August has been a full month for us. My oldest son came from RI for a little over a week. Our birthdays are six days apart, and it’s nice when the calendar works out so that he can be here for both. Jason and Mittu celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary, and Timothy started in a new school after being taught at home from K-5 through sixth grade.

Watching

We haven’t really watched anything worthy of passing along this month except that we rewatched The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It was just as good as the first time.

Creating

This card was for Jason and Mittu’s anniversary.

The design was from the Cricut. The pinkish-lavender paper isn’t glittery but has a bit of a sheen.

This was for Jeremy’s birthday:

He likes foxes. This was also done with the Cricut.

Reading

Since last time, I have finished (titles link to my reviews):

• Insights on Revelation by Charles Swindoll. Very good.
• Letters to an American Lady by C. S. Lewis. Lots of good advice, as is usually the case with Lewis.
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (review coming next week).
• Into a Golden Era by Gabrielle Meyer. A time crosser who lives in both the gold rush era of 1849 and the golden age of Hollywood in 1929 must decide soon which lifeline she’ll stay in. But she is needed in both.
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. Vignettes of small village life in England in the mid-1800s.
• My Lady Ludlow by Elizabeth Gaskell. An aged aristocratic lady changes her views along with the changing times.
• The Dean’s Watch by Elizabeth Goudge. A watch-repairer and clock-maker who doesn’t believe in God strikes up an unlikely but mutually beneficial friendship with the Dean of the local Anglican cathedral. Very good once it got going.

I’m currently reading:

• How People Change by Paul David Tripp and and Timothy S. Lane.
• In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character by Jen Wilkin with a friend.
• A Small Book for the Anxious Heart: Meditations on Fear, Worry, and Trust by Ed Welch.
• James: Walking in Wisdom by Lydia Brownback with the ladies’ Bible study group at church.
• The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge (audiobook).
• Mr. Harrison’s Confessions (novella) by Elizabeth Gaskell

I won’t list this every time since it will take me a while to complete, but I finally started a NKJV Chronological Study Bible put out by Thomas Nelson. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. At the time I got it, I couldn’t find an ESV version, thought there might be one out now. But the NKJV is an okay translation. The ESV Study Bible that I’ve used for years has sometimes copious footnotes. This one doesn’t, but it has inserts and sidebars with information about the times in which the passage was written. They haven’t been so helpful in the first several chapters of Genesis (I don’t really need to know about origin and flood stories from other cultures), but I am hoping they’ll be better as we go along.

After years of reading a paragraph or so at a time, then looking at the footnotes, then whatever other study aid I was using, it’s interesting reading three or so chapters at a time. You get different things reading as an overview or studying more in depth.

Blogging

Besides the weekly Friday Fave Fives, Saturday Laudable Linkage, and book reviews, I’ve posted these since last time:

• Devotional Principles and Practices. There is more than one way to “do devotions,” but there are some principles that help.
• How Bible Study Is Like Practicing Music. When learning a new song, you usually have to take a section at a time for further intensive work and then put it all back together. Bible study can be the same way.
• Biblical Self-Concept. Our concept of self needs to be informed by what the Bible says about us.
• Patience with Old Books. Writing styles were different in centuries past, but with a little patience, we can still benefit from them today.
• When God Doesn’t Meet My Need. God created us with certain inherent needs, so it’s confusing when He doesn’t seem to be meeting them. But sometimes He withholds one thing to better give us something else.

Writing

It’s been such a busy month, I have not done anything on this front beyond the blog. Our critique group took August off, but we’re starting back up in September.

Looking ahead

My step-father, two sisters, and a nephew from TX is coming for a few days, and then we’re driving down to SC to see two of my sisters there. We also celebrate Jesse’s birthday next month. The rest of the month should be pretty quiet, though.

How was your August? Are you looking forward to anything in September?

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)