An Open Book: October 2021

September marked the thirteenth anniversary of my mom's death. It was purely by chance that two of the books I read this month featured main characters who lost their mothers and the grief and feelings that followed.

★★★★☆

In The Sunday Potluck Club by Melissa Storm, four women who became friends by chance meetings in the hospital cafeteria while their parents underwent chemotherapy for their various cancers learn to deal with life after a loss.  After the death of the third parent, we see how each of the four women deal, or not, with the grief and sadness that follows.  Amy and Bridget each throw themselves into projects, with varying results.  

Things would never be fine again. They could only become marginally less terrible.

★★★☆☆

When Natalie Harper's mother doesn't show up for the party celebrating her new promotion at work, she is disappointed but not surprised. Her mom has been known to be somewhat forgetful and distracted. But when Natalie finds out why her mom wasn't there, she is devastated. The Lost and Found Bookshop by Susan Wiggs follows Natalie as she reevaluates her life and makes changes to her priorities and tries for find joy again, something that was missing long before her mother's death.

 

When she was very small, her mother used to tell her that books were alive in a special way. Between the covers, characters were living their lives, enacting their dramas, falling in and out of love, finding trouble, working out their problems. Even sitting closed on a shelf, a book had a life of its own. When someone opened the book, that was when the magic happened. 

 

A book would never betray you or change its mind or make you feel stupid. She took down The Once and Future King and found a marked passage: “The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails.”

Head on over to Carolyn's for more An Open Book.

AMDG

An Open Book: March 2021

In For Eden's Sake by T.M. Gaouette, Isaac is working hard at his first job out of college.  Having grown up in a rural area, his job in a big city brings both new opportunities and new challenges.  When celebrating a work accomplishment with fellow coworkers, Isaac is encouraged by them to drink much more than he is used to.  Little did he know that this night of drinking would lead to much more than a bad hangover.  The choices he made that evening are life altering.  The author masterfully explores the impact that an unplanned pregnancy has on the father of that child.  

I have been reading Natasha Metzler's blog for a while now, but little did I know she is also an author of quite a number of books.  Emma and the Reasons is the first in the Women of Promise series.  Emma and her two roommates are all single and their reasons for being so are as different as they are.  The three roommates all attempt to discern God's will for their lives, knowing that it may not be what they had wanted for themselves.  When their meddling married friends attempt to intercede in their relationship status, all three learn to deepen their reliance on their faith.   This was a well written and delightful read and I look forward Natasha's other books.

A couple of years ago I needed a plant for my Easter decorations, but the grocery store had a limited selection of lilies and other spring flowers that all looked a little worse for wear.  Not having time to run to any other store, I grabbed the nearest flowering plant, a yellow specked orchid.  And, that, as they, is history.  We were hooked.  Our orchid collection has grown to over a dozen plants.  I decided that I needed to learn more about the care of these beautiful flowers, so I bought a copy of The Orchid Whisperer: Expert Secrets for Growing Beautiful Orchids  by Bruce Rogers.  This book provides great information that a novice orchid collector needs.  The many parts of the plants are explained, the care needed is detailed, and many varieties are explored.

Head on over to Carolyn's for more An Open Book.

AMDG

Counting Crows

 . . . and other birds for that matter.

It's no secret that we love our birds around here.  In the summer we have a Hummingbird feeder at the edge of the patio.  We also have several bird houses placed around the property that were intended to be homes for Blue Birds, but are usually occupied by House Wrens and Sparrows.  We don't mind since the Wrens frequently serenade us with their beautiful and joyful songs.  

In the winter, seed and suet on the patio draws in birds of every kind.  We laugh at them as there definitely seems to be a pecking order in who gets to eat what.  Woodpeckers rule the roost but the Junkos are great at finding every last seed when it looks like there is none left.

The birds provide me with what I often term my personal air show.  They make me smile.  They amuse me.  And, given the time we spend at home these days, that is much needed and appreciated.

Next weekend, February 12th-15th, The Cornell Lab and the Audubon Society are once again sponsoring the Great Backyard Bird Count.  People from all over the world will spend a little time recording what birds visit their area.  Click on the link for more information.  

Last year I counted fourteen distinct species.  I am curious as to what I will see this year.  My guess it will be even more.  

Carolina Wren & Downy Woodpecker

Red Shouldered Hawk

Hummingbirds

Nuthatch

The main point of Christianity was this:  that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister.  We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father

- Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton

AMDG

An Open Book: February 2021

 

Last year I seemed to have found plenty of time for reading, as the over one hundred and fifty books on my GoodReads 2020 list will attest.  But writing, not so much.  I think there were things I wanted to write, but not ones I wanted to publish.  It's a weird world that we are living in now.  It seems like a good time to jump back into the blogsphere and books seem to be a good, and safe, place to start.

In Unstable Felicity: A Christmas Novella by blogger Cat Hodge, Jill is summoned to her small hometown in Ohio.  It seems that the family inn is struggling and Jill's accounting skills are needed to help save it from going under.  Family drama makes this task even more difficult than it already is.  Jill hasn't spoken to her mother since her father's funeral four months prior.  Her sisters, an ex-boyfriend, and a local real estate mogul all add to the chaos.  This is the author's first novel, which is witty and entertaining.  I look forward to reading more of her works.

A year or so ago I read One Man's Wilderness by Sam Keith, the story of Richard Proenneke's time spent in the Alaskan wilderness.  In First Wilderness the author recounts his own time in spent in Alaska and how he came to meet Richard.  Having served in the Marines during World War 2, Sam went home to New England to get is degree and find a job.  Unhappy with the employment he found, he decided to seek adventure in Alaska where he worked as a laborer on the Adak Navy base.  His great love nature and the outdoors is clearly evident in his writing.  The manuscript was found ten years after Sam's death by his son-in-law, and, along with photos and excerpts from his journals, letters, and notebooks, was compiled into a story of a grand adventure.

Always You is the first in the Murphy Brothers series by Jennifer Rodewald.  Lauren and Matt, each running away from parts of their lives, meet in an messy, unfortunate accident.  They strike up a friendship as they help revive a local inn and resort.  Their love of God and their promise of respect for each other both helps them navigate their feelings for each other and the situations in which they find themselves.  This is a pleasant read for a cold winter's day by the fire.

I discovered author Marie Bostwick on a PBS episode of Sewing With Nancy.  At the end of each show, Nancy Zieman interviews someone whose daily life somehow intersects with sewing.  In The Second Sister, the author tells the story of Lucy Toomey, a political campaigner whose boss is about to be elected to the highest office in the country.  The night of the elected, Lucy receives news that her older sister, Alice, has been rushed to the hospital.  By the time Lucy makes it from her home in Colorado to her small, Wisconsin hometown of Nilson's Bay, it is too late, her sister has died.  Lucy spends time there learning who her sister really was by meeting her diverse group of friends and their sewing circle.  

Head on over to Carolyn's for more An Open Book.

AMDG