Sunday Bookends: big house news, books finished, books to start

On February 16, 2020February 16, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends28 Comments

I finished two books this week. One was a middle school-aged book and the other was an adult book (not that kind of adult book!). The adult book was a library book, the first I’ve actually read in probably 10 years, if not more. Normally I borrow books or read them on Kindle.

The middle school book, The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson by Glenn McCarty was one my son and I read together for his homeschool English. It was a fun book, full of adventure and perfect for every age, but especially 5th to 7th-grade boys.

I helped my son write a book report about it and realized it really is not easy to write a book without giving away the entire plot. Of course, I realize this when I mention books on the blog, as well. I decided I’d share part of my son’s book report to let my readers know what it was all about and why he said he felt sad when he realized he had reached the end of it.

The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson (or M.S.T.T.), a book made for kids about the Wild West, was written by Glenn McCarty and is his second book. This book follows Eugene Appleton and the son of a shady businessman Tumbleweed Thompson. They go adventuring, doing kooky stuff like being tricked into looking for a fake treasure to getting kidnapped.

The story starts when Eugene Appleton was walking in Rattlesnake Junction when he saw Tumbleweed and his dad “performing. After a scandal involving a misunderstanding about what was actually in Mr. Thompson’s tonic, they became friends, despite the fact the tonic worked as a laxative. Eugene, Tumbleweed, and Charlotte (the love interest) go on crazy adventures, but it gets serious. While they are looking in a widow’s old house, they found out robbers were living there with plans to rob a train. The rest of the book is them trying to stop the robbers.

Eugene, Charlotte and Tumbleweed are the main characters of this story. Eugene is smart, brave, and trusts people too much. Tumbleweed is dumb, brave and lies a lot. Charlotte is smart, brave, and a love interest of Eugene and Tumbleweed, who sometimes compete for her attention. Together they try to stop a band of robbers named the No Shave Gang. It’s probably important to say everything is told through the eyes of Eugene.

Well, in conclusion, this book has everything a children’s book should have. It has adventure, interesting characters, and slapstick comedy. I love how three dimensional some of the characters are, take for instance Widow Springfield the local widow whose husband got in trouble with a local gang. The plots and the great description of the locations are on point and make you feel like your really there. If you like stories that make you think this is the book for you. Even if you don’t like thinking, there’s a lot of action.

I also finished Falling Home by Karen White.

The book was well written but was fairly melodramatic and cliche. Since I like books that are melodramatic and cliche, that didn’t make me hate the book but I did find myself rolling my eyes a few times. (Let me clarify that the books I write are also melodramatic and cliche and sometimes I even roll my eyes at my own writing, so this isn’t a negative review ;) ). I ended up skimming through some of the chapters toward the end because the subject dealt with a very real fear of mine and I couldn’t handle reading about it. White did such a good job of bringing out the emotion of the situation I could immediately see myself in a similar situation. She’s a wonderful writer, but during those chapters, I almost wish she hadn’t been and I could have had an excuse to abandon the novel. I read all the way to the end, even though I had figured out both plot twists well toward the beginning of the novel and I was squirming reading the one plot twist because of the aforementioned personal trigger.

Up on the reading block this week is a book recommended by Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs: Love Begins at Willow Tree Hall by Alison Sherlock. I’ve started it and so far I’m really enjoying it. It’s a nice light read, which I need right now. The description, according to Goodreads:

A feel-good love story in a gorgeous country village, perfect for fans of Milly Johnson and Heidi Swain.
Previously published as A House To Mend a Broken Heart.

Willow Tree Hall has been the proud ancestral home of the Cranley family for centuries. But now the house is falling apart, and the elderly Earl is growing too frail to manage it himself.

Annie Rogers is looking for a job that will allow her to disappear. The role of live-in housekeeper to Arthur, Earl of Cranley, and his reluctant heir, Sam Harris, is just perfect. How hard can it be to run a household? But with no qualifications, and Sam criticising her at every turn, Annie suddenly finds herself completely out of her depth.

But it turns out that Sam and Annie have more in common than they think. Both of them are running from their past. And both of them have fallen under the spell of Sam’s beautiful, once-grand home. Maybe, just maybe, together they can save Willow Tree Hall … and bring each other back to life at the same time.

As for what I watched recently, not a lot. I’ve been reading and writing more than watching. I did watch a movie by myself on the recommendation of my brother: About Time, starring Domnhall Gleeson (what a name) and Rachel McAdams. If you don’t recognize Domnhall’s name you might recognize him from the newer Star Wars movies as General Hux:

And if you have children, you might recognize him as Thomas McGregor from the latest adaption of Peter Rabbit:

Or from the Harry Potter as Ron Weasley’s brother Bill (which I added here after my brother reminded me.):

After I saw him in Peter Rabbit, I recognized him in Star Wars I said “Hey! It’s that guy!” Since I don’t know how to pronounce the man’s name, I will most likely say “Hey! It’s that guy!” And honestly, I’ve been saying that a lot lately since he’s been in a lot of movies we have watched recently. When my brother mentioned About Time, I looked it up and said “Hey! It’s that guy!”

Anyhow, the movie was very good (rated R for language, just an FYI if you sit down to watch with the family). The R rating surprised me in some ways because the movie really was pretty clean. I think a couple uses of the f-word were what gave it the R rating. The basic premise is that the main character learns that the male members of his family can go back in time to certain points in their lives to change what happened without changing the timeline drastically, as long as they don’t go back before a child or person is born, which can pretty much mess everything up.

The theme was love in all forms – between couples and family, but especially love between a son and father. Yes, I cried. I cried a lot. I think I damaged a muscle in my cheek from crying toward the end because for the rest of the day a muscle along my cheek and temple jumped.

I will probably be burying myself in books the next few weeks while we deal with the stress of selling and buying a house and moving. Last week someone made an offer on the house and we accepted and hope to have it sold by the beginning of April. We also hope to be able to move into our new house around the same time, if all goes as planned.

Last week on the blog, I shared photos from our winter; wrote about my need to trust in God even when I don’t feel he’s near; and I shared Chapter 20 and Chapter 21of my novel in progress, A New Beginning.

Up on the blog this week will be a post sharing some of my favorite blog posts from the last month and two more chapters of A New Beginning and a post about nightmares in children and adults.

How about you? What are you reading or watching or simply doing this week? Feel free to share in the comments.

This post is part of Readerbuzz’s Sunday Salon and Caffeinated Reviewer’s Sunday Post.

Pennsylvania suddenly remembers it’s winter

On February 10, 2020February 12, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings12 Comments

It appears that Pennsylvania has been a little confused about what season it is for the last couple of weeks as warm temperatures tried to move into the area. But this past week Pennsylvania said to herself, “Oh, right. We are due for some snow because it is winter. Here you go.”

So after a week of warmer temps and rain, Winter dropped six inches of snow in a few hours and another two the following day. My children had started to like the idea of being able to go to the playground in warmer weather when the snow came. Luckily my youngest decided to make the most of it and ran out into the snow and then pretty quickly back in when she got snow in her shoe. She went in and out a few more times for a couple of days and even convinced her brother to go out in it a couple of times. Apparently, since becoming a teenager he no longer tolerates cold well. Or he is just lazy. I’m going to go with lazy, even though I’m not a fan of the cold either.

After I told my son I missed him being adventurous and getting excited to go play outside in any weather, he took off without a coat or boots and jumped off our porch into the snow.

Luckily, he didn’t break anything.

My daughter took her favorite (today anyhow) toy with her – a ragged dog I bought for way too much money for Christmas that I probably could have made for $10. The thing comes in a ball and the child is supposed to dunk it in water to unravel it. Now that Little Miss knows it can get wet and be dried fairly easily she takes it with her everywhere, from into the snow and rain, to her baths. Her brother buried it all the way under the snow at one point when she wasn’t looking but stuck a tree branch over it so he could find it later. She realized it was gone within a few moments of coming back in the house.

She pestered her brother and me all day about going out into the snow but each time we got there, she would run back inside less than ten minutes later.

“You made us come out here and now you are leaving?” I shouted at one point as she ran toward the front porch.

“Yeah, well, I have SNOW IN MY BOOT!” she yelled back.

She was so indignant about it; it cracked us up.

On one of the days, we had snow a friend of my son’s came over and they had some kind of wrestling match in our side yard. No idea what that was about, but I know that beating each other up is how boys relate.

Watching the kids play in the snow made me think about how this will be the last winter they play in the yard of this house since by next year we will be living 40 minutes away, closer to my husband’s job and my parents. The day before the snow hit we visited a local playground that is set to be demolished sometime this winter or spring so that a new one can be rebuilt in the fall. The playground is a wooden playground that was built more than 30 years ago and is a favorite of my children, as well as other children in the community. It will be sad to see it go, but it will be safer and easier for the borough to maintain it once it is replaced.

Sunday Bookends: Social anxiety, libraries, snow and what I’m reading

On February 9, 2020February 8, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends, What I'm Reading15 Comments

Our winter has been weird this year. We haven’t had as much as snow as other years and if we have had it, it’s come suddenly and all at once, and usually after a warm spell.

That’s what happened Friday when six inches of snow was dropped on our small town (more in the higher elevations around us) in about three hours. The snow came after a mixture of heavy rain and ice fell throughout the night and early morning hours. The temperatures went from 51 earlier in the week to 24 by the end, which, of course, our sinuses never appreciate.

My oldest jumping into the snow off our porch because I told him he wasn’t adventurous since he became a teenager.

The youngest declared she wanted to go out in the snow, but I knew she’d probably run out and five minutes later run back in, because, in addition to the snow, the wind was blowing. She did want to come back inside in about five minutes but this time it was because there was snow in her boot. We didn’t get the kids snow pants this year, I think because we were so distracted with the house stuff we simply forgot. And since the weather hasn’t been very “wintery” all winter, we haven’t been too worried about it.

I’m sure I’ll share more snow photos later this week.

I read a blog post by Lisa at The Manitoba Mom Blog a month or so ago where she said she needed a good snowstorm to snow her in and give her a break from normal life and we were lucky Friday to get that snowstorm. I needed it after a long, emotional and physically draining week. After a week-long painful (men, turn your heads) PMS experience, I then did something to my neck that felt like a pinched nerve. The pain radiated down my arm and kept me from typing and finishing revisions on the first draft of A New Beginning for a couple of days. All of this pain was going on while we had two house showings (yes, I am sick of writing about this) and I finally got my rear in gear and took my daughter to storytime at the local library.

I have been boycotting our local libraries after an incident with a lost children’s book where they didn’t notice it was missing for three weeks, but when they did they called and texted me once a day for a couple of weeks, sometimes twice a day. I called them and told them I was sure I’d brought it back. They said they couldn’t find it. I finally said I’d pay for it but the messages continued until I told one of the staff, when I saw her somewhere else, I’d be in to pay for it and she joked about how the libraries were now sending some people to the local judge when they didn’t pay their fines. I wasn’t sure how to take that comment but luckily I found the book the next day and returned it and paid the fine. After that, and another incident with that same staff member involving my oldest, I backed away from the library and started buying books instead. I didn’t want to risk losing another one and getting the texts and phone calls again.

However, we needed to go somewhere during a house showing last month and we ended up at a different local library. My daughter wanted to play in the children’s room and that’s when I picked up a book by Karen White called Falling Home. I had never heard of her so I decided to start reading the book to waste time. I was hooked in the first few pages, but I was on a library strike, so I finished chapter two and put it back on the shelf, planning to look on Kindle for it. I did look on Kindle and they wanted $13 for it and I rarely spend that much money on a Kindle book unless it is an author I know well. (Aside: recently Erin at Still Life with Cracker Crumbs mentioned that her library lists how much money she’s saved throughout the year by going to the library. I didn’t think our local libraries did this, but when we got our books, six of them altogether, the receipt said we had saved $106 this year. Huh. Interesting.)

I guess you could say that my finding that book was like a (single) woman meeting a (single) man somewhere and not being able to get him out of her head because I could not get that book out of my head. I thought about that book so much I finally talked my daughter into storytime this week so I could break my vow to never sign books out of the local libraries and sign it out. And then I took that book home to be mine, all my mine (for two weeks at least). If you have read this book, please don’t tell me what happens. I’m only on Chapter 10 or so, but so far I am in love and have found a new author to follow.

In case you are interested, here is the synopsis of the book from Goodreads:

You know that saying about how sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug?

It’s true. Take me, for example. I shook the Georgia dust from my feet fifteen years ago,vowing never to leave Manhattan. I traded sweet tea for Chardonnay, fried chicken for nouvelle cuisine, lazy days on my aunt’s front porch for ad campaigns and board meetings, and the guy who broke my heart for my handsome boss, who soon became my fiance. Perfect, right?

Until my sister called. We haven’t spoken since I left home—because she married the guy who broke my heart. What’s more, she called to say my father is dying—but he refuses to finish until I show up. So I’m back in the hottest, dinkiest small town in Georgia, facing my sister and my old boyfriend over the heads of the—count them—five children. It couldn’t get weirder, right? Unless you count Sam Parker—a long-forgotten classmate, now the town doctor—and how good he’s beginning to look to me.

I’m falling apart, I think, wondering why resentment and wounded pride seem silly here in Walton, where forgiveness and acceptance go hand-in-hand with homecoming. And I’m beginning to suspect that I’m falling in love for real this time, with a man whose touch is so right, I feel like I’m…Falling Home.

In addition to picking out my book, I asked my daughter if she wanted to pick a few books out for herself. One of the highlights of my childhood was picking out my own books at the library, maybe because I didn’t have video games or other devices waiting for me at home. I also didn’t have a life, but anyhow, I digress. My daughter was thrilled with her books and I’ll talk about her picks in a post later this week.

While at the library I was reminded I don’t talk to many adults in person anymore since I started homeschooling my son two years ago. Because I don’t see people as much anymore, I have developed severe social anxiety and because I have social anxiety I ramble like I haven’t talked to another human being in decades when I run into actual adults. Those poor women I ran into Tuesday . . . I definitely feel for them. I’m hoping if I go to storytime again I can stop rambling like a drug addict on speed and act like a normal person, but I don’t have much faith in that happening unless I ducttape my mouth shut.

I didn’t watch a lot this week but Friday we did watch The Hunt for Red October for our family movie night. I hadn’t seen it in years and, of course, it still bugs me they slacked off and didn’t use Russian accents for the majority of the movie. As if it is normal for a man with a thick Scottish accent to be commanding a secret Soviet submarine. And Tim Curry with his cockney/Soviet mix accent. Good grief. But the movie is still a good one. Hollywood is always making remakes so it would be nice if they remade this one and gave the Soviet Navy actual Soviet/Russian accents.

On the blog this week, I rambled about a variety of subjects:

My 87-year old aunt reminding me I’m fat;

The Real Blanche Behind A Story to Tell;

Fiction Thursday: A New Beginning Chapter 18

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 19

January in Photos

Flash Fiction Challenge: A Dog in the Daisies

So, what all are you reading, watching or doing this week? Let me know in the comments!

Flash Fiction: A Dog in the Daisies

On February 8, 2020February 8, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, fiction, flash fiction3 Comments

Nothing felt the same since the fire. They’d lost everything. Barking in the distance caught his attention. He looked out across the field of daisies, searching. There. On the other side of the brook. Could it be him? Another bark and his speed picked up. It was him.

Patrick felt tears sting his eyes as he lowered himself to greet the black and white creature rushing toward him, tongue lolling to one side, tail wagging crazily.

“Rufus! You’re alive!”

The tongue was wet, warm, the paws placed solidly on Patrick’s chest. Patrick laughed. They hadn’t lost everything after all.

Part of The Carrot Ranch’s Flash Fiction Challenge for this week:

February 6, 2020, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story to the theme “a dog in the daisies.” It can be any dog, real or imagined. Push into the setting and as always, go where the prompt leads!

Respond by February 11, 2020. Use the comment section below to share, read, and be social. You may leave a link, pingback, or story in the comments. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. Rules & Guidelines.

January in photos

On February 8, 2020February 4, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Just the Photos Ma'm15 Comments

I’ve been focused on writing more than photography recently, but I did take some photographs in January. I no longer take photographs professionally, so I consider my photographs family documentary since they focus mainly on my family life.

We didn’t have a lot of snow. We were running in and out of the house a lot for showings. And we did homeschool lessons. In other words, there really wasn’t a lot to photograph throughout the month of January.

The real Blanche behind ‘A Story to Tell’

On February 5, 2020February 5, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings12 Comments

When a friend of mine read part of my novel, A Story to Tell she asked me “What happened to the real Blanche? Please tell me her life got better.”

The real Blanche is my great-grandmother (as I wrote about before I even considered writing the novel) and the truth is, for the most part, I don’t know if the real Blanche had a happier life after she left my great-grandfather (whose real name was Howard, not Hank) and returned home with my grandfather, who was a year old at the time. On the surface, looking at cursory information on Ancestry.com, I would think so, but I didn’t know her. She died in 1954, long before I was born. I wrote the book based on my own idea of what someone who lived through what she did (or might have lived through) might think, act like and do.

My father says he doesn’t remember as much about his paternal grandmother (Blanche) as he does his maternal one and that in some ways she was a tough lady, but she was also kind. Her mother was also a tough lady and the rumor is that she’s the one who refused to let my grandfather have his biological father’s last name. I think Blanche’s dad is actually the one who chased Howard off with a shotgun, but who knows if that family folklore is true.

If you have read A Story to Tell, you know my story takes place in the mid-1950s, while the real story happened in the early 1900s. I wrote the novel as a piece of fiction, changing the dates because I really did not want to write about the early 1900s, to be honest. This week, I realized I probably should have changed the names of the characters too, but I didn’t write the novel expecting a lot of people to read it (and not a lot have) and I definitely wasn’t worried that the people involved would read it because they all passed away long ago.

I also didn’t use the real names completely, but they are close enough that if anyone knew the history they would know who they are “supposed to be”, even though I made up almost all of the details, adding characters and circumstances I am sure never happened. I didn’t have the characters move where the real-life couple did after they were married either. And I did not give my grandfather’s name to Blanche’s little boy in the book.

The sequel to A Story to Tell. A New Beginning has nothing to do with the true story of Blanche and is completely made up from my own imagination. The only similarity is that one of the characters in A New Beginning has the same name as the real Blanche’s second husband. The character is nothing like the real person, though. I just stole his name.

None of the other characters are real. In real life, Blanche had three sisters and two brothers. In my book, Blanche only has one sister. In real life, Howard, had four sisters and four brothers, though two of the brothers died in infancy. In my book, Hank only has one brother.

In my book, Hank is abusive and joins the KKK. In real life, I have no idea what Howard was like, but he did join the local KKK at some point, according to family members. I have no idea if he held on to these beliefs as he became older and I have no idea if he ever redeemed himself from his past mistakes. It remains to be seen if the fictional character based on him will find some sort of redemption and learn from his mistakes.

I actually know very little about the real “Hank” other than the fact he had a wallpapering and painting business, played the fiddle, and once had his ribs broken when a horse kicked him. I have never even seen a photograph of him, that I know of. Someone shared a photograph from a reunion of Howard’s family on Facebook recently, but my dad says he doubts Howard was in the photo since he wasn’t exactly well liked back then. I, however, zoomed right in on a man in the back because he looked almost exactly as I had pictured Hank in my mind when I created his character.

In real life, Blanche was pregnant within a month of being married at the age of 17 and gave birth to my grandfather at the age of 18. In my book, she got married at 17 and then pregnant about six months later.

The real Blanche did get remarried at about the age of 28. She had another son from that second marriage and he passed away in his mid-20s from Lymphoma. She also had two daughters from the second marriage, who lived well into their 80s. This past week a search on Ancestry.com and a comment from another member, when I asked her what she knew about my great-grandfather’s second wife, led me to dig deeper and discover that while the family knows Blanche left Howard within a year after my grandfather was born, records show that the divorce actually didn’t go through until 1919.

5CE6F0FB-6D56-4777-A308-B2D9A7F9B9C6 — Blanche with her second husband, Judston. (this is not necessarily a spoiler for *A New Beginning.*)

Blanche remarried in January of 1920 and Howard remarried in September of that year, but here is what is interesting about Howard’s second marriage. He ran off with and married his nephew’s wife. Apparently, his nephew and he were the same age since his older brother was a lot older. Howard appears to have been the “oops” baby in the family.

The second wife’s niece told me that not only did her aunt run off with Howard, she also abandoned her 2-year old daughter and husband to do it. Her name was not allowed to be spoken in her ex-husband’s household after that. To make it all even more awkward, Howard and his second wife moved to the same small town as the jilted husband and daughter. It is the same town where I live now. Howard’s second wife didn’t have contact with her daughter until her ex-husband died sixty-some years later.

Needless to say, Blanche looks a lot better in it all than Howard. However, it is interesting to note that Howard remained with his second wife until his death in 1974 and Blanche also remained with her second husband until her death in 1954.

I wish my grandfather had been alive when I was older and that I could have asked him more questions about how hard it was growing up under all of that, but I have a feeling he wouldn’t have talked about it anyhow. Why would he want to? Stuff like that happens a lot these days, but it was much more scandalous and embarrassing back then. I wish I had asked his wife, my grandmother, more questions about her life too, but when you’re young, you don’t think about such things — the past of the older people around you; their stories.

You also don’t think about how those older people most likely don’t want to talk about those parts of either their lives or the lives of their family members. To us the memories are history, but to them, they are dark parts of their past. We all have dark areas in our past we don’t care to remember.

Blanche with her second husband later in life. See that little smile? I think she must have been nice.

Family members of mine who are alive now may not have even been alive when whatever happened between Howard and Blanche happened, but maybe it is a little uncomfortable to think about the pain their ancestors faced, whether self-inflicted or not. I never met any of these ancestors, but I have to admit that even I feel bad for them and am a bit over finding out more sad aspects of their lives (which is why I’m taking a little break from Ancestry.com this week).

The fun thing about being a fiction writer is that I have the power to write a different ending for any ancestors, or family members, who I feel were hurt in life and deserved a better ending. I can’t change the real-life endings their stories had, but in my stories, I can create characters based on them and those characters can have the happy endings the real people should have had.

As long as they think it’s a good day that’s what matters

On February 4, 2020February 4, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings11 Comments

I love it when the day ends and my children say, “It’s been a good day.”

They said that Sunday night after we drove home an hour from our visit to my 87-year old aunt. I was glad to hear they had thought it was a good day because there is no WiFi or much of any technology at my aunt’s home. Cell service is barely available and the only toys she has are for her great-grandchildren, who are all under the age of five.

The day was essentially a device-free day, leading my children to find ways to entertain themselves without a phone, iPad or TV. My youngest drew some pictures and then my oldest found a pack of cards and we played a type of “high card-low card game,” allowing the person with the highest card to win. My aunt even joined in at one point, asking us to read the cards off to her since she suffers from macular degeneration the same way my grandmother did.

The rest of the time we spent looking at old photographs of my aunt and the rest of the family in a couple of her photos albums and a box in her back room. I’ve been on this ancestry kick for about a year or two and I think my family is sick of me asking what this person or that person was like. I’m sure it is hard for the older members of my family to keep talking about all those loved ones they knew who are now gone.

My aunt lost her husband 20 some years ago. My dad’s dad has been gone since I was about 2. My dad’s grandparents have been gone since the 60s. I suppose it is more interesting for me to hear about their lives than for my dad and his sister to recall it all. Remembering their family members might be a bit heartbreaking now that they are gone. I guess I look at discussing them as a way to keep them alive.

While visiting I also had to fend off the usual questions from my aunt about my weight gain and this time around my dad had to do the same, only about his weight loss.

“I just have to ask, have you gained even more weight?” she asked me.

I lied and told her I hadn’t. I said I was just as fat as the last time she’d seen me because even if I had gained weight she would have been as cutting about it as usual. And if I had lost weight she probably would have asked why I hadn’t lost more. There is no winning with her on that front.

This time she even asked if I was pregnant again. Wonderful.

She then turned attention to her baby brother, my dad. “You look too thin, Ronnie. Are you losing weight?”

He was walking out of one room and into another so I couldn’t see his expression but I could almost hear his eye roll as he said, “I’ve always been skinny.”

“Not this skinny,” my aunt mumbled.

I had to wonder where the balance would be for her when it comes to weight. What is too skinny, what is too fat? And what weight would make her happy anyhow?

A hundred pounds seems to be the magic number for her since that’s what she always weighed when she was younger. I can’t imagine the internal prison a person must put themselves in when they base their worth solely on their weight, but then again I’ve been there before and I guess If a person wants to judge their own worth on their weight they should be allowed to. The hard part is when they place the worth of others on that same judgment they have placed on themselves.

But what matters is that for the most part, the day was a good one. And if my children thought it was a good day, then that’s all that matters. Let them be sheltered for a while longer from the hurt inflicted on us by people who should love us unconditionally, but don’t.

Sunday Bookends: Books finished and started; the never-ending house showings; and Ancestry.com’s rabbit holes

On February 2, 2020February 2, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, recap of the week, Sunday Bookends, week in focus8 Comments

This past week was fairly tame, for the most part, with things speeding up toward the end of it while we prepared for yet another house showing. I think we are on number 14, if you count the one buyer who came to look at the house three times but still didn’t buy it. We are all suffering from a bit of battle fatigue with this house selling thing, as I’ve mentioned several times before (have I whined about this enough yet? Yes, I think so too.). However, we recognize many houses are on the market for months of years before they sell so it could be much worse.

What’s difficult about house showings, as anyone who has sold a house while still living in it knows, is trying to keep the house clean and then leaving it for an hour or so to allow perfect strangers to walk through it and judge you. I’m sure most people truly aren’t judging, but as the homeowner, it can feel that way and that’s the man stress-inducing part of it all.

I actually welcome the requests for the showings, even if we have had a lot in only a couple months, hoping someone makes an offer and buys it, allowing us to move closer to my husband’s job and my parents. I do like our neighbors but we don’t have friends or family up here, making it a rather lonely existence.

I distracted myself from all the weird news this week by going down several rabbit holes on Ancestry.com. I seem to discover something new about my family every time I go on and this past week I found out even more about the people I loosely (very loosely) based ‘A Story to Tell’ and ‘A New Beginning‘ on.

I’ll ramble about that in a blog post later this week when I tell a little bit more about the real story of Blanche and “Hank” (whose actual name was Howard.). What I will say is that Howard, my biological great-grandfather, isn’t looking too good at the moment, but, hey, it was all almost a century ago and I wasn’t there so who knows what really happened. He did seem to be a bit of a cad, however.

The problem with me and Ancestry.com is once I get on there, I can’t stop looking up information, I guess because I’m a storyteller and I want to know the stories of my ancestors. I get way too wrapped up in the digging and I’m sure at some point I’ll get myself in trouble with asking questions like “What was this person or that person really like?” from anyone who might still be alive and knew one of my relatives. It might be better to simply read about them on Ancestry instead.

On the book front: I finally finished a book this week! Okay, so I’ve finished books before but lately, I’ve been reading very slow. This past week I finished the book I talked about last week, Borders of the Heart by Chris Fabry and started a new one by him, Under a Cloudless Sky.

For anyone interested in Borders of the Heart, here is the description on Goodreads:

Desperate to escape haunting memories, J. D. Jessup travels from Nashville to Tucson and volunteers on an organic farm. The hardened landowner has one prevailing rule: If J. D. sees an “illegal,” call the border patrol. But when an early morning ride along the fence line leads him to a beautiful young woman named Maria, near death in the desert, his heart pulls him in another direction. Longing to atone for the choices that drove him to Tucson, J. D. hides her and unleashes a chain of deadly events he could never have imagined. Soon they are running from a killer and fighting for their lives. As secrets of their pasts emerge, J. D. realizes that saving Maria may be the only way to save himself.

The book was definitely fast-paced. I thought a couple of the last chapters were unnecessary in some ways, but it still added to the suspense and I was on the edge of my seat for most of the book.

The description for Under a Cloudless Sky:

A charming and engrossing novel for fans of Southern fiction and the recent hit memoir Hillbilly Elegy about a lush and storied coal-mining town–and the good people who live there–in danger of being destroyed for the sake of profit. Will the truth about the town’s past be its final undoing or its saving grace?

1933. In the mining town of Beulah Mountain, West Virginia, two young girls form an unbreakable bond against the lush Appalachian landscape, coal dust and old hymns filling their lungs and hearts. Despite the polarizing forces of their fathers–one a mine owner, one a disgruntled miner –Ruby and Bean thrive under the tender care of Bean’s mama, blissfully unaware of the rising conflict in town and the coming tragedy that will tear them apart forever.

2004. Hollis Beasley is taking his last stand. Neighbors up and down the hollow have sold their land to Coleman Coal and Energy, but Hollis is determined to hold on to his family legacy on Beulah Mountain. Standing in his way is Buddy Coleman, an upstart mining executive who hopes to revitalize the dying town by increasing coal production and opening the Company Store Museum. He’ll pay homage to the past–even the massacre of 1933–while positioning the company for growth at all costs.

What surprises them all is how their stories will intersect with a feisty octogenarian living hundreds of miles away. When Ruby Handley Freeman’s grown children threaten her independence, she takes a stand of her own and disappears, propelling her on a journey to face a decades-old secret that will change everything for her and those she meets.

I’m not sure if some of my blog readers are familiar with the movie War Room, or not, but if you are, Fabry also wrote the book version of that movie. The screenplay was originally written by the Kendrick Brothers, of course. If you haven’t seen the movie, and you’re a Bible-believing Christian, I highly recommend the movie and the book and I also recommend Fervent: A Woman’s Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer, by Priscilla Shirer, who is also in the movie.

I’m also reading (and hoping to finish this week) The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson by Glenn McCarty, a middle school level book my son read for English, and starting In the Field of Grace by Tessa Afshar.

My son finished Tumbleweed this week and said: “My life feels so empty now that it’s done.” I love to hear that because it means it was a good book and he was completely engrossed in it. I plan to write a separate post about the book later in the week.

My daughter and I are switching between the first Paddington Bear book (rereading it) and

The Cat Who Went Up the Creek because she found out The Cat Who books are about . . . cats. I think she quickly realized most of the books are about the newspaper reporter Jim Qwellerin after the first night because the next night she asked for Paddington again. She’s five and there are more accents I have to do in Paddington, plus Paddington is about a cute bear and his crazy adventures. If I was five, I’d choose Paddington too.

So how about all of you? What have you been doing this past week and what is on your reading list? Let me know in the comments.

Fiction Friday: ‘A New Beginning’ Chapter 17

On January 31, 2020January 30, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, fiction, Fiction Friday5 Comments

I posted Chapter 16 yesterday on the blog, so if you missed that, head over and read that post first.

As always, this is a first (or so) draft so there will be typos and left out words. Feel free to let me know they are there when you see them. Also, feel free to let me know in the comments what you think about this section and where you’d like to see the story as it continues. Am I shoving too much in one story? Let me know that too so I can adjust it in the final draft.

You will find a link to the previous chapters I have posted HERE or at the link at the top of the page.

You can find the first part of Blanche’s story on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Chapter 17

Daddy sat in his chair, reading a book with a cup of tea next to him as I lounged on the couch with my own book. Jackson played on the floor between us, creating truck sounds with his mouth. It was our first quiet night in a month.

Sam, recovering at home, was still very sore but healing, enjoying his daughter and happy to have a new story to tell people about his job. He was moving slowly, his ability to walk not yet fully restored. Two canes helped him walk small distances in or around his home. The surgeon said he felt, in time, Sam would be able to walk easily again and return back to work. The hope was he could return in six months and it had been five already.

“What better story is there?” Sam had asked weakly the night he came home. “Getting shot, almost being paralyzed, surviving two surgeries and waking up to find out my baby girl had been born in a snowstorm along the side of the road, delivered by my wife’s best friend? It sounds like something you’d read in a book or see in a movie.”

Sam was right. It did all seem like a fictionalized story and there were still days I could barely believe it had actually happened. The morning he woke up and saw Emmy next to his bed with a sleeping baby in her arms his eyes had lit up more than I thought they could with all the pain he must have been in. He’d smiled as Emmy leaned down to show him Faith’s face and then asked in a raspy voice what had happened. For once it was Emmy’s chance to tell her own story of adventure.

My time since then had been full of work at the shop, writing my column for the paper, visits to see Emmy and Sam to help with Faith and then coming home to tuck Jackson in for bed, sometimes falling asleep next to him. Now that Sam was getting better and Emmy was more accustomed to her role as a first-time mom, and in helping Sam, I was glad to have a night to relax and delve into a new book from the library.

In the last couple of years Daddy and I had slipped back into our routine of reading together, sometimes reading a passage out loud from our respective books.

“And what’s on the reading list for tonight?” Daddy asked as I flipped the page.

“The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” I said.

“C.S. Lewis,” Daddy said. “Good choice. Even if it is fiction and not one from his collection of theology rich discussion starters.”

I sighed. “I needed something lighter tonight, Daddy. No deep thoughts for me.”

I had been thinking too deeply lately so when it came to reading, I needed something full of adventure, romance or humor. Daddy, on the other hand, seemed bent on delving into anything that left him pondering what he’d read hours after he’d closed the book.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable,” Daddy said, looking up from his book, starring out the window. “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.”

He looked at me, cradling his chin between his thumb and forefinger, looking scholarly. “Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

He smiled. “C.S. Lewis wrote that, did you know that?”

“I did not,” I said, peering around my book.

“He’s reminding us,” Daddy said. “that to love is to lay ourselves bare, to open our souls and leave it open to be hurt.”

“Yes, Daddy. I get it. Very poetic.”

I moved my book back in front of my face.

“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” Daddy said thoughtfully. “I think being a parent shows that the best of all.” He paused and I didn’t have to lower the book to know he was rubbing his chin and starring over my head out the front window, deep in thought.

“We bring a child into the world,” he continued. “And there, right there, is our heart laid open and walking around outside of our body where it can be hurt and we have no control over it.”

Daddy looked back at his book and I looked back at mine, hoping he was done philosophizing.

I read in my book: “It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”
“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.
“Are -are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.
“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name.”

“You know,” Daddy said suddenly. I rolled my eyes behind my book. “It’s hard,” he continued. “To allow ourselves to be open to love, especially if we’ve been hurt before.”

“Mmhmmm…” I hummed and then kept reading my book.

“But if we don’t take that risk we could lose out on some very real, life giving moments…”

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“I’m having my first quiet night in at least a month.”

“Yes?”

“And . . . that’s all.”

Daddy smiled. “Oh. I see. No deep thinking tonight?”

“No, thank you,” I said, smiling as I peered over the edge of my book.

Daddy looked back at his book, still smiling.

I looked back at my book and started reading, but not comprehending. My mind was elsewhere, on what Daddy had said. “Wonderful,” I thought to myself. “He did it again.”

My thoughts were spiraling off into deep places I didn’t want them to go and I had a feeling Daddy knew exactly what he had done.

Boondock Ramblings

Category: everyday musings