Claudia — Page 586

Day Fifteen

March 28, 2020 at 10:00 am by Claudia

Current reads. I find it isn’t necessarily easy to make a choice these days. My last book, Eight Perfect Murders, was disappointing. So, do I go with more fiction? Or nonfiction? Or pretty pictures? Yesterday, I reread Biblio-Style, that gorgeous book about the way people live with books. I needed to experience it once again. Last night, I started in on Pride and Prejudice, a true comfort read. And this morning, I dug into Derek Jarman’s Garden.

Do you find that you’re juggling more than one book at a time? I rarely do that, but I have definitely been reading a few books at once during this period of isolation.

I’m just grateful that I have them. Books are always a precious gift, but never more precious as they are now.

We watched more episodes of Cheers last night. It’s fun to chart the course of the characters in that very first season. We can see the writers beginning to figure out who is who and just how the characters will function within the framework of the ongoing story. It’s amazing how excellent it was from the very beginning.

I was up earlier than Don this morning – a rarity – and after making coffee, I went online to our grocery chain’s site to see if maybe there might be a delivery slot open at the end of next week. To my surprise (and I was barely awake) there was an opening available next Wednesday on April 1st. I grabbed it and then started to add a few things to our already long list. I only had an hour in which to do it before I would lose the slot. Don came downstairs and, poor guy, I immediately pestered him for any ideas he might have. Anyway, it’s done. I cannot tell you how relieved we are that we don’t have to go inside a store. They deliver the bags of groceries and leave them outside near the door. Don is very happy. It turns out he was very wary of entering any store and it had been weighing on him.

We’re in for a very rainy weekend. It hasn’t started yet, but it will. I think I’ll go out to the edge of the property and clip some forsythia. We don’t have any fresh flowers at the moment and it would be nice to see the bright yellow flowers in our kitchen.

Rain is on the docket for the next week or so, so heaven knows when I will be able to get outside to start garden cleanup. In the meantime, I’ll be watching episodes of Gardener’s World on Britbox – I didn’t watch all of last season, so it’s time to catch up.

I learned a new word: Sitzfleisch; literally ‘sitting meat’ but in reality, sitting on your tush. Heaven knows, I am doing that more than ever. (Found in an article in The New Yorker.)

Lonesome Dove is hanging out on the telephone wire in front of our house as I write this. I love him.

Happy Saturday.

Day Fourteen

March 27, 2020 at 9:40 am by Claudia

I don’t know about you but I have no idea what day of the week it is. I actually thought today was Monday.

The craziness that is the kitchen china cabinet. Or hutch. Or whatever. I’m never sure what to call things. What makes one piece a hutch, another a cupboard? I’m sure there’s an actual definition, but I’d love to find something that works for all my free-standing cabinets. There’s one in the kitchen, one in the den, and one in the office.

Suggestions welcome.

We watched Cheers again last night. I finished Eight Perfect Murders. I felt manipulated – and not in a good way – just as I felt when I read Gone Girl. I didn’t have as strong a reaction as I did with GG, as I will dub it, but I felt curiously empty of any feeling. Surely that’s not what an author wants from a reader? So if you want my official recommendation? Meh. Don’t buy it. If you’re curious, reserve it from your library or wait until it’s out in paperback. My only consolation is that I purposely bought it online from Oblong Books to help them out during this time so I don’t regret it.

I have limited funds, but I just placed an order with John Sandoe Books, in support of my favorite bookshop in London – they’ve had to close. I ordered three books that are not yet published here in the U.S. I feel it’s my little mission to place at least one order from all of my favorite independent bookshops during this time. I can only do it once, and now I have. I would order from Shakespeare and Company in Paris, but they aren’t doing mail orders. At least, I’m pretty sure they aren’t. I’ll check that again later today.

We tried to reserve a home delivery spot with a local grocery store, but they are booked for at least the next six days. I have a feeling I’ll have to stay up until midnight in order to grab the next open slot. We really don’t want to visit a grocery store and we still have food, but we’re running out of a few essentials. I’ll keep you posted.

It’s a beautiful, sunny day – the high will be 61. Then a few days of rain will follow. Very grateful for some sunshine today. I’m seeing robins and woodpeckers and cardinals and bluejays and all sorts of little birds. I can tell the birdbath is being used (hurrah!) and Don saw a bunny rabbit run by our kitchen door. The peepers are serenading us every night. All is well.

Note: At the end of yesterday’s book review, I made sure to say that only comments made directly on the blog post would be counted; not via email. But two of you sent your request via email anyway. I cannot count those. If you’re serious about being entered in the giveaway, come here to the blog and leave your comment on the post. Thank you.

Happy Friday.

Day Thirteen & A Book Review: Everywhere Holy

March 26, 2020 at 9:33 am by Claudia

Today I am reviewing Everywhere Holy by Kara Lawler. Thank you to TLC Book Tours and Thomas Nelson for a copy of the book.

About the Book (from the Publisher):

Popular writer and blogger Kara Lawler shows women how to embrace the sacred in mundane, ordinary life – and in the process, discover themselves.

Life doesn’t have to be lived on grand mountaintops for it to be meaningful. We can see God at work right where we are: in our ordinary and mundane routines, in the faces of our family and friends, and–especially–in nature.

Kara Lawler speaks to the hearts of those who find themselves lost in the midst of their chaotic schedules and weary attempts to be all that is expected of them. Everywhere Holy addresses our deepest struggles, including:

How to feel joy, despite depression and anxiety
Dealing with hardships and understanding unconditional love
How to view life as an adventure, even when that feels too hard
How to feel more connected, more grateful, and more at peace

In beautiful prose, Lawler describes the unique sacredness found in God’s creation and offers 15 inspiring insights for cultivating it day-to-day. She encourages you to make this lifestyle change through the observance of small acts. In so doing, you will discover a holy space that honors God and the life you’ve been given–and will discover yourself and your unique place in the holy that is everywhere, whether it’s in the woods behind your house or in the face of a stranger on a bus in a busy city. No matter where you are, there is holy free for the taking.

My review: I have, throughout the course of my 12 years of blogging, resisted writing anything that might be considered ‘religious.’ Spiritual? Yes, occasionally. But my resistance stems from my upbringing, where I was taught that religious beliefs were intensely personal and private and that one did not preach to others, but respected their beliefs or non-beliefs. That is why I do not read blogs that are what I would consider ‘preachy.’

That being said, I am intensely spiritual and my beliefs have changed and grown over the years and one of the things I am absolutely sure of is the presence of God (or a Higher Power, Divine Intelligence, the Creator, Buddah, Allah, whatever word you use) in the world around me; in nature, animals, people. Kara Lawler writes about this very thing.

Her essays, drawn from her own life, are lovely explorations and realizations of God everywhere. She is a young mother, therefore her writing will really resonate with women of a certain age. But the truths realized should resonate with anyone who has sought peace, looked for a sense of guidance, a sense of the wonder of life in a bird or a beautiful rock or in the smile of a child.

Kara writes beautifully. This is the sort of book that can be opened at any chapter, though there is a progression in the storytelling, for some sustenance in the course of a day. She lives in the country with her husband and two young children, a host of pets, and the Allegheny Mountains as a backdrop. She has struggled, as we all do, to find her identity. In the course of her journey, she discovers holiness everywhere and finds who she really is.

If this is the kind of book you are drawn to, I think you’ll like it very much indeed.

About the author:

From Kara: Through my writing, I hope to help people see beauty, remember their own identities, and find God, right where they are. It seems hard, really, in the shuffle that makes up this beautiful (but not always easy) life. How can we even focus on beauty or God, with full lives and the current state of the world? Quite honestly, that’s a struggle that has left me out of breath and on my knees. But, by doing this–by noticing beauty and looking for God all around–, I believe we really can discover who we are and who God meant for us to be. I try to see the beauty in the mundane, the extraordinary in the ordinary, the holy in the everyday, and as St. Ignatius said, “God in all things.” Join me on this pursuit of holiness amidst the chaos of an everyday.

Kara Lawler lives in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania with her husband, Mike, and their children, Matt and Maggie. Kara holds a BA in English and a MA in education and has been teaching high school English for close to two decades. She is the co-author of A Letter for Every Mother and has been published on various sites to include Today Parents and Huffington Post. Find Kara on www.karalawler.com and on Facebook to follow to join her journey of identity, faith, friendship, marriage, and motherhood.

Good news! One of you will win a copy of this book. If you are interested, leave a comment on this blog post. (It has to be here, not via email.) I’ll pick a winner on Saturday evening. (U.S. readers only.)

Happy Thursday.

Day Thirteen & A Book Review: Everywhere Holy

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