It’s hard for me to believe we are already at May for this year.
I have no idea what May will bring and don’t have any big plans, necessarily.
The only things I have on my calendar so far are the release of Beauty From Ashes on May 10 and my dad’s colonoscopy. Yes, my life truly is that boring.
Of course, I am sure we will do something for Memorial Day and my husband has the opening day for one of our favorite seasonal restaurants on his schedule to visit this upcoming weekend.
What I am hoping for in May is nicer weather since April was a dumpster fire of Pennsylvania weather. It was so cold, snowy, windy, and just overall horrid for our mental and physical well-being.
May will be our last month of school and while the children are excited about that, I actually see days without homeschool as a little sad and empty. I enjoy planning the children’s lessons and either watching them learn or learning with them.
I will most likely fill part of May planning for next school year and will continue to do that into the summer. The main part of planning is choosing the curriculum we will use. Some of the curriculum we will use will be carryovers from this previous year but much of The Boy’s curriculum will need to be new since he is going to be a — gulp! — sophomore! I can’t even wrap my mind around that right now and he’s let me know that he can’t either.
Little Miss will be a second-grader. My knees went weak, and my eyes filled up with tears as I wrote that. A second-grader?! This school year has gone by so fast I can’t even believe it.
I thought I would look back at our May from last year and see if it was any more exciting than this May looks to be.
Last year around this time I was planning a garden, and while I have briefly considered that, I haven’t taken any serious action toward it, partially because of the crummy weather.
Last May I was also sharing chapters from Harvesting Hope, which released in August (cheap plug, you can still get the book HERE *wink*.
Also last year, our kitten discovered tree climbing and we spent much of May trying to coax her down from trees, which would later result in the local fire company climbing the ladder on their ladder truck to retrieve her. That last incident was in October, not May. She still climbs trees but so far she’s figured out how to get back down them.
which is interesting because I am considering doing the same this year. Last May I cut out almost all news, checking it maybe once a week by skimming headlines for less than five minutes and then logging off the sites. I remember that month being quite relaxing and productive actually.
So, how about you? What are your plans for May? Anything exciting? Let me know in the comments.
Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.
What I/we’ve Been Reading
I am still reading the first book in the Joe Picket series by C.J. Box, Open Season. It’s very good and fast-paced but I was also reading a book for another writer, so I had to keep setting it aside.
The other book I am reading is Violet’s Vow, a Christian historical romance novella by Jenny Knipfer.
Little Miss and I are reading By The Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder again. This is our second time around with this book and the second time I cried when Laura’s dog, Jack, dies. Good grief even working my way toward that part makes me cry. I wish Little Miss would find a new book series to become obsessed with, but it could be worse, I suppose.
Little Miss and I also finished Ribsy by Beverly Cleary this week. Ribsy is the story of the dog of Henry Huggins, another of Cleary’s characters, who gets separated from his family and has to find his way home.
For school, she and I read Mountain Born by Elizabeth Yates. As it often is with old books, there was a death at the end of the book. Little Miss seemed to know what was coming and declared that if the main sheep in the book was dead at the end, she was tossing the book out the window. Our windows have screens, and she couldn’t get it open, so I told her to throw it out the back door instead.
She did and then later her brother threw it off the roof of the garage.
After that, Little Miss placed it in the burn barrel and told me to set it on fire the next time we burn the trash. That’s how much she hated how that book ended and I can’t say I blame her. I always hate books where the pet dies at the end. Curse Old Yeller. I’ll never read the book or watch the movie. Not even if someone offers me a million dollars. Actually, I’ll watch it only if someone offers me a million dollars to watch it.
The Boy was supposed to finish The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Friday but I am pretty sure he did not. I am encouraging him to start a book he wants to read for the last month of school to see if we do any better.
The husband is reading: The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.
What’s Been Occurring
The weather — I’m sick of writing about it, but well, it’s the only “interesting thing” going on right now. We had chilly days all week, but at least we had sun.
I have to say I don’t mind the chill at times. It’s nice to sip a cup of peppermint tea with honey (lots of honey, of course) and snuggle under a blanket while reading a book and brainstorming ideas for books and blog posts.
But I would also like some temps where the kids and I can go for a walk or sit on our porch without huddling in our coats and sweaters.
Little Miss had two of her little friends over one day last week and they lasted about five minutes outside when I tried a craft with them involving food coloring in ice cubes. The idea was to either rub the ice cube on the paper or let it melt and see what happened but the wind was too chilly so they dashed back inside after about five minutes. Kids today also have the attention span of a gnat so by the time they got inside they didn’t want to do the project anymore.
My goal this month is to help Little Miss focus on an activity for longer than five minutes at a time. My main goal then is to also wean her off the devices and instead have her find activities that will stimulate her brain.
Unrelated, but it seems everyone I know is going on vacation this week. One friend is on her way to Florida, another to Virginia.
My husband doesn’t get a vacation until July, and we aren’t sure what we are doing then, but we usually don’t travel far from home, for a variety of reasons, but mainly money.
Well, money and the fact my husband and I aren’t big on traveling or staying places we aren’t familiar with.
Now, unrelated to vacations is that I have been having horrible sinus issues for two weeks — to the point I have been barely able to breathe because of his stuffed my nose because of how stuffed my nose has been. I don’t want to do anything because breathing has been too hard.
My husband suggested I take an antihistamine to help dry me out. Apparently, it dried me out too much because my nose constantly felt swollen shut inside and my mucous was very thick. Thursday night I didn’t take any Loratadine and the next day I was still congested but nowhere near as bad. Apparently, Claritin was drying me out to the point my nose couldn’t even run and my lungs were so dry I felt tight inside.
I believe the weather change was what has been causing all my sinuses issues anyhow, so I probably didn’t even need the allergy medicine. Who knows. Maybe when the weather finally settles, I’ll be able to tell.
What We watched/are Watching
This week we watched Mystery Science Theatre 3000’s kickstarter project which my brother purchased for us for Christmas this year. They are starting a new subscription service and we are part of the lab rats while they figure it out and it’s been fun.
My husband was busy with a lot of work stuff so we didn’t watch a lot of shows together during the week. We did watch two episodes of the fourth season of Shakespeare & Hathaway, a British mystery show, which is finally up on Britbox.
While looking for clips from Shakespeare and Hathaway, I found a clip for a show called Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, which is a three-episode mini-series directed by Huge Laurie. I’m adding that to our que to watch this week.
Alone, I started a show called The Larkins. It’s very quirky and odd and I might be in love with it. It is based on a series of books and I have added those books to my list to buy.
I’m also looking forward to checking this show out while I take a much needed social media break in May (though I will be posting some on social media to promote Beauty From Ashes and helping with a reading group on Facebook I am a part of, I won’t be “surfing” on social media this month.):
It is about the real vet who still serves in the in the area where James Herriott, or Alf Wight, worked and based his All Creatures Great and Small books on.
What I’m Writing
I am writing two different stories at the moment, switching off depending on my mood, but I will most likely only share one on the blog if I decide to start sharing again on Fridays (pretty sure I will, probably this Friday).
It will probably be Mercy’s Shore that I share at this point, which is the fourth book in the Spencer Valley Chronicles series.
The other book I am working on is called The Devil’s Been Talking and it will be a stand-alone book, separate from the Spencer Valley Chronicles.
I have had a few ideas for blog posts but couldn’t seem to finish them for final posting. However, I wrote all or part of five blog posts yesterday. Shutting off the news and abstaining from social media helped that process. In other words, I do have plans to post more this week.
What I’m Listening To
I have not been listening to a ton of music and I need to remedy that because I feel better when I have good music in my ears. It helps to drown out the negative thoughts.
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.
April was torture weatherwise. Not only did it snow in late May, leaving heavy wet snow, but the rest of the month was mainly cold, wet, and gloomy.
We did have a few nice sunny days and we took advantage of them as much as possible.
We didn’t really do too much exciting in April. We picked up some local beef at a butcher. That was about the extent of our excitement.
If you want to see what blog posts I shared last month, you can access them on the archive drop down menu in the sidebar at the right.
I did share a post about why I had been writing less fiction and a few other ramblings about my writing and fiction. I also shared a post about how to find your creative spark again when it comes to writing.
I hope to share more blog posts in the month of May. For some reason, May often seems to be a productive blog month for me.
How about you? How was April for you? Productive? Wet? Cold? Warm? Stormy? Dull? Or Exciting? Let me know in the comments.
In the meantime, here are some photos from our month, including a few from today, the last day of April, when we noticed our tulips were finally blooming. We also watched a bee buzzing around looking for flowers to take pollen from and let him know he will probably have to wait another week or so.
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.
