Life on the Edge

Life on the Edge by Jennifer Comeaux

I heard about Life on the Edge through work. The author Jennifer Comeaux works for the same company as I do. When I heard our CEO bragging about our best selling author, I knew I had to read these books!

Life on the Edge is the love story of Emily, a pairs figure skater, and her coach, Sergei. They both have Olympic dreams, Emily to be the first American pairs team to win a gold medal (with her partner Chris) and Sergei to coach them to gold. It's not allowed for these two to date, but everyone knows you can't help who you fall in love with.

In the drawing light, I saw the longing in Sergei's gaze. No one had ever looked at me that way. I was as still as the morning around me, but inside my heart raced.

I read Life on the Edge in one sitting! I loved the romantic connection between Emily and Sergei. Their love was pure and sweet and I was captivated watching them fall in love. I really cared for these characters and wanted them to be together.

"I want you in my life forever." My gaze met Sergei's. "So no more lies. No more secrets."

I am so use to evil, twisted characters that I kept waiting for the proverbial 'other shoe to drop' (or in this book 'other skate to drop'). It was refreshing to read a story about two good people. Obviously, no one is perfect (Sergei's past), but these two had the perfect balance. Their story and feelings were very relatable. I was able to put myself into their relationship, it felt as if I was right there with them. Through the ups and downs of their story I felt my heart race. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to hear the decision of the Ethics Committee and I was cheering with them when they heard the good news.

Looking into his eyes, I knew I could trust him with my heart forever. I sank into the warmth of his chest as we shared our most passionate kiss yet.

I really appreciated the attention to detail in the book. I'm only a fan of figure skating but the book illustrated that world so well, I could easily see it all in my mind. Jennifer has done an amazing job to make this story flow effortlessly. It's hard to believe this is her first novel, this was a beautiful love story and I can't wait to read the rest of Emily and Sergei's story.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars!  This is a great summer read!  Make sure you purchase both Life on the Edge and Edge of the Past because you will want to read them back to back!

Buy Life on the Edge on Amazon

Life on the Edge on Goodreads

I'm a Bookworm

I have always had a love for books.  As a child, I remember going to the summer reading programs at our local library and making a promise to read 'X' number of books (I always went above and beyond this goal :)).

For Christmas last year, I got a Kindle. Probably the best gift ever! Michael knows me too well!

Though having a Kindle has been dangerous! I have been 'one-clicking' away! It's so easy and affordable when so many books are only .99! There are actually lots of FREE ebooks too!

Now I have a Kindle full of books to be read and not enough time to read them!

There are a few book blogs I follow where I can read reviews, learn about sales, and even find new authors to love.

Since I'm a bookworm, I'm going to share my thoughts on books as I read them. Maybe I can help others find their next favorite book!

Making a Cucumber Trellis

Our Summer garden is in full swing!  This year we only planted tomatoes and cucumbers, since I really enjoyed making my homemade pickles last year.

Last summer the cucumbers were out of control! Growing all over the trellis and ground.  So I knew we needed a better trellis of some type for the cucumbers. After doing some research, I decided to construct a trellis out of PVC pipes and twine.

We started out by driving about 2 feet of rebar into the ground.

Then we cut our 3/4'' PVC to about 8ft long and placed it over the rebar.

We repeated this for all 4 pieces of PVC. Then I used PVC elbows to connect horizontal pieces of PVC at the top.

Then we used jute twine and tied it horizontally around 3 sides of the "cube".  

I left one side open so I could walk inside to pick the cucumbers.

So far we added 3 rows of twine, but as the plants grow we will add more.

I'm excited to see how this works out!  Hopefully we will get better shaped cucumbers and be able to pick them all easily.

Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake

A few weeks ago, I was looking for a new dessert recipe to make for a family gathering.  I stumbled upon this Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake by Pillsbury. I'm a fan of chocolate covered cherries so I was secretly hoping it would taste like that!

I hadn't made a cheesecake in awhile (see: Pecan Pie Cheesecake or Honey Ricotta Cheesecake) so I was excited to use my spring form pan again.

I had trouble finding chocolate cookies for the crust, so I ended up using chocolate chocolate chip cookies.  And since every loved the crust, I think it was an acceptable substitution.

The ingredients for the cheesecake are very basic and it whipped up nicely in a mixer.  I layered cheesecake, then canned cherry pie filling, and then more cheesecake.

I baked the cake for a little over an hour.  It is important to check the cake because the 2nd time I baked this cake (last weekend) I over cooked it and the cake cracked. ( It was still tasty tho!)

I also think it's important to let the cake cool for at least an hour before you pour the chocolate ganache over it.  Remember to cover the pan you have the cheesecake on in wax paper to avoid a HUGE mess!

The hardest part about this cake is waiting for at least 4 hours before you can eat it!  The longer you wait the better it will taste!

Quick Mailbox Makeover

In the 3 years I've lived in my house, my mailbox has been hit at least 3 times. After the 2nd time, we cemented the post into the ground and painted the post to match the house.  I even planted some flowers at the base.

Unfortunately the flowers didn't last long.  My mailbox gets direct sunlight and I didn't water them enough. 

So I started looking for mailbox garden ideas. A friend told me about their neighbor who had a large pot that their mailbox post was in.  I decided to try it for my mail box.

I purchased a large (22"+) wine barrel that I cut a small hole in the base.  This was so I could put it over my mailbox post, since my post was cemented in the ground. I had to remove the cross post and my mail box in order to position the pot.  This was fairly easy since we had screwed the posts together.

I filled the bottom of the pot with gravel to help with drainage, and I also filled in around the pot with gravel to fend off weeds.

I am very pleased with the end result!  I'm hoping that the potting soil (and the pot) will help keep more moisture for the plants.  My mailbox is now one of a kind!

Country Walkway

For our "Spring Break" we decided to build a walkway from the porch to the driveway.

I had already purchased a Quikrete Walkmaker Mold after seeing a friend make a path with one.  I loved the 'Country Stone Pattern' and knew this would make a great design for our walkway.

First we marked out the outline of the path and took measurements. (Helpful Tip - when calculating the area make sure you are awake and don't think 17 x 2 is 24! This will greatly skew the amount of supplies you will need!)

Then we began removing the grass (which we transplanted into the backyard) and then dug down about 4 inches.

This was a very labor intense process but setting the right foundation will ensure the longevity of our walk way.

Then we filled in about 3 inches of drainage rock {paver base rock) and used a tamper to compress it down.

Next we filled in with about an inch of leveling sand (paver sand) that we tamped down and made sure it was as close to level as possible.

Finally we were ready to use the Walkmaker mold!  We decided to dye the concrete a dark charcoal color.
(The Walkmaker instructions say use one 80lb bag of concrete per mold, but we found one 80lb bag was good for 1 and a half molds.)

This part is very tedious, with the concrete mixing, mold filling, and smoothing. But with a little patience the pavers turned out great.

The concrete looked much darker before it dried.  I was worried it would be too dark.  But after letting it set for a day they turned out much lighter.

We finished the walkway by filling in around the country stones with pea pebbles. You could also use polymeric sand (but we had too much space around our pavers to use that.)

The pea pebbles still need to settle down, and the pavers have some dust from the pebbles, but I love our new walkway!

French Doors

It's been a busy 2013.  We have lots of projects going on with the house.  The big one has been changing out all the windows, to new insulated ones.

I snuck in another project this weekend of changing out the french doors.  I noticed back in the fall after a heavy rainstorm that my french doors were leaking. Rain was coming in through the panes!

Here is what my old french doors looked like.

It's hard to tell, but they had 4 horizontal panes.  I believe they were designed to match the windows, which also had horizontal panes.  I've never seen french doors like these before.

First we had to remove the old doors.  I was very surprised how large of an opening they left behind.

(If you look closely you can see it started raining on us during this process.)

The new doors were almost 8 inches smaller than the original, so we had to fill in 4 inches on both sides of the door.  8 inches sounds like a lot, but you really don't notice a difference.

Well you do notice the hot pink  2'' x 4''s right now.  But they will be covered by the vinyl siding when we redo all the siding in the fall.

I love my new french doors!