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About Barbara Harper

https://barbarah.wordpress.com

Fall Into Reading

Katrina at Callapidder Days is hosting another Fall Into Reading challenge. She writes:

Because reading is a wonderful thing, and I like to do my part to share the love of reading with as many people as possible. But also because a challenge often gives me the motivation I need to read books I’ve been “meaning to read” or to finish books that I got half-way through and then abandoned. I use challenges as an opportunity to incorporate some variety into my reading (I tend to fall into reading ruts) and to try out new authors or new genres. My hope is that Fall Into Reading 2007 will give you the motivation and opportunity you need to reach your own reading goals.

Those reasons are exactly what I like about the challenge. If you’d like to participate, check the guidelines here. You’ll also find out there how to win an Amazon.com gift certificate! You can go here to link your post or find out what others are reading (I’ve started keeping a list of interesting things I see others reading).

My first two are non-fiction rolled over from my summer reading list:

Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman’s Story by Mark Ritchie, recommended by Jungle Mom.

In the Best Possible Light by Beneth Peters Jones, about Biblical femininity.

New books are:

Return to Me by Robin Lee Hatcher, about a prodigal daughter. I’ve seen this recommended by numbers of people and won a copy through Deena’s Pay It Forward Challenge at A Peek At My Bookshelf.

Simple Gifts by Lori Copeland.

The Parting, the first in a new series by Beverly Lewis, who is always good. Most, if not all of her stories are stem from her grandmother’s Amish heritage.

Just Beyond the Clouds by Karen Kingsbury, a sequel to A Thousand Tomorrows, continuing the story of Cody Gunner, dealing in this book with the care of his brother who has Down Syndrome.

Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon, a new novel about Father Tim of the Mitford series, due out in late October.

I also like to include at least one classic…I think this time it will be The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas pere. I was actually disappointed in his Three Musketeers and The Man In the Iron Mask, but I have heard good things about this one.

And, of course, there are my daily/weekly reads:

Queen of the Castle: 52 Weeks of Encouragement for the Uninspired, Domestically Challenged or Just Plain Tired Homemaker by Lynn Bowen Walker

Daily Light on the Daily Path compiled by the Samuel Bagster family

Wonderful Words by Stewart Custer

The Bible: Finishing Psalms, going on next to Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon.

I may add more, depending on how I do with these. But these will keep me busy for a while.

Book Review: True Light

I never used to read suspense novels, but once I was looking for Christian fiction my mom might read, and she liked suspense, so I looked in that category. It was then I first discovered Terri Blackstock through her Newpointe 911 series… and I was hooked. Not only were her stories suspenseful, but her characters were so real I felt I knew them, and the struggles they faced and the wrestlings they endured in their Christian lives were real as well.

I have to admit, though, that I wasn’t looking forward to the Restoration series, about a time when all the power in the world goes off all at once. And that had nothing to do with Terri — I knew the stories would be good. But it had to do with my knowing what an awful, miserable time I would have of it if such a thing really happened. I’m afraid I like my creature comforts all too well, and I knew I would encounter such attitudes by characters in the book. But because it was Terri, I bought the books.

I just finished True Light, the 3rd book in the series. The previous books dealt with the struggles with meeting basic needs through the main characters, the Branning family. This book primarily focuses on Mark Green, a friend of the family who has been distantly interested in their oldest daughter, Deni. Deni had been engaged to someone on the fast track to a career in Washington, DC, but through the changes she goes through and the difference in perspective she acquires as she matures, she breaks off the engagement in the last book. She and Mark are interested in each other, but cautious for various reasons.

Mark’s father and brothers were evil men, and many of the townspeople attribute to him the characteristics of his family, even though he has shown himself to be faithful, inventive, helpful and caring. When a young man is shot over a deer he just killed, every man who brought a deer home that morning is questioned. Mark happened to have been one of the men, and in many people’s minds that and his family associations convict him. The rest of the book deals primarily with his relationship with Deni, the prejudices against Mark, the greed of people, the strain on the police department with the increase in crime and lack of manpower, and Mark’s wrestlings with thoughts of revenge versus forgiveness toward the people who wrong him. There are some powerful sections as well as keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat sections. It gives one much to think about. I highly recommend this series!

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt: Paper

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Theme: Paper | Become a Photo Hunter | View Blogroll

I love pretty note cards and stationery. Even though most of my communication is electronic now, I still love sending and receiving notes on beautiful paper. I have to restrain myself from buying more because I have a backlog.

 

Note cards and stationery

 

I also love the gorgeous paper available for scrapbooking, note card making, and other paper crafts.

 

Scrapbooking paper

See what kinds of photos other people have come up with for the “paper” theme at tnchick’s site here.

(By the way, here’s a free tip for remembering that stationery is for writing paper and stationary is for an unmoving object: the one for paper has an e, and you can remember “e for envelope.” That’s the only way I could keep them straight for a long time.)

Maybe I need to color that gray…

At the grocery store check-out today, the cashier looked at the decorated big cookie for Jesse’s birthday party from the bakery and said, “Oh, is your grandson having a birthday?”

That would be my son, thank you very much. 😕

Show and Tell Friday: Autumn door decorations

show-and-tell.jpg Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home hosts “Show and Tell Friday” asking “Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there’s a story behind your special something, that’s even better! If you would like to join in, all you have to do is post your “Show and Tell” on your blog, copy the post link, come over here and add it to Mr. Linky. Guidelines are here.“

I’ve told you before that I love hearts….so when I saw this heart-shaped autumn wreath at Hobby Lobby I just couldn’t resist.

Autumn wreath

I usually look for something small and matching for our “back doors” (actually the doors by the driveway. As many come to those doors as to the front), and HL also had these.

Autumn door hangers

Those are all the fall decorations I have up so far — it has only started to feel like fall the last few days. I hope to put more out this weekend or the beginning of next week. This afternoon some friends of Jesse’s are coming over for a belated birthday sleep-over, and we’re all supposed to go tomorrow to one of those places with video games, laser tags, go-carts, etc. So I need to dash off to the store and do a few things to get ready.

Have a good week-end!

Senior portraits

A few days ago Dawn at 4:53 am, one of my must-reads, posted a challenge from new-to-me Donna at Quiet Life to publish our senior portraits.

I thought that would be fun, though, after getting these out to look at, I realized they’re not really my favorite photos. I think my smile looks kind of smarmy and I look kind of snobbish in them — though I hope I wasn’t really that way! Our Christian school was very small, and they sent us to a portrait studio for these pictures. I should have gone with some other people and made it a fun and relaxed time. As it was I felt uncomfortable and unsure of myself. These are the only two shots in which I was smiling.

These are from 1975:

Senior portrait

Senior portrait

Yes, Dawn, I do remember the drapes. Unfortunately they used these fluffy pink off-the-shoulder ones for us. It just looks…wrong. Another girl came back with photos of herself wearing a blue velvet drape — I think she and her mom told the photographer they didn’t like the pink fluff and asked if there were any other options. I wish I had known there were! But I’ve never worn anything off-the-shoulder and just didn’t like it at all.

I’d love to see your senior portrait! Let me know if you post one.

I may have messed up feed readers today…

If you view my blog through a feed reader, it may look like I have made a ton of posts today when I have only been editing.

WordPress has a limit to how many photos we can upload before we have to pay a fee, and I was at my limit. So I have been going back through several old posts to find uploaded pictures, found those on Picasa and uploaded them to Flickr, posted the html from Flickr back into my posts, and deleted the upload file from WP.

I’m not completely finished, but I have done about all I can stand to for today. I have created some more space here, though, and that was the goal. From now on I want to save the space here for clip art and such and keep photos at Flickr.

Works For Me Wednesday: Emergency Lighting

wfmwheader_4.jpg Our power doesn’t go out real often, but it does often enough that we keep some supplies handy to deal with it.

Our bathroom has no windows and no other light source without electricity. Recently when our power went out before I had taken my shower, I got out this little battery-operated lantern. We had originally gotten it for camping but for some reason it was still in the house rather than out in the shed with the other camping equipment.

Battery-operated lantern

My husband also had the little touch-operated light next to it and put it on the wall above the shower. Both helped greatly! And both would also be useful for children’s room or for going from room to room. You wouldn’t want to leave them on all evening and run the batteries down: candles or an oil lamp up where little ones can’t reach them would be better for general room lighting over a long period. But when you need lighting for a short time, or in a small space where it wouldn’t be safe to use candles, or around children, these are great.

The lantern can be found in stores with camping equipment (this one came from Wal-mart): the push-button light can be found with with light bulbs (I don’t know where this one was purchased, but I have found similar ones at Home Depot).

Another power outage lighting tip: I used to have a flashlight in many rooms in case the power went out, but then we often couldn’t remember where they were. I finally gathered all the flashlights and candles together in labeled storage boxes in one closet.

Candles and flashlights

To browse through scores of other workable tips, go to Rocks In My Dryer.

More rambling

After my rambling post below, I felt I should come back and say that I really did do more today than nap and play computer Scrabble. 🙂

I vacuumed four rooms and a hallway and stairs and dusted three rooms (usually the kids’ jobs on Saturdays, but we’ve had things going on the last couple of weekends), did laundry, washed some hand-washables, mended my husband’s pants, clipped and filed recipes I had marked in 6 or 7 magazines, dealt with a stack of clutter, made meatloaf and potatoes, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, clipped coupons, and sorted through a stack of newspapers for the recycling bin.

And I feel better for having gotten several things accomplished.

Funny thing, though: for all that, there’s still a list of things to do tomorrow…..

Ramblings

  • It’s finally beginning to feel like fall here. No leaves turning yet, but the temperature outside when I took Jesse to school this morning was 58. Hurray!
  • I decided I needed a nap this morning. At 9:40. I had been nodding off at the computer, then when I went to get some Tums for a touch of indigestion, I accidentally opened a packet of Lact-aid instead. I realized I had the wrong thing, then got the bottle of ibuprofen. Realized I had the wrong thing again and finally reached for the Tums. Then took a nap.
  • I came back to the computer, still feeling a little brain foggy. So I played a game of Scrabble against the computer to waste time for intellectual stimulation. The computer usually lets me win (maybe because I have my online opponent set as an amateur). I feel like I am cheating when I use the hint feature. But then I tell myself that it is a way to learn. I learned today, for instance, that an ai is a three-toed sloth and that peridia (which uses all seven letters! And earns bonus points for doing so! And flashes “BINGO” in fireworks across the top of the screen! And which my spell-checker doesn’t recognize.) is the plural of peridium, ” the covering of the spore-bearing organ in many fungi.” And I got my highest total score ever! So, see, I had a profitable morning after all.
  • Even though we are several weeks into the school year, I still don’t feel like I am in school year mode. I tend to stay up too late, partly because that comes naturally, and partly because after my youngest goes to bed I like to stay up a while and unwind. But as he gets older he stays up later. So I stay up later, but I am getting up earlier to get him off to school. And I don’t feel like I am really awake until late in the morning. Or after lunch. I probably should do something about that. Either go to bed earlier. Or continue taking morning naps.
  • I have been musing about memes. Not the occasional ones that go around — love most of those. But the regular weekly ones. There is one out there for every day of the week — there are 2 or 3 for some days. I enjoy them, but I don’t want my blog to be all or mostly memes. Even though you can get to know others through those, I kind of feel like my voice is lost when I am just doing memes. But it is nice to get the feedback…when I am just writing my own thoughts and no one responds, I feel all alone. 🙂 Each one has its own “crowd” that I enjoy visiting with on the given day. Some, like the Thursday Thirteen and Wordless Wednesday, have gotten way too big to visit a great deal of the participants. I do those if I have something to share but I don’t ponder and search for something for those like I used to. I like the Time Travel Tuesday and Friday’s Feast, but whether I participate depends on the questions for the day and whether I think I have an interesting answer ad how much time I have. I’m a avid reader and love the questions of Booking Through Thursday, but my tastes are different from most of the others there and it doesn’t seem as interactive as some of the others. I love the motivation of Tackle It Tuesday and the satisfaction of seeing a completed task. But though I am always tackling something I don’t always post to that — I don’t always have the time to visit around to the other participants, and these things are supposed to encourage some degree of that. Love Works for Me Wednesday and like to look through the list of tip topics even if I don’t have any for the day. The two that I make a point of doing each week when I can are the Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt — I just love the creativity and seeing what different people come up with for the theme — and Kelli’s Show and Tell Friday — I’ve enjoyed the ladies I’ve met there and really seem to mesh well with them. So — these weekly memes are fun in themselves and a way to get out there in the blogosphere and meet others and find other blogs you like — and yes, to maybe attract other readers to your blog — but, like everything else, they have to be balanced in the context of the time and responsibilities.
  • Speaking of time and responsibilities…I do need to employ the former to fulfill the latter. At some point this morning some items for a to-do list were floating around in my mind. Laundry was one. I’d better go have lunch and see what the others were and try to salvage the rest of this day. 🙂