December Book List

Twelve books read in the twelfth month, for a total of 123 for the year of 2018.

Closed Circle by Robert Goddard is one on this British author's older novels. I picked it up from the rehab room while in the hospital and enjoyed it very much. (And now I know where I can donate some of my books when I've finished them.)

Blindsighted, Kisscut and A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter are the first three books of her Grant County series.

Gone So Long by Andre Dubus III was rated a 'zero' by a previous reader at our library because it was 'so sad'. Yes, it is sad, but it is a beautifully written book about a father estranged from his daughter for the worst of reasons. Decades later, before he dies, he tries to get in touch with her in order to seek absolution.

Holy Ghost - Finally it was my turn to read John Sandford's (#11) latest Virgil Flowers novel! It didn't disappoint and I 'almost' had the culprit figured out. ☺

Desolation Mountain is #17 of William Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor series. This is one of my favorite series, set in the Northern Minnesota wilderness of the Native American Ojibwe's.

Faithless and Beyond Reach are #'s 5 and 6 of Karin Slaughter's Grant County series. (Unfortunately our library doesn't have # 4.)

Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg is a continuation of some of the characters from her previous The Story of Arthur Truluv. Berg is one of my 'adopted authors', so I was the first reader of this one. It is a quick, 'feel good' read.

Where The Crawdads Sing* is Delia Owens first novel. She is the author of three internationally best selling nonfiction books about her life as a wildlife scientist in Africa. This is a part 'coming of age', part love story, part mystery novel - but mostly it is a story of the importance and beauty of North Carolina's marshes - as well as a reminder of how we are shaped by the children we once were. This was my favorite read this month.

Jodi Picoult does not shy from the controversial issues of the day as evidenced in her latest novel, a spark of light, which deals with a distraught gunman shooting several people in the last women's reproductive health services clinic in Mississippi still providing abortions. This was not only a riveting read, it was also thought provoking - whether the reader is pro-choice or pro-life.

*There are a number of poems in this book, all attributed to the author Amanda Hamilton. I liked them so much I made a note to look her up. Then at the end of the book, we find out AH was the nom de plume of the main character. In other words, the poems are those of Ms. Owens. Here is one of 'Amanda Hamilton's' poems I liked:

"Sunsets are never simple.
Twilight is refracted and reflected
But never true.
Eventide is a disguise
Covering tracks,
Covering lies.

We don't care
That dusk deceives.
We see brilliant colors,
And never learn
The sun has dropped
Beneath the earth
By the time we see the burn.

Sunsets are in disguise,
Covering truths, covering lies."

And another:

"Fading moon, follow 
My footsteps
Through light unbroken
By land shadows,
And share my senses
That feel the cool
Shoulders of silence.

Only you know
How one side of a moment
Is stretched by loneliness
For miles
To the other edge, 
And how much sky
Is in one breath

When time slides backward
From the sand."

Here's to another year of good reading in 2019. 💖

Deep In December

"Deep in December it's nice to remember
Although you know the snow will follow.
Deep in December it's nice to remember
Without a hurt the heart will hollow."

You can't get much deeper into December than these final days. Some photos from the past three:

Friday, a close up of the pop up New Year's greeting card from my daughter and her husband. It is from Lovepop cards, "A beautiful keepsake that unfolds like a miniature surprise." And what a nice surprise it was. A blank card slides out for a personalized message.

And on Facebook Friday, this picture of my youngest great-granddaughter, Brynley, and her Christmas puppy, Shadow. Her mom had the photo tagged, "And they called it puppy love...." Those faces.....💕💖💞

After a very nice day Thursday, Friday saw a drop in temps, wind from the North-northwest and snow.

Saturday, the 29th, was even colder. I only took one photo, this one, through the window, trying to show the sunset already moving a little back to the North a week after the Solstice.

Today it has been nice again. I've been entertained by the Red-breasted Nuthatch on the left and the Downey Woodpecker on the right taking turns at the suet feeder.

"Deep in December 
it's nice to remember
The fire of September that made you mellow.
Deep in December our hearts should remember
and follow...follow..."

Taking Census

Today is my youngest grandson's 21st birthday. That's Devin in front. The photo was taken eight years ago at my brother's 70th birthday party.

Here's a more recent one so you can see how handsomely he has grown up.

I'm very proud of him. I'm proud of all nine of my grandchildren.




I woke up this morning thinking about taking census. I suppose because of the combination of my youngest grandchild officially becoming an adult and the Christmas story.

How do you count your progeny? Only the ones related by blood? Or do you include the steps - children, grands and great grands? And in-laws?

For me to keep track of all the great-grands, I have to write down their names and birthdates as soon as they are born. I'll never have as many as my grandmother Delphia did when she died. We both started out with three children, but she had 16 grandchildren where I had nine. At the time of her death, she had 49 great-grandchildren and 20 great-great grands.

If I had to return to the town of my birth for census taking, as Joseph did, I would not have to travel far. Even though I grew up near Corning and consider it my home town, I retired to Creston where I was born. (No hospital in Corning at the time.)

So, here is my personal census: Three children, Douglas, Kari and Preston and one stepson, Mark and their partners, Shelly, Ken, Shalea and Juliet. Nine grandchildren, Brock, Zachary, Katrina, Alyssa, Ki, Kathryn, Deise, Dominique and Devin. Brock, Katrina and Alyssa partners, Jennifer, Brad and Evan and Kathryn's fiance, Travis. Two step-great-grands, Michael and Nicholas and nine, so far, great-grands, Brock's Ridge, Sawyer and Jack, Katrina's Rodney and Brynley, Alyssa's Lily and Maverick and Ki's Ayden and Greyson.

Why do I always feel like I am forgetting someone? Think my grandma Delphia might have felt the same? As far as I know, I am not expecting any new great-grands in 2019, but that can always change!

Children range in age from 56 down to 44. Grands from 37 down to 21. Great-grands from nine down to eleven months. Two step-great-grands are 17 and 14.

I've said it many times - "I am so glad I had my children when I was young so I have been able to play with my grandchildren and hold my great-grandchildren."

Spoiling Christmas

It was probably sixty-six years ago today that my sister Betty and I received our coveted doll house. We had been asking for one for weeks, but would Santa answer our wish?

Not only was I old enough to know the truth about Santa, I knew where Mom hid our Christmas presents in her closet. And she was out of the house to do chores often enough that I had no problem snooping.

I remember opening the closet door and finding a big present. Aha! A couple knuckle raps on the top confirmed that it was something made out of metal. It had to be a doll house.

Christmas morning arrived as did our doll house. My faded memories are of it looking like the top on the outside and similar to this on the inside. Funny thing was, it wasn't nearly as much fun playing with as I thought it would be. Did I spoil the fun by snooping and finding the gift ahead of time?

Did I also spoil my little sister's Christmas by telling her I knew we were getting our doll house? She was two years younger than I was and might have still believed in Santa Claus.

Since moving our family Christmas celebrating to July, Christmas Day has become very low key. Decorating for Christmas, baking cookies and making candy, playing Christmas songs, none of these are things I enjoy, so today is just another day.

Yesterday we spent a few hours at my younger son's home. Only he, his wife and one of their five children and his two sons were there along with my daughter-in-law's father and nephew.

With the exception of playing too much with the little ones and being tired out, it was a fairly low-key day. Bud caught Ayden and me in a quiet pose. The rest of the time the two little ones were in constant motion.

Highlight of the day for Greyson and Ayden were their bikes from Great-grandpa Pete.

When we left they were taking the bikes outside to ride - just not enough room in the house.

At least these two did not know ahead of time about their bikes. No spoiled Christmas for them. 😇

A Glimpse Into The Past

It was a rare treat and a glimpse into my husband's past when someone shared a photo on Facebook yesterday.

The picture was one of her Dad's birthday party on August 7, 1954. It only took me a second to indentify that cute kid on the left - even though I didn't know him for many years later.
The birthday boy is the one with the holster and gun, fourth from the left. I wonder if the toy firearm was his birthday present? Bud and Larry were not only neighbors, friends and playmates living in the little burg of Brooks, they were also cousins.
I could identify Bud, next to him, Renny, skip one, then Larry, skip one and the boy on the end, Danny, a high school classmate of mine. Bud thought #'s 3 and 5 might have been two brothers, Bobby and Duane, who moved to the west coast.

This is a photo Bud had never seen. I'm sure it brought back many memories for him, taken three months before he turned 10. Memories of a carefree summer with a gang of friends, free to roam, explore, and act out their fantasy games and share one another's birthday parties.

I love this photo of the cute kid who grew up to be my handsome husband. I love the nostalgic feel of a simpler time and a glimpse into the past.

Special Winter Solstice

Winter begins today with the solstice at 4:23p.m. CST, just 24 minutes before sunset. The Winter Solstice 2018 coincides with the Ursid meteor showers as well as December's Full Cold Moon.

A blogger I follow entitled his post today: Solstice: Tis a reason for the season....
For those of us who can relate to SAD, this day is especially welcome as it signals the turn toward light - longer days after the longest night. Though, to be honest, the days, weeks, months, seasons, years, pass so quickly anymore, I barely have time to recognize my seasonal affective disorder.

But I still celebrate the solstice, this year with a passage from Wallace Stegner's book A Shooting Star:

"He stood looking, and some tick of Time went past - a moment or a thousand years - and he squeezed his tired eyes shut and looked again, and the night hung silent around him, the invisible silver was still falling, the moon was already lower."

I've shared this passage before, but on this special day/night, it seems appropriate to share again.

Blessed Solstice Greetings.

Family Connections

We have a radio station in SW Iowa which covers not only a wide swath of our area, but also SE Nebraska and NW Missouri. It's website is one I check every morning and again in the late afternoon or evening for local news but mainly for the obits. A week or so ago I saw the name of a Corning woman which sounded familiar but I couldn't place. Her age was the same as my sister would have been. There was no picture with the original posting but a couple days later, when the obituary was available, it included her photo.

I didn't even have to read her maiden name, the family resemblance said it all. The eyes, the mouth, the chin, her lovliness even at age 73.




This photo reminded me of my mother at that age. I went in search of a picture of Mom for comparison, but didn't find one without her glasses. This one may be close in looks and age.

Victoria has the square Means chin more than Mom did, but the eyes, nose, mouth are very similar. Vicky's grandmother Merle and my grandmother Delphia were first cousins. If I had a photo of Merle to place along side of one of Grandma Delphia you would really notice their similar looks.

Vicky's obituary mentioned her love of cooking and baking which sounded like our Mother. It also spoke of her love of reading, watching (and playing along with) Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, solving crossword puzzles and playing cribbage which sounds like me.

But the one thing I got a chuckle from was this: "Gram was a great cook, no matter what she made, she always served it and said: Well, it may not be fit to eat. If you don't like it, don't eat it." That really sounded like something my grandma would have said - although she might have said, "eat it, anyway".

You may remember this photo of Merle's sons and Dephia's daughters taken in the mid 1930's. Victoria's father, Carroll, is between Aunt Lois and my mom, Ruth.

Another bit of family connection - Vicky's brother is the step-father of our son Mark's best friend Jason. Too far down the line for you? Well then how about this:
In Tuesday's DM Register obits there was one that mentioned the deceased woman's maiden name - Schulte - and that she was originally from Carroll. Dollars to doughnuts she is a distant relative of my son and daughter whose father's maternal grandmother was a Schulte.
I haven't attempted following that line back, but I do love making these family connections.

If The Ring Fits...

Thirty-three years ago, when, after four years of back and forths, up and downs and break ups followed by make ups, Bud and I decided we could make it work and decided to get married, we got around to talking about rings - engagement and wedding. I never cared for diamonds - too pedestrian for me. I was a devotee of 'a simple little band of gold' and that is what Bud placed on my finger.

When my Grandma Lynam died in 1987, we found the ruby ring she had always worn with her wedding band among her sewing supplies - but the ruby was missing. That was when we decided to have a topaz (my birthstone) set in the ring and call it my engagement ring.

Grandma's finger was about the same size as mine, so until I started gaining weight, all was well. When it no longer fit, it went into the jewelry box.

But now that I have lost weight (currently down to 138 lb's), the ring now fits again. I would say the mounting is flower shaped with delicate scroll designs on either side. I like being able to wear it again until it is time for it to go to my granddaughter, Dominique. (She and her sister, Deise, both have November birthdays, so will share my topaz jewelry.)

This is the poem I wrote about Grandma's ring the year after she died:

Grandma's Ring

Ruby flashing in the sun
Woman's work is never done
Worn on hand used to toil
Tending babies, turning soil

Years go by, duties do shrink
Fewer dishes in the old sink
Ruby ring still shiny bright
Grandpa a memory in the night

Visits to the nursing home
Grandma wizened like a gnome
Shriveled hand, ring is lost
Value sentimental, not in cost

Grandma's gone, sorting her things
Ruby's gone, but here's her ring
Treasured topaz now I wear
Think of Grandma, how I care

A clearer view of her ring as well as her Grandma Aggie's ring on my little finger. So much sentimental value in these rings - at least for me. 💞