Category: everyday musings

A small family greenhouse in the middle of nowhere

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings11 Comments

Around the beginning of May every year, the traffic on the dirt road in front of my parents triples when a small greenhouse in the middle of nowhere opens.  Doan’s Greenhouse is located through a grove of trees and at the bottom a hill a short distance from my parents. It’s been there, cradled between a couple of barns and a cute farmhouse, since 1973 when Bob and Shirley Doan opened it.

I remember many trips to the greenhouse with my dad, often in May, sometimes throughout the rest of the summer, to pick out flowers to plant around our house or vegetables to plant for the garden. We often went there right before Memorial Day to pick up flowers to put on the graves of family members buried in various cemeteries around the county, with the majority buried at the tiny cemetery behind the church down the road from my parents and at the county cemetery 25 miles north.

The sweet smell of flowers, plants, and fresh soil is inextricably tied to my childhood because of Doan’s and my dad’s gardening. I’m sure running a greenhouse was not easy, but I can’t remember one time when I visited the greenhouse that Bob and Shirley weren’t smiling.

(photo from the Doans Farm and Greenhouse website)


I told my kids Saturday that Shirley always had an amazing smile complete with red cheeks that they always draw on older, apron-wearing ladies in cartoons. Her cheeks really looked like round cherries on her cheeks, even though I don’t remember the rest of her being round.

We had to break out of the house this weekend and Doan’s was one of the first places I wanted to hit when the weather warmed up. I’d actually been counting down to their opening day for a couple of weeks. Old memories slammed into me as soon as we pulled into the small, dirt parking lot and looked out over a stream running under a handmade wooden bridge, the greenhouse it’s backdrop.

The greenhouse is now owned by Bob and Shirley’s daughter, Jeannie, and son-in-law, Tom. They live kitty-corner to the greenhouse. Bob and Shirley still live in the house next to the greenhouse but are retired. For various reasons they couldn’t come out to see their customers (many of which are longtime neighbors and friends) this year but their daughter Cindy and granddaughter Hannah, son Dan and other two grandsons (whose name I don’t actually remember!) were busy inside the greenhouse, putting out plants and helping customers. Bob and Shirley have four children, 19 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren (at least according to their website. That number of great-grandchildren could be a little higher now.)

I’ll admit it was hard not to see the familiar Doan’s smiles, with them being hidden behind facemasks mandated by our governor, but I knew they were there because just like Bob and Shirley, their eyes revealed their emotions.

I almost called my dad while I was there, to glean advice for what flowers or herbs I should buy, but Dad knows I kill most plants and I had a feeling he’d discourage me from buying anything when all was said and done.

So, instead, the kids and I picked out what we thought was pretty, deciding to choose floral therapy over planting practicality on this day. I even snatched up (okay, had to ask for it to be lifted down) a hanging basket for Mom for Mother’s Day (knowing I’d better grab it then or I’d forget to do it later this week).  I dropped the hanging basket off on my way back to our house and then tried to decide what to do with our flowers since I haven’t decided where to plant them yet and since a new neighbor reminded me this is Pennsylvania — we could still get another frost before the month is out.

For now I’ve set the flowers and the herbs I picked up in some containers I found in the garage and garden house (my husband calls it the out building. I’m calling it the Garden House.

It sounds more romantic that way, right? ) and placed them on our front porch. I’ll water them and try to keep them alive until I plant them, but I can’t promise anything since I’m a well-known plant killer. I should probably start speaking life over my plant-maintaining skills instead of death and removing my “plant killer” label. I’ll work on that this week.

(Click on the images below to see larger versions and a sliding gallery.)

The importance of touch

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings9 Comments

Don’t touch.

Don’t hug.

Don’t kiss.

Don’t get close to any other humans.

These are all along the lines of what government and health organizations have told us in the last two months. They may not have said these words exactly but the words they have used are close to this.

Yes, we all must be careful in the middle of the spread of a virus we don’t know much about but dangerous messages are being sent to our children right now and one of the most dangerous is that we can no longer physically touch each other. In circumstances where we don’t know enough about a virus it is important to be careful who we touch or be close to, of course, but when children are told “Don’t hug Grandpa and Grandma!” that has to do something to the children psychologically and that something can’t be good.

According to Healthline, “Failing to experience frequent positive touch as a child may affect the development of the vagus nerve and oxytocin system damaging intimacy and social skills.”

Don’t misunderstand my meaning here. I’m not talking about inappropriate touching in a sexual manner. I’m talking about the simple touch of a hand to a shoulder, holding hands, a hand on top of a head, an arm around another person. There is no denying we, as humans, created by a loving God, were wired to be touched.

I’m sure most reading this would agree that is true and if you want further proof, simply go to Google and type in “the human need for touch.” Thousands of articles will pop up and let you know how true it is that humans need to be touched.

One of those articles was on Healthline (I’m not sponsored by them, it was simply the one that caught my attention) and it concerns the term “touch starvation.”

According to Healthline, “Scientists have found that a nerve ending, called C-tactile afferents, exists to recognize any form of gentle touch.” In other words, it isn’t only “sensual touch” that benefits us and if we don’t get that touch we do start to suffer from touch starvation.

Touch starvation symptoms include so much of what so many of us experience and are already experiencing on any given day, let alone during a pandemic:

  • depression;
  • anxiety
  • stress
  • difficulty sleeping
  • low relationship satisfaction
  • a tendency to avoid secure attachments

According to Healthline, “You may also subconsciously do things to simulate touch, such as taking long, hot baths or showers, wrapping up in blankets, and even holding on to a pet.”

There is even a suggested speed for the touching (between 3 and 5 centimeters per second to be exact) to help facilitate the release of oxytocin within the body, which is a pleasure producing hormone secreted from the pituitary gland.

According to Live Science (livescience.com), “oxytocin is a hormone secreted by the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland, a pea-sized structure at the base of the brain. It’s sometimes known as the “cuddle hormone” or the “love hormone,” because it is released when people snuggle up or bond socially. Even playing with your dog can cause an oxytocin surge, according to a 2009 study published in the journal Hormones and Behavior.”

(Read more about oxytocin HERE.)

This hormone is very complex, since it can also increase the retention of bad memories or unpleasant feelings, but the bottom line is one of it’s main functions is creating positive feelings of attachment in people. In women, the hormone is released during childbirth and especially during nursing.

So without human touch, our body is deprived of oxytocin. Not a great thing for us overall. Without human touch and without good levels of oxytocin we can produce too much cortisol. Many of you have probably heard a lot about cortisol in recent years. It is a stress hormone created by your adrenal glands. It is supposed to rise in the morning to help wake you up and fall at night to help you rest, but in our constantly-on-the-move society, cortisol is often too high or high and low a the wrong times.

Stress puts a strain on our adrenals and when that happens the adrenals kick out the cortisol at the wrong times. (read more about cortisol and how to lower it naturally and safely HERE).

When another person touches you (again, does not need to be sexual) it can help produce a calming effect in us (unless the person does what my dad jokingly used do to my mom and pat her quickly on the back while asking “Why are you so stressed?!!” Ha!). The article on Healthline says that touch helps us relax by “stimulating pressure receptors that transport signals to the vagus nerve.” The vagus nerve connects the brain to the rest of the body and “uses the signals to slow the pace of the nervous system.”

Other benefits of touch:

  • helps to reduce the feelings of social exclusion and loneliness;
  • helps build healthy relationships

So, what do we do about this right now in a time when we are being told touching someone can give them a virus that could be deadly to them (though more than 80 percent of cases of the virus are thankfully not fatal)? While articles suggest that under normal circumstances a person get a massage or start dancing or even get a manicure to help facilitate touch in a healthy way, that can be a challenge when we are under stay-at-home orders and many businesses like this are closed. And no one is suggesting you fill your “touch meter” by running around randomly touching people. That sounds like something that might happen right before the police say “You have the right to remain silent.”

But even in a pandemic we can find ways to fill our Touch Quota. Maybe you don’t feel comfortable with your children kissing their grandparents right now or even spending a lot of time with them in person, but what about letting them see them with a facemask on, gloves or even an apron and letting them hug each other. I can image the rush of endorphins that will result for both the child and the grandparents. And if you are in the home with your immediate family, don’t withhold physical affection. You’re already exposing each other, unknowingly, to germs, simply by being in the same house.

One of the saddest things I read during all of this was from women in a perimenopause group I was in (and later left) who said they refused to hug their husbands who worked outside the home. I know, we are all frightened to get this potentially deadly virus. We don’t want to pass it on to anyone else, especially because studies are showing people could be asymptomatic and pass it on without even knowing they were sick (newsflash: this can happen with many viruses, not just this one), but at what cost? Are we willing to possibly emotionally damage our children by not finding some way they can connect with their loved ones while not spending every moment with them or kissing them or otherwise exchanging germs.

Listen, if you are reading this and you have a loved one who is in healthcare, dealing directly with patients who are ill, and they are not seeing their children, or you or someone they love, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying you are doing something wrong. Not at all. Each person has to approach this situation in their own way and in the best way that suits their family. There is no one-size fits all. My concern is simply that by saying around our children that we can’t touch this or that person, we are causing a misunderstanding that appropriate touch is not welcome or needed.

My thought is that if there are family members who have already exposed each other to whatever they have exposed each other to, then by all means – hug them, kiss them even. I know in my household, I considered not hugging or kissing my husband because he was the one going to the stores and traveling to work (although he’s locked in his office most of the time once there), but in reality, I couldn’t do that. My husband thrives on touch and feels loved when he is touched, even if it is just a hug or a quick kiss. And maybe I didn’t think I needed touch in my life as much as he does because of our different upbringings (my family hugged a lot, his did not and still doesn’t), but I do.

If you don’t feel comfortable filling your touch tank by touching another person (or simply can’t right now for health concerns) another way to get that “touch benefit” in your life – a way all of us probably would welcome and can do without worrying we will give someone a virus – is petting an animal. So go ahead, hug your dog or cat (I know, most cats don’t want to be hugged so do that at your own discretion as well), pet your lizard, kiss your bird. Find some way to get those rush of endorphins, lower that cortisol and produce a healthy amount of oxytocin even during a pandemic. Your mind and soul, and even your body, will thank you one day.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about the human need for touch and how you have been finding ways to fill that need during this time. (Please keep comments at least pg-13 rated *wink*).

The Garden

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings3 Comments

I thought I would share an old post tonight – this was at the house we just moved away from. I can’t believe it’s been three years since then. Looking forward to planting a garden at the new house this year.

Lisa R. Howeler's avatarBoondock Ramblings

Rain fell steady just like the weather app said it would and I felt a twinge of disappointment. I knew it would mean a couple more days of waiting to plant the garden my son and I have wanted for a couple of years now.

I had always dismissed the idea of a garden because we live in town on a busy, noisy street and somehow, for this country girl, gardens are meant for quiet, out of the way yards where they can be admired on a warm summer evening in golden hour light.

I had wanted to wait until we actually moved to the country to create a garden but since that doesn’t seem to be remotely close to reality at the moment, we started planning what we wanted to plant and where, early in the spring.

Pumpkins, squash and various herbs for him.

Cucumbers, carrots, green beans, peas…

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Old houses and bugs

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings13 Comments

We spent ten days with my parents in their 200-year-old farmhouse before being able to move into our home. The house is where my dad grew up (originally I wrote ‘and where my grandparents lived’ but it’s obvious my dad lived there with his parents so that was a bit redundant.). I grew up in a house across the fields and creek from this house but when I was in college my parents moved in with my grandmother to help take care of her. I also lived there during college (when I came home on the weekends). 

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Since the house is very old, it comes with what old houses come with – creaking steps and pipes that squeal at night, sometimes drafty windows and . . . bugs. When I lived there it was spiders that appeared and freaked me out, but during this visit, the creatures leaving my kids and me on edge were ladybugs, ants, and cockroaches that fell from the ceiling (which I never remember having an issue with when I lived there with my parents. Thank God!). The ladybugs swarmed my son’s room on the first night and on one of our last nights there a cockroach fell on his shoulder in the middle of the night. 

We discovered the ladybugs swarming in my son’s room, right before we laid down for the night. My son sprayed Raid and then hung out in my room to give time for the ladybugs to disperse. The only problem was that an hour later when he went back to check on the status of the Raid smell he discovered tiny little Ladybug carcasses all over his bed and the floor. He spent that night in the room that used to be mine with his sister and me, too tired to vacuum up their bodies.

The room that used to be mine has two twin beds that are slightly less younger than the house. The beds were used by my aunts, one of which was 87 when she passed away last year, the other who is 86 and still feisty as ever. I pushed the beds together so one of us wouldn’t fall off the tiny twin mattresses in the middle of the night. That night I had one 13-year old boy, a 5-year old girl and a 3-year-old cat curled up in the bed with me and amazingly I slept well.

On the night when the cockroach crisis occurred my daughter and I had switched rooms, moving into my late aunt’s room. My husband slept with the cat, who had to be locked in a room because my mom is allergic to cats. The door in my old room locked better than the doors to the other rooms and I have to get up and pee at night more than my husband does. I didn’t want to be chasing the cat around the house at 3 a.m. if she escaped while I went for my latest pee-pee trip.

My son ran into the room my daughter and I were in about 1 a.m. shuddering and telling me a cockroach had just fallen on him and “it was looking at me with its beady little eyes!” I told him to sleep with us but wasn’t sure if we would all fit in the full-sized bed my aunt used to sleep in. Somehow we managed to do it but the tight fit might explain why my neck hurt for the next several days after that.

One thing I’ve wondered since these bug incidents is if my son simply attracts insects. He seemed to have more interaction with the insects than any of us during our stay there and they followed him around the house as if he was the Pied Piper or the Bug Whisperer. 

I”m just hoping none of those bugs followed him to the new house.

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There is a kid on your roof

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings16 Comments

I wrote a column for my husband’s paper when he ran out of ideas a couple of weeks ago but then they realized they had enough personal columns and didn’t need it after all, so I thought I’d share it here instead. So, this was written about two weeks ago, a little more, when we were closer to all this craziness starting and mainly for a local audience.


Looking at the news today, it definitely can be hard to find something to laugh at, but if you look close you will see there is still joy to be found in the world. Sure, most of us are under quarantine (and in nine months there will either be a large percentage of the population divorced or adding a baby to their families) and some of us, God help us, are in quarantine without toilet paper or alcohol (I’m not sure which is worse, but I’m going with the alcohol for some of you).

There are a lot of scary news reports and crazy press conferences that bombard us throughout the day, and we’ve seen more of our nations leaders than we’ve ever wanted to (no matter if you’re a fan of them or not). Yet, all around us humor is happening and when we look for it and find it, I have a feeling it will help poke into the doom and gloom at least a little bit.

I found a little bit of humor last week when our family finally explored further than our front sidewalk, where we had mainly been venturing to draw on it with sidewalk. Even before we were told not to leave our homes (other than for essential needs), my kids and I were mainly homebound. First, we homeschool and second, we’ve been down to one car while one of our vehicles was undergoing major car surgery (in case you’re wondering, surgery went well, and the car has fully recovered.) and that one car was in the parking lot of my husband’s workplace, while I was 40 minutes away in another town. I should mention that by the time this column is published we will hopefully be packing up the last of our belongings and heading to our new house. (If you caught this post, you’ll know that hasn’t happened yet, but I guess I was hopeful when I wrote this column.)

On a nice sunny day last week and my daughter, who is 5, announced she wanted to go on a bike ride. A bike ride with her means her riding her bike and me walking behind. I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t in the mood. I was depressed. The news was depressing. Moving a house in the middle of all it was even more depressing. The fact we couldn’t delay the move was depressing beyond depressing. Sunlight after several days of clouds? Eh. Not even that was interesting me in going outside. The fact I didn’t want to leave the house was why I finally did.

As we grabbed our jackets my 13-year old son skipped downstairs and asked if it was okay if he sat in the windowsill while he did his homework. I told him it was, thinking he meant inside the window, with the window open but the screen closed.

“Cool,” he said. “Because I did that yesterday and got some strange looks and then I realized I should have probably asked you first.”

I figured he had received strange looks because the people walking by couldn’t really see what he was doing inside the window, inside the house. Let me reiterate the word “inside” because when I walked outside the house to take the walk with my daughter, I saw my son’s legs sticking out his bedroom window, over the roof of our front porch, with the screen and window all the way up, reading his book. He grinned and waved.

“I thought you meant inside!” I shouted up.

He just grinned again, and I told him to be careful, but knew the roof was flat there and didn’t really see how he could fall off of it. Sometimes my daughter is too much like me because at the corner of the sidewalk near the house she said, “Maybe I should go back and tell Jonathan to make sure he doesn’t fall off that roof.” We kept walking, though, because I had suggested we walk past our neighbor Louise’s house and see if she would like to stand on the porch and watch Grace ride by on her bike.

Louise is a very active older woman normally, but she also has an autoimmune disease that affects her lungs and being quarantined during this outbreak is necessary to be sure she remains healthy. I knew she has been going stir crazy because I text her to ask how she is from time to time.

She was delighted to come out on her porch and wave at us but before we got there we saw a couple walking down the sidewalk toward us and I suddenly realized I wasn’t sure what the protocol for greeting people on the street is in the middle of a pandemic. Should I jump out of the way while screaming: “Don’t get near me!”? Or should we yell “Social distancing!!! Social distancing!!!” while holding our hands out, our index fingers forming the shape of a cross, to remind them to stay away from us? Instead my daughter and I simply calmly stepped to one side and let them pass and they walked in the street to make sure we were all practicing social distancing. They did stop and ask us some questions about when we were moving and wishing us luck in our new home, but we all made sure to lean back away from each other as if we all had bad breath. Or maybe we all really did.

Louise was ready to sit when we arrived and invited us on her porch. I was immediately paranoid about the invitation. On her porch? Could we be six feet apart up there? It turned out that her wicker patio furniture was indeed about six feet apart so there we sat, on a beautiful sunny day, chatting about her recent visit to Florida, the weather, what we all should be eating to stay healthy — anything other than the big, dark cloud of uncertainty hanging over our heads. (It reminds me of Harry Potter and how they say “He who shall not be named” for Voldemort, but instead, it’s “It that shall not be named.”).

While we were chatting, I could hear a woman talking fairly loudly from down the street. I watched her turn the corner and head toward Louise’s, gesturing as she walked with two other women following behind her. At first it looked like a tour with the woman in front being the tour guide, the other two walking behind nodding as they walked, but I couldn’t imagine what landmarks in this part of our town the woman would be showing. Maybe, “Over here you’ll notice the Little League Field and beyond that the high school and the football stadium.”? I mean, they’re nice facilities, but not exactly historical.

Then I focused on how the women were walking in a line like a row of ducks, one after another about six feet apart. The woman in the front kept shouting over her shoulder at the one’s in the back while sharing a story (she wasn’t a tour guide after all) and the other women shouted affirmative responses back. I realized they were taking a walk together while practicing social distancing. I wondered if this would be our new normal – walking around with five feet between us, shouting over shoulders.

There were actually a lot of people out walking that day. Our “neighbors” down the street (we still call them neighbors, even though they live several houses from us) stopped on the corner and the wife took a photo on her phone toward our house while I watched from Louise’s porch. I wondered what that was about, forgetting about my son sitting on the roof of our front porch while reading. The neighbor that had taken the photo walked by where I was sitting and as I greeted her she filled me in on why she had such a smile on her face (though she often has a lovely smile on her face).

Apparently seeing my son on the roof sent her and her husband into a small fit of laughter because years ago their youngest son did the same thing when he was about five, except he didn’t ask for permission. She had run to the grocery store and returned to see her young son sitting on the roof, reading a book. When she asked what he thought he was doing he announced: “I’m just sitting up here reading my book and waiting for you to come home.” My neighbor said when she went inside to help retrieve him, she asked the rest of the family “weren’t you watching him?” They said they had been but apparently not as well as they thought since he’d somehow slipped by them and climbed out on the roof. Luckily all ended well with him and with my son.

By the time I got back to my house to see what my son was up to, he’d pulled a comforter and two pillows and some snacks out and had made himself pretty comfortable, pushing the boundaries of the permission I had given him to sit in the windowsill. Our cat decided she’d like to see what the roof looked like too so she sauntered through the window later and roamed the roof near my son while people walking by gawked.

“ Is that your cat?” my son said a woman asked him.

It reminded me of that old joke series by Comedian Bill Engvall where people state something obvious and he says to them, “Here’s your sign.” I couldn’t figure out who else the woman would have thought the cat belonged to and I wish my son had told her, “Nope. Not mine. Must be one of the neighbors’ cats climbed up here on our porch roof to wander around it.”

It’s true. It really is hard to find humor when the world seems to be crumbling around us, but when you do find those little gems that make you smile or laugh make sure to hold on to them. You can bring them forward in your mind when everything else you hear is negative and scary.

In case you’re wondering that couple’s son was reading Huckleberry Finn out on the roof. My son was reading Harry Potter.


Sunday Bookends: Still reading the same books (I know. Sad.), crazy Pennsylvania weather and Easter

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings15 Comments


Today is Easter Sunday! Happy Easter! Or for Christians, happy Resurrection Day! He has risen!

Today marks nine days that my family and I have been living at my parents. Somehow we haven’t gone completely crazy yet, but close a couple of times. My parents are lovely people, but they are . . . also particular about many things. Let’s just put it that way. Anyhow, let me digress from that subject before I get myself in trouble. *wink*

I hesitate to even share what I’ve been reading (which is what I usually do in this post) because, no kidding, it’s the same books I have been reading for probably a month since my brain has been too messed up lately to focus on reading. The house drama coupled with the upside down outside world hasn’t really let my mind calm down too much. On the house front, we are supposed to close on the new house Tuesday. The “old” house has been sold.

We’ll just see how this next week goes because we were told before that we were closing on our new house and didn’t. See how optimistic I’m being? Ha. Ha.

I thought I’d share what the rest of the family is reading instead of what I’m reading (if you want to know what I’m reading just see the last two weeks of Bookends posts. It’s pretty much the same thing.). My 13-year old son is reading Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix. My daughter is having Paddington At Large read to her by me. My husband is reading: Masquerade For Murder by Max Allen Collins and Micky Spalan.

My mom is reading The Art of Hiding by Amanda Prowse.

My dad is reading Facebook and medical articles and way too many news sites. That’s all I’m saying about that.

One nice thing about living at my parents is that we are far removed from the town life we lived in before. My parents live on a hill somewhat in the middle of nowhere, though there is a major roadway across the hill from them. Their small “village” if you want to call it that, has about 20 some houses scattered around, each with a good distance between the other.

Our dog has a lot of space to run in, which she loves. Our cat has less space because she is an indoor cat and my mom is allergic to her. We’ve had her confined in three rooms upstairs in the house for nine days now but we rotate the rooms and if someone is upstairs we leave the doors open and let her roam in and out of whichever room she wants. She enjoys looking out the window in the one room the most. She has tried more than once to escape downstairs but we chase her up very quickly so my mom doesn’t end up scratching  . . . well, I’ll leave that unsaid.

Luckily Mom’s asthma isn’t bothered by cats, or as far as we know. Because we aren’t definite we are trying to be even more cautious with the cat. We know her allergy isn’t as severe as it could be because we have visited many times and probably have cat hair on us and my mom doesn’t react to that hair. It could be different because Pixel, our cat, is an indoor cat and I hear that indoor cats have different dander.

My kids have also enjoyed having more space to roam. My son was never able to use his BB gun where we lived (he used it when we visited my parents) so he was happy to be able to have the freedom to do that.

The weather since we’ve been here has been typical Pennsylvania weather. One day it was warm with sun, the next cold with the sun, the next rainy and on Thursday we had all of them within a span of a day. First, it was raining and windy with ice balls. Then it was sunny and windy. Then it went dark and we had actual snow squalls that blanketed the hills around us. On Good Friday the wind was back to make it cold again. I don’t think you can see the snow in this photo, but the mist you see is actually snow being blown across the valley my parents’ house looks down out on.

By Saturday it was warm again and my husband and I took a drive to try to find better WiFi to download a movie to my phone for the kids to watch. We had to drive 12 miles away to my alma mater and familiar car/motion sickness hit me part of the way there, reminding me quickly of how I got sick every day on my way to school, 180 days out of the year, for six years. I was thinking that by now – 20 plus years later — I wouldn’t get so sick on that road, but alas I still feel sick, get a headache and want to climb out of the car and clutch the earth after I’ve been in a car weaving down the road on what is called Welles Mountain. If I hadn’t been so sick, I would have taken a photo to show you the road and how curvy it is. The trip wasn’t even that productive since the open WiFi we found still wouldn’t download the movie I wanted. My parents do have WiFi but because of old lines, it sometimes goes in and out and can’t handle large downloads or gaming.

Thanks to that ride to school, most of the people in my school thought I was either stuck up or high because I spent the first half of the school day squinting and trying to keep my breakfast down and the room from spinning.

Anyhow, as for what we have been watching . . . not tons because we don’t have streaming at my parents. They do have DirectTV thankfully so the kids have been able to watch some cartoons. For Easter, we watched a couple of specials on TBN, including Sight and Sounds’ Jesus production (which is still streaming today, Sunday, on the TBN app for those who are interested.). We also watched a special with Chris Tomlin and Max Lucado and another special from Joseph Prince.

I thought I’d share with you some of our photos from our last days at our house, from scenes around our area right now with “all that is going on,” (There is something I’ll be glad to never type again one day.), and the kids and dog having fun at their grandparents.


So, what have all of you been doing in quarantine? What have you been reading, watching, baking? Let me know in the comments.

I’m also leaving you with one of my favorite Easter songs:



Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 2

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, fiction, Fiction Friday5 Comments

Life has been crazy in my neck of the woods, but revising Chapter 2 to share here this week helped distract me a little. Hopefully, it will actually post because my parents’ house (where we are staying for a while) has some pretty awful WiFi. That has been both a blessing and a curse. I’ve been frustrated at times being unable to access things online I’d like to but it’s also been a blessing because I am cut off in many ways from the negative news of the world. I can’t scroll Facebook or even access news sites at certain points in the day and I’m actually liking that.

If you missed Chapter 1, you can find the link HERE.

 

The Spencer Valley Community Center was the gathering place on Thursday nights for half the town of Spencer, population 3,000. In one conference room, the Spencer Valley Historical Society was meeting to discuss the upcoming history fair and fundraiser. In another room, there was a painting class, ages teen to 90s.

At the end of the hall a dance class was being held in the main gathering area and in a small conference room behind the kitchen, the Spencer Sewing and Knitting Club was holding its weekly gathering for amateurs and experts alike.

Molly was an amateur, which was clear from how she was sucking her index finger after stabbing it the third time in ten minutes while trying to learn to cross-stitch. She wasn’t even sure why she was at the sewing club. She’d never been interested in creating anything with thread and needle. She was usually at the community center for painting or sketching classes. When her friend Liz had invited her to the sewing club meeting she’d agreed, simply to break up the monotony of her evenings at the milking barn.

Molly laid her project down on her lap and rubbed her eyes.

“I haven’t been able to sleep all week,” she said through a yawn. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Liz Cranmer, Molly’s friend since seventh grade sat across from her in a cushioned wooden chair, her red-blond hair tied back in a neat ponytail.

“It’s all that worrying you do,” Liz said, matter-of-factly. “You have too much cortisol in your system.”

Oh, here we go again, Molly thought, fighting the strong urge to roll her eyes.

Liz was a self-proclaimed natural health expert. She was also a well-known hypochondriac. A half-filled water bottle with ice and freshly cut lemons sat next to her chair, which she sipped throughout the meeting.

“I don’t even know what cortisol is,” Molly said. She immediately regretted admitting her lack of knowledge.

Liz laid her project on her lap and looked up. “That’s what your adrenals make when you’re stressed. It’s a hormone that is produced by your body to try to help you —”

“My what?”

“Adrenals. They’re glands that sit on top of your kidneys.”

“Do they help me pee? Because I’m peeing fine.”

The other women, sitting on couches or chairs in a semi-circle, were starting to giggle.

“Oh boy. Here we go again,” Mildred McGee said with a shake of her head.

“No, they don’t help you pee,” Liz said. “They help regulate your flight or fight response.”

“By making me pee?” Molly asked.

“They aren’t related to peeing,” Liz said impatiently, rolling her eyes. “Anyhow, you need to buy some supplements to regulate your adrenals. Are you tired all day and wide awake at night?”

Molly sipped coffee from a thermos next to her and shook her head. If Liz wasn’t diagnosing herself with unusual ailments she read about in some magazine or online, then she was diagnosing her friends.

Ginny Jefferies, the town’s 50-year-old librarian, sighed. “Oh, Liz. You’ve been reading too many medical sites again. You know you’re a hypochondriac.”

“Well, I didn’t say I had it,” Liz pointed out. “I said Molly did.”

Louise McGroarty smiled and looked over her bifocals at Liz and Molly in amusement as she looped another piece of yarn around her needle.

“I don’t have adrenal issues,” Molly sighed. “I’ve just been thinking too much lately.”

“What have you been thinking about?” Liz asked.

“I don’t know. Life in general, I guess. Like what I want to do with mine besides working on the farm.”

“Molly, honey, you only live once and if you want to see what life is like beyond this town then you should finish that degree you started all those years ago and see where it takes you,” Louise said  as she tied off a piece of thread. “You’re almost 30, kid. It’s beyond time to figure out what you want in life and get on with it.”

“I’m 26, not almost 30,” Molly said.

“26 is the new almost 30,” Jessie Newberry, the mayor’s secretary, said with a grin.

Molly sighed. She had been sighing a lot lately.

“Really though, I like living on the farm,” Molly said. “It’s what I’m used to.”

“What you’re used to isn’t always what is best for you, honey,” Ginny said, pushing a needle through her project.

“Exactly. Besides helping your family, and maybe us wonderful ladies,” Lydia Walmsley smiled as she gestured around the room. “What else is keeping you in this town?

As if on cue, the side door to the community room opened and a quiet hush fell over the women as they looked up from their projects. Molly followed their gazes and watched Alex walking toward her wearing a dirty pair of jeans and a stained white t-shirt. The expressions on the women’s faces made it seem like he was strutting down a catwalk on fashion week in Paris instead of into the community room in his farm clothes.

“Hey,” he said, stopping and standing in front of her, hooking his thumbs through his belt loops. “Your mom wants to know if you can stop by the store on the way home and pick up some more flour and sugar for the rest of the cakes.”

She furrowed her eyebrows and smiled slightly. “You don’t know how to buy flour and sugar?”

“You know I always buy the wrong thing,” Alex said with a grin, pushing his fingers back through his ruffled brown hair.

Molly noticed that almost all the women were watching her and Alex, or more accurately Alex as if Alex was standing shirtless under a waterfall.

“I can pick it up,” she told him. “Now get out of here and go be productive somewhere.”

Alex offered a mock salute. “Sure thing, drill sergeant,” Alex said. He turned to walk away and then looked over his shoulder and smirked. “Have fun sewing and knitting, ladies.”

Liz looked at Molly with one eyebrow raised, her back to Alex.

“We sure will, Alex,” she said. “You have a good day now.”

Alex walked through the doorway, his back to the women. “Oh, I plan to.”

As the door closed firmly behind Alex, Liz smirked.

“And that, my dear ladies, is what is really keeping Molly Tanner in Spencer Valley,” she said as warmth rushed into Molly’s cheeks.

“Ooooh…” several of the women cooed together as Molly rolled her eyes.

“That could not be further from the truth,” she said.

“He’d keep me here,” Maddie Simpson said with a smile. “I’d just follow him around anywhere like I was a lost puppy dog.” The other women laughed in agreement.

Hannah Barks fanned her chest with her hand. “Same here. Oh my, Molly, where have you been hiding him?”

“I haven’t. He’s been working at our farm for the last five years. Of course, unless you live at the local bars or attend a rodeo you’ve probably never met him.”

“Sounds like someone is trying to pretend she’s not interested,” Allie Jenkins said with a smirk.

Molly started to fold her project as she shook her head.

“I’m going to go get those baking supplies for mom to avoid the wrath of Mavis.”

“No matter what you do, you’ll never avoid the wrath of Mavis,” Ginny said with a snort.

The other women laughed and nodded in agreement.

“Isn’t that the truth?” Allie said. “That woman is never happy.”

Liz shoved her project into her bag quickly. “I’ll follow you,” she told Molly.

Outside in the parking lot, the sun was just starting to set. Golden light poured across the small town of Spencer, making it look almost picturesque. Molly always thought that if it hadn’t been for several dilapidated, abandoned buildings along Main Street and the empty shoe factory on the edge of town, her hometown could be mistaken for one of those quaint villages in a Hallmark movie.

Many of the homes were well maintained, fairly new siding, matching shutters, the stereotypical white picket fence surrounding the neatly mowed front and back yards. The homes that were less maintained were where every book and movie always placed them – on the other side of the train tracks and well out of view of most visitors, who usually looked for the small, unique shops on Main Street instead.

The tracks were mainly used to transport cars to and from the railcar repair station. The repair center was the last remnant of the railroad company that once employed the majority of the town, helping to facilitate its growth more than 100 years ago, along with farming and the local medical center. When train transportation became less prominent, its demise was part of what started the town down the slippery slope of its economic decline.

Across from the community center was St. Peter and Paul’s Catholic Church; one of many churches in town. Molly looked up at the building, a tall cross illuminated from behind and adhered to the front of the stone structure, near the middle of the bell tower. In front of it was a statue of Mary and in front of Mary were a bouquet of fresh flowers that someone must have placed there earlier in the day.

The small farming community was host to a variety of small churches, representing a variety of the main Christian denominations. While Molly had always admired the stunning architecture and stained-glass windows of the Catholic Church, her idea of how to approach her faith had led her to what was called a “non-denominational church” thirty minutes away, in the neighboring town of Millsburg. The church hadn’t hitched itself to any one denomination and this was a concept that appealed to Molly.

“So, are you really thinking of leaving the farm?” Liz asked after she had finished chatting with the ladies and met Molly in the parking lot.

“I don’t know,” Molly admitted. “I like helping dad and mom with the farm. I like helping with the cows and at the farm, working at the farm store, and I even like collecting the eggs from those cranky hens.  On some days I can’t really see myself doing anything else, but on other days – I don’t know. I just want something different.”

Liz flipped a strand of hair off her shoulder. “I hear you. Change is good. Why do you think I left my job at the school district? I needed something more exciting than answering phones and scheduling the superintendent’s meetings.”

“You work at a health food store,” Molly said with a laugh. “Is that really more exciting?”

Liz tilted her head and laughed. “Sometimes it is actually. Yes. Last week a woman came in and asked if the crystals we have would help her to realign her shakra. I don’t even know what a shakra is. I just told her it was possible and left off that I had no idea.”

Reaching their cars, Liz unlocked hers and tossed her bag into the passenger seat. She leaned back against the closed door.

“But enough about me, back to you. You’ll have to think about what you want to do beyond the farm, but I know one thing you can do now: come to the gym with me and get in shape and snag that sexy Alex.”

Molly unlocked her own car and shook her head at her friend. “Liz, no. Alex is — well, Alex. And he wouldn’t be interested in me at all anyhow.”

“I highly doubt that’s true and besides, are you interested in him?”

Molly raised her arm and looked at an imaginary watch. “Oh, my. Look at the time. Don’t you have a cat to get home and feed, Liz?”

Liz sighed  as she turned to slid into the front seat. “Go ahead, Molly Tanner. Chase away your best friend who is only trying to help you lose your —”

Molly waved over her shoulder at her friend. “Bye, Liz. Will I see you at the ladies’ group Tuesday?

“I don’t know.” Liz shrugged. “I might have to work. Jane has been out sick this week.”

Jane Wilcox was Liz’s boss and the owner of Nature’s Best Health Food Store. Molly thought that for someone who touted healthy living and eating she sure was sick a lot.

“Well, I hope you can come. We’re studying Esther this week.”

“Again? Oh my gosh, I get it,” Liz said with an eye roll. “Esther was wonderful and we should all be like Esther.”

“There are a lot of good lessons in her story, but, no, we can’t all be like her,” Molly said. “I’m sure she wasn’t perfect. We’re only hearing one story of her life.”

Liz laughed. “I know, like how Facebook and Instagram only show the highlights of someone’s life. I’ll see what I can do. Drive home safe, lady. And for Godsake, don’t let Mavis rope you into manning that bake sale table again.”

Pulling the door closed Molly thought about how Liz felt she needed to change her looks to get the attention of a man. She was probably right, still it was weird thinking about the need to become someone you weren’t simply to be paid attention to by the opposite sex. What happened when the man found out Molly wasn’t who he had thought she was? That would certainly be an awkward transition unless the woman simply pretended to be someone else the rest of her life.

Molly shuddered as she drove, thinking about a woman she had known who was doing exactly that and was probably miserable because of it. Dana Priester always had her hair styled perfectly, her make up just so, her clothes always the latest design, and a smile always plastered on her face. How awful it must be for her to always have to be “on” and never be allowed to let down her hair and simply be herself. Then again, Molly thought with a shrug, maybe stuck up and fake was who Dana really was.

Just as awkward as Liz’s suggestion that she get in shape to catch a man was the man Liz had mentioned. Molly had definitely found her mind wandering more than once to Alex’s handsome appearance but she had never thought about trying to “win him over” or “catch him.” Alex was — well, Alex. He was simply there. Her brother’s best friend, her dad and uncle’s employee, her co-worker, for lack of a better word.

He was attractive, easy to talk to and fun to be around but Molly knew he would never be anything more than those things to her. He was too attractive, too charming, and maybe even too fun for her. There was no way he would ever be interested in someone like her; someone who weighed more than she should, didn’t pay much attention to her feminine side and who he most likely merely thought of as his best friend’s little sister who he worked with at the barn.

Passing the town limits and relaxing as the comforting sight of fields of hay rose up around her, Molly shifted her thoughts from Alex to the ladies’ group and how it had been helping her study the Bible more. She still had a long way to go before she felt as “spiritual” as some of the women in the group, who seemed to trust God in every step of their lives, but she felt more equipped to handle life than she had five years ago when her grandfather was first diagnosed and she had started caring for him.

She knew she should have been praying more about what God wanted for her life too, but she’d prayed she had prayed a lot when her Grandfather’s health had taken a turn for the worse and never heard an answer. Why would God now give her an answer about what steps she should take in her life? And even if he did give her answers, how would he give her answers?

She knew answers from God weren’t like an audible voice from the clouds, but she had been seeking answers about her next step in life for seven years and, yet, here she was, almost 26, and feeling stuck in a deep, boring, frustrating rut. She didn’t know if leaving the farm was what she needed to get out of it, but she knew she needed some kind of change and she needed to make that change sooner rather than later.

Faithfully Thinking: Finding Comfort in funny memories and in God’s promises

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Faithfully Thinking16 Comments

As we cleaned out our house last week for our move, I found old journals and photo albums. I paused a couple of times to look at them, but not too often since we didn’t have a lot time before everything needed to be moved out.

 I found a journal from 2008 and the first entry was titled A Weekend of ‘No!’ ‘Stop that’ “Put That Down!” (I didn’t title journal entries very often. I must have been going through a phase.) I thought I’d share a little of the entry from this particular day for any new mothers, or mothers who remember those crazy toddler years. I think I had forgot how crazy my son was a the age of 2.

"Jonathan! Stop that! No! Put that down!"
I've said that so many times this weekend I can't even count. 
Jonathan has been into everything, torn up, everything, knocked things down, spilled things, climbed on thinks and broke things. 
He knocked the Christmas tree over twice; broke another bulb (bringing the grand total over two weeks to six, I think); tried to climb over the back of the recliner twice; tried to hammer the wall once; threw a handful of change in his mouth once; pulled toilet paper off the roll once (dragging it into the living room to wrap around his daddy's feet); grabbed two bulbs and ran under the table with them. And all of this is why he was taken up to bed rather quickly tonight.
Despite all the craziness, Jonathan has been a lot of fun.

On another day my son was pushing his boundaries:

Jonathan just had his hand on the Wii. I told him 'no, don't touch that." 
He said. "Oh." Then he touched the DVD payer. 
"That?" he asked.
"Yes, you can touch that," I said.
"That?" he asked and touched the RF converter.
"Yes, you can touch that," I said, on to him by now and watching him shoot me a smart-but grin.
"That?" he asked, looking at me and touching the Wii again.
"No," I said.
"That?" he asked, looking at me and touching the receiver for the Direct TV.
It's going to be a long night.

I also found this entry from the next year when I got a weird call from an older friend of ours:

“Lisa, I just had a premonition about you! You’re going to have a girl and you were so happy. I was there. I don’t know why I was there, but I was there and you had a girl. You had a name picked out for her already, but I can’t remember what it was.”

I did not remember this entry at all. And why that stood out for me is that I did have a girl, five years later. I had had her name picked out since I was in college, had never told this woman (that I remember) and this woman was not at the hospital with me when I had her, but she was at my house sitting with my then 8-year old until my dad got up to our house to watch him when I went to the hospital.

We know this woman but we’re not super close to her in that we don’t get together all the time or talk every day or even for months at a time, but for some reason she had asked if she wanted us to stay with our son if I went into labor when my husband wasn’t home.

Finding that last entry came at an important time for me. I’ve been feeling very alone, very lost, very anxious (of course, with all that is going on) and like the future is frighteningly uncertain, but to see that entry, to know that 11-years ago God was using our friend as a messenger to tell me that he had our future happiness on his mind — that he has us and me on his mind — was a balm to my fearful soul.

A few years that entry was made our family faced some extremely big challenges, challenges that were a few inches from destroying our entire family. God kept his promise, though, kept us together, and gave us the girl he promised us we would have, while also giving us the gift of our son (big bonus!).

Sometimes, in the moment, in the every day stresses of life, we don’t see how God has been working or is working now. We don’t always remember the promises he gave us, the hope he instilled in us at times we needed it most.

Keeping a journal to remember what promises have been kept and what promises are still to come might help us to not lose focus on what really matters, but simply looking in the Bible and seeing what promises were kept and realized for other followers of God can encourage us as well.

What promises has God made to you and kept or what promises are you still waiting on? Share in the comments to encourage others as they face dark and uncertain times in their lives.

Sunday Bookends: Books? What are those?

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends6 Comments

I miss reading to enjoy a story instead of reading only to try to escape life. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. This last week I wanted to escape life a lot — not only because of the stress everyone else in the country is facing but because of the fact our mortgage lender dropped us three days before we were supposed to close on the house we were purchasing. This meant we could not purchase our new house. However, we still had to move out of our current house because it was being purchased.

So we kept packing (we’d already rented the truck) and packed up the house by ourselves in four days (still not done, actually). We headed to my parents, who we were trying to stay away from because of You Know What and had planned only to spend one night with. Now it looks like it could be two weeks or more living at my parents (pray for them) and we aren’t even guaranteed the new loan program we are in will pan out and we will still be able to buy the house we wanted to.

While we would have liked to have delayed everything until the country’s leaders decide if they can tell their butt from a hole in the ground (they can’t, by the way and before someone says I’m a this or that person hater, I’m talking about all of them of all parties. Not picking sides on this one.) we were told we could get sued for not moving out for our buyers so we did. And we moved in the original deadline we were given, not the extended deadline we were told AFTER we rented the truck and started moving. It turns out we could have had almost another week to move because the buyers weren’t even ready to sign (not their fault, but it would have been nice if their rep had told our rep about the delays. Just a little communication would be nice these days.)

To say things are stressful in my life is an understatement right now. I have a teenager who feels lost, displaced and panicked because the home that was once his source of feeling grounded is gone and the new house we thought we were going to make our own is also gone (hopefully not permanently.). My son is separated from friends at the same time all of this is going on and he’s still trying to recover from some hurts inflicted on him by past friends. In two days, I have dealt with four or five panic attacks, two of them being my own. Writing all this almost triggered another one.

Our TV is packed up and my parents have some of the most awful WiFi on the planet so we can’t stream anything. I’m having trouble focusing enough to read, but when I do get a chance to read, I’ll be reading A Light in the Window with Jan Karon and maybe I’ll actually finish True to You by Becky Wade. With everything going on, I had stopped reading it and my mom returned it on Kindle Unlimited again. Mooooom. (Wink).

I started two new stories this week on the blog. I’m not sure I’ll share from both stories each week or not. I had one criticism that the chapter of the second story was too long. I deleted the comment because I keep getting rude comments from this same person. Just a reminder: I’m not forcing anyone to read the fiction I share on my blog or anything on my blog. If you think a chapter is too long, or a story is boring, don’t read it. It’s fairly simple. As simple as scrolling by on Facebook if you don’t like what someone has written.

I shared the first chapter of Fully Alive on Thursday and the first chapter of The Farmer’s Daughter on Friday.

Last week I also shared some photos I’ve taken over the years at our house and some laughs with Alice, the fictional advice columnist from our local weekly hometown newspaper. I also shared some advice I needed for myself about where to find our longterm peace.

I’m very behind on my blog reading, mainly because of the move and all the drama that went with it, partially because of my parents’ WiFi. When their WiFi is working, I’ll be certain to get caught up on some my favorite bloggers (you know who you are).

I hope most of your lives are much calmer and delightful compared to mine this past week, despite all that is going on in the world.

Give me some ideas for books, something to watch (if the WiFi is having a good day here, or if you have something I can watch on cable, which my parents have at least), or let me know what is up with you (even if it is depressing. It’s okay. You don’t have to cheer me up. I’ll figure that out on my own eventually!)