We had a nice Easter, just in time for a snowstorm to hit our area. Yes! You read right. A snowstorm in mid-April. I can’t even believe it at this point. It’s like winter will never end.
Hopefully, most of that snow will be gone by tomorrow morning, but in the meantime, my husband pulled out the kids’ winter boots that he had already put in the closet and his snowblower. Much of the area was out of power this morning, including my parents, but we somehow managed to only lose it for about three hours in the night at our house.
We did actually have snow very much like this on the same date two years ago but it’s still surreal for me to see snow this late in the year. Maybe such things happened when I was a child too and I simply don’t remember it. I’m not sure since I seemed to live my life in the clouds back then and sometimes still do.
Even though I am sick of winter, I do enjoy huddling under a blanket with a good book or while working on a blog post so I am handling this unexpected storm a little better than I otherwise might have.
For the second week in a row, we missed Little Miss’s gymnastics class due to unforeseen circumstances. Last week her nose was all messy from a little bug we had and this week the snow started just as we were getting ready to leave.
Luckily her gymnastics studio allows her to make up classes later in the week.
On Easter Sunday we held a short egg hunt for the kids, even though Little Miss was more excited than her brother, who simply picked up the obvious eggs she missed — like those sitting out in the open that she ran past.
The Boy was suffering from the virus that Little Miss and I had had the week before. No, not the Dreaded Virus. Thank God.
We are having a short spring break part of this week from schoolwork and then it is back to the grindstone to finish out April and May.
As for the weather, it is supposed to warm up by this weekend and hopefully, we will soon have some nice days when we can play outside and open the windows in the house.
I hope the weather is a little nicer where you are, but if it isn’t, I am sure it will be soon.
Today is Easter Sunday! Happy Easter! Or for Christians, happy Resurrection Day! He has risen! He has risen indeed!!
It is hard to imagine that around this time two years ago, my family was living with my parents until the financing worked out for the house we are living in now.
It was an interesting time and I love my parents, but I am glad to be in our own house and I am sure they are as well. We are also glad, however, to live only ten minutes away so that we can see them often, including today when we will have Easter dinner with them, followed by an egg hunt in the yard for the kids.
The weather warmed up this past week and it was so needed for the physical and mental health of not only me and my family but so many others.
On Tuesday, Little Miss and I spent most of the afternoon and evening outside. She made her nature salad (which consists of her gathering grass, leaves, flowers, and other natural substances to make a type of salad we pretend to eat), the animals explored outside, and then we did our schoolwork outside as well.
Before dinner and then during it, I read on the porch and listened to Aaron Watson (a country singer) while my husband cooked pork chops on the grill.
It was such an awesome and relaxing day, and I didn’t want it to end. I especially didn’t want it to end when I saw the weekend was bringing rain and more chilly weather.
What I’m Reading
I wish I had something more exciting to report on the reading front, but I’m still reading the same books I have been for a while.
I should finish Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle this week and a book by Jennifer Knipfer.
I’m also still reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain when the mood strikes me.
The husband is reading a book that I’ll add here if he tells me before I post this. Last week he told me after I posted and after he read that I didn’t know what he was reading. (Update: my husband is reading The Long Legged Fly by James Sallis.)
Little Miss and I are still re-reading the Little House on the Prairie books and are currently on On The Banks of Plum Creek.
What I/We Watched/Are watching
This week I watched parts of the livestreams of The Chosen seasons one and two, including this very important scene:
If you haven’t seen the show, here is a preview for season two, which is already available in a variety of places, including The Chosen app on your phone.
To reignite my love of writing, I’ve been watching a lot of interviews with authors, including this one with Lee Childs, author of the Jack Reacher books:
And this one with Craig Johnson, author of The Walt Longmire Mysteries:
I loved Johnson’s interviews the most because he’s so much like the characters he writes about. He’s the real deal – writing about a sheriff in Wyoming while living there himself and basing the characters on people he knows.
What I’m Writing
As I mentioned on Friday in my Friday Fiction post, I am moving forward on Mercy’s Shore, the next book in the Spencer Valley Chronicles, while also making revisions and fixing issues with Beauty From Ashes. I’m only a chapter in on the next book so I have a long way to go and I’m fine with that. I’ll be taking my time and maybe sharing some of it on the blog down the road.
It’s Easter Sunday so of course I have to listen to:
And here is a fun version of the classic Because He Lives:
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.
She is willing to testify against her trafficker. If she can stay alive that long.
“You’re safe here, Starr.”
How many times has Detective Cole Blacksky said that to her since helping her escape the life she’d been forced into eight years earlier?
Starr desperately wants to believe him, but she knows Brady Erickson, her former captor, too well. Although Cole has promised her protective custody on his family’s remote ranch, no place on earth is safe enough. Brady will stop at nothing to permanently silence her before she ever reaches the witness stand.
And he is powerful enough to do it.
If Starr wants to help Brady’s other victims, she has no choice but to put herself in God’s hands. And Cole’s. But the longer she and Cole stay hidden, the more her life is at risk.
Every Star in the Sky is a tough read in many ways. It is tough to read about the life of the main character, but it is also necessary to understand that while this book is fiction, it is based on situations that are actually happening around the world. There may be some of us who don’t believe that sex trafficking is happening in Canada or the United States or the UK. That’s something that happens in other countries, not ours, right?
Wrong.
Sex trafficking is much more prevalent in our countries than we even know and this book will open many eyes to that.
While I very much liked the effort of the book to open our eyes to the horrors of sex/human trafficking, I found some of it to be unbelievable. The way the story transformed into a love story was not what I expected and I found it more like wishful thinking than reality part of the time. I feel it would have taken the main character a lot longer to overcome the trauma of what she went through. I could, however, be completely wrong and that does not mean I did not enjoy the book. I very much enjoyed the book, as much as you can enjoy such a heartbreaking story based in reality.
I enjoy the author’s writing and how she weaves a story and makes the characters very real. I absolutely loved the main characters and the side characters also charmed me (the grandmother just stole my heart. Seriously).
Even though I had some reservations about how a couple of parts of this book unfolded, I hope it doesn’t sound like I do not recommend it. I wholeheartedly do. My concerns about some of the plot (very, very minor issues really) does not take away from the impact of this story. More than once it had me cringing because I had to face the darkness. It had me wishing I could close my eyes against the words. It had tears in my eyes because I know this life is all too real for some woman out there right now.
I encourage you to get a copy of this book and be prepared to not only be exposed to a world you might wish you didn’t know about but also to a world where there is hope, where there is beauty from ashes, where there is redemption and physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.
About the Author
Sara Davison is the author of four romantic suspense series—The Seven Trilogy, The Night Guardians, The Rose Tattoo Trilogy, and Two Sparrows for a Penny, as well as the standalone, The Watcher. A finalist for more than a dozen national writing awards, she is a Word, Cascade, and Carol Award winner. She currently resides in Ontario with her husband Michael and their three mostly grown kids. Like every good Canadian, she loves coffee, hockey, poutine, and apologizing for no particular reason. Get to know Sara better at www.saradavison.org and @sarajdavison.
More from Sara
A few years ago, I attended a women’s conference in the Canadian capital city of Ottawa. The theme of the conference was human trafficking, which had always seemed to me something that happened in other countries of the world. The speaker informed us that, in fact, sex trafficking is very much an issue in Canada. In fact, she went on to say that if we were staying in a hotel that night, she could pretty much guarantee that somewhere in the building a young girl would be trafficked against her will while we slept peacefully in our beds.
That fact—and the way my subsequent research has borne up that truth—shocked, horrified, and deeply impacted me. And so, Every Star in the Sky was born. This romantic suspense novel puts a face and name and story to the scourge of human trafficking. While the fictional tale of one woman’s experiences, it represents the reality of countless women and shows the devastating toll this evil takes, not only on those in captivity, but on those who love them and desire to see them restored to freedom and eventually physical, mental, and emotional healing.
Every Star in the Sky is a love story. Not only between a woman rescued from trafficking and the man who risked everything to save her, but between God and every human being created in his image victimized by this unspeakable practice. The theme of this series, which I hope and pray comes across clearly to every reader, is that we are never alone. God sees what we are going through. He never leaves or forsakes us. He knows the name of every star in the sky, and he knows us deeply and intimately.
As the main character in the story reflects: “And if you know every star by name, you must know every one of us by name.” When no one around her, not even friends like Ruby, knew her real name, she had clung to the truth that God knew it, that it was engraved on the palm of his hand. Without that knowledge, she would have been afraid her name might be lost, since she was so determined not to let her true one slip out to Brady that even in her own mind she had become Starr. But God had kept her name in trust for her until Cole freed her, and now God had given it to her again. She hadn’t planned to tell it to Cole tonight, but something had nudged her to. Had assured her it was safe. That he was safe.
While the problem of human trafficking may seem overwhelming, prayer is our most powerful weapon against the forces of darkness. Pray for all those held in captivity, that they would experience God’s love and presence with them, that they would find freedom, and that all who participate in this evil would one day be brought to justice.
When you wake up in the morning you feel it. A dark cloud hanging over you that you did not place there. There is a sense of foreboding that something bad is about to happen. You find yourself on edge, constantly in a state of “waiting for the other shoe to drop.” The phone rings and you jump. There it is. The bad news you were dreading.
Only it isn’t bad news. It’s simply a family member calling to say “hey” and you don’t have to worry. Whew. You breathe a sigh of relief. Calm settles over you.
For five minutes that is because you suddenly start to think about how maybe that news isn’t bad but worse news could come soon. Then you begin to list off all the bad things that could happen.
And your heart rate? Now it’s really picking up.
“Is that normal?” you think. “Should my heart be doing that?
“Good grief. Stop it,” you tell yourself. “Everything is fine.”
And it is fine.
For five minutes before the cycle starts all over again and continues until the end of the day when you collapse in mental exhaustion.
Such is the life of someone who lives with anxiety and depression. I am someone who lives with anxiety and depression. Is every day of my life like this? No, thank God and because of God, it is not. Does my mind switch to worry after worry every day, all day? Again no. Some days are like that, though, and it’s a very scary and out-of-control feeling.
It has taken a lot of prayer and a lot of lifestyle changes to help me deal with anxiety and depression and for a short time, I also took medicine. For now, I am taking CBD oil and it is helping (even if the one I have right now is a little too concentrated so I need one that won’t make me so sleepy). I am also practicing mindfulness and positive thinking, telling myself as many times as I need to do in a day that I am fine and that whatever I am anxious about is something I can handle with God’s help.
I just want to give a heads up to those of you dealing with anxiety and depression.
Inevitably some well-meaning person, usually at church, will say to you, “What are you so down about? You have a wonderful life! Wonderful children/grandchildren, a roof over your head, food on the table. You have nothing to be depressed about! Jesus is your Lord, be glad and rejoice!”
If they haven’t yet, don’t worry. They will.
It can be hard not to be angry with the people who seem so flippant about your mental health. It can be hard not to scream “But you don’t understand! I don’t even understand. The sadness and dark clouds are just there even when I know they shouldn’t be!”
Oh, how I have wanted to scream that so many times. I have wanted to tell them how clueless they are and how hurtful it is to tell me to simply “cheer up” when I am trying so hard to do just that. And if I hear them recite Philippians 4:6 (Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God) one more time like it is an admonishment and not an encouragement, my head might just explode right off my neck.
This week I had to remind myself of something and I want to offer it as advice from one depression sufferer to another — extend grace to those people who encourage you to not be anxious.
They don’t mean to hurt us with their comments. They don’t mean to be rude (most of them don’t anyhow). They don’t mean to dismiss our feelings. They mean well. They really want to help but they simply don’t know how. They think they are being encouraging and kind. They think you simply need to watch a comedy, walk in nature and listen to worship music and the depression will be gone. Why? Because that’s how it’s worked for them.
They don’t have a clinical depression they can’t explain.
They have a slump in their mood and for them what works is journaling and yoga and “centering” themselves.
Sometimes that even works for us hardcore sufferers, but most of the time we need much more. We may need medicine, we may need counseling, or we just might need to stop being told “to perk up”, “shake it off,” “get into nature,” “sing a song,” or “read your Bible.”
However, all of those things can help, and the Bible is needed so when someone says one of those things to you, thank them.
Thank them for their attempt and move on. If they condemn you for not cheering up the way they think you should, then maybe you can offer them a comment about how their advice is no longer needed, but otherwise, simply thank them because most of the time they mean well and some of the time their suggestions might at least take the edge off it all.
I love stories about small town or rural folk (as some might say instead of people) and maybe that is because I grew up in a small town and have interacted with so many interesting real life, small-town characters over the years.
Books or movies that feature interesting or “down home” characters with a bit of a quirk are my kinds of books and movies.
A few movies that scratch this itch for me include The Quiet Man, Fisherman’s Friends, The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down a Mountain (that’s a mouthful), Road Less Traveled,Steel Magnolias, Pure Country, Forever My Girl (an overused trope is in this plot, but it was handled better than most) and a little known movie called Sweetland. Some of these movies were, of course, books before they were movies.
What I don’t like, however, is how Hollywood often portrays people who live in small towns as “backward”, weird, uneducated, stupid, close-minded, or like they are “yokels” or “hillbillies.”
What they don’t seem to get is that when they do that, they are the close-minded ones and maybe even a bit backward themselves. I actually think people who live in small towns are a little bit more grounded and normal than those who live in cities.
Books that fill this love of smalltown characters for me include the series of books by James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small, etc.), the Mitford series by Jan Karon, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the Miss Julia series by Ann B. Ross, the Home to Harmony series, The Cat Who series by Lilian Jackson Braun, and the Anne of Green Gables series.
Are you a fan of books and movies about small towns or do books about larger cities interest you more? Which movies or books featuring each location are your favorites?
It’s Monday and they are often a drag for many of us so today I am sharing five uplifting, sing-along worship songs for you to put on and sing at the top of your lungs. You should also be able to find these songs on Apple or Amazon music, Spotify, or wherever you download your music.
One recent Saturday I spent almost the entire day under a warm blanket with chocolate chip cookies dipped in Nutella and read Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz. It was very enjoyable, not only because it was the most relaxed I had been in a long time and I had chocolate, but because the book was such a good one.
My husband recommended the book so I was a bit leery at first. We don’t always like the same books, but lately, he’s been suggesting ones I have enjoyed, including the Walt Longmire Series by Craig Johnson. I’m also reading my first Donald Westlake book, Call Me A Cab, at his suggestion.
First, a little bit about Moriarty. For those familiar with Sherlock Holmes books and movies, you will recognize that name. The book opens, though, with Professor James Moriarty having died at Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, which leaves the reader wondering about the title of the book.
The main characters of the book are Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase and Inspector Athelney Jones.
The description of the book:Sherlock Holmes is dead.
Days after Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase arrives from New York. The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind. Ably assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones, a devoted student of Holmes’s methods of investigation and deduction, Chase must hunt down this shadowy figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, a man determined to engulf London in a tide of murder and menace.
The game is afoot . . .
My view: The book is written like an old-fashioned Sherlock Holmes book so don’t expect there to be modern overdone descriptions of characters of scenes. For the most part the book is a fast paced, dialogue heavy and straight forward presentation. The focus is on the story, not the characters necessarily.
Horowitz takes the reader down into a dark world of crime, twisting around and around until there is a point you’re not sure who is who. Even though I tried to guess the ending and was right on one theory, the way Horowitz brought the story to its finality was still satisfying and fascinating. I honestly couldn’t put the book down once I got myself snuggled in that Saturday afternoon under the covers, and placed other books I was reading aside so I could finish it. I also stopped feeding my children and taking a shower, but that’s an entirely different issue. I’m kidding, of course. I took a shower. I’m not a monster.
Reading the book has encouraged me to move on to Horowitz’s other Sherlock Holmes book The House of Silk which was actually his first Sherlock Holmes-related book.
The House of Silk was the first book authorized as a new Sherlock Holmes novel by the Arthur Conan Doyle in 125-years.
Confession time: I have not actually read any original Sherlock Holmes books. My husband is a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, however, and we have watched many shows based on the books together.
How about you? Are you a big Sherlock Holmes fan? Have you read all of Arthur Conan Doyle’s books?
The entertainment I like would be considered old-fashioned by some. Okay, fine. It would be considered old-fashioned by everyone.
I feel like maybe I have an old soul (of course, now at 44, my body is getting old as well). I have always liked shows like The Dick VanDyke Show, Burns and Allen and The Andy Griffith Show, and other old shows that were on the air long before I was born. Part of the reason I like these shows is that I was exposed to them at a time when there was nothing else for me to watch.
They hold sentimental value for me.
Growing up, we had an antenna on our back porch and four TV channels on an old black and white TV. Sometimes Dad would have to go out back and adjust the metal wiring that was supposed to be an antenna. I think he might have even put aluminum foil on it one time to try to improve the quality of the signal. I don’t remember it working.
I’m not so old that we didn’t have color TVs back then. Our family was just poor. We did eventually get a color TV from my grandmother, but we still only had four channels because the local cable company wouldn’t bring their lines to our house since we lived about three miles outside of a town. That same cable channel now has the internet and still won’t bring their lines up my parent’s road (which is across from the creek from where we used to live) to replace the inferior internet service they have now.
The four channels we could get were ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. When I came home from school, there were either after-school specials to watch or the news so I often turned to PBS. Our local PBS channel used to rotate between The Dick VanDyke Show and Burns and Allen at 6 p.m. Around 4 p.m. they showed Little House on the Prairie or The Waltons on PBS (they rotated these too) and I would watch that too.
LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE — Pictured: (clockwise from top left) Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls, Michael Landon as Charles Philip Ingalls, Karen Grassle as Caroline Quiner Holbrook Ingalls, Lindsay/Sidney Greenbush as Carrie Ingalls, Melissa Sue Anderson as Mary Ingalls Kendall (Photo by NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Because I had nothing else to watch, I found myself actually watching the shows, focusing on the comedy, the facial expressions, and the easy-going way they delivered their lines. They didn’t need to yell or be biting or sarcastic or crass to make everyone laugh and I liked that. Now that I am getting “old” I find myself gravitating to those shows as a way to find comfort in a crazy world.
When I am down or the world is swirling too fast around me, I turn on The Dick VanDyke Show or The Andy Griffith Show, which I only watched later in life. Sometimes I’ll take about any old comedy show – Green Acres has even popped up on my screen a time or two. My husband used to watch Hogan’s Heroes and The Mary Tyler Moore Show too.
I stay clear of the mystery or crime shows from the 60s to now as much as possible lately. I find they can sometimes pull me deeper into depression. Perry Mason from the 60s isn’t as difficult for me to watch since it’s mostly about the battle in the courtroom than anything else. Once the shows started to get into modern times they began to focus more on violence and crimes that are all too real for me and while I do like crime shows of today (Brokenwood Mysteries, Father Brown, McDonald and Dodd, etc.) the days when I am looking for comfort, I avoid them.
Sometimes my brain needs to quiet down and remember a simpler time of comedy. Was life perfect in the 60s? Of course not. There was still all the sadness of today, simply packaged differently for the world to see. It was all there. The abuse, the drug use, the murders, assaults, war, etc. The world hasn’t ever been perfect since Adam and Eve messed up in the garden. But what is nice about the shows from the 60s is that they focused on the quality of content. They care more about putting out a quality product, not about just kicking out the quantity to fill up the airwaves for commercial dollars. Sure, there were bad shows out there too, don’t get me wrong, but the high-quality shows overshadowed them and still hold up today (though not all the references do, the overall storylines do).
Are there old TV shows that are a comfort to you? Probably not as old as mine, of course. *wink* Then again, I do have some readers here who are “old” like me!
I thought I’d close with a clip from my favorite episode of The Dick VanDyke Show.
And here is a documentary about the show I bumped into on YouTube while looking for clips.
I have been watching a lot of comedians recently and thought I would share my favorites today on the blog.
Ken Davis
I have been watching Ken Davis since I was in high school. After I got out of the hospital in November I watched him constantly to ground me and help take my mind off how awful I felt.
John Branyan
John isn’t as well known as Ken Davis is to many (at least in the Christian community) but he has some of the most hilarious bits, including this one about the Three Little Pigs.
Josh Sneed
I just discovered this guy this past weekend and he was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits.
Chonda Pierce
Oh, Chonda. Many who hear her love her and some have decided not to like her because of how she’s expressed her political views in the last few years, but Chonda still cracks me up. She’s had so much heartache in her life, but still manages to laugh and make others laugh.
Nazareth
This comedian is originally from the Middle East and he uses his heritage for some very edgy, very funny jokes.
