Weekly Favorites

Round ‘Em Up. Biweekly blog round-up.

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 15 Comments

There have been so many good blog posts this week around the blogosphere. I’m excited to share some of them with you, and some of my own, for this week’s Round ‘Em Up.

On the blog here for the last couple of weeks, I focused on a lot of different subjects, including:

As for some other awesome blog posts from other bloggers this week:

How about you? Have you found any interesting blog posts that you would like to share this week? Either from you or someone else? Let me know in the comments and leave me a link!

Round ‘em up! Weekly blog roundup

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 2 Comments

There were so many good blog posts this week around the blogging community and I’m excited to share them with you on my weekly round up. As usual, I’ll provide a link to my blog posts from the past week or so as well, but this week I want to focus on some cool bloggers I follow or have discovered.

Pete at Lunch Break Fiction does it again with The Gift. Do yourself a big favor. If you aren’t following Pete’s blog yet go over right now and “click” follow. You won’t regret it. It’s full of touching, awesome, engaging short stories.

Manitoba Mom, hanging out up there the frozen Canadian tundra (just kidding about it being frozen. I think.) always gives me a lot to chew on and think about, in a fun and entertaining way, mixed in with some deep thoughts as well. This one about five tips on how she plans to manage the cold winter months coming up in January and February is one I can relate to because I struggle terribly with keeping my sanity in the winter months. We’ve been lucky to have a stretch of warmer days but the darkness is still here and I know the cold will soon make its return.

For His Purpose wrote about developing patience with people who are sometimes difficult to deal with and I could absolutely relate to this, especially since I used to work with people daily when I worked for smalltown newspapers. For this post, she’s been dealing with a particularly challenging person in her personal life, and again, I can completely relate to struggling to show a person like this the love of Christ, when all we really want to do is run screaming away. (I have a feeling I might be that person for other people  . . . hmmmm).

Bettydraper offered this lovely post about the day she became a Christian and how it ties into the real meaning of Christmas so perfectly.

I’m pretty sure I already shared links to some of Our Little Red House’s 12 days of Christmas craft posts, but just in case, here is another one. What ingenious ideas she’s had or gleaned from others over the years to recycle objects and turn them into beautiful Christmas ornaments or decorations. She offers other unique craft ideas throughout the year as well.

The Feet of A Messenger offered this look back at 2019 and how much she’s changed and grown in 2019 and also how far she still has to go. Trust me, I could relate to this (as you know by reading some of my more whiney blog posts earlier this year.)

I’ve also been discovering some new fiction writers who blog serial stories, or short fiction pieces, this week which is exciting for me since I’ve been blogging my own fiction since May.

I bumped into BeetleyPete who is in the midst of a serial story about a murder mystery. I’m heading back to the beginning to catch up on this one since the parts I started to read intrigued me already.

I’m also intrigued by Rachel Smith’s fiction and can’t wait to delve into her stories this week.

As for my blog posts in the last week or so:

So what have you been up to on your blog and otherwise? Read or write any good posts you would like to share? Leave a link in the comment section and I’ll share them in my next Blog Roundup (which I hope to make a bi-weekly post, or weekly if I have enough posts to share each week).

Lisa R. Howeler is a writer and photographer from the “boondocks” who writes a little bit about a lot of things on her blog Boondock Ramblings. She’s published a fiction novel ‘A Story to Tell’ on Kindle and also provides stock images for bloggers and others at Alamy.com and Lightstock.com.

 

 

 

The Week in Photos

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

We didn’t do a ton this past week between homeschooling and my working on the novel and stock images, but last weekend we spent some time with my parents who celebrated 56 years of marriage, visited a re-enactment type event near us, and attended a family reunion. Here are some photos from some of those events at the rest of the week.

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Summer’s End and Weekly Favorites| Sayre, PA Photographer

/ Lisa R. Howeler

Summer’s end rushed at us so fast we ended up a bit confused sitting smack dab in the middle of the first week of school. I felt like I had been carried far away from summer, all the while holding on to rocks and branches and anything to stop us, hold us in the carefree days of summer.

I hate when my son goes back to school. My soul fights against the schedules and organizations and time limits it brings. I abhor early bedtimes and early mornings and trying to cram my daughter’s nap time in earlier so I can pick my son up from the bus stop. I hate stopping play to make him do homework.

But I know it has to be done and I’m glad he attends a school where I’m welcome to visit and encouraged to volunteer and visit him.

Now we find ourselves sliding into Fall and me trying to hold on to the little bit of warmth we have left before the snow begins to fall.

I thought I would share a few of our end of summer fun and a collection of my favorites from the last week.

The week in focus | Elmira NY Child Photographer

/ Lisa R. Howeler

Last week we had a mix of nice and rainy days but Little Miss didn’t care what the weather was because she rain outside to slide on her new slide no matter what the sky was spitting.

It’s a inexpensive slide meant for toddlers but even her brother found a way to have fun with it, by leaping off it and attempting 360 turns in mid-air.

It doesn’t matter the height of the slide, Little Miss, who isn’t even 2 loves them and finds a way to get to the top and slide straight down to the bottom.

We visited a playground last week that had three different size slides. She was in toddler heaven, running back and forth to each one. She has no fear, climbing up a ladder to the top of the one playground set that had even me a little nervous to climb.

If she’s this much of a daredevil at 19 months, I have no ideawhat the age of 2 will hold!

 

Spring is so close. . . | Child Photography Athens PA

/ Lisa R. Howeler

We have had a very mild winter so I really shouldn’t complain and actually I’m not complaining, but I am saying I’m ready for spring. I’m ready for days without cold temperatures followed by days with slightly colder temperatures then weekends with warm temperatures and then back down again. The yo-yo weather is not something favored by my sinuses, but of course, blooming flowers probably won’t help those either.

After a week of super cold temperatures we were tempted with signs of spring this past weekend when the weather was warm and dry enough for me to grab my kids and my son’s friend and head to the local playgrounds for time on the slides, but also for more important things, like sword fights (or pretend ones at least).

 

Winter weather, cold babies, and weekly favorites | Athens, Pennsylvania Child Photographer

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 1 Comment

Part of my Weekly Favorites series, where I post some of favorite photos from the week.

She stood there in her winter coat and boots and made those questioning little trills she makes with her voice when she is curious about something or asking if she can touch it. She wouldn’t keep her mittens on and the wind that day was one of those winds that feels like needles being shot into your skin.

Once her feet are on the ground she takes off down the sidewalk or the road to see what she can see and experience and learn away from home and mom’s voice of caution and concern. I honestly wasn’t expecting this to happen so early. I had hoped she would wait at least until

I’m convinced she would have ended up at the end of our street, half a mile away, if I hadn’t stopped her. She didn’t seem to understand how cold the air was that day until about ten minutes after we’d been outside. Her expression changed from curiosity to confusion and soon she was reaching up for me and tears were pouring down her cheeks from the cold wind.

Her brother, a lover of all things snow, didn’t even last as long as he normally does after our first snowfall. He threw the snow up in the air a few times and then was more than happy to retreat inside for hot cocoa and cartoons before homework.

Inside, Baby Girl immediately wanted to nurse, to find comfort in the warmth found against her mama, confused by the tingling pain in her fingers and face. I didn’t even take our coats off.

Instead I sat in the floor in the entrance of the house and held her against me as she clutched my chest and played with my hair and enjoyed the moments I knew would pass by too quickly.