisters!

Note to self: Always check your email!

Read my other blogs here and here.




HAPPY MARCH!!