Spanky Jean

Well, if anyone on here knows me. We love our kids. Right now we only have 4 legged babies. all hurricane katrina survivors. We hEad 3 dogs. Rooftop Gal, Spanky, & Flops. Spanky had breast cancer. We took her into the vet to get it removed & she passed away. Everytime I think about it I get sick to my stomach. I miss her so much. Its been a couple months now but the only thing I can do is try not to think about her because I get so hysterical. I miss her terribly. - I can't get her off my mind latley... I wish she were with us. We lost our baby. :(

The Kaitlyn Chronicles Review

The Kaitlyn Chronicles Is a Book with 4 Stories inside...

YOU NEVER CALLED ME PRINCESS
RELATIVELY NORMAL

FALLING AGAIN
JUMPING DOWN

by :  Elaine Babich

The writing is very hard to get through. It feels like a 13 year old is writing it.Its starts out from a 14 year old's point a view & gradually the writing style got a little bit better but not great.... I felt like I was reading someone else's stories through my old diaries. Needless to say it was horrible. haha.   

The story, however, was fantastic. It drew me in right away as the main character Kaitlyn battles anorexia & bulimia.  It was interesting how much I felt connected to her main character in the first book. She was innocent & sensitive. Her dad, not meaning to, picked on her calling her chubs & other names which drove her to starving herself. I felt like this was very easy to connect with because it showed the difference in when an adult talks to a child or makes fun.. how truly sensitive some teens take that. I know I did. The book ended with her almost dying. She had to go into the hospital for a month to recover. At the end of the first book.. "you never called me princess" I wanted to see more of Kaitlyn. 

The second book jumps right back in to the story line. You see her first break up which was a little weird because the main boyfriend from the first book just drops off the series. I  felt like they didn't give enough attention to the breakup. It showed her being bullied over a boy & a painful situation with a boy who ends up dating the girl who bullied him. Then she gets diagnosed with epilepsy. I felt like this story made Kaityln too strong. I was a kid who became ill at 16 (older then Kaityln when diagnosed with Epilepsy) I was blacking out constantly with unbearable headaches & I did not just continue like no big deal. Especially after Kaitlyn battled with eating disorders ... The author should have touched on a depression... although they did show her sister going through post partum depression after having her child "Jake". 

The next book moves them to New Hampshire. She goes to a different atmosphere & in this book she almost gets raped. I felt like most of the book was based around this situation & dealing with it by trying to go back to her eating disorders for comfort. She reconnects with the guy "Danny" from the Second book.. Your cheering when he makes a surprise appearance. 

The fourth book was the most intense. I felt a bit of Lurlaine McDaniel (love her) in this book. She goes to camp & meets a new best friend "Jeanie". Not to be a spoiler but Jeanie has cancer & you find this out early in the book. Most of this book was based on the friendship between these two girls. A little bit of romance with Kaitlyn & Danny but it was more about surgeries & the struggles Jeanie goes through with being a teenager with bone cancer. This story was by far the best of the 4. This book even made me shed a tear. I loved that this not only showed something that so many authors are afraid to touch on but it also showed the point of view from someone on the outside of the problem & how horribly it affects them as well. 

All & all, I was really happy with everything. I'd give it a good 8 stars (out of 10). Like I said the writing style was hard to get through.... but the story line was just so darn good. I would recommend this to a younger crowd.. Maybe pre-teens/teens who are struggling with situations. Even though I find it a little unbelievable, Kaitlyn's strength is something that can be admired & might help others struggling with similar situations. 

After finishing the chronicles, I see that they have the last book out "honeymoon with the enemy" - which is the next part of her story. I'm very excited to read this... although.. I'm broke so I'm going to the library to rent it while hopefully my husband will finish "catching fire" so we can gossip about the book!!!!

Pixie

Feb 6th. My welcome to the blogger site.

Well, here I am. Completely unaware of how to use this crazy site. I signed up forever ago & never made anything of it. Today.. I've decided to try this. Today is the day I dread. Today is Febuary 6th 2012.. the day everything started for me. Since I haven't told you yet.. i'm 24 years old & I have a undiagnosed illness. Today is 8 years since i've been sick. This year is especially hard for me because last year I was pretty sure by today that I would finally have an answer under my belt. And although, I still think I have this specific illness.. its a tricky situation and hasn't been fully explored. It started off when I was with my friends snow tubing. I came home that night and thought I was going to die. I had the worst head pain of my life. Since that night I've been to over 32 doctors and have had a chronic head pain. Some day's its ok & other days I wonder if I'll survive the pain. The pain got to an unbearable point that I had to be "tutored" out of high school. I got into an amazing choir program & ended up missing the highlight of that. I also missed my senior prom & a senior trip. I wasn't well enough to make it through college so feeling inadequate I on a whim decided to go to beauty school. They were very kind with me working around my headaches. I even met a few fantastic people there. As my "beauty school graduation" neared the headaches got even worse & I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything with myself unless I fully committed myself to finding answers to my illness. By this time, my headaches were not the only thing coming up on my health chart. As time went on I've developed many other problems that from day to day make my health just the top priority for me. I did find an amazing man, who I am now proud to call my husband and best friend. The worst part of all of this is.. on top of all the pain, i really did have a lot of dreams. I wanted to go to college to get a job to chase for the stars & I felt like I've been robbed of many things due to this. On my good days, I took full advantage but the bad days outweigh the good by a million. Because I do not have the ability to work at a job, i've been able to start my own small business that I am so proud of. I've only had it for a few months but I am so proud. So this is my blog, its about my headaches & everything that goes along with my undiagnosable nightmare. It's about my business. My little boutique that I am so excited to be able to work around my bad days to do something with my life even when I felt like my headaches had won. It will be about my favorite books & t.v. About my amazing husband & my little family of my 3 pooches that we saved from hurricane katrina. I can't tell you it won't be bumpy. My writing might have horrible punctuation but for once in my life.. i'm lying it down on the line. Instead of hiding my stories on the top shelf in the closet. Maybe, I will find some answers I wasn't looking for....