More Than A Song

Saw where Dawn posted this, Stacy and I were interested in it so Stacy emailed me some info on it in a google doc.
I may make some changes but here is the list for now:

*/A book with several short stories or novellas (Christmas in Three Rivers)
*/The first book in a new-to-you series (The Number of Love)
*/A book from a series you’ve already started (Home Away From Home)
The second book in a series you’ve started
The final book in a series you’ve started
The newest book from a series
A book that’s part of a trilogy
*/A book with 400 or more pages (The Giver of Stars)
*/A book with 150 pages or less (Lucky Number Thirteen)
A book published in the 90s
A book you’ve been meaning to read for at least ten years
A book published in 2019 or 2020
A book someone else raved about
A book you’ve been really anticipating
A book you’re not sure you’ll like but want to try anyway
A book you picked up on a whim
A book you wanted to read last year but didn’t get to
A library book
A book you already own
A physical book
An e-book
A book geared toward children or teens
A cozy mystery
*/A memoir (Upstairs at the White House:My Life with the First Ladies)
A book that is historical fiction
A book that takes place during contemporary times
*/A non-fiction book (Legacy)
A genre or a book set in a time period you don’t typically read
A new-to-you author
An author you’ve been meaning to read more by
A longtime favorite author
A book written by a woman
A book written by a man
A book written by two or more authors
*/A book with a title or author that is alliterative (Her Heart, His Home)
A book you hope helps you to learn or grow
A book that teaches you a lesson
A book that is pure brain candy
A book with a one-word title
A book with a two-word title
*/A book with at least six words in the title (Love Makes A House A Home)
*/A book with red on the cover or in the title (Keeping Christmas)
A book with orange on the cover or in the title
A book with yellow on the cover or in the title
A book with green on the cover or in the title
A book with blue on the cover or in the title
A book with white on the cover or in the title
A book with black on the cover or in the title
A book with a title containing a color not listed above
A book with clothing on the cover or in the title
A book with food on the cover or in the title
A book with a season in the title
*/A book with a holiday as a theme or in the title (A Home for Christmas)
A book with a place in the title
A book with a title that mentions something found in nature
A book that has a day of the week in the title
*/A book with a number in the title (Sixteen Steps to Fall in Love)
A book with an apostrophe in the title
*/A book with an animal on the cover or in the title (The Call of the Wild)
A book with a person’s name in the title
*/A book with a person on the cover (Coming Home…Home to Collingsworth)
A book with only words on the cover
A book with a cover that makes you want to read the book
A book that takes place in a different country
A book with a title that starts with the word ‘a’ or ‘an’
*/A book with a title that starts with the word ‘the’ (The Long Road Home)
A book with a type of building on the cover or in the title
A book with a window or a door on the cover
*/A book with a title that mentions time in some way (Fifteen Minutes of Fame)
A book with a female leading character
A book with a male leading character
*/A book with a title that includes the name of a month (The Curse of February Fourteenth)
A book with a title that made you want to read it
A book that references royalty in the title
A book you expect to make you think
A book you expect will make you laugh
A book with hearts on the cover, or in the title
*/A book with water/rain/river as a title or theme (Rains of Remorse)
A book that features a garden, planting, bulbs, flowers, etc
A book that is wedding themed
A Biblical fiction book about a lesser known Biblical character
A book that takes place during the Civil War
A book that takes place during World War I
A book that takes place during World War II
A book that has a medical personnel in it
A book that includes food or baking
A book featuring orphans
A book by an author that shares your initials
A book of your choice

Some days it just seems too hard to come up with a post; and I haven’t posted in so long it looks like that’s most days I guess! Plus, I stay on facebook playing games that seem to suck me in. It’s easier to come up with a line or two for fb status rather than an entire post, so I’ll post a few together for today.

my name…..
*new white shirt plus tomato sauce for meatballs, not good!

*audio books for car trips are a very good thing!

*Wicked was awesome! I loved it

*when does exercise ever become fun?

*I am SO tired of mosquitoes

*I should be old enough to not break out on my face! What is up with that?

*ok, who called at 4 in the morning on my cell phone asking me to go shopping! Ms. private number you should wait until at least 6 please.

*enjoyed my first shopping trip to Ikea!

*mint dark chocolate 3 musketeers, mmmmm!

* I’m sorta tired of spam comments, that is all.

Recently an article in Don’s World magazine caught my attention that I thought was going to be a summer book reading list. I always like to read about new books. Instead it was the results of a contest they had on the “best last lines” of books. Intriguing! Several categories were listed like fiction, non-fiction, classics, bible book endings. In no particular order I’m listing a few last lines that I really liked, or maybe more than a few! A lot of these are from books I’ve never read so something to add to my list that never seems to dwindle.

George Eliot, Middlemarch
“For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
“He turned out the light, and went into Jem’s room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.”

Ralph Moody, Little Britches
“Father had always said grace before meals; always the same twenty-five words, and the ritual was always the same. Mother would look around the table to see that everything was in readiness; then she would nod to Father. Then she nodded to me, and I became a man.”

Maurice Sendak, 
Where the Wild Things Are
“Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him—and it was still hot.”

Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days
“What had he brought back from this long and weary journey? Nothing, say you? Perhaps so; nothing but a charming woman, who, strange as it may appear, made him the happiest of men! Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around the world?”

C.S. Forester, 
The African Queen
“Whether or not they lived happily ever after is not easily decided.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

Leif Enger, 
Peace Like a River
“Is there a single person on whom I can press belief? No sir. All I can do is say, Here’s how it went. Here’s what I saw. I’ve been there and am going back. Make of it what you will.”

Stephen E. Ambrose, 
D-Day June 6, 1944
“To think of the lives that were given for that principle . . . paying a terrible price on this beach alone, on that one day, 2,000 casualties. But they did it that the world could be free. It just shows what free men will do rather than be slaves.”

Judges 21:25
“In those days there was no King in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes

And the two most popular ones they received entries for:

Charles Dickens, 
A Tale of Two Cities
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
“All their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Maybe I should pay more attention to the endings and come up with a list of my own!
So how about you, got any good last lines of books you like?

“just when I thought our chance had passed, you go and save the best for last”

“but it rings and I rise”

Last week was vacation bible school for me and I think I’m just about to recuperate! It’s always fun but I’m usually tired by the end of the week. Most days I might get up around sixish but I don’t have to get out somewhere every morning. This year I might have been a bit more tired because I had a visitor with me……Katelyn came up to see me and attend bible school with me!
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The spring reading challenge hosted by Katrina officially ended yesterday. It feels like summer started a few weeks ago for us, it’s extremely hot here in the deep south!
I was able to finish all the books I had on my list; not too difficult for me because I wimped out and didn’t include any non-fiction books this go round.
This is what was on my list:
Word Gets Around by Lisa Wingate
Mozart’s Sister by Nancy Moser
The Way We Were by Judy Baer
Sweetgrass by Mary Alice Monroe
The Pact by Jodi Picoult
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
My least favorite of these was The Pact. I didn’t particularly enjoy the subject matter; the stuff about teen suicide and teen relationships was just a little depressing to me at times. Picoult is a good author; I’ve read a few other books by her that I enjoyed more.

Two books that I especially loved were The Help and Redeeming Love, both very different books. The Help takes place in my home state of Mississippi so that interested me right off. I enjoyed the characters and thought the southern dialect was just perfect. I’m probably the last person to have read Redeeming Love but it was oh so good! I was familiar with the basic story from the bible but loved that it was retold with the setting in California during the 1800’s and the Gold Rush days. I wanted to savor it as I read while also wanting to hurry up and finish it! Very emotional story I thought.

I always enjoy doing Katrina’s reading challenges. She’ll host another in the fall so think about joining up then!

Since I just had a few names, it was easy to put them in a hat and draw one out. It was harder to take a picture of it! Here’s Lauren’s name I drew out……..I’ll try to email you and you can let me know your address. I’ll be glad for the postman to bring it to your house!

I’m off to my last day at bible school, thank goodness because I’m a bit tired!

A month or so ago I finished a book I really enjoyed called The Help. The author is from Mississippi and she’s written a novel about life in Jackson, MS during the civil unrest of the 1960’s. A young white woman just out of college wants to become a writer and becomes interested in the plight of the black women who work for white families in the city. I thought the dialect was dead on, not fake as we sometimes read and hear. The characters were well developed and I sort of hated to see the story come to an end.
If you’d like to read this one (the few of you that read here!) leave me a comment and I’ll be glad to pass it along. If there’s more than one person interested then I’ll put your names in a hat and draw one at the end of the week, so leave me a comment by Thursday and we’ll see if there are any takers!

“across the U.S.A”

Last week we went to the beach for a few days, it was our anniversary! Neither of us are huge beach people but I do love listening to the waves and feeling the breeze…..if I had a book and umbrella, even better. We walked on the beach some, read books, hubby hit golf balls on the driving range every day, went shopping some, ate seafood every chance I got and went to see a movie. Mostly relaxing except for the work calls he kept getting each day; this time of year is his busy season and work is hard for him to get away from!

View from the balcony…….it doesn’t show up once I sized this picture down but way off in the distance were quite a few oil rigs. They seemed to be everywhere down there.

One morning we noticed quite a few dolphins swimming/playing in the water close to shore. I took a few pictures from the balcony and then we walked down to the beach to see them even closer. They were hard to catch when they were out of the water!

And yeah, that doesn’t show up well after sizing!

We had fun company over the weekend, more golf was involved! We gave a wedding luncheon for a young couple and I’ve been trying to regroup this week but not having much success getting back into the swing of things. Thank goodness it’s almost the weekend again!

“the tender times we’ll hold in our hearts forever”

Last week Ava Clair had her pre-k graduation and today she turns five! Where does the time go? We didn’t get to be there for the event but my DIL shared some pictures on facebook so I snagged some to use!
She was very excited and proud she got an award……and she was ready to turn five too, today’s the day.

Pretty fun stuff for us to see her smiling face!

When my kids were little they belonged to something called The Best Book Club Ever; every month we got quite a few of these square paperback books. They loved them getting them and read them often at bedtime. Hubby and I read our fair share of them out loud too. Katelyn and Sam visited recently and one day Katelyn picked one out specifically that she wanted me to read to her before she went to sleep. It was called The Wolf and the Seven Kids, not a book I remembered at all. The story was about a mother goat with 7 children; she left them at home one day to go get food at the market but told them not to open the door so the wolf wouldn’t get them. But of course when the wolf came calling the kids were eventually tricked into opening the door. The seven kid goats all hid but the wolf found and ate 6 of them! The mom came home to find one baby goat still hiding so they went to the woods looking for the wolf. They found him sleeping but his stomach was moving around. So she got her sewing kit to cut his stomach open, pulled out her kids, then they put rocks back in his stomach and sewed him back up! When he woke up, the wolf went to the river for a drink but was so heavy he fell in and drowned.
This is a kid’s book?!! I must have read this to my kids but I don’t really remember it. Has it been too long ago? Did having 4 kids fry my brain? Did I pay attention to what they were doing, did I read them anything and never gave it a second thought? Am I a bad parent?
The more I read this one to Katelyn, the more uncomfortable I got; I was unsure whether to sort of change it up as I went along or read it like it was. She didn’t seem to have a problem with it but I felt like a heel for reading it to her! Later when I looked it up, I found it was based on a Grimm’s fairy tale and when I think about it, those all seem to have some of those same characteristics about them. Most kids know those stories and do ok I guess; Ava Clair and Grayson went through a phase of wanting me to tell them the Three Little Pigs story every time I saw them.

I discreetly put the book away and later we did stuff like this:

I hope I didn’t ruin my kids or her reading her that book! I might need to read the other books around here and decide whether to keep them or toss them.
Tents in the dining room, chasing the train, popsicles outside, going to the park…..all that makes up for reading a story like that doesn’t it? I sure hope so!

Has it been a month since I posted?! There’s been a lot of things happening and nothing much going on at the same time, if that makes any sense. Lots of little things but nothing too major for my family. My google reader is out of control and I seriously need to cut back on facebook! We’ve had some time with the kids and babies lately so that’s been fun; maybe I’ll post some random pictures. I think I’ve finally found a dr./eye dr. that might know what’s wrong with my eye but will know more next month when I go back. We don’t have anything big planned right now for the long weekend, hubby will probably have to work some of the time.
In the meantime while I try to catch up, take a look at this plant for me. It was given to me and I have no idea what it is.

It looks pretty right now but I’m not very good with plants, and really no good if I don’t get some instructions! There was no tag to tell how to care for it or identify it. So if you know what kind of plant it is or what it needs to survive please let me know! Otherwise it might not last long around here.
What’s new with you?
Hope you have a great memorial day weekend!

Easter weekend was baby Henry’s first birthday…..I can’t believe it’s been a year since he was born! We drove to Houston for the party and to celebrate Easter with them as well. Hubby and I picked up David in Jackson so he could go with us; he’s not been to Texas to see his brother in quite a while plus we were thrilled to get a visit in with him too. Friday we played some and even flew kites for a while. Saturday was party day and getting ready…..we had a fun time and the food was all good.

Here’s the birthday boy with his daddy.

Click through if you like for the rest of the pictures.
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I didn’t mean to wait so long in between posts……there’s no one answer, just too many different things going on at once. I’ll see if I can do a quick review instead of the whiny, boring long version.
* We had company to get ready for…the girls came home for the weekend with families and boyfriend in tow so lots of cooking and cleaning. But fun times!
* More cooking to do for friends that needed meals plus sewing for some new babies
* I got sick……sinus/cold, respiratory stuff with one eye that will not quit watering. Around here mostly it’s called the delta crud.
* Went to the dr to get treated and had bronchitis. Got a shot and 3 meds to take.
* The shot was pure heaven for about 24 hrs and then it wore off….the antibiotic was ok, the antihistamine made me too groggy but the cough medicine with codeine did a number on me. I was sick as a dog; I must be allergic and I won’t be testing again to see if I have the same reaction!
* We made a trip to TX to see the kids we haven’t seen since thanksgiving! Picked up the other son we haven’t seen since Christmas so he could visit too. Plus baby Henry turned one on Easter so there was a party also! Hopefully pics tomorrow.
* Drove home in horrible thunderstorms
* Got bits and pieces of bad news through the weekend. So there’s already been two funerals this week with food to make for both families. More people in the hospital and probably two more funerals by the weekend. Sad
* One eye will NOT quit watering and it’s driving me insane. Plus it’s made red, scaly places under the corners of my eyes, so not attractive! I went to the eye dr and she thinks it’s allergies, all this stupid lovely pollen blowing in the wind here that won’t go away. So now I’m on an antihistamine eye drop and have some antibiotic cream to put on these raw places under my eye. It hasn’t stopped yet but my eye feels like it’s watering slightly less than before.

Really it’s all good though; what fun would it be if there was nothing going on! And it beats the alternative as they say. I’m just not motivated to be on the computer much and now I’m overwhelmed with too much email and google reader bursting at the seams.
Life is good and I love spring anyway! We’ve had a full few weeks and a nice Easter….how was yours!

Late last week I had a visit from a sweet little three year old! Her daddy (my son in law) was out of town working so my daughter and I decided at the last minute that Katelyn could come visit me for a few days. She’d been asking her mom to go to my house, which makes me feel good but I bet she asks to go lots of other places too! I picked her up from her day care one afternoon and we came back to the boonies where there’s not much to do for fun. I’ve discovered however that it doesn’t take much to satisfy a three year old!

I can hear the train whistle from my house, so we jumped in the car to look for/chase the train, easy entertainment. We saw it sitting on the tracks waiting to load up and then when it started moving again we would follow it for a bit. We played with lots of old toys around my house (that probably need tossing soon) but the marble works run was a big hit this time. We walked to the bayou to look for ducks, played outside with balls and chalk and went to the park 3 days.

Two mornings she asked me to make pancakes for her and she gobbled them up. She ate most everything I fixed her and she loves corn on the cob!

One day she saw something taped to the inside of my cabinet door and asked me about it; years ago I saved a jello brochure about making jigglers. That was on the door to remind me that there are egg shaped molds way in the back of the cabinet so we pulled those out. We made jello eggs 2 different days and she loved doing that. I had forgotten that I actually kinda like jello!

Oops, we ate most of them. 🙂

I did a little sewing while she was here; things her mama “hired” me to make for baby gifts and mended a gown for Katelyn. She has given up her afternoon nap unfortunately but she does have to stay in the room and rest/read for a while. I must have worn her out though because on the way home to meet her mama I was talking to her, getting no response and turned to find this:

Katelyn was exhausted but happy to see her mommy!

I’ve been a little scarce while I had company and now I’m in recovery mode. That was my spring break for the most part…different than the ski trips we used to do every year but still loads of fun for me!

“all I wanna do is have some fun, I got a feeling I’m not the only one”

Today is the start of the Spring Reading Challenge hosted by Katrina. It will run until June 20 and it’s a good way to read any books you’ve been putting off! I believe she will have some prizes/giveaways along the way so be sure to check in with her every week or so. There’s no pressure to finish everything you pick and it’s ok to change your list if your little heart so desires! That’s a good thing for me because I can be a very moody reader at times. I usually try to include one non-fiction book when I do these because I just don’t read it otherwise but right now I’m picking all fiction. Unless you know, the mood strikes me to change later!
Here’s a few I’m hoping to get read over the next couple of months:
Mozart’s Sister by Nancy Moser
The Way We Were> by Judy Baer
The Pact by Jodi Picoult
Sweetgrass by Mary Alice Monroe………all four of these books belong to my sister who loans lots of books to me with no time limit on returning them! But I’ve had these for many months now and just haven’t been motivated to read them so I’m hoping this will get me going.
Word Gets Around by Lisa Wingate
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers; I actually just bought that book this week on a whim. I’ve always heard what a good book it is so I’m looking forward to it.

Not pictures is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer; my library doesn’t have it but I hope to get my hands on it sometime in the next few months.

Happy spring reading!