Category: everyday musings

Favorite Books Read in 2020

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, everyday musings6 Comments

I thought about sharing a list of the books I read this year, but I share an Amazon and Goodreads account with my mom (it makes it easier for me to add books to her Kindle for her) and she read a lot more books than me so sifting through what she read and what I read was a little overwhelming. My Kindle list also includes books from my husband’s account and he’s also read a lot more books than I have this year (as he always does.)

I’ve been lesson planning for when school starts for the kids next week so I didn’t have time to sit and figure out what I read, what she read, and what he read. I do know she read around 200 this year (some of them short, some of them awful Kindle books, poor lady) on her Kindle and he read 80 on his Kindle. They both also read a few hard copies of books.

Since I didn’t want to try to make a list of all the books I read, which would have been short (maybe 20), I thought I’d list some of my favorites of what I read this year instead.

My favorite reads this year were:

A Long Time Comin’ by Robin W. Pearson

Lead Me Home by Amy K. Sorrells

Falling Home by Karen White

About Your Father And Other Celebrities I Have Known by Peggy Rowe (the only non-fiction book I read all the way through.)

A Longmire Mystery: The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson

Hadley Beckett’s Next Dish by Bethany Turner.

The Dead Don’t Dance by Charles Martin


Honorable Mentions:

Borders of the Heart Chris Fabry

Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes

Silas Marner by George Elliot

The Knife Slipped by Earl Stanley Gardner

A Cord of Three Strands by Christy Distler

I know a lot of readers announce a reading goal for the new year, but I find goals like that distract me from simply enjoying reading. I guess I could set my goal at 20 and see what happens, but . . . that just sounds so organized, so I don’t think I’ll really set that as my goal. Pretend I did, though, so I fit in with all the book bloggers of the world.

So how about you? What were some of your favorite reads of 2020? Let me know in the comments.

The Path

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings7 Comments

Written by my dad, R.G.R. Any typos are his and I just left them in *wink*. Merry Christmas to my blog readers.

   It was the path to the home of the sweetest people I knew. The path was out the door, across the lawn and down over a steep bank; Then I would go across the road and down the next short bank to open the cow gate and go katy-corner across the barn yard to the lane. From there on, it was about a hundred yards down the lane to the wooded pasture and down to the creek I would go. The stepping stones in the  creek were  the  fun and challenging part .

Then to angle up the creek bank steps, go across one of the  few flat spots in Laddsburg country to the train tracks  ( railroad); first was to either climb over or go through the hole in the railroad fence and along 4 spare sections of rails stored on concrete pillars. The same ones remained there for many years, The train ran once a day out through Dushore PA  and back.  There was no more passenger car of  yesteryears but, I remember the half  dozen or more coal cars and gondola cars loaded with coal from the Sullivan County Bernice coal mines, a few box cars and a caboose. Once I do recall two locomotives steaming  up through the valley on the same day.

So, it was over the tracks and through a brushy area, 100 feet around the edge of  a  field and across the drainage ditch. It was as you have read, an up and down zigzagging little journey. From the ditch, it was a short straight way to the back porch of the sweetest people I knew, Grandma and Grandad Grant, Eben and Grace. It was Grandma when I was  around the age of 6 that showed me the path, and by 8 or 9 I traveled it alone and did so for many years between the house I now live in and the Grant home where also my wife and I later lived, and where our children grew up. I was no longer able to keep the Grant home and sold it a year ago . It was a sad day.

          Grandmother was a gracious, perky, down to earth lady. She was very frugal. She had no choice. Granddad, who had been a carpenter  was calm in manner, kind in all his ways and a fountain of history and wisdom. I stopped by at the age of 17 to say goodbye when I was leaving to join the US Air Force. Standing in front of the Grant House he said to me “You will go through this life alone” ; And I became a man. He lived by the Grant Clan motto “Stand Fast Grant”. I knew him well, and I am thinking at this moment about the life he lived and things that broke his heart.

If I could speak to him now, I would say ” Grandad, I love you, Jesus loves you ; You need not walk the path alone. Jesus will show you the path of life; In his presence is fullness of joy; At His right hand are pleasures forevermore.” The choice to walk the path with Jesus is ours alone to make. We need not walk “the path “alone. 

R.G.R.

Words of wisdom for today from C.S. Lewis

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings7 Comments

C.S. Lewis wrote this in 1948 about the atomic bomb but he very well could have written it today in the age of coronavirus. In my mind I have inserted the word coronavirus in place of atomic bomb and it works about the same.

On Living In An Atomic Age in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays

“In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

Need Some Light?

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings5 Comments

This was just a beautiful post I wanted to share with you all. An uplifting reminder for this Christmas season.

fuelfortheraceblog's avatarFuel For The Race

“I believe in you
You know the door to my very soul
You’re the light in my deepest, darkest hour
You’re my savior when I fall…” (1977) “How Deep Is Your Love?” Recorded By: Bee Gees Composers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb, and Blue Weaver

“Dad, I paid $90.00 for that thing!”

That’s what my eldest daughter said to me on the phone last week, in her very frantic delivery. Ever since she and her husband were able to get into a house, she has gone a bit over the top on holiday decor. (My opinion.) It doesn’t matter if it’s Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter, she decorates loudly and early.

My eldest daughter’s house, Thanksgiving night 2020.

When my phone alerted me to her call, I had a gut feeling there was trouble, even before I answered. Sure ’nuff, there was a major issue going on in her world…

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My Grandfather’s Pipe

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings20 Comments

I stole this column from my husband, which he wrote for his weekly newspaper column two months ago. I thought my blog readers would like it since a lot of you are like me and like the sentimental.

By Warren Howeler, originally published in The Rocket-Courier, October 2020

Everyone has those memories that are triggered by external stimuli.

It can be a glimpse of something, a taste, or, in my case, a smell.

The smell that I’m speaking of is pipe tobacco, specifically, the kind that my grandfather used to smoke while I was a child.

The smell of my grandfather’s pipe tobacco takes me back to my early childhood, before I moved to California and eventually, later, to PA.

One of my earliest memories stems from my grandfather’s pipe. I would always be greeted by that scent whenever I would enter my grandparents’ old home in Hinsdale, IL.

Since my parents divorced when I was extremely young, my grandfather was the only father figure I had growing up.

One of the most treasured photos I have is one of myself at two years old, sitting in my grandfather’s lap. He was smiling down at me, his pipe in his hand, and I’m looking up at him smiling, holding my (toy) pipe in mine.

That photo perfectly encapsulates my life—I always tried to emulate my grandfather because of how much I respected him— and I still do.

When I was younger, he was a towering giant—a man who could do no wrong. He cooked. He cleaned. He worked hard. He took care of my grandmother. He helped out my immediate family when we were struggling. He always spoiled both my sister and me when we were kids (later he would do the same thing for his great-grandkids).

My opinion of him never changed from when I was a kid. I was always in awe of him. He still worked hard in his retirement, growing a garden that was the talk of the town in South Waverly, and taking care of my grandmother, which became even more of a challenge as she got older and the Alzheimer’s ravaged her mind resulting in her becoming mostly bedridden in her final years.

My grandfather was always the first one I would go to whenever I had news to share or needed advice. In fact, my grandfather was the first member of my family to know I was engaged, and later, he honored me by serving as my best man.

My grandfather stopped smoking while I was in my five-year exile in California.

I didn’t think much about the missing pipe until several years ago when I went into his basement.

Let me set the stage—my son, Jonathan, was about five at the time, and, a couple of weeks earlier, my grandfather had drug out my old Legos to give to him.

On this day, Jonathan wanted to see if great-grandpa had any more toys in his basement. A kid can hope, right?

So, all three of us went down to investigate.

In one of the cases we opened there was a tin. Neither my grandfather nor I knew what was in it.

I opened it—and was blasted with a smell that I hadn’t encountered in decades.

The tin contained not only several of my grandfather’s old pipes but also some of his old tobacco.

I started tearing up at that point and had to settle my emotions before I asked him if I could keep what we had found. In his usual, short-on-words-style he said, “Sure.”

While my son was disappointed that we didn’t find any more toys, I was ecstatic by my discovery and couldn’t wait to tell my wife about it.

My grandfather passed away about a year later. During the funeral, I slipped one of the pipes into his sport coat.

I still have the tin and its contents today. One of those pipes is on my desk as I type this.

At times when I’m feeling stressed or can’t come up with the word I need when I’m writing, I grab that pipe and either tap the tip of it against my thumb or inhale the lingering scent of tobacco that still permeates the head of it.

The feel of it in my hand, coupled with the smell, is calming to me. But it also has another purpose— to serve as a reminder of some of the happiest memories of my childhood.

Want a Way to Delete your Facebook and Never Look Back?

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, social media detox13 Comments

Did you know if you choose to delete your Facebook account it actually takes 30 days, or more, for your account to officially disappear?

You can say you want it gone, but if you sign back in during any time in those 60 days, your account is activated again.

I Googled to see if there was a way to delete the account quicker than 30 days.

I was also feeling pathetic that I kept logging in to check stupid things (partially at the urging of my dad but that’s another issue for another day).

I felt better, however, when I read a comment on Quora where a person admitted they also kept being tempted to log back into Facebook. I have a feeling they felt better off when they were off it but — as I heard a pastor say a couple Sundays ago – the person was returning to what they were used to.

And what they and we are used to is negative news, negative thoughts, complaining, twisted up thoughts and views, drama, fear-inducing articles and declarations.

We know none of it is helping us but it is what we run back to when we are afraid, we are bored, or we are lonely.

None of that is going to fill the God-shaped hole in our chest, though. Never.

I know many of us have Facebook to keep in contact with friends and family and there is nothing wrong with that.

But how many of us have walked into a drama we had no place being in because of Facebook?

Or how many of us have involved ourselves in battles that were not ours to fight ?

Many of us, I’m sure.

So, if you’re ready to pull the plug on your Facebook, but don’t want to be tempted to log back in again, here is a good suggestion on how to do so.

  1. Create a NEW email id (you will be sacrificing it so don’t use your regular one)
  2. Go to Facebook settings and replace your regular email with the new one and verify it. Then you will be able to remove your phone number (if you had provided)
  3. Go to Facebook settings again, this time using the website on a browser that provides password suggestions, most people have chrome for that. Open the setting to change your password. Let your browser suggest you a password. Don’t try to remember it, just use it.
  4. Set your Facebook account for permanent delete.
  5. Open your browser settings and go to the place where it saves the passwords. Find facebook and delete the password.
  6. Delete the email id you created in Step 1

So far, it has worked for me. Good luck.

A quick reminder too: You don’t have to fully delete your Facebook. You can deactivate it and reactivate it when you are ready. I’ve been known to do this for weeks at a time and I think once for a month or so. There are instructions on how to do that on the Facebook site as well.

Tea-ology Reading Challenge

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, everyday musings2 Comments

I think I’m going to try this reading challenge this next year so I wanted to share it here. I copied this from the person hosting the challenge.

Tea-ology Reading Challenge (formerly Share-a-Tea)
Host: Operation Actually Read Bible (formerly Becky’s Book Reviews) (sign up here)
Duration: Perpetual but starting anew each January
# of books: Readers Decide

This challenge is all about celebrating SLOWING DOWN and SAVORING the moments. This challenge is about QUALITY and not quantity. This is an anti-rush reading challenge. Enjoy where you are in a book, and, engage fully in it. Live in the book.

Love drinking tea? Love reading books? Love reading a book while drinking tea? Have I got a reading challenge for you!

Who can join? Anyone who enjoys reading. You don’t need to have a blog. You don’t need to have a twitter account. Are coffee drinkers welcome? Well. You can still join in, I suppose. But you might be outnumbered by tea drinkers.

Which books count?

  • The Bible (any translation)
  • Devotionals
  • Sermons
  • Christian Biography/Autobiography
  • Christian Living
  • Christian Nonfiction
  • Christian Theology
  • Christian Bible Studies
  • Letters, Journals, Diaries, etc.

Does anything else count?

  • Watching or listening to sermons; just be sure to make note of what you’re watching and perhaps jot down a note or two to remind you what it was about.
  • Listening to audio bibles (again just keep track of what you’re listening to)
  • Listening to audio books (again just keep track…)
  • Listening to praise/worship albums (again just keep track…)

1) When you sign up in a comment below, share one favorite tea and one favorite book. And if you’ve got one handy: a favorite quote.
2) If you write a post on your blog announcing the challenge (and making a place to keep track of what you’ve read), consider sharing a bit about yourself–your reading and drinking habits. You might consider a longer list of recommendations!
3) If you’re on twitter, tweet me as often as you like @operationbible Tweet about favorite teas, favorite books, favorite authors, favorite quotes, what you’re currently reading, what you’ve just finished reading, etc.

I will be sharing my progress throughout the year. I haven’t decided if it will be every week, every other week, every month. If you have a preference, let me know when you sign up. You are more than welcome to share your progress in the comments of my progress posts.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Special Fiction Saturday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 37

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, fiction, Fiction Friday4 Comments

After beginning the tweaking process for the final draft of The Farmer’s Daughter (still rewriting, etc.), I now know it will not be a full 37 chapters. That seems like too many chapters to me somehow, but I guess it doesn’t matter if those chapters are short. Who knows!

I have ideas rolling around in my head for the next installment in the Tanner family’s saga, mainly about Jason, which I know some of you wanted to know the outcome of.

I posted Chapter 36 of the story yesterday and you can catch up on anything you missed HERE.

For those who have been reading along, how do you think the book should end? I have ideas, have already written an ending, but I’m not sure I’ll keep it or not. I want it to lead into the other books, but I’m not really sure how to do that yet. Let me know of ideas on how to, or of some good book series you’ve read that do so!

“Mom?”

Annie’s eyes were red-rimmed, her face streaked with tears. Alex had never seen Annie in such rough shape, and it rattled him. She was trembling as he helped her to her feet.

“What happened?” He heard the fear in Molly’s voice.

“I — Robert — your dad —”

Annie shook her head. She couldn’t seem to form words. Alex wanted to shake her out of it and hug her at the same time. Thankfully Molly was there so he didn’t have to figure out how to handle the situation his own.

She quickly pulled her mother into an embrace.

“Your dad was having a seizure and they rushed me out. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Alex looked at the closed hospital room door, turning his gaze away from the heart wrenching scene in the hallway. His limbs had gone cold and his chest was constricting with panic. He listened to the sound of Annie crying and silently cursed the direction this was all taking. Robert was supposed to be getting better, not worse.

He leaned back against the hallway wall and slid his hands in his pockets, unsure what he could do to help comfort the women holding each other in front of him. He wasn’t good at comforting. He never had been.

It seemed like hours before the hospital room door opened, but really it had only been fifteen minutes since he and Molly had arrived.

A disheveled looking doctor with graying hair stepped out of the room and dragged a hand across the back of his neck. “Mrs. Tanner?”

Annie had pulled out of Molly’s arms. She nodded weakly.

“Your husband has had a scare, but he’s stable now. We think he had a reaction to one of the medications we were using to keep his blood from clotting. We’ve stopped that medication and will see how he is in a couple of hours. For now, though, he’s not seizing, and his breathing and heart rate are normal. The only not so good news is that although his brain waves are normal, we won’t know for sure how the stroke affected him cognitively until he comes out of the coma.”

Annie pressed her hand to her mouth, tears flowing freely.

“So, this wasn’t another stroke?” Molly asked.

The doctor shook his head. “No. Thankfully, not.” He gestured toward the door. “You’re welcome to go back in. I’ll be back to check on him before I leave for the day.”

Annie nodded, her face streaked with tears. “Thank you.”

The doctor nodded in return, his smile slight, revealing exhaustion.

Alex waited until Molly and Annie walked inside and then followed them, sitting on the other side of the room as they approached the bed. Annie slid her hand under one of Robert’s  and Molly held the other. A half an hour later, after the women talked, cried, and talked some more, Alex decided they needed a break. He stood, laying his hand against Molly’s back.

“You two need some lunch. Go. I’ll stay with Robert.”

“I appreciate that but —”

He interrupted Annie. “Go. You’ll be no good to him if you collapse.”

She nodded, a faint smile crossing her worn expression. Her hand against his face was warm. “Thank you, Alex. I’m so glad you’re here.”

She hugged him briefly before she and Molly walked into the hallway. Her tenderness toward him was something foreign to him in some ways, after growing up in a family that rarely showed affection, but it was also familiar in that it was how Annie had always shown him love.

Alex pulled the chair closer to the bed, sitting and leaning back. He stretched his legs out in front of him, pulling his hat down across his face, and folding his hands across his stomach. He didn’t feel like praying again. He wasn’t sure prayers worked. Instead, he was going to take the time to at least try to calm his racing thoughts and hope that Robert would pull through all of this and be the same, good man he’d been before.

***

The sound of choking, coughing, and gagging woke Alex. He hadn’t expected to fall asleep in the chair, but he also hadn’t expected to wake up to find three nurses around the bed, leaning over Robert, comforting him.

“It’s okay, Mr. Tanner.”

 “You’re in the hospital.”

“You’ve been in a coma.”

“You might feel funny because we’ve had you on some medicine.”

“Your throat might be sore because we had you intubated part of the time.”

“Don’t try to get up, sir.”

Alex stood, looking over one of the nurse’s shoulders so Robert could see him. Robert’s body stilled, his breathing slowing.  The nurse stepped aside so Alex could stand closer to the bed.

He looked down into glazed eyes not sure if they were seeing anything or not.

“Hey.”

Robert swallowed hard, closed his eyes briefly, opened them again.

 “Hey.”

Robert’s voice was raw, barely above a whisper.

Emotion clutched at Alex’s throat and moisture spread across his eyes.

“You would pick a time when Annie isn’t here to wake up, wouldn’t you?”

A faint smile tilted one corner of Robert’s mouth upward.

“You —” He swallowed hard. Tried again. “You  . . .take  . . care of . . .” His voice was halting. “My girls?”

“As much as they would let me, sir. You have some stubborn, independent women in your life.”

The faint smile again, eyes drifting closed again. “Take care of Annie and Molly.”

Alex scoffed. “You’re going to take care of them. You’re awake. That’s a good sign.”

Robert closed his eyes and then opened them again. Alex could tell he was fighting to keep them open.

“I’ll take care of Annie,” he whispered, reaching out and grasping Alex’s forearm. His grasp was stronger than Alex expected. “You take care of Molly.”

As emotion threatened to spill over, Alex knew he had to pull his gaze away, get one of the nurse’s attention, break the moment. “His wife and daughter are in the cafeteria – they need to know he’s awake. Can you stay with him while I —”

“I’ll find them,” the nurse said. “I’m sure he’d rather have his son here with him.”

Alex shook his head. “No, I’m not his son. I’m just —”

“Like a son.” Alex looked back at Robert saw him watching him, felt his hand squeezing his forearm. He managed a slight nod of his head. “Like a son.”

Alex pinched the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb and closed his eyes tight against the tears. He fought the emotion hard, but a tear managed to slip through, down his cheek and dripped on to his coat sleeve.

He glanced at Robert, saw his eyes were still open, still watching him, his smile faint but widening.

Interview on 21:25 Books

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings9 Comments

Thank you to 21:25 books for this interview about A New Beginning.

Welcome to the third week of Author Spotlight Month! It was such a joy to interview Lisa! Below, she shares more about what inspired her story, A New Beginning, what resting in the Father’s love looks like for her, and what to do when you’re caught in a creative slump. Read on! * Lisa Robinson-Howeler […]

Interview with Lisa R. Howeler — 21:25 Books