Niagara On The Lake



ThE gArDeN pT 2



More Than Words

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Engaged by Fifty Shades of Twisted



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I came across E L James' Fifty Shades of Grey while perusing the book store.  It was actually the second book in the trilogy, Fifty Shades Darker that caught my attention.  I was vaguely interested but decided to put the book down.  Over the next few days, talk of Fifty Shades of Grey was mounting by numerous people I follow on Twitter.  I had to know what all the hype was about, so I purchased the books, unable to resist.  I knew virtually nothing about the books, except that they were romance, and that's about the extent of it.
 I was slapped sideways within the first few chapters.

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The book follows Anastasia Steele¸ an unworldly, unsophisticated English Literature student whose life takes an unexpected turn when she literally stumbles into the office of entrepreneur Christian Grey.  Wealthy, powerful, good-looking Christian immediately entices and intimidates innocent Ana, and she finds herself unable to stop thinking of him.  The feeling is mutual, and despite his feeble attempts at convincing himself to leave her be, Christian makes the decision to pursue Ana. 
However a regular courtship this is not... 

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Christian Grey is a man with a tortured past, and a closet full of demons.  He is consumed by his need to control and his sexual taste follows suit.  Sexually inexperienced Anastasia finds herself intrigued and stunned by what Christian has to offer...Christian is not looking for love he is looking for a Submissive.  Despite her misgivings, Ana finds herself caught up in a whirlwind affair that is erotic, exciting and slightly terrifying.  As Ana begins to learn more about Christian, she finds herself falling in love with a severely damaged man.  The line between pleasure and pain thins, and Ana struggles as she is caught between her own needs and her need to please Christian.

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I have to admit that from the beginning I was hooked on Fifty Shades of Grey, and could not put this book down, despite finding the sex to be overkill.  In general, I am a romance reader as opposed to Erotica, so I am not that familiar with the genre.  Although I have been told that the Fifty Shades Series is somewhat tame for the genre, I found the sex to be constant and not always that interesting.  Still,  I was as compelled to read this book as Anastasia is to Christian.  There is an intensity to the story that really sucks you in.  I had to know what happened.  Fifty Shades of Grey ends abruptly so I quickly got started on Fifty Shades Darker. 
By the time I was midway into this book, it occurred to me that I actually really disliked both Anastasia and Christian, and found them both immature and annoying, quite often.  I was somewhat irritated by aspects of the storyline.  What began as interesting and unique was starting to become incredibly redundant, as there was a great deal of repetition. 
Still  after I made my way through Fifty Shades Darker, I was determined to finish Fifty Shades Freed, mainly because I had already invested my time in almost 1100 pages of Fifty Shades.  Might as well find out how this ends.  By the time I had reached completion, I admittedly only read half the book because I was too bored to read all the sex, which occurred almost every few pages. 
I did ALOT of skimming.

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Overall, I didn't hate these books...in fact, I really did enjoy the first book.  I did however dislike the characters.  Do I understand the hype?  I do...the subject was a bold choice.  It's rather impressive to see Erotica fiction become so hugely popular amongst the mainstream.  I suppose some credit can be given to the Ebook for this phenomenon, making Erotica more assessable in a less obvious way to the modern female reader.   Did I think it was necessary to stretch the story out over 1600 pages?  Absolutely not.  Especially since about 800 of those pages were kinky f**kery.   

ThE gArDeN

This is our first Spring/Summer in our house and while my husband has taken on the feat of nourishing our lawn into luscious greenness, the front and back gardens have become my birth child.  After about 24 hours worth of grueling work, I have finally completed the overhaul of the backyard garden.

This has been my first experience with my own garden, so it's trial and error to see what we will like
and continue with next year.  Luckily, I have a wonderful mother-in-law, who has taken the time to help me out and bring me some Lilies from her own garden and Hostas. 

We chose to also add Impatiens, Snapdragons, and Begonias to the pre-exsisting Rose Bushes and Bishop's Weed.

I don't know the name of the trees that were previously planted into each corner, but they flame a lovely red colour for a few weeks in the fall.

We added a bird bath...

and a fountain.

My husband chose the Begonias and the Snapdragons.

Overall, I'm happy with how things have begun, and am excited to see how things will bloom.

I am not looking forward to the upkeep of weeding.

And now on to the front yard!

Lost & Found

 

It's been a long time.  Over the past month, I have barely spent any time on Blogger.  I spent all my spare time searching for our missing cat, Kaysar, and didn't really feel any inspiration to blog.  I can happily say that Kaysar returned home on April 18th, just in time to save my birthday!  (I turn 31 in 2 days)  I couldn't be more thrilled.  Life can finally get back to normal.  No more posturing, online ads, calling shelters and bugging neighbours to search yards. 

It was a rough month.  Since my last post on Kaysar we had a couple of incidents that were highly stressful.  The first of which happened just 2 weeks after Kaysar went missing.  My husband had gotten a call that a cat matching Kays' description was hit and the intersection near our house.  I think my husband had himself convinced that the cat was ours before he even saw it, cause he ended up bringing the body home for us to bury.  My devastation over the death of my cat quickly turned to confusion when I went to say goodbye and realized that there were some significant differences in looks.  At first my husband didn't believe me, and thought my grief to be making me wish for something that just wasn't true.  However, I was right...this cat was definitely not Kaysar.  In fact, this cat was not even a male! 

The second incident happened just 3 days following.  A neighbour called to tell me that she thought our cat was under their backyard shed.  I was so discouraged by the false sightings, and pranks that I really did not think it was him.  When I went to check it out, I was shocked to find Kaysar huddled in a little ball underneath.  He was dehydrated, meowing pretty weakly.  I should have taken time to coax him out, but I was in a state of adrenaline panic and I allowed the neighbour to assist me in trying to get him out.  Big mistake.  Kaysar got away from us, ran so fast there wasn't time to react.  He was gone in an instant.  It took only a moment and he was gone for almost another 2 weeks without a sighting.

.The night Kaysar finally came home it was completely unexpected.  It was around 10:30pm and I was grabbing a late dinner from the kitchen.  I had the strangest feeling in my stomach and chest so I abandoned dinner to go stand on the front porch.  I was just standing there wondering where he was, and when I turned to go back inside I saw a cat on our next door neighbours driveway, half hidden under a car.  I knelt down to get a better look, sure it had to be one of the neighbourhood's outdoor cats, when I noticed the distinct swirling stripes on the cat's side.  I grabbed the dish of food from the porch and shook it while calling his name.  The cat started meowing.  I turned to grab a can of wet food, and when I looked back the cat was gone.  I think I would have went mad if I lost him a 2nd time in 2 weeks, but luckily I could still faintly hear him crying.  I followed the sound to a nearby tree and baby talked until I got him to come out.  He came right into my arms. 

He's doing great back at home.  He has lost some weight but considering how large he was before, it's almost as though he's a regular sized cat now.  He's a real suck, wanting constant attention...that I am more than happy to oblige.  I am so grateful to have him back with his family.  I appreciate everyone who offered their support, thoughts, shared stories, prayers and spells of protection.  Thank you!