welcome to my blog. Sharing God's goodness with you in a wide and wonderful world.. so glad you are here.

Wednesday 29 October 2014

My Top Ten(ish) Books...(at the moment)

Recently Brenda and Deborah shared their top ten favorite books.
"Hmmm, I should do that," I mused.
After all; I love books! 
                                
                                (a few that have taken up residence here...)

I love reading them and I love the warmth and beauty they bring to a room.
I recall many years ago taking a house tour of someone I knew. She had a beautiful,old farm house full of character and charm, but as I pondered later over what was missing...I realized there were no books!

Turns out choosing my top ten  was a little more difficult than I first thought....but here are some I have really,really enjoyed....
                                       



1-  The Holy Bible...no other book can give us what this one does...Divine truth and power and much more...and- I can enjoy an intimate relationship with the Author!

2-The Melendy Family...this is a nostalgic read from my childhood. The one I read then was an edition of the three of these stories in one. It was a hardcover, about four inches thick and plain dark navy. Not much on the outside...but the story whisked me away from my own wonderful childhood into another one that seemed oh so dreamy and idyllic. It was fun to read these to my girls not long ago. I still loved the story and even more now seeing it through experienced eyes.


3-A Holy Experience- Ann Voskamp is beyond gifted. Humbly she writes and literally has helped millions. Her writing is so profound, yet at the same time so fundamental. Amazing!


4-With New Eyes- An article in a focus on the family magazine introduced me to this writer about 17 years ago. Margaret Becker shares her life experiences in a deep, soulful and honest manner. Hard to read her words and remain stagnant.

5-Anne of Green Gables- I had to include this whimsical story...read countless times the antics and passions of Anne are mandatory for a  wholesome and educated childhood ! A few years ago we visited PEI, where her stories were born. I read recently that good fiction feels like truth, definitely the case here!

6-Little Women- Is it because I have four daughters or that I have four sisters, or that I am a mother and a girl. Who knows but this endearing story is one of my all time favorites. Read it with my girls a few times. The chapter where Beth dies is written so beautifully! 
On my list to read more of Louisa Alcott. (other than Little Men.)

7-Quiet Moments For Women-found this devotional by June Masters Bacher at a garage sale quite a few years ago. I added it to this pile because her earthy insight is one I always appreciate and admire. Timeless treasures.

8-Same Kind of Different As Me-the title alone is enough to make one want to read it. I talked more about it here. Definitely a must read true story!

9-A Garden To Keep- J.L.Turner is an English teacher and it shows in her writing. A MASTER at articulation and detail, which I happen to love! (Some may not!) I enjoy description and details yes, even what colour the geraniums in the window boxes were!  I have read all of her novels, but I think this one may be my favorite.....

10-How Do I love Thee- This is another story that taught me much while at the same time resonating with me.Nancy Moser's history on this and other of her books comes to life in a real and exciting way.... rich and textured....I would love to see this story as a play and acted out... 
( I think I may read this one again soon.)

11-Simple Abundance- I purchased this book on the advice of my sister who had it. 
' You would love it,' she had told me. I do. It is a classic book filled with inspiration and wisdom and the knowledge that I am not the only woman who has at times needed reassurance that life is what we put into it and what we make with what we have!

12-The Secret Keeper- I  added this one because it is my most recently read novel that I simply could not put down!! I had taken this book with me on our holiday to the Dominican back in January, and if I would have known then that I wouldn't of been able to put it down, I'd have left it here:) It was a library book, but serendipity had me find it on the discard table there this summer! Got to love that!! I think I may have been the one that caused the rippling pages when I innocently laid it across my damp bathing suit in the tropics while I contemplated the plot!!....shhh, don't tell!
 I was expecting I would need to purchase it...I guess I did; in a way!


there are some of my favorites...what fun that was!
Isn't that what makes books so special? The connections are unique and universal all at once...

Love what Sara Ban Breathnach says here...
It would seem an easy thing really the reading of a book.You pick a book up, open it,fix your gaze and begin. Well, maybe so,and maybe not. As a reader I'm hard on books and other writers. A passionate woman, I like my books to knock my socks off. It's got to be love at first sight. I need to be bowled over at an author's insight, to wonder how I lived before the book explained it all to me, or how the author knew me so well.
In reality, while there is often a mystical bond between writer and reader, the author is just trying to figure out his or her own life,on the page, not mine.
But as the Irish poet W B Yeats once told an admirer of his work, "if what I say resonates with you, it's merely because we are both branches on the same tree."

this concludes my bookish post.... 



                                                          :))) Happy Reading ....Lucy~

Tuesday 28 October 2014

Night Reaping

     loving this song lately....
                                
Last evening while we were eating supper, a monstrous combine pulled into our driveway.sorry, didn't get a picture!
The late, wet summer was pushing harvest into it's last minutes. 
Even ever patient hubby was beginning to wonder if the soybeans would dry in time to harvest and still get spring wheat seeds into the soil.

A warm. windy weekend and forecasts of imminent cold, were just what the fields needed to be ready for reaping.




The purposeful roar of machinery in the fields around our house lulled us to sleep.
                                                    



 When we woke this morning rain had fallen on the newly planted, wheat fields.

                                                 



At the eleventh hour gathering and planting had all taken place. 
The reaper had come to gather the harvest. 

 I bow my head to the Giver, who in due time will come to one day, to gather together His loved people here on earthly fields; working and waiting for Him.

                                        


Wednesday 22 October 2014

Spilling Sunshine In Spite Of Sorrow



I love when morning sunlight bathes every room in it's radiance.
                               

                                          
   
                                        

                     

                      


                                   

                                 


          although the weather was lovely today, it was marred by 
another senseless and tragic event in the news. 

It is all quite terrifying if allowed to dwell on the evil lurking so close.....then I remember....

                                                                            Romans 8:31 If God is for us, who can be against us?
                                 via      pinterest


Blessings where ever you are....I have been meditating on this verse....
So glad that He will NEVER forsake us.







Monday 20 October 2014

Waiting, Life's Essential Black Dress

Time to pull out that trusty, 'little,black dress' called waiting again. Not exactly my strong suit!
Hence this repost....enjoy!



                                             
It is a necessary component in the closet of our lives.
Whether we choose to address it or not. Waiting is something we will all need to accept and embrace with grace.
From our earliest memories we have all waited. Either to grow up; or to experience change or to move on, the WAIT is mandatory.

Even as I pop the CD into my player it instructs me to WAIT.

How then do I wait?
Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He will strengthen your heart. Psalm 27:14.
Be strong and take heart , all you who hope in the Lord. Psalm 31:24.

"we know there is a niche waiting for us to fill.Always something, someone, somewhere that craves our human touch.May we never stop giving without holding back.Keep our eyes fixed on the ONE.He knows our deepest desires.HE GIVES US OUR WORTH.
       Believe it.
Then wait and wait. But don't wait absently.
Glorify God in your waiting. Suddenly it will come to you.
What you've been waiting for.
His peace will come while you're waiting."   (from the archives of my journal)



                                           


Waiting ; the wonderful prelude for what is to come.
And a beautiful background for the rest of our tomorrows.


                                             

Thursday 16 October 2014

Singing Off Tune

My daughters have all loved to sing. Right now there is only two living here for the most part and one of them in particular is almost always humming or belting out a tune.
Anything from Disney tunes,hymns, worship choruses and popular radio songs.
                                             


I love to hear her sing. In my  opinion she has a great voice, and is quite fluent at hitting the notes right.
                                              

But as I thought about this I pondered the fact that even if she was not the best singer, I would still want her to sing. 
It would make me sad if she stopped singing because she wasn't 'the best'. 
I'd miss her brave message conveyed in song.
                                       

                                 

I guess I relate this to my blogging. When I compare myself to the myriad of wonderful and gifted bloggers thriving in cyber space, I sometimes wonder why I bother.
I feel inadequate and incompetent. 




Then I remember why my daughter sings. She does not sing to be heard or to necessarily prove a point.                                        



She sings to express herself. She sings to bring joy.
She sings  to escape a little.  She sings because of love.                             


                Thank you, I needed that. 

       Small, inconspicuous  me; my voice in a choir 
             with thousands of really, really good ones.
                                  



    All  of us belting out a tune the only way we know how.



" The forests would be silent if only the best birds sang"
                                 ~Henry Vandyke~

Tuesday 14 October 2014

Fickle October

     October is a woman,
                                         prone to change her mind...



What began as a promising looking day to dry a long line of laundry...turned into a windy, rain infused, run outside and take sheets off of tree....chase sheep inside because fence is broken kind of day!                    

Do you have a coping strategy for the one step forward and two step back kind of days?
         


right now mine is.....warm banana brownies, tea and a good book!


Thank FULL

                                        my kitchen calendar reminds me...



Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone here in Canada.
It was full. Too full to blog about... until now.
It felt like an amazing gift to all be together as a family once again. My daughter, who's in university was home, and we all went to my eldest daughter's home for our first meal there...since they have been married!!
                              my favorite five...                            

                them;'it's too bright'! me;'it's perfect'
Visiting your own daughter's home is such a blessed and beautiful  poignant feeling. It has the embodiment of wonder, awe and blessing.  At the same time it feels like a raw, and gut wrenching emotion of time's irrevocable spin, and years that blur into decades in a blink.
                                            love the panoramic view they have...

My daughter and her husband live on an adorable little farm; (not unlike the one she was raised on:)...instead of sheep though they have these goats.
                     Don't they look rather genteel?

So after driving back to Toronto to deliver university daughter, and after sending my others off to school and hubby to work, the home front is quiet. I stand at my patio doors sipping black coffee and immerse my full heart with the Giver of goodness.


                           My new favorite music band...




Saturday 4 October 2014

Finding The Glow

                     

         (illuminate)

            

one thing I love about the fall and early evenings is




the sparkle and illumination of light...

the gentle, hopeful resolution.

it is to my heart and mind...


Yes, it's dark out there. So hard to tell where 
                                      I've been.



Here the glow and the flickers of light illuminate, 
    sending me whispers of undulating hope.







                                               








 

Friday 3 October 2014

Beauty Unwrappers

Dear You,
Beauty is all around us... we simply need to unwrap it by noticing.
                                          

It's simple  you say, to notice a silly little thing like the design of a soap dispenser....

                                        

or the way the leaves look- all falling and reckless.
                                                   

Then there is the garden that blooms vicariously in spite of better days.                                          



It is simple to some and profound to some....
The beauty unwrappers know its value and worth...

It is why they write, paint, take photos,bake cookies and laugh too loud.
It's why they wonder and the way they care.


                   love laundry that has flapped until so soft, then folded...
To some it may be wasted time, to others time well spent...
the purchasing and placing of  thrift shop items, the folding of towels and clothing...


a sweet white tray and art..








love my "new red pitcher" :)
                                      

                       and love these rose paintings...

    Beauty unwrappers are unique, enigmatic and spontaneous.
                Linked together; though miles apart
         With beauty, gratitude and kindred hearts.
                                   


Thank you to all the beautiful beauty unwrappers here in blogland.
      The world is brighter because of you...
                           keep unwrapping....