Did you know I have a newsletter for my writing?

In case you didn’t know I have a newsletter for my writing stuff, well…I do. You can find it HERE and there is an update this week about my newest book that will release this summer. I shared a description and a cover reveal!

I’ll also share about it a little bit more here on Friday, which used to be “Fiction Friday” around here.

If you sign up for my Substack, you will receive an update about my writing, as well as some other writers, in your email once or twice a month. I may occasionally send an update more often if there is something super exciting going on, but otherwise, I’ll do my best not to clog your inbox up!




Sunday Bookends: Reading mysteries, watching mysteries, and little girls running wild




It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading
 

I finished Confessions To A Stranger by Danielle Grandinetti last week and hope to finish The Burning Issue of the Day (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery) By T.E. Kinsey today or tomorrow.

I’ve already started Murder at the Vicarage which is a Miss Marple Mystery by Agatha Christie. I had started watching this episode on BritBox until The Husband let me know it was based on this book he picked up for me a few weeks ago. I decided to try to read the book instead.

I’m also still reading/listening to The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien with The Boy.

Little Miss and I are reading Land of the Big Red Apple by Roger Lea MacBride. This is a book loosely based on the childhood of Rose Wilder, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder. Roger was adopted by Rose when she couldn’t have children and later became the sole trustee of the Ingalls-Wilder estate. He also wrote a series of children’s books based on Rose and the women in her family. We found this book at our local library.

The Husband was taking his Sunday afternoon when I was writing this so I don’t know what he is reading this week.

The Boy is reading The Fellowship of the Ring with me, along with text from the various school subjects he has.


What’s Been Occurring

I rambled a bit about what’s been occurring in my post yesterday. In that post I gave an update on Little Miss’s recovery since her dental surgery.

I’ll share that again here for those who are like me and just can’t read every single blog post a blogger writes.

Little Miss recovered well this week after her dental surgery last week. I was really a mess for a few days while we tried to figure out what she could eat without some of her important molars.

I kept offering her different foods to eat but some days she didn’t want anything. She would say she wasn’t hungry. I was worried she was in pain, but she told me she wasn’t. Still, she was very down and not bouncing around like she normally does, which I did expect but still didn’t like to see.

Over the weekend I made homemade potato and cheese, sweet potato, and cream of chicken soups. Not only did they give her something with some protein and nutrients in it but it reminded me how easy soups can be to make and that I need to make them more.

I cut up meat really tiny on Monday and offered it to her along with some French fries, which she found she could eat fairly easily.

She looked up at me and said, “Mom. Stop. Let me go at my own pace.”

So I stopped and let her ask for what food she wanted. By Tuesday she was back to eating sandwiches and pretty much the food she’d been able to eat before. On Wednesday she was able to eat potato chips and she was so excited.

Yesterday Little Miss had two of her friends over for the first time in a few months and they had a blast playing together both inside and out.

They didn’t stay outside too long because it was very cold, especially the wind. It is even colder today. I’m guessing we won’t see real spring weather until April, or at least I hope we will see some in April.

Our cat Pixel is not a big fan of noise or a lot of people being in the house so at one point I watched her crawl across the floor, low to the ground, her ears laid back and clearly traumatized by all the craziness going on around her. I let her out the back door and she spent the afternoon curled up somewhere by our garden shed. She was forced to return to the house before the girls left because the temperature dropped very fast and the girls were picked up late, but she hid somewhere in the house, coming out only when all was quiet again.

Little Miss had had a full day with gymnastics early in the day and playing hard all day with her friends. I thought she’d fall asleep early but she fought it and wanted to stay up late with me and her brother. Her dad had already collapsed after having a busy day himself.

I said yesterday that we don’t have anything we have to do this week other than Kids’ Club, but I forgot that on Tuesday we have to drive about 45 minutes north to get Zooma the Wonder Dog a much-needed grooming and nail trimming. After that our week is fairly clear.

Today I am making corned beef, cabbage and pre-made mashed potatoes for our belated St. Patrick’s Day. We were going to share this with my parents but they had a busy week and are resting up.

What We watched/are Watching

The Husband and I have been watching Magpie Murders, a mystery mini-series on PBS Masterpiece. It is based on a book by Anthony Horowitz that The Husband has read, but I have not yet.

We also watched an episode of Miss Scarlet & The Duke and I hope we can finish season one this week.

On Friday I watched The Quiet Man for St. Patrick’s Day. This movie has become my favorite movie over the last several years, replacing Singing in the Rain, which is now second.

I’ve also found a new vlogger to watch:


What I’m Writing

In the last 17 days I have written 17,000 words on Gladwynn Gets Her Footing. I don’t know if I’m going to keep all those words and may decide I have to rewrite half of it, but it’s been fun to dive into a different world for a bit. This one will be a cozy mystery, which I’ve read a lot of, but never written one of. We will see if it is an utter failure or not.

I will share more about expected release dates and a cover for the book later this week.

Last week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

The Husband found a jazz duo – Rachael and Vilray on Apple Music last week so I’ve been listening to them a lot when I write. Their music is calming and I found several videos on YouTube so I can just plug my headphones in on the laptop and write away while they sing away.

If you’d like to see them live, you can watch this YouTube video. It’s similar to listening to their recorded albums:

https://www.youtube.com/live/lQ0S1l8jHa4?feature=share



Now it’s your Turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Saturday Afternoon Tea: Confused weather (again), recovering kids, and library visits

It’s a chilly March day and I’m enjoying a bit of organic peppermint tea today for my beverage as I sit down to chat with you. I plan to have some lemon in hot water later on in the day, if I still have lemons.

As we head toward the meteorological Spring, Pennsylvania still isn’t ready to leave winter weather completely behind.

Early last week we had snow, then we had one day of sun and then we were back to winter again with dropping temperatures. Today the weather promises to be gloomy and chilly but at least no snow.

I’ve grown weary of trying to start and keep fires going in our woodstove, even though I’m glad to have it. My sinuses struggle when I have to lean over the fire and try to get it going after it has decided it isn’t going to take. I like the fire, though, when I (or someone else) gets it going. It helps our heating bill, for one, but the house also feels cozier with it lit and roaring. Last night I turned around as I went upstairs and smiled at it and realized how much I’ll miss seeing it when the weather warms up and there is no need for it.

Little Miss recovered well this week after her dental surgery last week. I was really a mess for a few days while we tried to figure out what she could eat without some of her important molars.

I kept offering her different foods to eat but some days she didn’t want anything. She would say she wasn’t hungry. I was worried she was in pain, but she told me she wasn’t. Still, she was very down and not bouncing around like she normally does, which I did expect but still didn’t like to see.

Over the weekend I made homemade potato and cheese, sweet potato, and cream of chicken soups. Not only did they give her something with some protein and nutrients in it but it reminded me how easy soups can be to make and that I need to make them more.

I cut up meat really tiny on Monday and offered it to her along with some French fries, which she found she could eat fairly easily.

She looked up at me and said, “Mom. Stop. Let me go at my own pace.”

So I stopped and let her ask for what food she wanted. By Tuesday she was back to eating sandwiches and pretty much the food she’d been able to eat before. On Wednesday she was able to eat potato chips and she was so excited.

Little Miss, The Boy, and I visited the library that same day to pick out some books for Little Miss’s unit on birds that we are doing and just to get out of the house.

It was nice to sit in the children’s section and reach behind me and just pluck books off the shelves to look at while Little Miss and the Boy built creations with the Legos there. I don’t know why they don’t play with the Legos we have at home as much as they will there, but whatever.

I truly could spend most of my day at the library if people weren’t there. I know. That’s awful, isn’t it? As an introvert, though, sometimes I get drained just by making myself talk to people. We were there a couple of hours and I talked to the library assistants for quite a while and by the time we got home I needed a nap. Sadly, I couldn’t have one because I had to make dinner and then we headed back out for Kids Club at the church my parents used to go to. The program used to be called Awana.

The rest of the week was homeschool or hanging out until I kicked the kids out on Thursday to go pick up sticks in the yard that we can use to start fires. It was close to 60 that day. By Friday the temps had started to drop again.

Soon the temps will be rising and staying up and I’ll feel guilty if I don’t take the kids outside to do things so I better enjoy these cooler temps for now anyhow. I put too much pressure on myself when the weather is warmer out. I think I have to be super mom and expose my children to outdoor activities every day. I do like being outside, but I need to get over feeling like we have to do “big” things on nice days – like trips to parks or lakes or something. Doing that once in a while is very nice, though.

This upcoming week doesn’t have anything too exciting going on so far.

The Husband and I are going to try to head out tomorrow to see Jesus Revolution at a theater about 40 minutes from us. After that I have a pretty open week, other than Kids Club on Wednesday and gymnastics on Saturday.

Today I brought an extra child home with me from gymnastics. One of Little Miss’s friends came to play for the day.

So how about you? How does your upcoming week look? Is anything exciting planned? What warm or cold beverage will you be drinking to get you through the week?

The remarkable life of Charles Reynolds: pastor, missionary, troublemaker, stubborn Irishman, thorn in the side, devoted friend

On St. Patrick’s Day, I think of him . . .

Boondock Ramblings

I pulled into the driveway of a little house that looked as if it had been lifted out of Northern Ireland and dropped, unscathed, into the hills of Pennsylvania. The ceilings were low, the windows were small and cute and the stone fireplace had been built by hand.

On one side of the house was a cow pasture and on the other a tiny, century-old cemetery with a sign on the metal gate that read “Enter At Your Own Risk.”

I blew my nose as I parked and began to rehearse what I would say to the elderly Irishman inside, determined to not let him talk me into staying for tea. I did not want tea. I wanted to go home, lay down and fall asleep after a long day of work at the local weekly newspaper and catching a cold that had only gotten worse as the day went…

View original post 2,262 more words

Enjoying Every Sandwich

By Warren Howeler

Originally Published in The Rocket-Courier, Wyalusing, Pa.

About 20 years ago, I was flipping through channels due to a bout of insomnia when I came across Late Night with David Letterman, whose guest that night was the late Warren Zevon.

At the time, I had a vague knowledge of Zevon’s work, but I didn’t feel like flipping anymore and decided to leave it on CBS in the hopes that I would eventually fall asleep.

A little background on Zevon’s visit that night—he had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was performing one last time on his favorite late-night show.

I learned about those facts as I watched his interview with Letterman, who then asked him if there was anything he would like to say to people.

“Enjoy every sandwich” was Zevon’s response.

It is such a simple phrase, but it is something that I have just recently been taking to heart.

As I hit my mid-40s, I hate to admit it but I’m starting to get a little more conscious of my own mortality.

And, if we’re being honest, it terrifies me.

There are nights that I have trouble getting to sleep because I’m scared that I’m not going to wake up.

My mind sometimes is flooded with questions like how is my family going to be taken care of if I do pass away? Did I actually make a difference in my children’s lives? Did I remember to close the refrigerator door?

Sorry. Felt that I needed to inject a little levity before I thoroughly depressed the readership.

Back to the point, I am worried that I haven’t done anything with my life, but then, well, let’s bring back Mr. Zevon for a minute.

I only own one Warren Zevon album. It is the one that he recorded just before he passed. It is called The Wind.

The album itself is brilliant. His cover of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door is beautiful and his duet with Bruce Springsteen—Disorder in the House—is a great rock song.

But it’s the last song on the album that has stuck with me the longest.

It is entitled Keep Me in Your Heart.

Essentially, the song is Zevon’s farewell to the world and encourages those he left behind to live their life to the fullest.

It is that last thought that I’ve been trying to take more to heart these days.

We should all be doing that. As I read one day when I was young, “you only get one chance at life—grab for all the gusto you can.”

Sadly, when I was younger, I didn’t appreciate that sentiment much.

I was always scared about trying something new. I would always come up with an excuse to not enjoy a particular aspect of life.

But over the last couple of years, I’ve wanted to expand my horizons—and I have wanted to become a better person not only for myself but for my family.

Two years ago, I went into the water and back up again at church. I want to think that I did change a little when I came out, but time will tell.

I’m trying to have more experiences with my family and make some new memories as we go forward.

I even got on the stage this last summer, which was a blast. I may do that again. We’ll see.

And there’s still a lot that I want to accomplish going forward.

I’m not looking at my age as the halfway point of my life.

I’m looking at it as the beginning of something new.

We only have one life to live. 

Let’s have some fun with it.

Enjoy every sandwich.

Spring Into Love Giveaway!

This is not the type of post I usually share on the blog, but I wanted to tell you that I’m so excited to be part of a GIVEAWAY with 19 other authors!

Join all of us in our massive Spring into Love e-book giveaway!!

How to enter (March 11 to 13): follow this link: https://kingsumo.com/g/kuwvcy/spring-into-love-giveaway

There will be bonus entries for each follow on Instagram as well. See my Instagram (www.instagram.com/lisarhoweler) for the list of authors and their accounts.

✅Third Place Prize Winner will receive 1 e-book of their choosing from the list below.

✅Second Place Prize Winner will receive 2 e-books of their choosing from the list below.

✅Grand Prize Winner – (all the e-books below – yup that’s all 19 e-books) AND Gift Cards to The Flourished Mustard Seed ($35) (@theflourishedmustardseed )and Sweet Sequels ($55) (@sweetsequels)

The books you could win: In the Midst of the Storm by Latisha Sexton,

In the Night Season by Jennifer Q. Hunt,

Confessions to a Stranger by Danielle Grandinetti,

The One Who Got Away by Tara Grace Ericson,

Last Wish by Valerie Howard,

Some Through the Fire by Jennifer Q. Hunt,

A Battle Worth Fighting by Sarah Hanks,

The Farmer’s Daughter by Lisa R. Howeler,

The Uncertainty of Fire by Stephanie Daniels,

Halos by Amber Lambda,

A Summer in Shady Springs by Sarah Anne Crouch,

Shores of Mercy by Lisa Howeler,

The Prodigal Sons by Aubrey Taylor,

Until We All Run Free by Heather Wood,

The Secret of Drulea Cottage by Claire Kholer,

The Darkening Dragons by Sarah Everest,

For a Noble Purpose by Kelsey Gietl,

In the Midst of the Darkest Storm by Latisha Sexton,

Potential Threat by Tara Grace Erickson

Saturday Afternoon Chat and a Cup of Tea: Gymnastics and grumpy old farts

Good afternoon!

I hope you are having a wonderful Saturday afternoon, or evening, whenever you are reading this.

Here in Pennsylvania it is a cold Saturday afternoon and as I write this I am planning to spend it watching the third Anne of Green Gables movie with my mom, and maybe Dad too since he got caught up in the first one with us.

Before I go there, however, I will take Little Miss to her gymnastics class.

Speaking of gymnastics, she attended her first competition last weekend. It was a home competition and for her age it was mainly to get her some experience in that realm.

She earned a fourth and sixth place trophy and got a special award for her cute pajamas since this competition was called Pajama Rama. The participants were asked to wear their pajamas to it. Of course, they took them off to complete their activities.

The rest of the week was mainly homeschooling and then Kids Club on Wednesday. Kids Club is what they are calling it now instead of Awana. On the way there, I picked up a little boy whose grandmother helps with the club but who was on vacation. The little boy lives in his great-grandfather’s house and it brought up a lot of memories for me since my family knew his great-grandfather, Karl, well. His great-grandfather was good friends with my grandfather and my dad. He worked with my dad for many years.

My parents would go to their house to play cards often when I was a young kid and I would be taken along because there was often no one at home to watch me. I have no idea where my brother would have been at that time, but he was eight years older than me so I guess he was doing teenage stuff. Maybe track practice since he did run track.

My mom does not like playing cards but she would go anyhow for something different to do. I’d sit in their living room with their fake fireplace and 70s-style lava lamp and for a while a real-life fluffy, sleeping, Siamese. Later that cat was replaced with a fake one after it died. That fake one was a little creepy, to say the least. No, I don’t believe they had the Siamese stuffed.

The entire house smelled like Karl’s pipe, which was a sweet and pleasant aroma. I’m glad he didn’t smoke cigars. The house was immaculate, and I was always worried I’d mess something up or spill the soda Karl’s wife, Blanche, would give me. Soda and chips were a treat for me because even though we were a Pepsi family through and through since my mom’s dad worked for them for 30 years or more, we didn’t have soda all the time at my house.

Blanche would set the glass of soda on a clear glass coaster so it didn’t stain their coffee table.

Sometimes I would watch a game show on TV while they played cards – usually wheel of fortune.

When I dropped the little boy off, Karl’s grandson and I chatted about my memories of the house. He laughed and said he understood about the pipe smell because he had those pipes and that tobacco in a canister in the enclosed front porch and in the summer the heat would heat the tobacco and make the whole porch smell like it.

To this day, I can’t smell pipe smoke or tobacco without thinking of Karl. My husband is the same with his grandfather, who also smoked a pipe for many years.

In many ways, Karl was like a grandfather to me since I had lost mine when I was only two and my other one when I was 9.  Karl could be grumpy at times and most people just let him go but one day when I was a teenager, I was over there and he was super grumpy about something. I don’t remember what had set him off but I let him know that whatever it was, it wasn’t that big of a deal. He was simply being a “grumpy old fart,” I told him.

As the words flew out of my mouth, I couldn’t believe I’d said it. It wasn’t that Karl was a mean man, but people simply didn’t talk back to him very often. I stood motionless for a few seconds, afraid that he was going to blow up on me but instead he simply looked shocked for a few seconds and then burst into laughter, that pipe propped in the corner of his mouth.

“Well, you’re a sassy thing today, aren’t you?” he said.

After that, we joked hard with each other and it became the norm.

Losing him, and then years later his wife, was hard and I find myself often unable to look at his house where his grandson now lives without tearing up. The tears are happy tears, though, I tell Little Miss. They are tears filled with a lot of good memories I am glad to have.

This week should be fairly low key until the end of the week. On Friday, Little Miss is scheduled for oral surgery to remove several problematic teeth. She will be having it done under general anesthesia and to say I am nervous would be an understatement. I may have to be medicated that day (I’m only half-joking here) so please, if you wouldn’t mind, pray for that procedure and my already frayed nerves.

Does your tea need a warm up? I know mine does.

I’m going to be looking for some new teas here shortly. I was just telling a friend how I don’t like it when herbal teas have a bunch of other ingredients in them. I don’t want rose hips and lemongrass and some other herb. The only reason for that is that I had a reaction to a tea one time and it took me a while to figure out that might be the cause of my itching. In the end, I wasn’t sure which herb might have caused the issue. We’d also had a laundry detergent change that I was unaware of (since The Husband does a lot of our laundry and had used something new) around the same time, so it may have been that causing the itching all along.

Some teas with all those extra things in it (dandelion leaves, etc.) make my throat feel odd too. Plus, I can’t have caffeinated tea since I seem to be allergic to caffeine. Yes, I know, it’s completely bizarre.

So, for now I stick to the peppermint tea, but I’m really going to try to be brave and try something new soon.

Leave me a list of your favorite teas in the comments and let me know what you are drinking and doing today.

`             

A writing update: A new series on the horizon

If you are a regular on this blog, you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting as many blog posts as I sometimes do.

Part of that has been due to a lot of stress in my life, but part of the reason for me writing fewer blog posts is that I am working on a new book series.

This series will be a cozy mystery series called Gladwyn Grant Mysteries.

The first book in the series is called Gladwyn Grant Gets Her Footing.

I’ll tell you more about Gladwyn in the coming weeks. I have not yet decided if I will share this story as a serial on the blog or not. I’ll let you know in the future if that is going to happen.

I hope to release the first three books in the series about 4 months apart starting in either May or June. These books will be shorter than my previous books. They will be clean, but not strictly Christian fiction.

A Biblical fiction story I am also working on will, of course, be Christian Fiction.

And if I didn’t have enough going on, I am also writing a book that will come out in August of 2024 and is entitled Cassie. It will also be in the Christian Fiction genre.

I am very excited for Cassie since it will be part of a multi-author project called The Apron Strings Book Series and it will follow twelve women and a recipe book that connects them all. Each book will focus on a different woman from a different era from 1920 to 2020.

My decade is the 1990s and my character, whose stage name is Cassie Starr, is a popstar who has hit her 30s and isn’t as popular as she once was. With no jobs coming her way and her record label dropping her, she heads up at the behest of her sister to help their mom with the family farm-to-table restaurant. While there Cassie will find out her mom’s health is not as good as she thought it was, that her feelings toward her father aren’t as resolved as she thought, and that the owner of the local vegetable farm that supplies her mom’s business with food isn’t as annoying as she once thought.

I have not forgotten that I still have a fifth book I have promised and want to write to close out The Spencer Valley Chronicles and I will get there at some point. The final book will be the story of Alex Stone and his relationship with his father, as well as his continuing relationship with Molly Tanner. It doesn’t have a title yet.

So that is my writing update for now. I’m sure it will change in regards to timing and titles, etc. as the months go on.

Do any of the projects sound interesting to you?

Grandma’s Blanket

Grandma’s Blanket


I’m sitting on my couch under my grandmother’s blanket.

Grandpa passed away in 2003 (in the hospital, not under the blanket, incidentally) and the blanket has been at her house where my parents now live.

One day recently I went to visit my parents and my dad had a stack of blankets for me to go through.

“We’re running out of room. Take some of these.”

He then gestured to three empty Walmart boxes and told me to fill them.

One of the first blankets I reached for was the tan-brown knitted blanket that I remember my grandmother laying under for naps and when she fell asleep on the couch watching the 11 o’clock news. My paternal grandmother weighed about 100 pounds and was probably about 5 foot 1 inches tall. She’d pull her tiny form into a ball in the curved corner of the couch and drape the blanket around her. It would entirely cover her and it’s not a big blanket.

The couch was tan as well and it was a three- or four-piece sectional. The piece she sat in was curved and it’s not a shape I often see in couches these days.

If you looked too fast, you might miss her. That’s how well hidden she’d be under that couch.

I know there were many times I almost didn’t see her when I was checking where she was.

One night, though I can’t remember why, I stayed alone at that house. I believe it was before Grandma died, but my parents were already living there. I curled up in the corner of that couch with all the outside lights on in case someone tried to break in and fell asleep there. Later I wondered how she’d ever been able to fall asleep in that spot, all curled up tight. It was not very comfortable.

The day Grandma died Dad called me from the hospital.

“You said you wanted me to call when she passed,” he said. “So, I am.”

I’d been over in her room earlier in the day.

“I love you Grandma,” I told her as I leaned over her while she slipped in and out of sleep.

“I know,” she said.

She didn’t often say “I love you” back but she may have that day. I truly can’t remember.

I just remember her saying, “I’m so tired, Lisa. So tired.”

She was two weeks shy of turning 94.

“I know, Grandma,” I told her. “Just rest. You can rest now.”

Grandma lived across the hill from us. A drive down a dirt road, a bridge over a small stream, then up another dirt road would bring us to her house – the house Dad and his sisters grew up in.

When I was a teenager and I called Grandma to tell her my mom was sending some food over to her for dinner she’d often hang up without saying goodbye.

The conversations went like this:

“Grandma, Dad’s bringing over some chicken and potatoes Mom made.”

“Okay. Sounds good.”

“She also made some applesauce.”

“Okay. Yep. Mmhmm.”

I’d open my mouth to say something else but the click had already sounded in my ear. She was done with the conversation and had hung up.

Often before she hung up I’d throw in a “I love you” and she’d say, “Yup. Mhmm. Okay then.”

And the click would sound.

One time, though, she said, “Yup. Mhmm. Okay then. Love you too.”

And then the click.

I was flying the rest of the night.

I rushed into the kitchen and told my mom, “Grandma said I love you back!”

It was the best feeling in the world – to actually hear those words.

She showed her love in other ways, though.

In small ways.

In the way she asked how I was or wanted to hear the stories I’d been covering at the newspaper.

In the way she gave me a quilt she’d made years ago for my college graduation.

In the way she didn’t talk a lot about her life but answered questions about it when I asked.

In the way we shared black jellybeans together, even though she said licorice was bad for her blood pressure.

In the way she tipped her head back and laughed at me that day I took her photograph while she sat on the ground next to the ditch behind her house.

In the way she let it slip that one time how she really felt and told me she loved me too.

And even in the hurt I held on to for year – a question about what had happened to me. I used to be so skinny, she said. I don’t think she asked it to be mean, though. She was truly worried. What had happened that was causing me to suddenly gain weight, she wondered. It wouldn’t be until several years after she died that I’d learn my thyroid was dying and leaving the weight on me.

Even though I wasn’t still skinny, my mom always tells me she knows Grandma still loved me. I have a good feeling she is right.

The blanket isn’t super soft.

I don’t know if I’d cover myself with it if it wasn’t full of memories of a love that was quiet when the world was loud.

Quiet when the world was loud.

I’m writing that again for my benefit and maybe yours.

I could use some quiet in the loud right now. Couldn’t you?

So, when I pull that blanket across my lap and up around my shoulders I will think of the action as if I am crawling into a stillness my soul needs.

A stillness that only a quiet love can bring.

A stillness that brings quiet when the world is loud.