Enjoying The Rain & Yep, Another One!

While we're not getting a direct hit from tropical storm Humberto here in New Orleans, we are getting a good bit of rain from it, and that makes me happy! It's been pretty dry down here lately. We've had the occasional Summer shower here and there, but nothing substantial. We're supposed to have rain for the rest of the afternoon and all into the night, which will fit the mood of The Historian perfectly! So my plans for the rest of the afternoon are to sit outside underneath the patio with some coffee enjoying the rain and reading The Historian which I have been loving...and I'm only 200 pages into it.

This will be the last book in my Dracula series, and I'm really glad I chose to start off the RIP challenge in that way. These three books have gone together really well. Dracula and Renfield were both excellent books, but neither really gave me that eerie, spooky, creepy feeling...The Historian does, and I love it for that! It's the first book that's really captured that mood for me. Reading these books in this series type of way has also helped me to appreciate Stoker's work even more than I already did. With both Renfield and The Historian, I get to re-examine parts of Bram Stoker's original masterpiece and see the amazing influence that he had on other writers and really on society in general!

Different topic - I'm joining another challenge :p Kailana is sponsoring this one in memory of her dog Sandy who passed away the other day. She was a beautiful dog and I know that her and Kailana had a very special relationship. I'm a dog lover myself, so I can empathize with her and I think that this is a wonderful idea for a challenge. Its' the Four-Legged Friends Challenge and the challenge is to read 3-5 books with animals as a central character. Here are my books:

1. Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
2. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
3. Surrender by Sonya Hartnett
4. Varjak Paw by S.F. Said
5. Watership Down by Richard Adams

While reading these, I'll be thinking of my little white mini poodle, Buddy. Me and Megan bought Buddy together 6 months before Katrina. He's the sweetest dog that I've ever met and has the cutest personality that I've seen in a dog. He's as curious as a cat and is always looking to get into anything that he can. His favorite trick is "give me a kiss" and he does great little "jump in the air and spin around" tricks :) When Katrina came, Buddy evacuated with Megan, so I don't get to see him too often these days, but whenever I make trips to visit with Megan, he gets super excited and cuddles up in the bed right between me and Megan when we go to sleep. It'll be nice to be all back together in one place again soon.