Summer Reading – AudioBooks!

Summer Reading – AudioBooks!

by | Jun 13, 2018 | Books, What We're Reading

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a question on Facebook, asking for audiobook recommendations. I thought it would be handy to compile the list I received before they get swallowed by Facebook history and impossible to find. 😉
I’ve never been a big audiobook listener. Up until now, I’ve listened to exactly two full works, and one partial. The two successful ones I listened to while knitting. The partial, I was just trying to get a handle on an accent and the accompanying spelling, so I just needed to compare the two for a few chapters. Which was all I could handle. Because I read fast, and the narrator, while very talented, read s-l-o-w, and I couldn’t handle it for long. I am not patient with such things, LOL.
In addition to my impatience, I also am rarely alone in a quiet environment. As in, one without interruptions. It never seemed feasible to really get any good listening in, when interruptions meant having to press a button and then find my place again, rather than just looking up from a page.
But here’s the thing. I told myself I was going to exercise more regularly this summer and (hopefully) create a good habit. But I hate exercise. I mean, seriously. It always feels like a time drain, drudgery, useless. I can enjoy walking, but I don’t have many places I can walk where I live. So I decided I would have to treat it like folding laundry, one of my other dreaded tasks–give myself something to look forward to. For laundry, that meant a TV show on Netflix or Prime that I picked out, just for me. (Unprecedented in my house, LOL. Usually, if someone hands me the remote, I just turn the set off.)
It worked for laundry. I now actually look forward to folding. I’ve watched the complete series of White Collar and Gilmore Girls like this, and now I’m just having fun with Say Yes to the Dress. So I’ve been experimentally using audio books as the same sort of incentive for exercise. And thus far, for the past two weeks, it’s been working like a charm!
My first book selection was based mainly on my Library’s limited Overdrive selection of Christian fiction. They had exactly 11 that were labeled such. Seven of which were Amish fiction, which isn’t my preference. Two others of which I’ve read. That sure narrowed down the choices! So I ended up selecting one I’ve long wanted to read–have on my shelf, as a matter of fact, in paperback, but never got around to. Pearl in the Sand by Tessa Afshar. I’ve chatted with Tessa and greatly admire her, but I’d yet to pick up one of her books! Bad, Roseanna!
And it’s been amazing. Love it, and I can definitely see why she’s such a popular Bib-fic author! But I’ll be finishing it up in the next day or two, so it’s time to select my next read, hence revisiting the list of recommendations.
Here’s what’s come in already. I’d love to hear your rec’s, if they’re not already on there, and just to share these with you in case you’re also on the hunt!
I’ve divided these into genres…though I was working quickly, so if anything is mis-filed, don’t sue me. 😉 I didn’t divide out YA, and these are a mix of Christian and mainstream titles. I know that listening methods vary, so the links below will take you the book’s Goodreads page.
NON-FICTION
Rocket Men by Robert Kurson
Everybody Always by Bob Goff
The Survivor’s Club by Michael Bornstein
Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist
What If? By Randall Munroe
Josiah’s Fire by Tahni Cullen
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
CONTEMPORARY
Some Wildflower in My Heart by Jamie Langston
A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse
Not If I Save You First by Ally Carter
Elm Creek books by Jennifer Chiaverini
At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon
A Season to Dance by Patricia Beal
The White House Chef series (mystery)  by Julie Hyzy
First Responder Series by Loree Lough
Beneath the Surface by Lynn H. Blackburn
The Wedding Dress by Rachel Hauk
Sweet Tea and Sympathy by Molly Harper
Long Way Gone by Charles Martin
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas
Her One and Only by Becky Wade
HISTORICAL
Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
Bleak Landing by Terrie Todd
Her Royal Spyness series by Rhys Bowen
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Hidden Affection by Delia Parr
A Heart Most Worthy by Siri Mitchell
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Rocky Mountain Oasis by Lynnette Bonner
My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand
The Mark of the King by Jocelyn Green
Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs
Mine Is the Night by Liz Curtis Higgs
Walt Longmire (beware language) by Craig Johnson
The Virtues and Vices of the Old West series by Maggie Brendan
Edenbrooke and Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Hawthorne House series by Kristi Hunter
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows

The Painter’s Daughter by Julie Klassen
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer
Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
News of the World by Paulette Jiles
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
SPECULATIVE/SUPERNATURAL/SCI-FI/FANTASY
Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
End of Watch by Stephen King
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Cloak of Light
City Watch series by Terry Pratchett
The Finishing School series (steampunk) by Gail Carriger
Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
CHILDREN/FAMILY
The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
ANYTHING BY…
Dee Henderson
Julie Klassen
Laura Frantz
Tamera Alexander
Mary Conneally
MaryLu Tyndall
Frank Peretti
Jessica Dotta
Sarah Sundin
Dani Pettrey
Joel C. Rosenburg
Valerie Comer
Francine Rivers
Jen Turano
Susan Meissner
Jenn McKinlay
Lynn Cahoon
Becky Wade
Karen Witemeyer
Debra Clopton
Lisa Wingate
Denise Hunter
Rachel Hauk
Kristin Hannah
What is your favorite Audiobook?

Word of the Week – Tootles

Word of the Week – Tootles

by | Jun 11, 2018 | Word of the Week

This one is a special request from my daughter, who came across it in a book. 😃
So, tootles. Being a 90s tween/teen, I grew up hearing this word as “goodbye” (or maybe it was toodles? Hard to say, as apparently it never appeared in writing, and it has no entry in any dictionary I can find…And my kids, being children of the 2000-10s, think of Toodles as a character on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so…)
But in fact, tootles is from the 1820s as “a frequentative of toot.” Now, first of all, I’ve never noticed another word described as “a frequentative of.” Spellcheck doesn’t even think “frequentative” is a word, LOL. But it just means exactly what you’d think–“when it happens frequently.” So tootle is when you toot frequently upon a horn or flute, for example.
Interestingly, and the use that grabbed my daughter’s attention, is that it later came to mean “to drive or move along in a leisurely fashion.” I can’t find a particular date on when that came into use, but she had encountered a sentence where the characters were tootling along in their car, which apparently struck her as hilarious.
So there we have it! Happy Monday!
Fridays from the Archives – When We’re Pressed

Fridays from the Archives – When We’re Pressed

by | Jun 8, 2018 | Fridays from the Archives

Today I’m not looking back very far . . . just two years, to a post I wrote after one of my dad’s sermons inspired me. In another recent sermon, he just said one sentence that brought this to mind again, and I was thinking once more about this idea. It’s a good one, one I know I need to remember, always, so I thought I’d share it again.
Because let’s face it. Those hard times, the times that press us, never go away…

Life is hard. So often we feel pressure. People are pushing us. Prodding us. Poking us. Sometimes, when circumstances are weighing heavy, we get that tight feeling in our chest, right? Or in our stomach. Stress. Overwhelm.
We get tired.
We get frustrated.
We react.
But how do we react? Or the better question, how should we?
In his sermon last weekend, my dad used this analogy, and it really struck me. Take an orange and squeeze it, press it–what do you get? Orange juice. Not apple juice. Not grape juice.
Take a sponge and squeeze it, and what do you get? Whatever liquid it has soaked up.
Take a plant and press it, and what comes out? The oils or fluids from inside the plant.
Now, take a piece of rotten fruit and squeeze it, and what comes out? Rot. Decay. Stench.
Getting the picture? When pressed, what comes out of a thing? What’s inside it.
So let’s take that back to us. What comes out of us when we’re pressed? (Yes, the comedian in me said, “Blood and gross-squishy-red-stuff.” [Bonus points if you get the Phineas and Ferb reference.] But let’s be serious, LOL.)
What comes out is what’s within. So if we’re frustrated, that frustration comes out. If we’re unhappy, we spew unhappiness. If we’re bitter, that bile is just going to come oozing out of our mouths. But is that all that’s inside us, even when we’re not at our best?
When we’re people of faith, there is always Something else inside us. Someone else. The Holy Spirit lives here. He’s inside me. Jesus is inside me. So with them, what else is inside me?
Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness.
When we’re pressed, squeezed, put under pressure, when we’re poked, prodded, and pushed, that is what should come pouring out of us–that should be what’s within us.
Humbling, isn’t it? When you’re feeling the pressure of life, are you greeting it with love? With Joy? Do we greet evil with goodness? Prodding with patience? Are we, when we’re at our lowest, when we’re been squeezed so much by life that the pain is palpable, shining with faithfulness?
If we’re not, then that says something about what’s inside us–and about what isn’t. We can’t pour out what we don’t have, and we can’t have good fruit inside us yet spill out rot and decay. If that’s what’s coming out, it’s because that’s what’s within.
And if that’s what’s within, then we need to do some serious work on ourselves. We need to turn those rotten spots over to God and let Him prune them away. We need to plead with Him to fill us with the good stuff inside.
And He will.
Until our cup runs over with His light. It’ll spill right out of us . . . and right into the world. And then, when we’re pressed, people will see Him.
I can’t think of a more beautiful way to show people who Jesus really is.
Word of the Week – God

Word of the Week – God

by | Jun 4, 2018 | Word of the Week

Sometimes it’s so interesting to look at the history of the words that are so very common to our language! God is certainly one of those.
I’d heard at some point over the years that god and good are related . . . and I imagine most of you have heard the same. But apparently this is most definitely not the case–and largely because the word for god existed in Old English before Christianity arrived, and lemme just tell you, pagan gods are not good, generally speaking. So the words had no reason to be associated in their creation.
In fact, god has two possible sources. It could have come from the root Indo-European ghut, which means “that which is invoked.” Or perhaps it’s from ghu-to, “poured.” As in, the being to whom one would pour out libations.
Our English word is most likely derived most directly from the Nordic or German words of similar sound, and it’s interesting to note that in German, it was originally a neuter noun. But with the coming of Christianity, it became a masculine noun. (Goddess apparently dates from the 14th century.)
Good, quickly, is from Indo-European ghedh, “suitable.”
So there we have it. Though god and good do sound and look similar and have been tied together through Christian tradition, they, in fact, come from different words . . . and in the time when they both entered the language, they didn’t yet have any reason to be connected! 😉
Thoughtful About . . . New Wine in Old Wineskins

Thoughtful About . . . New Wine in Old Wineskins

by | May 31, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays

There’s a passage in Matthew. We all know it. But I admit it always baffled me a little. It’s from chapter 9, verses 14-17.

14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?”
15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends
of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the
days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

I’ve read this countless times. But not until recently, when we got to it in our Bible study, did it finally click. And I think in part it’s because our culture doesn’t make wine like they used to.
Wineskins

In Jesus’s day, wineskins were made of leather. Now, leather has a bit of give to it–it can grow, and it can shrink as it cures. Back in Ye Olden Days, when you wanted a leather garment–gloves, pants, etc–to fit you perfectly, you would buy it a bit large and then soak it in warm water on your hand, etc., until it had shrunk to fit you. Then when you let it dry, voila! Perfect fit.

The leather used for wineskins would expand with the wine. As grapes ferment, they release gases, and the leather would grow with it because it was supple and new and hadn’t been cured yet. So you could fill it up, and the container would grow as the contents demanded. Pretty cool, huh? But that only works with new leather. If you put the wine into an old wineskin that had already been stretched out . . . well, that’s not going to go so well. The gases are going to be released, but the leather isn’t going to have any more give. So it will break. Burst. And all the wine is lost.
That part I’ve known for a while . . . but I still wasn’t sure how it applied to the question that John’s disciples were asking Jesus. What does that have to do with mourning? For me, the key to understanding why this an appropriate reaction from Jesus required going back to the key point of the wine in wineskins. What was the basic problem? The wine doesn’t fit.
That’s what Jesus is getting at here. There are times in life when mourning doesn’t fit. His disciples were still in celebration mode–their Savior was there! Among them! Teaching and performing signs and wonders. Preaching the gospel and healing the sick. This thing that humanity had been waiting for millennia–it was happening!
That, my friends, is cause for Joy. So how could His disciples have partaken in the things of mourning, like fasting? Had they tried it, it would have burst its confines . . . and then what would have happened? The wine would have been lost.

But Jesus knew well a time was coming when they would mourn. The new cloth would age. The wineskin would grow to its limit. The relationships He cultured so carefully would mature, and then the disciples would be sent out on their own to become the teachers in His absence.

This is life. This is the way of things. Celebration eventually gives way to mourning. Life contains, always, both good and bad.
But here’s what I really loved about this analogy as I paused to contemplate it. In His analogy, mourning is represented by the wine. The disciples are the wineskin. If you tried to force mourning into something unstretched, it would break. But wine itself wasn’t a drink of mourning. It was a drink of celebration. And the oldest wine is the better wine, traditionally.
So what is best for the celebration? That which has grown and stretched, that which has mourned. That which is tested and tried.
Mourning is a part of our celebration . . . and celebration is a part of our mourning. The two are meant to go hand in hand. Celebration will eventually give way to sorrow, yes . . . and sorrow will give way again to Joy. There’s a cycle to it.
And the wise man is the one who knows which time is which and can see the presence of each in the other.

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