Finished for 2014

31 books, garden whimsies I don't know what to do with and a pallet flag that's on my porch.  Also a flower garden that was completely overgrown with weeds by the end of the summer.  That's everything I accomplished in 2014.

Two More Books

Reasonable Doubt and Forever and Ever, Amen probably the last two books I'll finish this year.  Reasonable Doubt went fairly quickly, and, unusual for me, by the time I finished it I didn't believe the father was guilty.  I looked online and he was acquitted in, I believe it said 1991, so someone else thought so, too. ;)

Forever and Ever Amen wasn't a well-written book.  Lots of testimonial letters and very little actual writing.  I did manage to finish it, though, and now I'm listening to some of the songs I enjoyed from my teenage years when I was falling in love with Country music. :)

Holy Curiosity

Holy Curiosity

I loved this book. 

Proverbs 24: 3

 By wisdom a house is built,
    and through understanding it is established;
4 through knowledge its rooms are filled
    with rare and beautiful treasures.
(Knowledge as housekeeping)

p. 104 "There is something grounding about fixing a toilet or scrubbing floors.  The activities create an attachment to your immediate environment, a way to cultivate the sacred in the ordinary by tending thoughtfully to your holy space."

P. 14 "At the very beginning, while morning stars and angels are rejoicing in respectable ways, wisdom is turning cartwheels."  (Prov. 8:22-31)
<purpose of artistry> "...to link God with people and draw them closer together."

p. 28 inspiration - the drawing of air into the lungs

p. 56 "But the creative personality isn't shrouded in black and combing the moors any more than it is housed in the right side of the brain only.  Wisdom is playful, not burdensome, she does not drive to madness those she endows, as if that were the exchange rate for genius, like some soul-pact with the devil."

p. 97 "In the Hebrew language the word delight doesn't just translate into pleasure of joy; it connotes a stong positive attraction for something... [It] emphasizes subjective involvement; feeling welling up from within.  It even has a kinesthetic dimension...no wonder the old guests gamboled, Aleck springs to his feet and wisdom turned a cartwheel."

p. 110 "Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness" wrote Meister Eckhart, so that drawing close to God means being still.  Being still is...an active posture of mindful reflection, contemplation, and prayer."

Home, Julie Andrews

Home

It starts off really good, then it kind of bogged down into a lot of lists of names that might mean something to someone, but not me.  She went to parties with a lot of famous people, okay, got that.  Don't know who they were, but I guess she did.

26 and 27

Finished 2 more books this month: Practicing Extravagant Generosity by Robert Schnase and The Stalking of Kristin by George Lardner Jr.

I found Practicing Extravagant Generosity difficult to understand, because of spiritually abusive teachings I grew up with.  Please know, I do not use the term "spiritual abusive" lightly.  I'll need to re-read it and go over my notes in more depth later.                                                                             

The Stalking of Kristin was interesting, but kind of droned on about outdated statistics and that made it difficult to wade through at times.                                                                                                       

24 and 25

Not remembering which I finished first, I'll just pick one and go:

Dear Mr. Ripley is a collection of photos and oddities from Ripley's, of Believe it or Not fame, files.  Interesting stuff.

Next Door Savior by Max Lucado was really good starting out.  In the middle it seemed to turn into a series of Easter Sunday sermons, and I got bogged down a little, but the first few chapters made up for it.                                                                                                                                                       

Twenty-third Book

Stop Dating The Church by Joshua Harris.  It was small and cheap (free).  That's my only explanation.

Twenty, Twenty-One and Twenty-Two

Just As Long As I'm Riding Up Front and Stories I Couldn't Tell While I Was A Pastor , both written by Bruce McIver and Haints, Witches and Boogers by Charles Edwin Price all finished today.  I spent the day in a hammock reading.  :)  Every day should be like that. :)

The Bruce McIver books were published in one volume, but I'm still counting them as two books, because they were originally published separately.   Some of the stories were laugh-out-loud funny, some were really sad.  It was an enjoyable book.

Nineteen

Gospel Trailblazerfascinating book about Howard Jones' journey from an up-and-coming clarinet player to an evangelist working with Billy Graham and breaking racial barriers all over the world.

Eithgeenth Book

Elvis is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself 

I liked Lewis Grizzard when I was a kid,  I didn't like this book nearly as much as I did the ones I read then.  Maybe it was this book, maybe it's just the passage of the years...

Book Seventeen

The Cases that Haunt Us

A bit slow-going and sloggy at times, still interesting enough to keep reading. 

Crafts

Mother's Day 2014 Garden

Because sometimes what I finish *isn't* a book. :)

Books Fifteen and Sixteen

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott was an interesting novel.  I'm not really happy with the ending - she goes back to see her old lover all mangled and broken (her, not him), and I prefer people remember their first love as perfection, but I guess it's not meant to be in some books. ;)





The Autobiography of An Execution left me unsettled as well.  Since I'm pretty sure no one is going to complain about spoilers here - he Dies!  You want so bad for *this one* to make it, and he doesn't, and you're left feeling, like the lawyer, I guess, broken because he was unable to be saved.  Or maybe he was saved, in the end, by the release.  Who can know?

14th Book: The Cold, Cold Hand

ANOTHER not too good ghost story book.  A couple of these gave me a tiny shiver, but not enough to make me scared, like a good ghost book should.

Books 12 and 13

From Hitler's Hell to God's Peace - for a book that's $30 on Amazon, this one is Not worth it.  I drug myself through it kicking and screaming, just because I was already so far into it. ;)  It starts out okay, then suddenly - BOOM - letters (testimonials) from people who had come to their mission  Ungrammatical letters.  Bleah

Diggin' Up Bones wasn't much better.  Supposed to be scary stories, and they were just...odd...  When a book says on the back cover that it contains "very scary stories" I don't expect a weird thing about a man who turns inside out and then can't get turned right-side-out again.  Double-bleah.

Books 10 and 11 for 2014

The Tangled Red Thread is the story of an adopted girl's quest for "normal", to find her birth parents and learn why she was given up as a newborn, and then to find as many other relatives as she can.  Other main points are the story of her marriage and a herd of wild girls.  My favourite part is the dream about her father she has before her wedding - but no spoilers. You - anyone who is reading this blog - should buy it and read it, it's a good book.


The Higher Taste is a cookbook/study of Hare Krishna vegetarianism.  I was filling a bag at the used book sale for $10, and this was a small book, perfect for filling a hole. But, after I got it home and started reading it I did enjoy it.  I even carried it in my purse - perfect size for that! - and read it while I was waiting places.  It makes a lot of sense in the reasons for vegetarianism, and the recipes sound tasty.  It being free and all, I tore out the pages with recipes I wanted to try, so my copy is pretty much trashed now.  I'm always on the watch for good vegetarian recipes, and this book did not disappoint.

9th Book in 2014

Sister Freaks

Stories of sacrifice and devotion to Christ.   Some from the past, some from modern times. 

Seventh and Eighth Books

A Farewell to Arms and When in Doubt, Add Butter
For someone who Never reads Novels, I've read quite a few this year, it seems. ;)

A Farewell to Arms I read simply because I read The Sun Also Rises last year.  Still don't like Hemingway's writing, but that's okay, because I won't read it again.

Now, When in Doubt, Add Butter is a different story...quite literally.  :)  I zipped through it quickly, and enjoyed it, even if I did figure out the plot rather quickly.  It was still fun and good to read.  And it made me want to get in the kitchen and try out some recipes I've been thinking about for quite a while.  My sister recommended it to me, and let me borrow her copy, and I recommend it to you. :)

6th Book - Don't judge me!

Journey to Cubeville

Don't judge me - it was in the bathroom, so I read it in the tub. ;)

Tall Man - Fifth Book in 2014

Tall Man ... yeah...um...I don't know what to say.  Heartbreaking.  At times I thought surely it must be a story from back in the last century, then it would remind me - all this happened within the past decade. 
I don't want to give away the ending, so I'll just say I was surprised. 

Book The Fourth: True Religion

True Religion was goooood.  Like read-it-again-and-suggest-your-husband-and-kids-read-it-too good. 

The subtitle "taking places of heaven to places of hell on earth" sums up the author's point-of-view pretty well: we are to take our abundantly blessed lives and pour them out to the poor and helpless.  He speaks mostly of Africa and Cuba, those being the places he's most acquainted with working. 

I tried, as I was reading it, to bring my thoughts back to local missionary work, since that's what I'm involved in, and I don't see a need to *go* to Africa to work, when there's so much to be done here, although I might be enticed to send money through a reputable mission work to help in Africa.  But the basic thoughts ring true, wherever you're working: DO the work, Spread Love to everyone you meet, seek Peace.  And with that being said, I need to get ready to head down to the food bank and do just that. :)

Casual Day Has Gone Too Far

Casual Day Has Gone Too Far.  Because bathtub reading. ;)

The Help - Second Book Finished in 2014

The Help .  I finished it last night.  I'm sick, with a sinus infection, and this helped pass the time.  Sometimes novels are good, I guess. ;)  I chose The Help because I've listened to all the nonfiction audio books the library has, so I chose a fiction book that was close to what I like in nonfiction. ;) 

I had a hard time figuring out who was who in the movie, because I have prosopagnosia, or face blindness.  I can't tell one person from another unless there is something strikingly different about them.  I spent the first couple seasons of Downton Abbey completely confused, because Matthew and William are undistinguishable to me.  I have to admit, I was rather glad when William died because now I know who is who.   But back to The Help.   It was easier to tell who was who in the book, because books say helpful things like "Hilly said" after someone speaks. ;)

First Book Finished in 2014!

My First Book in 2014!  I quite enjoyed reading Sandi Patty's Broken on the Back Row.

This book tells about Sandi Patty's rise to stardom, and her fall when she committed/admitted to adultery.  But what it doesn't do is include lurid details, which I greatly appreciated.  She is much focused on God's grace and forgiveness, and gives insight in how the Church should react in order to be Christ-like.

My favourite part, from her Pastor: "But maybe you've been visiting with us here this morning, and you're not ready to tell anyone your name.  Maybe all you want to do is sit on the back row of the balcony and cry.  That's OK.  We want you to know that the God we serve knows how to find you there.  He hasn't forgotten about you.  We serve the God of second chances, the God of new beginnings.  We serve the God who sets His children free."

It made me squee with joy when I read it - because she was sitting, hidden, up in the back row of the balcony, crying, when he said it.  I love the confirmation that God always knows where you are and what's going on in your life, even when you're trying to hide.