Flashback Friday: Car accidents and tickets

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site. You can visit her site for more Flashbacks.

The prompt for today is:

Thinking primarily of your growing-up years and your early years of driving, have you ever been in an auto accident? Were you a passenger or the driver? Were you injured? How badly was the car damaged? Whose fault was it? What was the attitude of your parents toward “fender benders” and tickets? Were minor dings and scrapes a big deal? Have you ever received a traffic ticket? If more than one, ‘fess up: how many? Any warnings? Has a family member or close friend been seriously injured or killed in an accident? Have you ever witnessed a bad accident and stopped to render aid or give a statement? What role, if any, did seat belts and car seats have in your early years?

Thankfully there were no car accidents that I remember from childhood. The closest we came was when my brother fell out of the back seat of the car while my mom was making a turn. I can’t remember if most cars didn’t have seat belts then or if we just had an old one without them. Thankfully he was fine — we were going slowly and he didn’t get caught under the car — but we were pretty shaken after that. When I had my own children I remember chafing a bit at all the regulations involved with car seats and such, but I did appreciate the fact that they had to be and could be strapped in. I was the oldest of six kids, the youngest born when I was 17, and there was always a toddler standing just to the right of the driver in the front seat. The potential for disaster makes me cringe to even think about now. Even though my own kids were always in car seats when they were little, it is still instinctive for me even now to fling my right arm out when I stop suddenly.

The very first time I drove as a teen, I backed over the mailbox. 😳 My dad had pulled the car out to wash it and decided to give me an impromptu driving lesson by asking me to pull it back into the driveway. He got in with me and gave me some preliminary instruction. I began to back up, and suddenly he yelled, “Hit the brake! Hit the brake!” I said, “Where’s the brake?!” 🙄 My dad had a pretty quick temper and I was waiting for it, but thankfully this time he laughed. I think he realized he should have given me a little bit more instructional. Or taken me out driving where there were no obstacles.

There were no other problems with my driving until my senior year of college. It was a Sunday night and Jim had let me borrow his car to take a group of girls to church. On the way home, a white car swerved into my lane and hit me and swerved back into his own, never stopping. Thankfully the Lord put it in my head to press neither the break or the gas — I just drifted over to the shoulder. None of us was hurt, but I was pretty shaken. A staff couple from college was right behind us and saw it happen, and it was a huge blessing to have them with us to handle everything with the police and then to take us back to the dorms. Jim was in a different car with a group of guys, and they usually went back to school another way but decided for some reason to come the way we had. They saw an accident had occurred — and then Jim was shocked to see his car had been hit. They stopped and he was able to handle getting the paperwork for the policeman. I didn’t get a ticket since it was a hit-and-run. The car was totaled, so he had to scramble to get another one. But he said at least we got the whole, “Honey, I dented the car” thing out of the way before we married.

In my only other accident, I wasn’t even in the car…..we had borrowed some chairs from a friend when we had some folks over, and I was returning them to her. I had parked the car in her driveway near her door to get the chairs out, and when I came back to the driveway to pull the car around to the back and park it….the car wasn’t there. She lived on a busy street, so I must have wondered at first if the car was stolen — I can’t remember now. The driveway had a pretty steep slope, and the car was at the bottom of the slope crashed into a tree. I don’t know if I left it in drive instead of park, which was likely (I don’t remember looking to see — I think I just jumped in and moved it) or if someone did something with it. I had to call Jim, and thankfully he took it very patiently. I can’t remember for sure what shape the car ended up in — I don’t think it was totaled. I do remember we had our insurance take care of payng someone to come and attend to our friend’s tree. Though she protested it wasn’t necessary, we wanted to make sure there was no long term damage — we didn’t want it to die and fall on her house or have her have to have it taken out.

The only ticket I’ve ever received in my 36 years of driving was a few years ago. One of the roads beside our subdivision connected two more major roads. The speed limit on it was 35, but it easily could have been 10 more as it was a straight, wide road with few houses on it. There was a fire station down the road where a little police car sometimes parked, and one day as I passed the station and stopped in the turn lane at the red light, I saw flashing blue lights behind me. “Oh no,” I thought, “I need to figure out how to get out of his way.” It didn’t register that he was after me. When the light changed all I knew to do was go ahead and turn and then pull over to let him pass, but he pulled over behind me. Still not getting it, I thought, “Well, okay then, he’s stopping here so I guess I’ll go on.” I started to pull away, and then he flashed on his siren. Then I realized — he was stopping me! I was pretty upset but managed to hold it together. I think I was doing around 50 in a 35 mph zone. I don’t remember what the fine was or how many points I got, but he did cut them in half since it was my first. I went home and told my two older sons: one laughed and one put his arm around me and said, “Awww.” My husband asked if I was driving that fast because I was angry; I said no, I just coasting along not thinking. Thankfully, patient man that he is, he again didn’t get angry (at least not visibly…) And the rest of the time we lived there it was instinctive me for to slow down at that section of the road!

So we’ve been pretty fortunate not to have any serious major accidents. My husband has had one accident that I can remember since we were married when a lady backed out in front of him. When he was in college, there were two carloads of college students who rotated driving from Idaho to college in SC and back, about 2,000 miles, to and from school and home a few times a year Christmas and summer breaks. I can’t imagine how nervous that would make me as a mother if it were my child! Once after we were married and living in SC and no longer making those drives, we had just been commenting that out of all those trips there hadn’t been a major accident, when the very next time there was a serious one involving the whole front of the car being torn off. I can’t remember the details and I don’t think anyone was seriously hurt, but it was sobering for all. None of my kids has had an accident except for one time when another teen-ager ran through a stop sign and hit Jason, flipping his car around. Thankfully, again, no one was hurt and there was no major damage. Mittu had an accident before she and Jason were married: they were on the phone (though she wasn’t holding it; it was on speaker-phone) when Jason heard the crash and then the phone went dead. We didn’t hear anything else til the next morning: that was a very long night. At that time he didn’t have her mother’s number or anyone else’s where she was. She had hit her head but I think otherwise was okay from what I remember.

We’ve known various people involved in major accidents. Both the ones that come to mind involve teens. When we lived in GA, friends of friends whom we’d met once or twice had three sons. The two older ones were on some outing and racing home so they wouldn’t be late: they had an old car with no seat belts in it, but they were on order. I don’t remember what caused the accident, but they were both killed. Our mutual friends had our church pray much for them: it was devastating to have 2/3 of their children wiped out in a flash. That has really given me pause when all of my kids have been in a car together. When the older two were commuting 30 miles to college and rushing out the door early in the mornings, I’d often tell them it was better to be late and safe than race to get there and have an accident. The other accident that comes to mind was several years earlier when two young people from church, a brother and sister, were driving in the rain and hydroplaned and had an accident. The brother was killed. We prayed that family through for a long time as well.

There have been so many times God has protected me from my own foolishness. There have been other times when I have passed one way, such as to get the kids from school, and in just a few minutes coming back the same way there has been an accident. So many times I have thanked the Lord for not letting us be in that spot at the wrong time. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll find out when we get to heaven just how much He did protect us from that we never knew about.

Book Review: Song of Renewal

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Barbara Harper

I don’t often accept books for review, both because I have so many others stacked up that I want to read and because I have been disappointed in many of the ones I did accept. But something about Song of Renewal by Emily Sue Harvey sounded like it might be a poignant read.

Garrison and Liza Wakefield begin as a happy couple, deliriously in love, expecting their first child. As the years pass, however, relationships wane. Garrison’s focus on maintaining his family’s lifestyle cause him to lay aside his promising art career and become an emotionally-distanced workaholic. Liza willingly gives up her ballet to be a stay-at-home mother, but projects her aspirations onto her teenage daughter, Angel, who isn’t really interested. The pressures of ballet and the pain of her father’s disinterest weigh heavily on Angel, leading her to an eating disorder.

A car accident on a rainy night puts Angel in a coma and kills her boyfriend, throwing the family into turmoil. The fissures in the Wakefield’s relationship widen under the pressures of this crisis, the expenses of medical care, and the less than hopeful prognosis.

The book explores the journey of renewal on several levels: faith, recovery, purpose, marriage, parenthood, and other relationships.

The writer did an excellent job conveying the progress of Garrison and Liza’s relationship, from the bloom of first love to complacency and distraction to blame, distancing, and anger after the accident to eventual forgiveness and understanding. I was almost in tears at times in their struggle. Angel’s struggles physically and emotionally during her recovery hit home as well.

There were a couple of things that marred the story for me, though. One was a smattering of language that I don’t usually find in the types of books I read. It’s fairly tame compared to a lot of what’s out there, but still, to me it was off-putting and I know it would be to some of you as well. Secondly, the frequency and intensity of the couple’s sexual life was meant, I’m sure, as a barometer measuring how well their relationship was going, and it fit naturally in the story and wasn’t terribly explicit, but it still was more than I personally wanted to know.

Though this book does mention the importance of faith, repentance, and forgiveness, I am not sure whether it will be promoted as Christian fiction. I have a feeling that those who read it who aren’t Christian might be put off by the faith aspect, though it is handled naturally and not at all in a preachy or didactic manner, and those who are reading from a Christian perspective will be put off by the language and sexuality.

I think the writer’s main intent was to convey hope in the many problems faced by her characters (and by extension, her readers), and she did that very well.

Special thanks to Lou Aronica at The Story Plant for sending me a review copy. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Wednesday Hodgepodge

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Joyce From This Side of the Pond hosts a weekly Wednesday Hodgepodge of questions for fun and for getting to know each other.

1. Your favorite chocolate treat?

That’s hard to narrow down as I love many things chocolate. Of store-bought chocolates, it would be Lindor Lindt Truffles, especially the milk chocolate ones. Of cake mixes, it would be devil’s food with chocolate fudge icing. Of home-made things, it would be Texas Sheet Cake. Cracker Barrel has a Coca-Cola cake that’s pretty similar to it.

2. What more than anything else makes you feel loved?

That’s a hard question to answer. Of the supposed “love languages” — words of affirmation, gifts, touch, time, acts of service — different ones make me feel loved at different times, but other times not so much. I think what colors each of them is attentiveness, being “tuned in” to me. A gift, for instance, can be an expression of love even if it is not what the recipient wants or likes, but it makes the recipient feel loved when it’s particularly suited to them. But I think overall my main “love language” is acts of service. My husband usually fills up the gas tank if he uses the van and it’s at all low. So when I’m heading out and think, “Oh, yeah, I need to get gas first,” and then notice the tank is full — the thought that he noticed and took care of it makes me feel loved and cared for. Or when the kids go from doing something reluctantly because they have to, to doing it to please Mom.

3. Cherries or blueberries?

Not a big fan of either, but I like blueberry muffins and cherry[flavored slushies. 🙂

4. What is the one trait you most want the leader of your country to possess?

Integrity. I may not agree with his views, but I want to be able to trust that he’s not just wavering with the political wind or out to make a name for himself — I want an underlying character to uphold what he says and does.

5. Are you a saver or a spender?

A spender, to my shame.

6. If you gave a party for all of your friends would they already know each other?

No — I know people from different states where I have lived or different organizations or walks of life who don’t know each other.

7. Are you interested in antiques?

Mildly. I like the idea of an item with a history, and, sadly, we don’t have much that’s been passed down through the family. But I don’t frequent antique stores much. I don’t know enough about antiques to know what’s a good deal. I go more by what appeals to me.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I hate to wade into the sewage of the spam folder of my blog because of the kind of muck that gets caught in there, and I often wonder….don’t these people have anything better to do with their time? But my spam-catcher does sometimes rake in a legitimate comment, so I check it once a day or so. I’ve found that if I scan the addresses rather than the text, that saves my mind from a lot of garbage, but every now and then I catch a hum-dinger. One spam comment recently said:

Usually I don’t article on blogs, but I need to say that this write-up very forced me to accomplish so! Thanks, quite nice article.

Oooookay…

And another said:

If people are stuck with academic essay accomplishing, therefore I would recommend to buy persuasive essay from some paper writing service under such circumstances.

I don’t think I’ll be using their services, thank you very much.

Valentine’s Day 2011 and assorted randomness

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Barbara Harper

We enjoyed a nice Valentine’s Day with the family, and I thought I’d share some assorted scenes.

I hadn’t really planned to do a Valentine-themed dinner, but I was planning on these Li’l Cheddar Meat Loaves at some point anyway and decided they could be made into heart shapes. (I had made this recipe once before, and the sauce was barbecue-y and cloyingly sweet. So this time I left out the mustard and used only a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar, and it was just right.)

I also tried Texas Sheet Cake for my traditional heart-shaped cupcakes rather than the boxed devil’s food cake mix — but they didn’t convert very well and great chunks of them stuck in the pans. I don’t know if it was my pans or the recipe or what. We did salvage most of them, and they still tasted good except for being a little dry.

Jeremy was all by himself in RI, so we skyped during our meal. Wish I had thought to take a picture of him on the computer on a stool at the table. He commented recently that he’d love for us to have this video chat robot to take us to a new level of skyping. That would be nice in some ways, but a little creepy in others — I told him it reminded me of those old sc-fi movies where someone’s had a horrible accident resulting in only their brain surviving, which is then implanted into some kind of machine.

I had gone over to Jim’s mom’s earlier in the afternoon and brought her a card as well as a book and some mini cans of Sprite. She exclaimed that she had never had such a nice card and I must have looked really hard to find it, and she showed me a couple of cards that she had received from others. We talked a little bit about the family, and then as I was leaving, I said, “Happy Valentine’s Day!” She said, “Oh, is that today?” 🙂

I told the family that I’m glad at least her forgetfulness is usually happy. I had just been reading yesterday of someone with Alzheimer’s who got angry and paranoid when confused. Mom doesn’t have Alzheimer’s or even full-blown dementia, but she’s having more and more “senior moments.” She gets a little dismayed sometimes, but usually she’s pretty upbeat and everything is a delightful rediscovery, and if we remind her of something she’s forgotten, she’ll just smile and say, “Well, when you get to be an 82-year old woman….”

Jesse is better though his stomach is still a little wobbly and his appetite isn’t completely back to normal. He was out of school yesterday due to a teacher’s clinic, and I think the extra day off really helped. So far no one else has gotten whatever it was — for which I am VERY thankful. That was a particularly nasty bug and lasted longer than usual. Wednesday afternoon was particular scary — he had not been able to keep anything down, even water, and he called me to come into his room. He was on the floor saying he couldn’t move — his hands were contracted and he said his hips were cramping. That happened once a few years before after a very hot outdoor August wedding — he got violently ill on the way home and said the same thing about not being able to move. Scary anyway, but especially with my TM background. I’m pretty sure he was dehydrated and at that time seemed to be fine once we got some fluid in him. But with any fluid coming right back up this time, I was really afraid we were going to have to take him to the hospital. Thankfully enough stayed down to get him over that hump. I am very glad to see whatever it was he had finally go.

Suzie, our dog, was having similar symptoms — I almost wondered if one of them caught it from the other, since Jesse is the one who feeds her twice a day and brings her in the garage at night when it’s cold outside. But then last night she was breathing really, really hard, and we were afraid she might be coming to an end. Jim took her to the vet this morning and found it would cost hundreds of dollars in x-rays and blood work just to see what was wrong, and much more than that, depending on the diagnosis, to treat, and at this point in her life — she’s about 14 — we felt it would probably be better to put her out of her suffering. But we decided to try an antibiotic just to see if it helped, and she seems to be doing a little better, so maybe she’s on the mend. Hopefully.

So, we had a very good day, except for the scare with Suzie. Now I need to get back into gear and figure out how to best use today — and how to resist all the chocolate that is calling to me…

The Week In Words

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are a few that instructed and inspired me this week:

I forgot to note where I saw this:

To pursue union at the expense of truth is treason to the Lord Jesus . . . . It is our solemn conviction that where there can be no real spiritual communion there should be no pretense of fellowship. Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

This isn’t saying we should never interact with people who don’t believe just as we do, for, as Paul said, “then must ye needs go out of the world.” The Bible has much to say about unity but it also has much to say about separation and in what circumstances we should pursue one or the other.

And I failed to note where I saw this as well:

There may be genuine grievances; but what makes us bitter is that we ponder them and meditate upon them and stay with them; in other words, we nurse our grievances, we dwell on them, we pay great attention to them, and if we are tending to forget them we deliberately bring them back and allow them to work us up again into a state of bitterness. ~David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

That is so true. I read someone once who said that every time an incident comes to mind in which someone wronged us, we need to forgive them all over again, but I think rather, once we do forgive them, we need to remind ourselves that that transaction has already taken place and move on to verses about forbearance and loving the brethren.

There are two quotes from an Elisabeth Elliot devotional titled “Not One Thing Has Failed,” taken originally from her book Love Has a Price Tag:

Here she quotes from David Brainard’s diary:

“I visited Indians at Crossweeksung,” Brainard records, “Apprehending that it was my indispensable duty…. I cannot say I had any hopes of success. I do not know that my hopes respecting the conversion of the Indians were ever reduced to so low an ebb … yet this was the very season that God saw fittest to begin His glorious work in! And thus He ordained strength out of weakness … whence I learn that it is good to follow the path of duty, though in the midst of darkness and discouragement.”

And in the same article she writes:

Jessie Penn-Lewis’s book Thy Hidden Ones showed me God’s purpose in my isolation and helplessness. It was her words I sent in a letter to Jim: “In the Holy Spirit’s leading of the soul through the stripping of what may be called ‘consecrated self,’ and its activity, it is important that there should be a fulfillment of all outward duty, that the believer may learn to act on principle rather than on pleasant impulse.” It was a spiritual lesson that was to fortify me through countless later experiences when feelings or impulses contributed nothing to an inclination toward obedience. God allows the absence of feeling or, more often, the presence of strong negative feeling that we may simply follow, simply obey, simply trust.

God’s work and will are often so little related to how we feel — yet how often we tend to go by our feelings.

I shared a whole lot of quotes from the book 50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning From Spiritual Giants of the Faith by author Warren Wiersbe here last week.

And you’d think I’d have something about love for Valentine’s Day! But I don’t have anything new. I posted some in past years here and here. And, just for fun, here are some Valentine’s jokes I posted a few years back.

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.

And please — feel free to comment even if you don’t have quotes to share!

Awake, my soul, and with the sun

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Barbara Harper

(Photo taken by my husband at Folly Beach in Charleston, SC)

Most of us are very familiar with the last stanza of this, the Doxology, but the rest is quite rich as well:

Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise,
To pay thy morning sacrifice.

Thy precious time misspent, redeem,
Each present day thy last esteem,
Improve thy talent with due care;
For the great day thyself prepare.

By influence of the Light divine
Let thy own light to others shine.
Reflect all Heaven’s propitious ways
In ardent love, and cheerful praise.

In conversation be sincere;
Keep conscience as the noontide clear;
Think how all seeing God thy ways
And all thy secret thoughts surveys.

All praise to Thee, who safe has kept
And hast refreshed me while I slept
Grant, Lord, when I from death shall wake
I may of endless light partake.

Heav’n is, dear Lord, where’er Thou art,
O never then from me depart;
For to my soul ’tis hell to be
But for one moment void of Thee.

Lord, I my vows to Thee renew;
Disperse my sins as morning dew.
Guard my first springs of thought and will,
And with Thyself my spirit fill.

Direct, control, suggest, this day,
All I design, or do, or say,
That all my powers, with all their might,
In Thy sole glory may unite.

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

~ Thomas Ken, Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College, 1674.

(A bit of interesting background information on this hymn can be found here.)

Book Review: Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L. M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L. M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic by Irene Gammel is not so much a biography, at least not a full-fledged one, as I had first thought. Concentrating on the years just before, during, and after the writing of Anne of Green Gables, the author mainly looks at Lucy Maud Montgomery’s life and times for clues about how Anne came to be, asserting that Maud’s published comments about Anne’s origins were not the complete story.

The author extensively researched Maud’s published and unpublished journals, scrapbooks, letters, other writings about her life and work as well as the magazines Maud would have had in her home and other sources about the culture in which she lived.

Many parts of the book were very interesting. There are photos from ads of the time for dresses with puffed sleeves so dear to Anne’s heart, LMM’s home, and various places she names as inspiration for her book. There are literary allusions I had missed in my reading, and the discovery of those enriched my enjoyment of Anne. There is much background detail, such as the search for the face that inspired Anne: Maud had cut out a photo that she liked from a magazine and said later that this was what Anne looked like in her mind, but the author spends what feels to me an inordinate amount of time researching the model’s life and wondering how much Maud knew of her. Diana’s name was first going to be Laura, and then Gertrude (Gertrude?). The author brings up some elements of Anne that appeared in Maud’s earlier short stories.

Anne is not an autobiographical representation of Maud (Emily is said to be), but there are many parallels, among them: Maud’s mother died when she was young and her father was away most of her childhood, and Maud was raised by her grandmother (similar to Elisabeth in Anne of Windy Poplars). When she was writing of Marilla perhaps needing to sell Green Gables after Matthew died, Maud’s grandmother was facing the loss of her home due to a family situation.

Fortunately I had read Carrie‘s reviews of some of Maud’s biographies and journals, so I already knew that she and her husband both suffered from depression and their marriage was not happy. “To read her as a rosy-hued optimist who only wrote romances with happy endings is to misread her profoundly” (p. 125). Maud wrote of another character in a short story titled “A Correspondence and a Climax,” “So I wrote instead of the life I wanted to live — the life I did live in imagination” (p. 51), and that seems to be what Maud herself did as well, righting wrongs and relationships, giving Anne the college degree she never achieved (though she did provide for a close friend to go to college), etc. If you’re not familiar with her personality and personal life, you might end up not liking her as much as you read of her, but she is a very complicated woman with many layers and facets of personality, and it was interesting to learn more of her. As I mentioned when I reread Anne of Green Gables last year, at first having learned of the unhappiness of her life shadowed my enjoyment of the book, but after a while the evident joy she found in writing took over, and I could rejoice that she found at least a measure of happiness there.

However, there were a few things that disturbed me. First, Gammel explains that paganism and the Druids were being widely discussed at the time, one such article appearing in a magazine in which one of Maud’s stories also appeared, and asserts that Diana’s name as well as Anne’s love of nature “belong to the irreverent world of wood nymphs and dryads. This pagan world poked fun at solemn Sunday School decorum” (p.84). I always felt that Anne’s mention of such creatures and her belief that plants had souls was more literary and imaginative than religious or “pagan.” Gammel uses the word a lot, in fact, almost every time nature is discusses, as if only pagans enjoyed nature or brought flowers and ferns into their homes and churches. The author does say that in a letter Maud “shared her pagan spiritualism, her belief that heaven was a rather boring place, and that Christ might have been a willful imposter” (p. 135), but she doesn’t quote the letter directly. I don’t know if paganism truly inspired Maud to a great degree or if this is conjecture on the author’s part.

Secondly, Gammel also asserts that some of Maud’s “bosom friendships” as well as that between Anne and Diana were more than just platonic. Though I’ve not read any of LMM’s other biographies (that I can remember — if I have it’s been decades and I’ve forgotten them), my feeling is that this is conjecture based partly on the fact that Maud’s friendships with women seemed closer and more intense than those with men, and girls and women in that time were “gushier” than we generally are today. I see no reason to read lesbian thought into any of those friendships.

Third, though there are places where LMM referred to certain things that inspired details of her Anne books, there seems to be a lot of conjecture as well based on what Maud would have been reading and what cultural references she knew. I have a lot of magazines in my home, or that have passed through my home, but it would be a mistake to think that I read everything in them or agreed with everything I did read, and I can’t help but feel the same would have been true with Maud. I think it’s fine to look at those sources and suggest that perhaps they went into Maud’s consciousness and perhaps even influenced her unawares, but I think that’s as far as you can go without a source where she says directly what influenced her. Many times Ms. Gammel does stop just there, but in my opinion many times she goes further.

I also disagreed with the quote that “It may be the ludicrous escapades of Anne that render the book so attractive to children, but it is the struggles of Marilla that give it resonance for adults” (pp. 188-189). Through Carrie’s LMM reading challenges, it seems several women “discovered” Anne when they were adults, as I did, and were attracted not only by her “escapades” but by her growth. Though understanding Marilla more than a child would, I think most readers still identify with and read for Anne. I disagreed as well that it was “the edgy and tempestuous Anne” readers fell in love with, “an Anne they did not want to grow up and become a polite society lady” (p. 126). Again, I enjoyed seeing her grow into maturity while keeping a lively spirit, learning control and socially acceptable ways to deal with others while still standing firm to her own convictions.

I’ve spent a little more time with what I’ve disagreed with mainly because people have told me they trust my judgment in reviews, and I wouldn’t want to let some of these things pass without comment. I have to defer to Ms. Gammel’s expertise and research, yet I do disagree with her conclusions in these areas where I believe conjecture is involved. Maybe some of you who have read more of LMM’s biography or journals can speak to some of these issues.

This book may be a bit academic for some, and those wanting a full biography may want to find another source (this book ends with the writing of Anne of Ingleside). But a dedicated Anne or LMM fan who wants to read most everything they can find on them might be interested.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share our favorite things from the last week. This has been a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

Here are a few favorites from the past week:

1. Blue skies. It’s still been cold — in the 30s most days — but it has been so uplifting to see blue sky instead of gray overcast.

2. New uses for old things. We talk with my oldest son via “face time” on the iPod 4, but you get tired of holding it after a while, and it’s not easy to prop up. He sent us this business card holder, which works great to hold the iPod while we’re talking.

3. New, eagerly anticipated books —

— even though I already have a stack more than twice that high on my nightstand….

4. Finishing two non-fiction books. It’s unusual for me to have two non-fiction going at a time — they do usually take me a little longer to get through, and I’ve been reading a little here and there from one for months. I enjoyed it, but it felt great to get it finished. I reviewed it earlier this week and hope to have a review for the other one soon.

5. This, in light of Sunday’s big game.

And a bonus — peanut butter Rice Krispie treats with melted chocolate chips on top:

🙂 Hope you have a great weekend. Thanks for those who prayed for Jesse — he was doing better yesterday but was sick again this morning. I am praying he is back to normal soon — and that none of the rest of us gets it.

Flashback Friday: Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Barbara Harper

The prompt for today is:

What was Valentine’s Day like when you were growing up? Did you have parties at school? Did you make or buy the valentines for your classmates? Was it a trend to attach candy to each valentine? Did your family acknowledge the day in any particular way? What about as you got older, in your teens? Was the day eagerly anticipated or dreaded? Did your school sell/allow carnations or other items? Do any Valentine’s Days from the past in particular stand out in your memory? What about now – is it a special time or just another day on the calendar? And of course, the all-important question: candy conversation hearts – yes or no?!

I love Valentine’s Day.

All that I remember about family Valentine’s celebrations from childhood is that my dad would buy those heart-shaped boxes of candy, and big one for my mom and smaller ones for us kids. Though I am not a big fan of the variety-box chocolates these days, I look on those a little nostalgically when I start to see them in stores each year. I don’t remember that we exchanged cards as a family or had special dinners.

I loved Valentine’s Day at school. We always decorated little boxes or bags to hold the Valentine’s we received. I searched for just the right Valentines and then carefully chose each one for each classmate…especially the boys. It seems like we could bring them in at any point during the week, because I can remember the eagerness of checking our boxes all through the week. We had a little party during the afternoon of Valentine’s Day and opened all our treasures…trying to guess if there was special meaning in the ones from the boys.

I don’t remember if it was a requirement every year, but I do remember one year our fourth grade teacher saying that if we were going to participate, we had to give a Valentine to every member of the class so no one would feel left out. One boy argued with her that that wasn’t…fair or genuine or something. That boy happened to be George K., whom I had a grand crush on…along with almost every other girl in class. And I was profoundly disappointed that I did not receive a Valentine from him — until he came up behind me and whispered something in my ear during the party. The only problem was I couldn’t understand what he said before he moved away. I fantasized that it was something along the lines of how I was more special in his eyes than the other girls, so he wanted to tell me how he felt rather than send me a paltry paper Valentine. But what he probably said was, “Will you stop staring at me, you freak?”

Can you tell I was a little too boy-crazy in my youth?

Ahem. 😳

I don’t remember there being any kind of acknowledgment of Valentine’s Day in high school. In college, one year the campus snack shop offered a special steak dinner for two during Valentine’s in a specially decorated side room, and the campus newspaper published some of the faculty members’ love stories — always enjoyed that.

With my own children, a lot of Valentines came with candy, though I don’t think we ever sent any like that. It was always a challenge to find Valentines that boys wanted to send, especially in the upper elementary years, but I can remember finding some for Jesse one year with a vehicle theme and another year with an Army and camouflage theme, so that was fun. With my older boys’ I seem to remember their Valentine’s receptacles just being a decorated paper bag at the request of teachers, but with my youngest at a different school, they had classroom contests for their Valentine’s boxes. I always liked trying to come up with something a little different, and there was a children’s magazine in stores that had great ideas (I don’t remember the name, but it was connected with Boy and Girl Scouts. My kids weren’t Scouts, and that was the only time of year I ever even noticed the magazine.) One year we did a space ship, another year a crocodile — I’d love to show pictures, but those are in boxes of photos taken after the last ones I put in albums and before digital cameras and I don’t want to search for them right now. 🙂 I think he did win the contest with the crocodile.

When they were in high school, the seniors would sell various things on Valentine’s Day to help make money for their senior trip, from “singing Valentine’s” one year to decorated balloons or cookies or some other treat.

It wasn’t until my oldest was in college that I heard the acronym S.A.D. in connection with the day — Single Awareness Day.

As a family, we usually have a special dinner that night finished with some heart-shaped cupcakes. Sometimes it has been a specially Valentine-themed dinner, like this Crescent Heart-Topped Lasagna Casserole. I don’t do tablecloths every day, but Valentine’s is one day I use them.

I get cards for the kids and Jim, and he gets a card for me. The kids used to give us cards from the ones they used for school, but they haven’t given cards in recent years, except that Jason and Mittu have since they’ve been dating and then married.

I also like to set out a few little Valentine decorations:

Linda’s post reminded me that one year I made a Valentine Scavenger hunt — I made heart shapes and cut them in half and wrote clues on them — the clue on one led to the other half which led to another clue, etc. I don’t remember what the prize at the end was — Valentine’s candy, I think. The boys asked for that again the next year, but I had a hard enough time coming up with clues the first time. Then another year I made a big poster board Valentine with candy taped on at appropriate places in the message (like, “You make me feel like $100,000 Grand” with the candy bar in place of the words.)

For a couple of years I hosted our ladies’ group’s refreshments in February, one of my favorite times to do it. One year I made these Sweetheart Jamwiches from Southern Living magazine.:

And Peanut Butter Kiss cookies, only substituting chocolate hearts instead of Hershey’s kisses.

One year we had a special session on how to love our husbands, but other years it was just a regular meeting with Valentine-themed decorations and food.

As for those candy hearts….I can take them or leave them. I prefer chocolate, but if someone offers me these, I’ll eat a few. This is a really neat card based on them:

A very happy Valentine’s Day to each of you!

Booking Through Thursday: Ground Floor

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly meme which poses a question or a thought for participants to discuss centering on the subject of books or reading. The question for this week is:

There’s something wonderful about getting in on the ground floor of an author’s career–about being one of the first people to read and admire them, before they became famous best-sellers.

Which authors have you been lucky enough to discover at the very beginning of their careers?

And, if you’ve never had that chance, which author do you WISH you’d been able to discover at the very beginning?

I “met” Laura Lee Groves at her blog, Outnumbered Mom, through Susanne‘s weekly meme Friday’s Fave Fives. We are at similar stages of life and both have all boys and I enjoyed her writing style. It was only after I had been reading her blog for a while that I discovered she was working on a book, and it was exciting to hear about the final stages and then see it come to fruition. I was happy to buy her book, I’m Outnumbered!: One Mom’s Lessons in the Lively Art of Raising Boys, and to review it here, and even gave away a copy on my blog and then again in in person to a friend. I also found out about The Book Lover’s Devotional: What We Learn About Life From 60 Great Works of Literature through her blog, which would have interested me anyway, but knowing she wrote for parts of it makes it even more appealing. I just received my copy yesterday and can’t wait to start it. Plus she has mentioned working on a fiction book now, and it’s fun to hear a little bit about its progress and to look forward to seeing it come out.

I discovered The Secret Life of Becky Miller, the first book by Sharon Hinck, while just walking around the Christian bookstore looking for something to read. I loved this book about a young mom who experiences Walter Mitty-like daydreams of heroism while trying to figure out how to do “great things for God” in real life. I think my review of Becky was my first on my blog — and Sharon’s response was the first time I ever heard from an author here. I’ve read and enjoyed (and I think reviewed) her six subsequent books since and hope the Lord allows her more. She’s been waylaid by illness the last couple of years and I pray God grants her healing. She also wrote part of the introduction for A Novel Idea: Everything You Need to Know about Writing Inspirational Fiction.

I came across either Adam Blumer or his brother — or maybe both, I got them confused at first — at a Christian message board I sometimes frequent. When I heard he was writing a novel, I eagerly awaited it. His book Fatal Illusions was published in 2009 and was “keep you on the edge of your seat” good, and I am eagerly awaiting the sequel.

I didn’t know Jamie Langston Turner personally, but she teaches at my alma mater, so I also anticipated her first book, Suncatchers, from the time I first heard about it, and I have bought all of her books since.

There may be other authors I’ve followed since their first book or earlier, but these are the ones that come to mind. I enjoy following their careers and hearing about the progress of a book they’re working on.