Good Morning!

It's here ... today is Do Good Day!! We are so excited at my house for this!! It is going to be an amazing day - not only are several of us in Chicago getting together, but all told - there will be 77 bloggers spread out across 11 cities all doing good tomorrow!

Why 77? Because American Eagle is launching 77kids - clothing stores aimed for kids. 77 comes from the year American Eagle was founded - 1977. So 77kids partnered up with theMotherhod.com to bring these 77 bloggers together to do some good!  I think this is a FABULOUS way for 77kids to celebrate their opening!

I am lucky enough to be working with some fabulous bloggers in the area - Melissa, Jen, Lydia, Paula, and Dawn to serve lunch at the Ronald McDonald House! It's going to be so great - I can just tell already!! It seems like all the Do Good Day teams have some great plans going on for today - please head on over here to check out what everyone has planned! So many great things going on - just wonderful!

Yesterday, to prepare two of the kids and I went to target to pick up some items on the Ronald McDonald House Wish List. They had so much fun getting to help pick out what to bring. So while I grabbed paper towels, laundry detergent and hand soap - they picked popcorn, juice boxes, and popsicles! We also grabbed a few books - most notably The Wizard of Oz, as it's a favorite in this house! 

After lunch, the group is going to split up and the kids and I will be heading back to our town to pass out some fliers around our town. We are still debating - hitting parks or hanging out at the local train station. I know, I know, last minute - I swear not on purpose - we had some other ideas of where to pass them out that fell through, so we're onto plan d, e and f LOL!  

I promise to come back tonight or tomorrow and tell you all about it! And maybe even get my kids brave enough to share their thoughts with you. I'll be tweeting through out that day as I can - so feel free to follow me over on twitter!

And don't forget to head on over to Hyacynth's blog and tell her if you did some good today too =)

Disclosure: I am working with The Motherhood on behalf of 77kids by American Eagle, and was paid a monetary stipend for participating in this project.

Live To Tell

Live to Tell: A Detective D.D. Warren Novel

by: Lisa Gardner



Finished: May 22, 2010
5 stars

Live To Tell is a book I could NOT put down. Hook, line and sinker from the moment I read the prologue - I needed to keep reading. This is a book with several twists and turns. Just when you think you know who did it, another twist. Another clue pops up that makes you rethink, wonder, and try to figure out who really did it!

Gardner is a talented author who clearly knows her audience. She keeps your hooked, she adds twists, the characters draw you in and you want to see what happens.

Detective D.D. Warren is a dedicated Boston detective and has been for 12 years. She works hard. Does her job well. And is the kind of woman who you know, in the end, will always get her man so to speak. However, for all her success in her career, her personal life is lacking. This is starting to bug her - and in fact the book opens with her finally on a date, only to get interrupted to report to a crime scene. At first glance, it looks as if a father has decided to murder his entire family and then commits suicide himself. However, a few days later an eerily similar crime takes place and what once looked like an open and shut case is no longer.

Danielle is a pediatric psych nurse. As a child, she was the lone survivor of her father's killing spree - in which the rest of her family is murdered, he commits suicide and she is sparred. She struggles with why he left her, and yet at the same time, doesn't really face what happened that night. As the anniversary of her family's deaths approaches and the crimes mentioned above center around where she works - it is becoming increasingly harder for her to try avoid facing the past.

Victoria is the mother of 2 children. Her oldest son Evan, who is 8 years old, suffers from some very severe mental illness. He goes from being a very sweet a loving child who enjoys watching the History channel to a very violent child - and tells his mom multiple times he wants to kill her.Victoria's husband has left (with their younger daughter) because he doesn't feel they are safe in the house with Evan. Victoria is a mom who is just trying to do the best for her son that she can. She clearly feels his issues must be because of something she did and it's almost like self-punishment for her to try to deal with him alone. She doesn't get much sleep - Evan doesn't sleep much. She has to lock up knives and other items that Evan could use to hurt her or himself.

As these key player's lives become intertwined and meshed together, it's hard to put the book down. My heart broke for all the suffering that takes place in the book. I won't lie - this book is not all sunshine and roses. It's most storms and thorns. And yet, it's hard to walk away, it's hard to stop reading. The characters become friends. I felt concern for them and needed to see how it all ends.

I highly recommend this book. I will definitely be looking for more D.D. Warren books and reading Gardner in the future.


*Please note, I was given this book to review from LibraryThing through their LibraryThing Early Reviewers (LTER) program, which has absolutely nothing to do at all with this blog.