Out Of Nowhere

There I was in bed last night.  I'd just finished reading my book -- more about that in a moment-- and was listening to a song on YouTube.  Hark The Herald by Straight No Chaser, but that's not important.  I was just about ready to lay down and go to sleep when off in the distance, I heard a suspicious sounding rumbling. 

"Is that thunder?" I asked myself incredulously-- wondering briefly if I should go light my new Distant Thunder candle.  

I quickly grabbed my phone and opened my weather app.  Yep, that's exactly what it was.  I got onto Facebook and went to the local weather watchers group, and the first thing I see was a photo of the local radar with the caption, "Well, that came out of nowhere!"  Right?  It completely caught me by surprise.  

It ended up being a pretty good storm, too, lasting over an hour.  Which is lovely on nights when you don't have to get up at 4:30 the next morning.  Combine that with a yowling cat, and needless to say, I didn't get much sleep last night.  

As if that weren't enough, we only had four brazers show up today.  Well, we had five, but they sent one to the back.  So we had four actually brazing.  Sigh...But the day was not all bad.  I got new stuffs in the mail!

Yep, all the gifts I bought on 5 & 2 day last week have finally arrived.  

The calendar and the season three Bible study are for me.  The mug I bought, thinking I might put it back for a Christmas gift, and the thing in the lower right is a tote bag.  It was a freebie for spending a certain amount of money.  It's got the 5 & 2 logo -- as in five loaves and two fishes.  I'm debating on putting it back for a Christmas gift, but since it was a freebie, would that be too tacky?  I mean, I could always use another project bag for my knitting, you know.  

Anyway, about that Bible study...I'd already bought the first two, but never finished them.  I got about halfway through the first one, but then I started doing the devotional books and never picked it back up again.  Really, these seem to be more geared for a group study, and none of my friends wanted to do them with me.  I think after I finish the plan I'm doing on YouVersion Bible app in 29 more days, I'm going to start the season one book over again and do all three.

Anyone who wants to is welcome to join me. 

 And lastly, I finished reading Silver On The Tree -- the last book in The Dark Is Rising series.  To be perfectly honest, this is probably my least favorite of the five books in this series. It feels almost as if the author ran out of story and had to add a lot of filler to avoid a 100 page finale.

To me, the worst part was when Will and Bran went to The Lost Land. It felt too much like a drug induced nightmare a la Alice In Wonderland, which to be fair, I also hated. I think it would have been better if they'd just gone to a realistic land -- maybe from the past that had been flooded or something instead of this weirdness.

Then, the minute they get back, oh, look! Here comes the Dark to kidnap Barney...again. They whisk him away to some time in the past, which amazingly enough, Will and Bran know exactly where and when he is. That whole section of the story did absolutely nothing to advance the plot and seemed to serve only to add a few more pages to the book.

So they get back, then everyone is on some magic ghost train, which halfway through the journey turns into a magic ghost boat. This could have been handled so much better, instead of this somewhat childish and cartoony way of them getting to the tree.

And what took Will and Merriman so long to figure out Blodwen was an agent of the Dark? Also, there never was any resolution to the stoats that were attacking all the sheep in the beginning of the book. What ever happened to them? Did they just vanish?

I loved the series overall, and did like the ultimate resolution of the story arc, but this one book just lacked the richness and depth of the others. Still, I'd read it again...and again...and again...despite its flaws.

I still need to finish The Book Of Three, by Lloyd Alexander before I start anything new, but I'll definitely keep you posted.