Here in TN, May begins with spring and ends with summer. Even though summer doesn’t officially begin for a few weeks yet, we’ve had temperatures in the 90s, AC struggling to keep up, and sweat. And those temperatures will continue to climb, so for now I’ll appreciate that the mornings and evenings are still pleasant enough to sit outside for a while.

Family and events

We’ve had a couple of celebrations this month. Mother’s Day is fun as my family works together to make Sunday lunch. Then my youngest completed his Bachelor’s degree. When he got his associate’s degree a few years ago, he walked for commencement and we had a small party. He took classes online this time, didn’t want all the hoopla again, and didn’t want to drive to VA to walk. But once he had his actual degree in hand, we went out for a special dinner (more on that in tomorrow’s Friday Fave Fives.)

We also had a fun but all too short reunion with most of my extended family. One of my sisters in TX had to travel to SC for business, not too far from where two of my other sisters live. So she decided to rent a car and stay the weekend and visit them. We agreed to meet in Asheville, NC, for lunch one Saturday with all of mine except my oldest son. Then my stepfather, nephew, and youngest sister decided to fly over for a visit as well. It was such a fun time. Maybe next time we can get all six siblings together.

This May had some sad moments as well. Mother’s Day and my mother’s May birthday are tender moments since my mom’s passing 14 years ago. Though unexpected waves of grief don’t come quite as often as they did the first year, they still come. Mostly I have a few moments of quiet remembrance and appreciation on those days. This Mother’s Day, a lady I called my second mom or spiritual mom passed away. I knew she was declining, but I don’t think I realized her health was quite as poor as it was. She didn’t write much about her physical condition. So when I heard she was ailing, it came as quite a surprise to me. I had been thinking of writing her for the previous few of weeks, but kept putting it off since I always send a letter with her Mother’s Day card. But it was too late by then. I’m reminded again not to set those inclinations aside. And I am happy for good memories.

Making

The only card I made this month was for my daughter-in-law for Mother’s Day from a Cricut design:

Watching

My main other out-of-the-ordinary activity this month has been catching up on a few Marvel comics movies in order to see Avengers: Endgame. My youngest son watched Avengers: Infinity War and Spiderman: Homecoming with me at home, then we saw Captain Marvel and Endgame in theaters. So good, if you’re into that kind of thing! My only complaint was a bit more bad language than I remember the earlier movies having. Grr! This was also my first experience with our newly revamped theater, with recliners, menus, and waiters!

Most of what we watch on TV is off for the summer, but we usually enjoy America’s Got Talent, which began this week (although even with that you have to have the remote handy occasionally).

Writing

I finally got back into the book I am writing. I had mentioned before that I had completed the first draft, but needed to go back and do some heavy editing. The first chapter was going to be the biggest challenge, as I needed to reshape a lot there and wasn’t quite sure the best way to go about it. But I had a couple of good sessions with it this week, and I think (hope) I am over the hurdle of the worst part (of that chapter, at least). Editing seems harder for me than just typing whatever’s in my head or notes, but it’s rewarding to see it come together better.

Reading

As always, reading is a big part of every month. I’ve completed:

A Room of My Own by Ann Tatlock. A young girl’s coming of age during the Depression. Very good.

Travelers Rest, also by Ann Tatlock. A young man is paralyzed while in the military and wants to end his engagement, but his fiance still loves him. This didn’t end the way I thought it would, but it was quite good.

All the Way Home, again by Ann Tatlock. Are you seeing something of a pattern here? 🙂 I had enjoyed her I’ll Watch the Moon so much last month that I started reading all her books that I had collected through Kindle sales. This one involves two girls in the 1930s, one from a dysfunctional Irish family and one from a Japanese-American family, who become fast friends until the Japanese are sent to internment camps during WW2. Excellent.

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, the comic misadventures of members of a gentlemen’s club. While this is not my favorite of his books, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

I just finished How to Understand and Apply the New Testament by Andrew David Naselli, so I’ll have a review up next week. I’m currently reading:

• Close to Home by Deborah Raney
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• The Returning by Ann Tatlock
• Loving People: How to Love and Be Loved by John Townsend

Blogging

Around the blog, I share five favorite parts of each week on the Friday’s Fave Fives, and I share interesting links via Laudable Linkage on a few Saturdays a month – just however often I gather enough for a list. Elsewhere on the blog this month, I’ve shared thoughts on:

• Trusting or Grasping. Even as I am ostensibly trusting God to meet my needs, sometimes I feel compelled to manipulate events to “help” Him out.
• The Joys and Pains of Mother’s Day. I enjoy the holiday, but for some it is painful.
• Recapture Your Wonder. Sometimes we can get into a rut with our Bible reading and prayer time and take God for granted. These thought help me get back to that awe that we should have towards God. This was one of my favorite posts to write, and I’m sure I’ll need to reread it many times in the future.
• When the Lines Aren’t Clear. God is very specific about some things, but not others. How we handle those others reveals our heart.

A question for you

I started doing these monthly recaps because I enjoy reading others’ recaps and because Shannan and Linda invite us to link end-of-month posts and because I missed the What’s On Your Nightstand link-ups 5 Minutes for Books used to host. I really enjoy doing them, but I wonder how beneficial they are to you. Would you mind letting me know if you enjoy reading them or if you think they are too redundant? I’m not just fishing for comments – I’d really like to know if you like reading these or if you pass them by.

I hope you’ve had a good May. On to June!

(Sharing with Literary Musing Monday)

I’ve always loved this poem this time of year, because it’s so true and so cleverly stated:

Spring

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

—Robert Frost

Spring seems to have relaxed its back-and-forth entry and gotten settled in, hopefully for a long stay. We’ve had a couple of days in the 80s, but for the most part the temperatures are at their most pleasant this time of year.

It’s odd how days seem harder to schedule when they are open-ended than when you have to work around a number of obstacles. I think maybe because unscheduled days have so many possibilities, it’s hard to narrow down the choices. Or maybe there’s not that sense of urgency that I have to get this done in this small window of time, so I tend to meander rather than dig in.

I have gotten lots of extra household tasks done this month, with cleaning out and rearranging kitchen cabinets and the pantry. Just this afternoon I found some better spaces for certain items. That kind of thing does make one feel good and accomplished!

But I still haven’t gotten back into my writing like I want to. I think it’s mostly because I am at the stage of needing concentrated time rewriting and shaping each chapter. It’s a lot easier to just write off the top of one’s head than to wrangle it into some coherent order. I think perhaps I need to dedicate a day of the week or a week of the month to writing. When I used to compile a ladies’ newsletter booklet for our former church, that was the main focus one week of the month. Up until a few months ago, I couldn’t really schedule my time very well because I never knew what would come up on any given day, with hospice people coming in and out and my husband working at the kitchen table. But now perhaps I can set aside some focused time for working on this book. I’m excited about it – I just need to get to it!

The exercise front has gone well, though, since we bought a used exercise bike. I try to use any day I don’t have to be somewhere, which usually amounts to 3-5 times a week. I’ve increased my time plus the resistance just a bit.

Our biggest events this month all happened within a week of each other: my oldest son came for a week’s visit, my grandson turned five, and we celebrated Easter. My husband took that week off and Jason took a couple of afternoons off. We enjoyed the visiting, feasting, games, outings, and chatting. The only card I made this month was for Timothy’s birthday:

The ringmaster was from a Cricut design; everything else was freehand. That was the theme for this birthday:

On the reading front, I’ve completed the following:

The Fashion Designer, a novel by Nancy Moser. An English housemaid, Annie, left to her position in the early 1900s to pursue her own American dream of working in the fashion industry, eventually establishing her own company with friends. But Annie’s not the only one undergoing significant changes. An enjoyable read, and I loved the author’s notes in the back about the era and industry.

How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn (audiobook). This is a beautifully written classic about a boy’s coming-of-age in a Welsh mining village in the 1800s, but I wish I had know about a couple of unexpected objectionable elements beforehand.

I’ll Watch the Moon by Ann Tatlock will probably be one of my top ten books read this year. Told through the eyes of 9-year-old Nova in 1948, various members of a boardinghouse learn that everyone has a story, and God is trustworthy even in circumstances that make no sense.

Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior about how books formed her. As an English professor, Karen shares lots of insights that made me understand more fully the books she mentioned that I’ve already read and made me want to read others I hadn’t thought I’d be interested in. Lots of food for thought here.

A Room of My Own by Ann Tatlock. I just finished this last night and hope to review it soon. I had enjoyed I’ll Watch the Moon so much, I decided to look up Ann’s other books I had collected through Kindle deals.

This is less than I usually read in a month, but Booked was not one to rush through, and How Green Was My Valley was long. Plus I didn’t read a whole lot during the week everyone was here, and I listened to a couple of Christian Publishing Show podcasts during my usual time for audiobook listening.

I’m currently reading:

• How to Understand and Apply the New Testament by Andrew David Naselli, excellent so far.
• The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (audiobook)
• Close to Home by Deborah Raney

Around the blog this month:

• Giving of Ourselves in Ministry to Others. Sometimes setting up a program is the right response to minister to others. But sometimes we can just go through the motions of a program. True ministry involves giving of oneself.
• The Forgotten Element in Bible Reading, taking time to think through what we’ve read rather than just making our way through a certain amount of material.
• My Writing Journey.
• Giving Out of Our Poverty. Thoughts from those Macedonians in Acts who wanted to give to help others even though they themselves were in poverty. They encouraged me when needing to give, not financially, but of myself when I felt I didn’t have anything to give. God meets those needs with His grace.
• Strong Women in literature and the Bible.
• The Essence of Prayer: not just going through a form or ritual, but communication with our Dearest.

Although I didn’t plan it this way, a lot of my posts this month seemed to deal with not just going through outward forms in our quiet times or service to others. It’s so easy to slip into automatic pilot. Then in my quiet time reading just this morning, one of the ESV Study Bible comments on Hebrews 10:5-7 said, “God desired faithful hearts and lives more than mere performance of sacrificial rituals.” Amen. May we always be genuine and faithful.

(Sharing with Shannan)

March is a month of contrasts. The worst of winter and best of spring. Daffodils pushing through brown grass. Rain and sunshine.

Our days have contrasted as well — a couple of very busy weeks followed by laid-back ones.

Writing

I started off the very first March weekend with my second writer’s conference. Though I enjoyed and learned from the first one, I gleaned so much more from this one. The keynote speaker, Karissa Culbreath, had some excellent sessions. I benefited from great workshops and meetings and an immensely helpful and encouraging critique of my partial manuscript submission. And! I won a prize in a devotional writing contest and an opportunity for a chapter of mine to be included in an anthology. Exciting! And encouraging that there has been improvement in the last year.

I am sorry to say I have not accomplished much on the writing front since then. Distracted by other things, I guess. I did incorporate the suggestions made by the person who critiqued my manuscript at the writer’s conference, and I keep a running list of notes about things to add or adjust. I think the difficulty is that now I need to go back and shape up each chapter, and the first one needs the most work. In some ways that’s harder than just getting my thoughts out in the first place. But I will get back to it as soon as possible!

Family

The very next week after the conference, we celebrated my dear husband’s birthday and I had a follow-up appointment six months from my physical (with good results, thankfully). This is the only card I hand-made this month.

We also celebrated with my middle son his one billionth second of life. 🙂

My favorite Timothyism of the month: Evidently when we get up from a sitting position, we often remark that we “must be getting old.” So one evening as I got up from the dining chair and groaned a little, my four-year-old grandson said, “Are you old now?” Getting there! Much too quickly!

Around the house

After the scheduled events settled down, the activity around the house picked up. The weekend I was away, Jim took up the carpet that was in our bathroom and replaced it with new flooring.

Much improved! Now the search is on for wall paint and bath mats. The first sample paint we tried was too blue and we’ve yet to try another one. I found some pink and grey striped bath mats, but they looked a little too busy – plus they had all kinds of strings hanging from them after washing them. I think I need mostly solid-colored ones.

Jim’s also been busy transforming the room his mom lived in for the last five years back into his office. We’d had some of her equipment (Hoyer lift, Broda chair) on sale on Facebook and Craig’s list, hoping to recoup some expenses plus get them to someone who needed them. But we didn’t have any takers. Jim has a colleague who was helping some friends, a husband taking care of his wife, and Jim offered to give the equipment to them. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing it was a help to someone.

He took some things off walls, patched and painted holes and dents, and rearranged a few things. He has a way to hook up his computer to her TV, so he has an extra screen. He mounted the TV on the wall to give his desk (an old table) more surface space. My son and daughter-in-law had a photo blown up and printed on wood that my oldest son had taken of the Snake River Canyon when we were in Idaho and given it to Jim on his birthday. They had Romans 8:18 printed in the corner, a verse that was special to us when Jim’s mom passed away. He was able to get that up on his office wall.

I couldn’t get a picture without the shadow of my arms in it – it looks much better in person!

The room is starting to look a lot more like his own space now. I’m so happy for him to have it. Not just because I don’t have to listen to one-sided business conversations any more. 🙂 But he really didn’t have his own spot to work, spread things out and leave them, etc., and now he does.

I don’t usually go on a cleaning frenzy just because of a date on the calendar. But recently I’ve noticed that our kitchen cabinets were in sad shape: dusty inside and out. Plus I needed to create some space for our small blenders (one an immersion blender and the other a “Magic Bullet” type, though not that brand). We had used them several times a day to puree Jim’s mom’s food, and washed them by hand and left them in the dish drainer for the next time. Since we’re not using them so often any more, I needed to find a spot inside for them. I followed my friend Dianna‘s example and just did a section at a time. I started with the easy ones – the cabinets that were already organized but just needed everything taken out and the shelves dusted. Now they’re all done except the biggest two that are going to need the most work. Though my goal was cleaning and rearranging, I have found a few things to get rid of.

Exercise

I’ve been struggling (again) with exercise. I benefit from the gym but hate the traveling time and the time involved changing into special clothes and back – as well as the time it takes just to exercise. But I can tell such a difference in my stamina when I am exercising regularly. So the past week or two I’ve been using some walking DVDs I have at home. Jim has been looking for a used exercise bike – the thing I use most at the gym – and just found one over the weekend. I’ve already put it to use and plan to keep at it!.

Reading

I’ve enjoyed a lot of good reading this month! I’ve finished the following and have linked back to my reviews:

Laura Ingall’s Wilder’s Fairy Poems, compiled by Stephen Hines

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Songbook compiled and edited by Eugenia Garson. Music and a little background of the songs mentioned in the Little House books.

Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis by Patti Callahan, a fiction based-on-fact account of C. S. Lewis’s wife.

Steal Away Home: Charles Spurgeon and Thomas Johnson, Unlikely Friends on the Passage to Freedom by Matt Carter and Aaron Ivey, another fictional book based on the true friendship of C. H. Spurgeon and a freed slave, Thomas Johnson.

Saving Amelie by Cathy Gohlke, a novel about the daughter of an American genetic scientist who hides and saves the deaf daughter of a friend. Excellent! My first book by Gohlke, but not my last.

Love Is Not a Special Way of Feeling, a reprint of Charles G. Finney’s Attributes of Love by another name. Difficult to read, and I disagreed with several points, but did glean a few helpful thoughts.

She Makes It Look Easy by Marybeth Whalen, about a “perfect” friend who is not really so perfect after all.

The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright, a novel about a family’s discovery, after their parents’ deaths, that the father had written a letter to his wife ever Wednesday of their 39 years together.

I’ve just finished but have not yet reviewed The Fashion Designer by Nancy Moser and How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn.

I’m currently reading Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior, How to Understand and Apply the New Testament by Andrew Naselli, The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, and I’ll Watch the Moon by Ann Tatlock.

Around the blog

Besides the book reviews and weekly Friday’s Fave Fives, I’ve shared:

• My Second Writer’s Conference
• Thoughts From a Sleepless Night
• Keep Pressing On
• The Humility of Wisdom

And that wraps up another month!

(Shannan invites us to share our end-of-month round-up posts, what we’re into, what’s keeping us sane. Also sharing with Literary Musing Monday, Woman to Woman Word-filled Wednesday, Quick Lit)

January used to be a gloomy month for me. The landscape seemed all the more bleak and colorless after the Christmas lights and decorations had been taken down. The first warm spring breezes and colorful blooms seemed eons away. Coldness sank into my bones.

But more recently, I’ve enjoyed January as a time of rest after all the Christmas busyness and a transition to the new year. We don’t usually have any major events in January, so it’s a time to catch our breath, look ahead, plan, sort through things, enjoy hearty oven meals and soups, curl up with a good book, throw blanket, and coffee.

One adjustment this particular January involved my husband’s recent diagnosis of diabetes a couple of weeks before Christmas – not the best time (if there is a “best” time for that). It seemed to take 2-3 weeks on new medication for his blood sugar to settle into a mostly stable range. He’s lowering his carbs, and I need to look into lower-carb options for dinner. We’ve enjoyed frozen cauliflower rice for stir-fries and soups, but I haven’t attempted it as a side dish.

This January will always be marked by my mother-in-law’s home-going to heaven. We just got back late last night from her funeral in Idaho. More extended family came than we had thought would be able to, so it was almost like a family reunion. One niece remarked that the only think wrong was that Grandma wasn’t there to enjoy it. Family gatherings were the highlight of her life. She might be too caught up with eternal glories now to be concerned about what’s happening on earth. But I know that, if she was looking down and watching, she was rejoicing to see so many of us together. We had a wonderful time reconnecting with some we had not seen in decades, catching up with everyone, and sharing memories of Grandma. The eulogy and message at the funeral shared how Jesus made such a difference in Grandma’s life, which then rippled out into the lives of her family and friends. I want to share a post dedicated to my mother-in-law and her life one day next week.

It was a joy as well to see some of Jim’s mom’s long-time church friends and neighbors. I’ve communicated with a few of them about her progress over the last few years, since she could no longer write. One I had never met in person before until the funeral, so that was a highlight for me.

One morning before other family members arrived, we drove around the area to show our own family some of the sights. Mittu had never been to Idaho, and our boys had not been there is ages. We saw Jim’s old house, some of the places he worked and went to school, a park where we used to take the boys while visiting the grandparents, and some of the area’s claims to fame, like the Snake River Canyon and Shoshone Falls (though there wasn’t much water falling at the time we went)

We all remarked on the difference in the landscapes here and there. Even though I mentioned January being colorless, we still have some evergreens. In SC and TN, we have a lot of trees and hills. In southern Idaho, it’s mostly flat except for mountains in the distance. Even though I prefer our hills, green in summer and multi-colored in autumn, there was something nice about so much visible sky in ID. Would’ve been a great place for my husband to have brought his telescopes at night, if we could have packed them!

This was Timothy’s first flight, and he did wonderfully with the travel, the different schedule, and meeting all the new-to-him family.

In fact, on the way home from the airport, he said he wanted to take another trip – back to Idaho. 🙂 We had to explain that all the same people wouldn’t be there.

I can’t have a monthly round-up without mentioning books. 🙂 The ones I finished and reviewed this month are:

Baby, It’s Cold Outside by Susan May Warren. Wonderful story about five people with various issues trapped in the same house by a blizzard.

Among the Fair Magnolias by Dorothy Love, Tamera Alexander, Elizabeth Musser, and Shelley Gray, four Civil-War era stories.

Annabel Lee by Mike Nappa, fast-paced story about a girl hidden away in a bunker while both good guys and bad guys try to find her. Loved this!

Christians Publishing 101 by Ann Byle. A writer’s conference in book form.

Homebody: A Guide to Creating Spaces You Never Want to Leave by Joanna Gaines

The Christmas Heirloom by Karen Witemeyer, Kristi Ann Hunter, Sarah Loudin Thomas, and Becky Wade, four novellas connected by an heirloom brooch passed down each generation.

I’ve finished, but haven’t had a chance to review yet:

Murder in an English Village by Jessica Ellicott
Read the Bible for Life by George Guthrie
If I Run and If I’m Found by Terri Blackstock

I’m almost done with Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy, and I’m currently making my way through Katie’s Secret by Leisha Kelly, Journaling for the Soul by Deborah Haddix, and I’d Rather By Reading by Anne Bogel.

On the blog this month, besides book reviews, Friday’s Fave Fives, and Laudable Linkage:

A Sense of Him

Heaven Is Not a Lesser Answer

Great-grandma Is Home

Looking ahead…well, today is going to involve unpacking, laundry, and hopefully a nap. 🙂 We’ll probably continue to sort through my mother-in-law’s things. When my husband goes back to work, I plan to dig back into the book I am working on. I have missed it!

And don’t forget the Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge coming in February.

And that’s our January. How was yours?

(Shannan invites us to share our end-of-month round-up posts, what we’re into, what’s keeping us sane. Her link-up for January will be up Feb. 1)

(Photo courtesy of Sweetly Scrapped Free Printables)

January is normally a doldrums month for me. All the light and glitter and celebratory spirit of Christmas has been put away, it’s dark and cold, the landscape is almost barren, nothing exciting is going on, and it will be months yet before spring. But this year it hasn’t been so bad. There were a few overcast, very cold days when I only wanted to hibernate, but overall I think keeping busy has kept me distracted. Maybe I’ve been taking my own advice for the winter blues. 🙂

We’ve had two family outings this month, whereas we normally might have only a handful a year, so that might be one thing that livened up January. One Saturday we went to the Ripley’s Mirror Maze in Gatlinburg and then a favorite Mexican food restaurant. Last Saturday we went to the Chocolatefest in Knoxville – or, as Timothy put it, the “chocolate party.” 🙂 The  event itself was a disappointment, though. I had envisioned a large room with rows and rows of chocolate-themed items. There were a few tables of chocolate items, but the others were mainly jewelry and clothes with assorted other odds and ends. There was one section you could only go into if you bought a “tasting ticket” for $20, and that’s evidently where most of the chocolate was. If you went there you got a box or bag you could fill up with goodies. But I don’t know if we could have collected enough to have made it worth $20 times four people. We didn’t think until afterwards that we could have had one of us go there and then we all could have shared the loot. 🙂 But I did bring home a few chocolate purchases, and Timothy enjoyed some “monster blue” ice cream (and showing me his blue tongue and teeth) and got to do a little activity at a kid’s table, and we enjoyed looking at the cake-decorating entries. And we went to one of his favorite restaurants afterward, so we had fun together even if the event itself wasn’t the best.

Jim and I have also done a bit of furniture-shopping. The padding on our couch and loveseat arms has gotten so thin we can feel the wood underneath when we lean against them, and the fabric is worn, with a few holes starting to show. We spent one Saturday looking at a few places and found one set that might work. There’s at least one more place I’d like to go. We found one place that had the Magnolia Home furniture. I loved the style, but they didn’t seem to have a combination that fit what we needed. It also might have been more expensive, but I don’t think I looked at prices much since I didn’t see anything I thought would work. We’d like to find a sofa, loveseat, recliner combination, or at least a sofa and loveseat, and then we can buy a recliner individually. We saw a lot of sets with, instead of a recliner, a huge oversized chair and footstool. I don’t think we’d have the space for it, and besides, some of the family like the reclining function.

Speaking of furniture shopping – furniture showrooms are my least favorite places to shop in. We almost never buy anything on our first look-through: we’re just seeing what’s out there, checking prices, testing out how they feel, etc., then we go home and think about it or go other places and look some more. I’m generally slow to make up my mind anyway, but I want big purchases to last for years and not have to go through this whole process again any time soon. As soon as you walk through a showroom, a salesperson greets you, which is fine, but they don’t seem to want to leave you alone even though you tell them you’re “just looking.” It’s good if you can find one easily when you have a question, but they can’t help you decide what you like and don’t like. It just takes time and looking around to decide that, and their constant questions and suggestions just make me want to leave, which is, I would think, not their goal. I’ve enjoyed more some little out-of-the way furniture places over the years, but the ones we went to when we first moved here have gone out of business.

During a lot of the year, Jim has grass to mow or projects to work on Saturdays, so it has been fun to do some other things together. Altogether I think I have begun to appreciate January as a restful spot between other busy times.

On the creative front, not much has been going on except that I have been sorting through, cleaning out, and shaping up my craft files. Seeing what I have there has been stirring my creative juices. I have not sewn clothes in a very long time – just curtains and pillows and such – but I saw a dress the style of which I loved in a catalog a few days ago. But the dress itself was around $135 – which is about 3-4 times more than I usually pay for dresses. I’ve been looking around to see if I can find a pattern similar to it. If I can find something I can adapt, I just may be spending some time with the sewing machine soon.

Around the house, besides the usual tasks and the files mentioned above, I spent some time rearranging my books shelves, making a place for new books I want to keep, pulling a few books out to give away. I love looking at the neat and tidy (is that redundant?) results. There are a couple of boxes of books in two different closets I want to go through next, and then our other filing cabinets. I’ve been in a sorting and organizing mood lately, and I usually don’t have time (or inclination) to tackle a whole room at once, but these smaller spaces catch my eye and call to me occasionally.

January was also a good month for reading, as I shared yesterday. Last year for the Back to the Classics challenge, I thought it would be good to get my biggest book (Middlemarch) out of the way first. But I felt like I was stuck on the one book for a very long time. This year I started off with some of the shorter classics, and I think I like that approach better. It feels like I’ve made good progress on my reading goals already. Trust: A Godly Woman’s Adornment by Lydia Brownback has been both a challenge and and encouragement. I’m about finished with Isaiah in my current trek through the Bible, and Trust has been been gently hitting some of the same lessons, that anything we’re trusting in other than God will fail us, and that He is the only perfectly reliable and trustworthy One. Not reliable in the sense that He’ll always do what we think best, but He will always do what He knows best, even if it means letting our false props fail us in order to draw our attention back to Himself.

The other thing we’ve been into the last moth – don’t laugh – is HQ Trivia. My oldest son told us about it when he was here for Christmas and now we all play. It’s an app for your phone where there is a live quiz at 3 p.m. Eastern time on weekdays and every evening at 9 p.m. There are 12 trivia questions (occasionally 15) that start off ridiculously easy and then get much harder. There is a cash prize of $2,500 (sometimes more!), and the people who win that quiz split the money. So far the highest I have gone is 7 questions: Jim got all the way to the end before missing the last question last night. It’s been fun to do together, and if Jason and Mittu are here at 9, we all play together. And, you can get extra lives by referring people, so, though I am NOT mentioning this just to get extra lives – if you decide you want to try it out and wouldn’t mind putting barbarah06 in as a referral code, I would be very appreciative. 🙂

Around the blog, besides several book reviews and the weekly Friday’s Fave Five and occasional sharing of Laudable Linkage:

• When everything fails. “It’s not that God orchestrates problems in our lives to create a need for Him: rather, He strips everything away to reveal a need that was already there that we couldn’t see or hadn’t paid attention to. Sometimes He has to show us that nothing else is sufficient to meet that need before we’ll turn to Him.”
• What do you know? “It’s true that knowledge can “puff up” with pride, but rather than avoiding gaining knowledge, we need to remind ourselves that “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:2), and we need to remind ourselves that the purpose of gaining knowledge is to better know the Lord and serve Him and others.”
• Winter.
• God’s Back. “If this is the back of God – merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love, forgiving sin – what must the front be?“

And I think that about wraps up January. In February, we look forward to Valentine’s Day (which we make kind of a big deal of as a family), my daughter-in-law’s birthday, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge! And maybe some new furniture! And one month closer to spring!

(Sharing with What I’m Into at Leigh Kramer)

November is a transition month. We’re moving from a relatively quiet time on the schedule to the busier holiday season and from fall to winter, though technically winter doesn’t officially start for a few weeks yet. It’s been nice to have some quiet times and breathing space.

Though our fall color came late and didn’t last very long this year, there are still vestiges of it left. I like not only the fall leaves still on the trees, but the bunches of them on the ground. I have trouble with the colorlessness of winter, so I treasure up whatever I can find of fall color until the first signs of spring.

What I’ve been into this month:

• Activities: a lot of sorting and pulling things out to give away. Always a good thing.
• Health: still holding steady with afib issues – a few flutters here and there, sometimes an episode seeming to start, but then going away (Yay!) My second follow-up visit with the cardiologist was scheduled for earlier this month, but I had to reschedule it, and they didn’t have any new openings until January! Since I have been doing ok, I think that will be fine, and I’m sure if I have any trouble crop up, I can call them and probably get worked in.
• Reading: I just posted the books I’ve read the last month here.
• Baby-sitting time with Timothy, a little more than usual this month. One of those times we did a little fall sugar cookie baking. he liked putting on the sprinkles. 🙂

• Thanksgiving! Always a lovely day with the family an lots of great food.
• Thanksgiving leftovers! Besides the turkey sandwiches and plates of reheated Thanksgiving fare, one thing we always look forward to is Turkey Bone Soup. Such good stuff.
• Christmas decorating! I’ll say more about that in tomorrow’s Friday’s Fave Five. Timothy was into it last year, but at 3 1/2 this year, he’s even more so. Such fun!
• Christmas shopping! Mostly online! Though I have a bit to look for in town.
• Church searching: still visiting. We wish we could combine the best of the two we like most into one. 🙂
• Music: a variety of things, but primarily Beyond All Praising by the BJU Singers and Orchestra. I also discovered a new-to-me group, Voces8. When someone linked to this song on Facebook, that sent me looking through YouTube for more of their music.
• On the creative front: Not much this month – the sorting and giving away took precedence over the one project I had hoped to get to. Oh – I did do some painting with Timothy. 🙂 And I did make this card for my friend Melanie‘s birthday.

New discoveries:

• Single-serving dessert mixes. Nice for portion control when you want something fresh-made and sweet:

• Decaf flavored teas. I haven’t tried them yet – I’ve never liked hot teas whenever I’ve tried them, but I’ve been wanting some variety in hot beverages with cold weather, and these are the required decaf. So maybe this time will be the charm.
• A new Mexican food restaurant.
• Little Free Libraries. I’ve seen other people mention them, but this post led me to a map to look for local ones. There are two not all that far from me. I’d love to start one!

Things I wonder:

• Why catalog companies think that they if they send me multiple catalogs a week, especially this time of year, I’ll buy more. I’ll look at one for a new season, but after that I just throw them away until the next season. I wonder how much this waste adds to the cost of the merchandise.
• I’ve had a couple of experiences with looking at things for purchase online, once putting an item in a cart and then deciding against it and removing it, and then getting an email from the online company about it. One said something like “We noticed you looking at this item. It’s still available!” When I contacted them and said I do not want these types of emails, I was told it was “all or nothing,” and to avoid receiving them, they’d had to remove me from their email list completely. The one where I removed something from a cart said something like, “We know what it’s like to be pulled away from the computer in the middle of something, so we kept this item in the cart for you!” My husband received one that said, “Caught you looking!” Who thought this was a good idea?! It’s really creepy. I know it’s probably computer-generated, and they have cookies to track what you look at anyway, but this is a step too far!
• Why, when you mention you’ve been cleaning, does someone always say something like, “When you get done, come over to my house! I need that done, too!”

On the blog:

Besides the weekly highlights at Friday’s Fave Five, book reviews, and some Laudable Linkages, I’ve posted:

• The Strength of My Faith
• Everyday Gifts. The daily manna was as much a gift and a miracle as the parting of the sea. Encouragement not to miss the daily blessings while watching for the “big” ones.
• Watching Angels. 
• Keeping Minimalism in Balance. Even good traits need balance.
• News about The Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge 2018 and a list of books by and about her besides the Little House series.

As we turn the calendars from November to December tomorrow, the focus will turn more fully to Christmas preparations – Christmas cards and newsletters, finishing shopping and starting wrapping, activities and events. In the midst of this fun but busy season, may we all have make some moments of quiet reflection on Whose birth we celebrate and why. May His love flow into us and then through us to others.

(Sharing with What I’m Into at Leigh Kramer)

I’ve enjoyed reading end-of-the-month posts from a few blog friends for some time now. I’ve thought about joining in, but I already share the highlights of each week in the Friday’s Fave Fives, so I thought perhaps a monthly recap might be redundant. And then the last couple of months as I have considered it, I wasn’t able to do it before the actual end of the month, so I put it off. That’s the case again this month, but I thought I’d go ahead and give it a whirl and see what happens.

I love October. Usually in October we have the peak of fall color. Even though it hasn’t been as vibrant this time as in previous years, I’m still soaking it up when I see it to store up against the grey, barren landscape of winter to come. The cool crisp air is also a relief from the intense heat of summer, and though we’ve had some actual cold days, they’re not as bad as they will be later on.

Family happenings:

Besides enjoying the in-between state of the weather, I also bask in a more relaxed pace in the family schedule. October is a nice breathing space between summer happenings,  like our “birthday season,” with several of us having birthdays in a row from July through mid-September, and the holiday preparations coming up. Besides our usual get-togethers, we had our annual pumpkin decorating (“punkin time,” as Timothy called it) and attended our first (and probably last) “Boo in the Zoo.”

Speaking of upcoming holidays, I know of people who shop all year and are pretty much done by now. I could only do that with one or two people. I knew my mom’s tastes, and would gather up things for her whenever I saw them. But we’re kind of a techy family, and who knows what new stuff will crop up before the Christmas season? 🙂 We do “wish lists” in our family, and we try to have everyone’s before Thanksgiving so as to take advantage of the sales that week, mostly online. The last couple of years we’ve had the greatest bulk of the Christmas shopping done that week, which made the rest of the season so much more enjoyable. My only real advance preparation is that I try to buy Christmas cards early on. Some years back I stopped buying Christmas cards at the local Christian bookstore when I got to the cash register, and the total was over $60. I decided that was ridiculous, returned them, and looked at W-Mart. They have an “inspirational” section, and as long as I look there before things get too picked over, I can find a good selection. I’ve been making cards for the immediate family the last few years, but that would be just too much to do for the number of cards I send out. Now, if I just got the Christmas letter ready and got them addressed and stamped soon after, I’d be in good shape. 🙂

In sad news, my mother’s oldest brother passed away a few days ago. He had Alzheimer’s and other health issues for years – in fact, during the recent flooding in TX, they couldn’t move him, and just dealt with squishy floors until it was all over. I had not had much contact with him over the years, so it wasn’t quite the emotional impact as when my aunt, my mom’s only sister, passed away a few months ago. But it’s still sad, especially now that I have only one uncle left of all my parents’ siblings.

Back to October…

On the creative front:

I made one birthday card for a lady that I have called my adopted spiritual mom since my college days:

I’ve also been gathering together materials for a pillow I want to make – I actually wanted to have it done during October, but that didn’t work out. There’s still time in November, but it’s just for fun with no deadlines, so I am not stressing over it.

Health issues:

October was a dramatic (and welcome!) contrast from September in that regard. Whether it was getting off one medication, or just reaching the point of healing from the surgery in August, or a direct answer to prayer, I went from having 2-12 hour episodes of afib several times a month to having them just seconds at a time a few times a day. I’d like for even those to go away, too, and they may, but if this is as good as it gets, it’s so much better. Thank you for praying for me!

Changes:

I mentioned earlier that my husband was asked to go to a different position in his job. He had been doing some work on this front but was asked to take it on full time. It’s interesting that two different people took on the responsibilities he used to have. 🙂 So far it has been a positive move for him. He said one advantage is that he’s usually done with work by the time he leaves the office, which was not the case before. He was even recognized by a member of upper management for something accomplished in his first week in the new job!

I also mentioned we decided for several reasons to look for a new church home. That has been interesting but frustrating. It’s amazing that churches that have the same basic core beliefs can vary so much in other areas. A couple have been really good except for one area (different areas in each case). But we’re seeking and trusting God to lead us to where He wants us to be.

Timothy:

For those who might be new here, Timothy is my only grandchild and three years old. As his mom says, “his brain is exploding.” He’s learning so much so quickly, it’s mind-boggling! A couple of Timothy “funnies”: he likes to go into the walk-in pantry sometimes just to look around, or, more often, to play with my “reacher” (it’s been anything from a weed-eater to a vacuum cleaner). Recently he went in and spied some animal crackers within reach and came out with them, only to come face to face with his dad. I don’t know if he had the concept in mind that it was almost dinner time and therefore not snack time, but something in his dad’s expression must have made him think he might not approve. He said in a very sweet voice, “So yummy!” Then, he’s discovered how to activate Siri on his parents’ iPhones and loves that it responds to him. Siri can’t understand everything he says, so its responses (and Timothy’s) are just hilarious sometimes. One was something like, “Would you like for me to look up edfntiotnnginahtinf on the Web?”

Around the blog:

Besides the weekly Friday’s Fave Fives, some book reviews, occasional “stray thoughts,” and sharing links of interest, I’ve posted

• What I’ve read this month, am reading now, and plan to read next.
• Living and Praying in the Light of God’s Name.
• Keeping Balanced in an Unbalanced World.
• Reading the Bible Literally.
• A Stirred-up Woman.
• When God Asks the Impossible.

So, that was October! Overall a very pleasant month. I may experiment in the future with how to format this. I like how Lisa and Linda do it, especially Lisa’s video of a second a day, but some of what they include I post in other places. Monica uses a word-prompt format, which has its advantages. But I like pausing before turning the calendar page to think over the last month and mark what has gone on. It make the passing of time slow down for a moment or two.

(Sharing with What I’m Into with Leigh Kramer)