Sunday Bookends: fiction with real messages, books for book tours, and a little trick or treating

On October 24, 2021October 24, 2021 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends4 Comments

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I talk about what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, doing, and sometimes what I’ve been writing.

What I’m Reading

I finished two books this week but I was almost done with both of them.

I finished The Rhise of Light by Max Sternberg (a Christian fantasy book) and my first Terri Blackstock book, Double Minds.

Double Minds was a raw look at the not-always-perfect world of Contemporary Christian Music and how even Christians fall into the trap of fame and power. That trap can lead to lies and murder, or at least it did in this fiction book. While I have had heard a couple stories about the lies and power traps within the Christian music community, I luckily have never heard of a murder case.

I am sure there are also many women in the industry who have struggled with the body issues that one of the characters in this book did. I’ve heard about Blackstock’s books before and how they are clean but also very honest and raw, not afraid to pull aside the curtain and show that Christians struggle like everyone else.

The Rhise of Light held my attention all the way through, even though I’m not usually a fan of fantasy books or movies. I posted a review of it yesterday.

This week I am continuing The Love Coward by Naomi Musch and am determined to finish Another Man’s Moccasins by Craig Johnson, since I have been interrupted by other books since I started it some three or four months ago.

After that I have a small list of books I need to read for book tours or reviews by mid-November or early December.

Those books include:

Saving Mrs. Roosevelt by Candace Sue Patterson;

A Convenient Risk by Sara R. Turnquist;

Heart of Stone by David James Warren (the last book in the Rembrandt Stone Series and oh my gosh I am sooooo excited I get to read it early!);

The Inn on Hanging Hill: The Beach House by Christy Barritt;

and Songs in the Storm: Wind River Chronicles by Kathy Geary Anderson (written by a woman in my writing critique group so I have actually already read this and I really enjoyed it. I’m not a huge fan of historical fiction, but I got caught up in the lives of these characters.).

What’s Been Occurring

This past week was a fairly relaxed week other than the cat drama I wrote about earlier in the week.

From Thursday to Friday our temperature dropped about 20 degrees and Little Miss ended up with her normal weather change sickness. She always develops a fever of about 101 when the weather changes, it lasts about a day, and it’s done.

About three weeks ago this happened but she had a legit cold because my son got it as well.

We went to a trunk-or-treat event in the town where my husband works yesterday and I only allowed Little Miss to go if she wore her mask, which she was fine with since it was part of her costume (Spider Gwen from a parallel universe). She was pretty tired from not sleeping well the night before but didn’t want to miss seeing her friends and getting candy. She immediately told her friends to “social distance!” in case she could get them sick.

What I’ve Been Writing

I’m working on The Next Chapter, but am taking a different approach than my last books. I am actually trying to develop lists for my characters so I know exactly where they are going in the story and why. The main reason for doing this with this book is that I have three point of views and therefore three character arcs I need to make sure develop, but also interconnect at some point in the book.

I am also trying my hand at a little bit of plotting, versus writing by the seat of my pants. I still don’t like strict plotting before I start writing, but with three POVs, I will need to have some idea of where the story is going to go as I write.

I’ve always been a bit of a hybrid writer, or at least since book three that is. I write my books mainly by the seat of my pants, but I also plan out chapters as I get going, writing down a few thoughts about what I want to happen in future chapters.

Last week, I didn’t share a ton on the blog. I wrote a post about our tree climbing cat and shared a chapter from The Next Chapter. I’m sure most of the chapters I am sharing will change a ton before the book is finally published sometime in the spring.

What I’m Watching

I did not watch a ton this week. My husband and I started season four of Lovejoy (which I talked about last week).

What I’m Listening To

I listened more to Crowder’s new album Milk and Honey this week and love it.

So that’s my week in review. How about all of you? Reading anything good? Watching anything interesting? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: Movies about death, books about the undead, and dying leaves but still hope in Christ

On October 10, 2021 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends1 Comment

Welcome to my weekly Sunday Bookends post where I rambling about what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, writing and doing.

What I’ve Been Reading

I finished Sunny: The Weather Girls Book One this week. It was an okay book. Very simple and sweet with a totally out of place “conversion” scene tossed in at the end, as some Christian fiction books do. I will have a review up for it Tuesday, since it is part of a book tour.

I am in the middle of The Rhise of Light by Max Sternberg and enjoying it.

Last week I neglected to share the description for it and thought I would do so this week. It is a Christian fantasy novel.

The entirety of living civilization stands on the very brink of death. Undead hordes have rampaged across the world. Determined to do his part, Leon Rhise left his wealthy father’s estate and chose to defend the last living kingdom by joining the military. It had seemed to be a good idea at the time.

After his career in the airship navy came to an abrupt end Leon arrived home, hoping for a warm reception. Instead, he was abruptly tossed out. Disowned, unemployed, and friendless. All hope seems lost. Then Leon discovers a mysterious relic, which opens up the possibility of him becoming a Judge: a hero of legend. One that has not been seen for centuries.

As Leon travels the road less taken his destiny converges with newfound companions, each one surrounded by mystery. Advised by strange beings in dreams and visions, Leon learns that the undead onslaught the world has suffered is part of a much larger problem. A solution can be found by learning about the forgotten being known as Adonai. But the world is ending, and time is running out.

Delve into a world that brings a unique twist and interpretation to faith-based high fantasy. With emotional highs and lows, certain peril, dysfunction, and humor; tough questions are asked, and answers will come to light.

I am really enjoying the fourth book in the Craig Johnson Longmire series, despite having started it two or three months ago. I haven’t taken on any other books for the rest of the month, into November, so I should have plenty of time to finally finish it this week. Yes, the Longmire books are much different than what I write or usually read.

Little Miss and I are reading Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder at night and Toliver’s Secret by Esther Wood Brady for her school during the day. Now that we are on book seven of the Little House series, it is interesting to see how Wilder’s writing progressed from her first book. There is much more description in the later books, as well as a lot more introspection on the part of Laura.

I do have to wonder though, if the story about Laura’s future sister-in-law Eliza Jane being so mean to her when Eliza Jane was her teacher was true or not. After looking up some information about Eliza Jane, I found it interesting that she passed away before Laura finished her series. Maybe that was why Laura felt comfortable writing about how mean Eliza Jane was too her. Of course, a lot of Laura’s books were only based on fact, not completely factual, so maybe she elaborated that story for the sake of the fictional Laura’s story.

If the story was true and Laura had to see Eliza Jane at family gatherings, I would imagine that was a bit awkward, to say the least.

The Boy is reading Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour, which is a book about Palestine around the time that the nation of Israel was established, for school.

What We’ve Been Watching

I’ve been watching The Elliot Sisters, which is chocked full of drama every episode. I can’t seem to look away, even though the drama is a bit silly at times. The one sister seems always to fall for a man who is at risk of dying and the other sister is often overly, and illogically, dramatic and uptight about the simplest of things. But the acting is good, it is very clean, and it is a nice distraction from the craziness of the world.

Another nice distraction is the show Lovejoy, a British show about an antique dealer who seems to always get himself mixed up in some kind of trouble. I usually watch that with the Hubs.

The Boy and I finished up Paul, Apostle of Christ, a movie I encourage all Christians to watch. I assigned it to The Boy for his Bible lesson this past week. It stars Jim Caviezel as Luke from the Bible as he tries to record the words of Paul before he is executed in Rome.

The movie includes an underlying story of Christians being persecuted by Nero as well as the story of the jail keepers daughter dying from an illness. This a complex movie that is not your traditional “Christian” movie in other words.

The Boy and I were watching a scene when a woman comes in to the Christians in hiding, covered in blood. They ask her where she is hurt and she says, “This is not my blood. It is the blood of my baby.” The Romans had killed her husband and baby and only she was able to escape. My son looked at me and said, “Daaang. They aren’t pulling any punches in this one.”

And they do not. From Christians used as torches to light the streets of Rome to Paul being brutally beaten and whipped, this is real life at it’s most raw and horrific. Yet in the end you will find hope. A hope that does not come without trials, just as Paul told us in his letters.

What’s Been Occurring

Last week Little Miss had two days to celebrate her birthday. We took her to a fall event at a local camp on her actual birthday and then she had a party at our house on Sunday.

After that we had a very regular, routine week of school and life. We watched the majority of leaves around us turn brown and fall off, which was rather depressing. We did take one day to seek out some pretty leaves and found a few laying in our yard and a few on a couple of maple trees around us.

The large maple tree in front of our house that usually showcases lovely red leaves instead turned brown and looks awful. It’s a bit depressing, actually.

Our one adventure this week was when the kitten escaped and was gone for several hours. We had just decided that she had been eaten by a wild animal when she sauntered up the driveway toward me, running at first, then slowing down and flopping on her side to let me know she didn’t give a fig that she’d completely freaked us all out.

She’s now grounded.

We try to keep her inside anyhow, but she’s a quick little stinker and darts out our back door before we can stop her. She isn’t like our other cat who sneaks out and then wanders around close to the house. I have a feeling Scout, as we named our crazy kitten, tours the entire town before returning home, which is the main reason we aren’t letting her outside for a long while.

Saturday, we took Little Miss to a roller rink to try out the skates we and her grandparents gave her for her birthday. We met a friend there and she had a blast.

Later this week we have a science camp for her at a local Christian camp for homeschool.

What I’ve Been Writing/What’s Been on The Blog

I’ve been working on The Next Chapter in between writing book reviews and blog posts about homeschooling.

This week on the blog:

Creative Fusion: Book Review with Celebrate Lit

Yes, you can homeschool your children. No, you don’t need a teaching degree. Links for parents ready to step into the world of Homeschooling

Ten pieces of advice to make your homeschooling experience easier

Blood From a Stone Book Review with Just Read Blog Tours

Fiction Friday: The Next Chapter Chapter 6

On Hopes, Hearts and Heroes, a blog I contribute to, I shared a blog post from 2017 about planting a garden, taking a step away from rambling about writing and fiction.

What I’ve Been Listening To

I’m including this section because sadly I have not been listening to anything and I should be. I’m much more relaxed when I listen to music or podcasts and I have been failing on that lately. I hope to find some good podcasts to delve into this week. I started listening to Livin’ La Vida Gokey with singer Danny Gokey and his wife and enjoyed it so I hope to get back to it. I have also enjoyed Matthew West’s podcast and hope to get back to that as well. I seem to only find time for podcasts at the end of the day, so when I lay down to listen to them, I fall asleep.

So that is my week in review. How about yours? What are you reading, watching, writing, listening to or doing these days? Let me know in the comments or link up your own blog post if you want to take part.

Sunday bookends: Very little time for reading, building raised garden beds, and country living

On May 17, 2020May 19, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends19 Comments

Not only did our county in Pennsylvania open up this week but the weather warmed up and people in town seemed to pour from their homes to work in their yards, take walks and go to the stores. My family was outside more than inside most of the days of the week, which was nice, but then I forgot that I hadn’t purchased sunblock yet and ended up with a sunburned face and chest. I was so red I looked like I had painted my chest area bright maroon. I’m more sensitive to the sun thanks to the thyroid medicine I’m on.

My daughter wanted to be outside every day, which is a little different than how it was where we lived before. There is a lot more space in our backyard here. The yard there was fenced in and butted up against the neighbor’s and there was a lot more traffic. At the other house the children couldn’t go out when the school down the street let out because the kids who walked by our house were rude, obnoxious and cursed at my children. I don’t know what happened in the last year or so but the kids from the school had become more aggressive and rude. One day the members of the high school track team ran by and broke a limb off of our tree and just kept going. Another day a kid tried to pull our for sale sign out of the ground and I don’t think it was because they didn’t want us to leave. Then another day a teenager football punted one of the solar lights we had along our front sidewalk for decoration.

So far, this neighborhood is quieter, with less traffic and no obnoxious teenagers or children. Anytime our children go outside, the dog and cat think they have to go out too. That happened at both houses but it’s even more prominent here.

Our cat, Pixel, has become an escape artist, always slipping out the door to go explore. We worried about her getting hit by a car at the old house and sometimes I worry about that happening here too (cars fly off the one back road and up onto our street on their way to the local Agway), but I’m more concerned she’s going to be eaten by a bear. I don’t think she’ll be eaten by one in the middle of the day, really, and we keep her locked up inside at night. One day last week I went outside to bring the dog back in and I found Pixel on the roof of the garage. She climbed back down via the roof over the wood pile because I think she realized how high up she was. Luckily if she had gotten stuck my son could have climbed up to get her because the roof of the woodpile slopes up from the bank and leads to the garage roof.

I can’t lie and say having her slip out isn’t frustrating because I don’t like to have to keep going outside to check on her. She’s an extremely high maintenance cat some days. She constantly wants me to turn the water on in the bathroom sink for her so she can drink out of it (she’s done this everywhere we’ve stayed or lived in the last few months, including my parents.), she yowls all night if she can’t get to her food (which we have to keep up on the counter so the dog can’t get into it), she yowls all night if she wants water from the faucet or to go outside, and she claws at my feet in the middle of the night if she feels playful and I try to stretch out.

Every once in awhile I think it would be okay if she disappeared so I don’t have to deal with worrying about her, or her antics, but then she brushes up against me for attention. or talks to me when she comes back in the house,and I feel guilty for those thoughts.

Every cat we have had has had an interesting personality and she’s no different. My husband hung up a little decorative sign the other day that features the painting of a cat and says: “cats are like potato chips, you can’t have just one.” That was once true for us since we had three cats at one time and then two, but this cat is like having two cats already so I let him know we won’t be getting another cat to try to prove the saying on the sign right.

On Thursday and Friday my dad and son built boxes for me to build raised garden beds. I had mentioned the possibility to my dad but didn’t know if it would really come together and before I knew it, dad was offering to go get the lumber, brought it back to our house, started to treat it (with linseed oil and then vegetable oil.) then a day later built them with my son’s help. I had planned to buy one of those ready to put together boxes from Lowe’s instead.

I’m not really sure what we are planting in them yet, but we have some time because we still have to haul some potting soil in. I’m sure we will have to buy already partially grown plants because it is getting so late in the season, but it’s been very cold here so we haven’t been able to plant anything even if I had wanted to.

Being outside so much this past week left little time for reading, except for some at night but I was so tired from the day’s activities I ended up not getting very far in my book (Sweet on You by Becky Wade) and kept falling asleep. I have a couple of other books I want to start this next week, including Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth E. Bailey.

This is a non-fiction book and I rarely read non-fiction but it intrigues me because I think it will help me understand the history of the Bible and Jesus more. I enjoy books, movies, and shows that help bring me into a more visceral understanding of my faith. I think this book, coupled with The Chosen show, and writing Fully Alive is helping me do that.

I did have a little time to watch a new show on Britbox (through Amazon) called The Mallorca Files. The show was produced exclusively for Britbox and the main character are an uptight British detective and a goofy German detective who are thrown together on a police force on an island in Spain. The story lines are fairly simple, the mysteries are easy to solve, and the subject matter is fairly clean so it isn’t a hard hitting mystery show by any means, but I think light, humorous and slightly quirky are exactly what I need right now. (And the lead actor is good looking, so, you know..that helps.)

We are still adjusting to the new house and new town, though it is made easier that I grew up ten minutes from here and visited this small town a lot as a child and teenager.

I plan to write a blog post later this week about how small town life differs from “bigger” town life (we went from a town of about 3,000, with a few thousand more in the adjoining towns, to a town of 600) but for now I’ll list a few things that I’m relearning about living in a more rural setting.

Birds are loud. Very loud. Birds also like to talk at all hours of the day, including 4-stinking-a.m. What does a bird have to talk about at 4 a.m.? Seriously. The sun isn’t even up yet. Shut up, bird. (The same bird kept chirping away all day the next day too.). Birds existed in the town we lived in but they must have known to shut up at 4 a.m. because I don’t remember hearing them as often.
Deer like to eat anything and everything, including the shrubs at the edge of our property that we only found out this week were ours. Oops. We probably should have looked at our deed a little closer when we bid on the place.
A house in a more country setting means more encounters with Lyme carrying ticks. That means investing in a lot of bug spray and hosing the kids and myself down every time we go in the yard. It also increases my anxiety since my dad has suffered with Lyme for a few years now and I don’t want that to happen to my kids, husband or me.
There will be regular sightings of a variety of animals – from rabbits to turkeys, Canadian geese and their babies, the six deer that visited the neighbors last week, the cats the neighbors just let roam the street (which is fitting since my cat is now doing the same thing, I guess.) and the neighbor says there have been bears in town, but I’m thankful we haven’t seen one yet.
I have to be sure to take my allergy medicine, especially in spring, because there always seems to be more than one tree or plant blooming at this time here in the more rural small town we live in.

If you missed any posts on the blog last week I rambled about the challenges I have in describing characters in my fiction, shared Chapter 4 of Fully Alive and Chapter 8 of The Farmer’s Daughter and shared that A New Beginning is on Kindle and Barnes & Noble.

How about all of you? What have you been reading, watching or doing this past week? Let me know in the comments or share a post with me that lets me know!

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.

Sunday Bookends: finding new authors (to me), my Marc Martel obsession, and The Mandalorian

On January 26, 2020January 26, 2020 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends20 Comments

I read Christian fiction, and write it (in a way), and I like a lot of it, but I will be the first to admit that some of it is cheesy, predictable and cringe-worthy. Maybe mine is too, but I digress. Sometimes I don’t mind the cheesy stuff but sometimes all the sweet, drippy tales grate on my nerves because they lack realism. Lately, though, I’m finding authors in the Christian fiction genre who don’t sugar coat. They write nitty-gritty, raw stuff but still get a Christian message across.

Chris Fabry, who my mom introduced me to, is one of those writers. I couldn’t get into the one book my mom suggested by him but when I opened Borders of the Heart I was hooked. The writing is fantastic and the action fastpaced, as if Fabry slammed his foot on the narrative accelerator and never let up. I like books that open up in the action or hook you in the first line and this one did that and then it did it again throughout. I have not finished the book yet, but I have a feeling I will by the end of this week. The plot of the book revolves around a man escaping heartache and finding a woman on the Mexican, Arizona border who is fleeing the Mexican drug cartel. This book is not for the faint of the heart as there are many difficult topics and scenes, including some more violent than I would have liked, though none were extremely graphic. The violence was necessary for the topic, unfortunately. (Although, by the fourth death I was like – I get the point. The bad guy is bad.

I love Fabry’s writing style. He creates poetry in his prose.

Some of my favorite lines include:

J.D. looked at Maria, her hair swirling in the hot wind. Like a vision of something that fell from heaven or crawled up from hell — he couldn’t tell which.
Thoughts and memories flowed together in a stream through his sleep-deprived mind, trickling over rocks and cutting some new channel. Water flows where it will and thoughts will do the same. He knew the trick was to simply surrender to the torrent. That’s when he could figure things out. If he followed his instincts, the words would come out in a song — not some paint-by-number approach to life, but something real and true and resonant.
And then she was gone. He reached for her but empty footprints filled the places where she should have walked. It was that moment he dreaded most, though he knew if she did not leave, he could not be surprised by her coming.
If God had created a world without the possibility of choosing evil, there would have been no possibility of choosing love.

I am about halfway through the book, so if you have read it, shhh…don’t tell me how it ends. I’ll let you know next week if the ending is living up to the beginning and middle.

My family now realizes I am obsessed with Marc Martel and I think they want to stage an intervention, but I’m on to them and won’t allow it. I’ve downloaded his independent EPs on Apple Music and can’t figure out why he doesn’t have a recording deal. I also may, or may not, have played his version of Unchained Melody several times, making my poor children listen as well.

Of course, I’m going to share it here (again) for you all to enjoy as well.

I didn’t watch any movies this week, instead watching old comedies like The Dick VanDyke Show to try to distract myself from the drama that is American Politics. I needed something pure and light instead of something full of nastiness and vindictiveness. We did finish up The Mandolorian’s first season, which we have enjoyed. I’m not the Star Wars fan that the rest of my family is, but I did enjoy this series, especially the addition of Baby Yoda, who I’m sure you’ve heard about, even if you don’t watch the show.

My husband says the show is better than The Last Jedi.

In another attempt to distance myself from politics this week I had to unfollow several new blogs I had started following because they ranted in some very nasty ways about situations unfolding in our country. I escape to the blog world to get away from politics and I left social media to shut that garbage out. I’m not about to deal with it here as well.

This meme my son made and sent to me pretty much says it all about opinions and the internet these days:

I also didn’t write as much on the blog this past week, for some reason, but did manage a few posts, including:

Flash Fiction: Protest

Creatively Thinking: The Struggle of Claiming the Title Writer

The Day I Thought My Neighbor was Dead in his Backyard

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning, Chapter 15

Apparently, my family did not enjoy the cold we all had two weeks ago and left us with lingering coughs. This week they have been lining up and opening their mouths like little birds, waiting for their doses of elderberry syrup. My husband, who has never been sold on the natural remedies before this winter, has been the first in line. He discovered working 40 minutes from home and being sick is definitely not fun.

The weird weather we’ve been having has not really helped with people in our area getting sick. One week it was warm and muddy, this past week it was super cold and somewhat muddy. On Friday it was back to warm again and I’m hoping all this up and down doesn’t leave my oldest with sinus issues like it normally does.

When the weather warmed up slightly, I forced the kids outside to get some fresh air and stave off cabin fever. We currently have two small snowmen in our freezers that my daughter carried in and begged me to save.

So, how was your week? Read any good books? Watch anything good? Let me know in the comments!

Boondock Ramblings

Tag: Sunday Bookends