DREAM WHEN YOU'RE FEELING BLUEI started the

DREAM WHEN YOU'RE FEELING BLUE

I started the book, "Dream While You're Feeling Blue," by Elizabeth Berg, a few months ago. I would read it while waiting in doctors' and dentist's offices and I wasn't making very good headway. The other day, I decided to get into it and finish it -- somehow I found myself in the mood to read again. After I had read a ways, I was engrossed enough that I couldn't put it down.

The book is set in Chicago during World War II, and features a quite large family, with 6 children, particularly the daughter Kitty but also her younger sisters Louise and Tish. They are all out of high school except Tish. The book details their loves, their experiences in the war effort, how patriotic people were then, and makes an excellent point about how we were fighting that evil madman, Hitler.

Some elements were quite graphic, mainly about what it was like to fight back then. I could foresee some of the events in the book; however, the ending surprised me quite a bit -- I didn't see it coming at all.

Elizabeth Berg did an excellent job of capturing the way life was back in the early 1940's. I will definitely be reading other books she has authored and continues to write.

*****

On the subject of books, I received a sizable Amazon.com gift certificate from J.D. and Kris today (the gift that they had both mentioned yesterday). I am going to enjoy spending it -- I love Amazon! Stay tuned for that!

As for other birthday gifts, I received two in the mail today. One was from my online friend Cindy in North Carolina, and she had included a number of neat items. (I had thought we were going to cut down on gifts to each other but I know how hard it is to resist doing that when we find cute cat and scrapbooking items we know the other would enjoy.) The other package was from my youngest son Tony and family (DIL Kamie and grandsons Michael and Alex). It is a beautiful cat figurine and contains a lovely necklace with a cat pendant that's carved out of stone. Here are pictures of some of the items -- first an assortment including some from Cindy and the gifts from Tony's family, then a close-up of the cat figurine from Tony and Kamie and kids:





I have received so many good wishes and I am truly thankful for my online and offline friends and family. One of the enjoyable cyber-cards I got yesterday was from my friend Karen R, who has quite an earthy sense of humor. The card included a song about one of the unfortunate physical effects of aging for a woman -- it totally cracked me up!

I think I may be in my second childhood and -- like a little kid -- be experiencing too much excitement, as I am very tired and need to nap. ;-)