Reading report: January

I squeezed in 12 books in January, thanks as ever to audiobooks.

🎧A Killer Plot by Ellery Adams 3⭐️

🎧The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas 5⭐️

📖The Night Fire by Michael Connelly 4⭐️

🎧A Deadly Cliche by Ellery Adams 4⭐️

🎧The Turn of the Screw by Henry James 3⭐️

🎧The Last Word by Ellery Adams 3⭐️

🎧Written in Stone by Ellery Adams 3⭐️

🎧Poisoned Prose by Ellery Adams 4⭐️

🎧Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan 3⭐️

📖The Book of Candlelight by Ellery Adams 4⭐️

🎧Before and After by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate 4⭐️
📖The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis 5⭐️

Favourite book this month was The Hate U Give. 

Least favourite was The Turn of the Screw. I gave it three stars after I finished it- which means that I generally enjoyed it and it certainly wasn’t terrible, but it was hard to get a sense of what was happening. I have a physical copy of this floating around my life somewhere, and will probably need to re-visit this one in the future.

Currently reading: The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis. I love everything about this novel and can’t wait to finish it. With any luck I’ll get through the final ~160 pages in the next three hours and push this month’s number to 12.

What are you reading? What do you love about books? My favourite thing about reading is slipping into another world, another life, and discovering something about myself along the way. 

Book review: Let Love Have the Last Word

Book: Let Love Have the Last Word
Author: Common, narrated by Common
Dates read: December 22-23, 2019

This was a powerful book about, of course, love; also the mistakes we make along the way, redemption, and shutting up when others need to speak. Common’s narration of his own story felt like peeking right into his head as he shared his struggles, his failures, and his successes as he explores what it means to really, truly let love have the last word.

I have struggled with love; loving others fully, and allowing myself to be loved. Love feels vulnerable. It feels unreliable. It feels unsafe. 

It has taken me a lot of years and a lot of work to get to a place where love is healing; where it feels reliable and safe. Common’s words reflected everything that is true and perfect about love. 

Book review: The Book of Candlelight

Book: The Book of Candlelight
Author: Ellery Adams
Dates read: January 20-29, 2020


The Book of Candlelight starts off with catastrophic events: heavy rains that blankets the town and dampens spirits, and the unexplained death of a local artist, Danny. Nora's reaction to this death is palpable - she didn't know Danny well but she feels his loss deeply. Emboldened by empathy and a desire to offer comfort, she befriends Danny's widow, Marie, and attempts to help her through the grieving process - something Nora herself is well-acquainted with.

Two newcomers to Miracle Springs, best friends Lou and Patty, are renovating a local inn. During renovation, startling facts come to light: secret passageways hidden within the walls; the damaged diary of the original proprietress, Rose Lattimer, which hints at long-past scandal. As Nora gets to know the newest residents of the community, a picture begins to emerge of a deep connection between the inn, Danny's death, and secrets the inn has held for many years.

The Secret, Book, and Scone Society friends dig into these secrets and as they do they uncover another murder, and lies among the Lattimer family - lies and pain that follow the descendants of the Lattimer family today.

As each member of the group deals with their individual pains that are surfacing around them, there is also deepening friendship among some new members of the town. Sheldon, a strange and delightful man who joins Nora at Miracle Books and brings a sense of whimsy with him; Lou and Patty, who have deeper ties to the Lattimer inn than they first realized. Marie, who needs the sort of friendship the community of Miracle Springs can offer.

While things started out seemingly bleak for the residents of Miracle Springs, there is also hope. I am reminded our deepest pains can be offset by helping others; Nora and her friends all experience sadness in their individual circumstances but they are uplifted when they work together. And together they stop a serious crime, bring justice to victims, and continue to support each other through their talents.

I was offered an advance copy of this novel for an honest review. This series continues to delight me- I enjoy the trials and the friendship demonstrated among the characters and the writing evokes feelings of visiting with old friends.

Keeping house

I have been in a weird place emotionally for a long time. I call it depression because that’s the closest word that feels accurate, but it is simultaneously more and less than that. I’ve lost two very close family members in the last two years so mostly I feel like I’m just grieving, which is part of how I feel less than depressed. It’s okay to feel sad when someone you love has died; it seems normal to feel a little lost in your day to day routine when that routine involved providing physical care for a dying person for several months.

I feel overwhelmed most days before I even open my eyes in the morning. I go through the motions of nearly every single responsibility and my heart isn’t in it. I walk into a room and turn around and walk right back out because I can’t face what is there. And that feels like a little more.

I go through this occasionally- I feel like I’ve battled these feelings off and on my whole life. I always come out of it, and it seems to last an appropriate amount of time for the circumstances. Until it doesn’t, and then every day feels like a burden I don’t want to manage.

This past Saturday I was looking forward to spending the day reading, knitting, and napping. These are the things I want to do whenever I have an expectation of downtime- these are the things that re-energize me when I’m in the right frame of mind.

Lately, I haven’t been in the right frame of mind to be energized. All the things I know to do that will help me don’t work any longer. I feel like my healthiest coping mechanisms have been unplugged and I am left feeling like I don’t know what to do. This is especially upsetting for me, because that leaves unhealthy coping mechanisms that I don't really want to give in to. And by that I mean that I always want to give in them, because my badness level is very high. So I fight against the temptation to burn my life down while desperately fighting to find ways to unravel the mess in my head.

Now to Saturday: I slept in a glorious amount and then my husband asked if we can open our home for a church meeting Sunday evening. Friends, my house is a mess. I won’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve done a thorough clean of anything. I tidy up when we go out of town so my house-sitter doesn’t catch cooties, and we clean our guest bathroom whenever we have people over (which is every week so at least that gets done regularly). One of the things that is true about me when I am more or less depressed is that I don’t do house cleaning. I have never been good at it. I should be, and I’m often embarrassed that I am not, but it’s just something I’ve never much cared about doing even when I feel like my best self.

Imagine how I felt Saturday when I realized I would have to spend the day cleaning instead of reading. Seems like the last thing I’d want to do, but the idea of it stimulated me out of my misery. We spent the day cleaning, had a successful meeting in a shiny home Sunday night, and when I came downstairs to start my Monday morning I felt content in my surroundings. More content than I have in a long time.

And I’m realizing, not for the first time (another embarrassing story) that my psyche feels best when I’m in a clean environment. I feel less overwhelmed, less burdened by every little thing. And a little more capable of tackling the day. Why is it that the very thing I need to feel better emotionally feels impossible to accomplish when I don’t feel better emotionally?

That reading I didn't get to do Saturday? I made up for it this morning before work, sitting in my spotless living room on my comfortable couch, surrounded by all the things that bring me joy.

Are we friends?

I read a lot of books, and I've started sharing those books with others. Book reviews, giving away books, even.. and pardon me while I tense up a little... lending out books from my personal library. That's right, friends, I have finally decided that it's more important to share my books with others than to keep them all for myself.

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a friend and she shared an opinion with me about a book I had given her; I didn't share the opinion and had to make her explain it to me.

Today, I meet up with my friend before church to hand off the next book in the series to her when she says to me, "Are we friends?" I acknowledge that we are indeed and she then explains that she's concerned she offended me with her previously-shared opinion (which was not in the least bit offensive and made for an interesting observation).

Several years ago when I was first baptized (and was still learning how to be nice in social situations) a member of my church made a comment during a class that we "should never give or take offense". I'm quite familiar with the notion that we can choose not to be offended, and embrace the knowledge that I do have control over my actions and that being offended is something I can choose not to give in to.

When I heard that comment though, I entertained the idea that some people are just offensive. Their opinions and the way they voice them have a way of getting under the skin. But just thinking that forces me to acknowledge that I am occasionally guilty of offending people with the way I voice my opinions; some of my opinions are unpopular and sometimes people are offended because they don't really know me and make assumptions about what I mean when I get that RBF expression.

So when my sweet friend expressed concern that she had offended me, I almost laughed right in her face. I know her, and she is a kind, thoughtful person. When she shares her thoughts with me, she is simply describing how information hit her filters, bounced around in her brain, and then came out of her mouth.

Now when I think about that comment I heard so many years ago - "never give or take offense" - I think I understand it a little better. It's about getting to know the people around us so when they share their thoughts, we know a little about their background and what makes them think the way they do. What about my friend's experiences shape her thinking? What has she encountered in her life that creates those filters that information gets pushed through?

I've heard it said often enough that we are a product of our environments, but it's also true that we are a product of our experiences; or, perhaps, we are a product of how we feel about our experiences. And the more we can come to know about others' experiences the more we can understand them, connect with them, and not be offended by them.

Snow day

It has been raining almost constantly for what feels like weeks. Rain means something entirely new to me these days- now that I own property that is in a wetland area, I am learning more about standing water than I knew was possible. My animal pens are an absolute mess as we figure out how to deal with the water that pools everywhere. I find myself researching drainage the way I used to research... well, much more fun things.

I crave the sun and warmth but I have come to appreciate the rain in ways I never have before. It helps that I don't have a commute for work through the very worst of NW traffic, and that I no longer smoke and have that horrifying combination of cigarette smoke + damp smell on my clothing. When I don't have to go out in the rain, it's not all that awful.

I find the sound of it restful. I have a white noise app on my phone that I often listen to when I need help sleeping, and the rain sound is among my favourites. Now, when I hear rain I feel calm and meditative.

My home office, where I spend the majority of every week-day doubles as my craft room. I have a small futon and ottoman, bookshelves with yarn and knitting books and all manner of craft items, a television, and a desk. Even when I can't take advantage of craft-time, being here in this room with the sounds of rain around me and an overcast gloom in the air, I feel creative and inspired to do something amazing on a break today in place of my normal social media mindless-scroll.

Today, it’s snowing. Which is pretty to look at and makes me want to turn the heat on full blast and knit, but there’s no such thing as a snow day when you work from home.

Book review: The Hate U Give

Book: The Hate U Give
Author: Angie Thomas, narrated by Bahni Turpin
Dates read: January 1-2, 2020

This book takes us through one young woman’s battle with racism, violence, and what it means to be Black in white spaces. I found this book to be heartbreakingly raw and eye-opening. It was beautifully written and wonderfully narrated. Ms. Turpin brought Starr’s character and story alive for me.

One of the things that struck me is how the author demonstrated racist behaviour among the people in Starr’s life. It felt reflective of the racist behaviour I observe on social media, and the experiences I have heard about from people of colour. It is a stark reminder to me that how we MEAN to behave and how our behaviour FEELS to someone else are very different, and it is important to be able to step back and give others space. Space to breathe, space to be validated, space to be themselves.

Thoughts on Christmas

I haven’t always loved Christmas. For a variety of reasons, but mainly because the Santa myth upsets me and because I have spent a lot of my life as not-a-Christian.

My husband’s family loves Christmas, and now that I am all-the-way a Christian I have been trying to love it too. My mother-in-law, Nancy, especially loved Christmas, and she and I had many long conversations about why Christmas could be such a magical time of year. I never truly captured the magic of it in my heart, but I tried because my mother-in-law is that compelling and I wanted to be like her.

My dad died the week before Christmas a couple years ago and that was heavy on my mind last year. Then my mother-in-law passed away in April and this past Christmas was our first without her. To say that Christmas is once again an emotionally hard time of year doesn’t really capture how much I struggle to see the joy and magic of the season.

I was dreading this Christmas - without my dad, without my husband’s mom, and with a weariness in the places they used to exist, I wasn’t looking forward to it. I invited my mom to spend the night on Christmas Eve so we could be together in the morning; we spent the evening making cookies and treats and singing (not very Christmasy) songs. The next morning we slept in and took our time eating breakfast and opening gifts.

It was a quiet Christmas, and sad in many ways. But when I think back on it now that the fog of the season is starting to lift from me, I can see a little bit of magic. The quiet enjoyment of baking with my mom; my husband playing my favourite songs on the guitar. My mom taught me an Irish lullaby, and we sang it together.

I miss my dead people. I find myself once again shrouded in feelings of anger and loss. But I am grateful for the people who are still here. I am grateful for my mom spending the evening with me, and teaching me old songs. I am grateful my remaining parents are close enough that I can spend time with them.

The magic that I felt, albeit small, was this: there is room enough in me to experience joy even when I am angry. That wasn’t always true; I have a lot of experience being angry and that emotion used to push out everything else and I pulled it around me like a shield. Miss Nancy taught me this: that it is important to feel all the feelings, and not to push out happiness when things aren’t going well. Anger makes an appearance, but it isn’t allowed to put down roots.

Focus word: Intention

If you have read my blog over the years, you will know that I all-but-abandon it on the regular. Except for around-the-new-year time, I get all this inspiration to create and write and resolve myself.

Looking back on last year’s focus word, I can now say that I completely failed. Oh, I’ve had some light moments: lighthearted fun with my family; light-of-Christ moments of teaching my church kiddos and loving those around me.

I did not create pictures or music. I did not read uplifting books (for the most part). I did not focus on decluttering my house.

I did a lot of stuff though. I buried my mother-in-law. I loved that woman, and burying her was second only to burying my dad.

I read the entire Book of Mormon. It took most of the year, and I took a lot of time off over the year, but I finished it. I read most of the New Testament. I finished a program in my church that the Young Women do called Personal Progress. Finishing meant that I studied specific topics and completed projects that were relevant to those topics.

I read 96 books - fiction, non-fiction, and everything in between.

I went on vacation with 20 of my family members (and those close friends who are family because I decided they were). That was both stressful and amazing.

I learned how to bake bread from scratch (including making and using sourdough starter).

In some ways I feel really good about 2019 but there are several areas I need to improve in, and I’m using this new year time of year to sort out some goals and abandon others. The air around me vibrates with the energy of potential, and one thing that is true about me is that when I set my mind to something I accomplish it.

This year, my focus word is intention. My family gathers for a gospel discussion/study each Monday evening, and a lot of our talks harken back to the concept of intention. We talk about it in terms of being the opposite of “going through the motions”. To act with intention means deciding on our own behaviour and acting with purpose. To act as agents, rather than to be acted upon.

For me, it means setting out with purpose in my day to day life. That looks like less time wasted on social media, less time playing games on my phone, and less time on pursuits that I realise, upon examining them, that I am not really enjoying.

I have a big ole list of things I want to do - this year, but every day, for the rest of my life. I want to re-connect with the things that bring me joy and when I think about what prevented that for me last year, I can see that it is because I didn’t set out my day(s) with any particular intention most days. If I only accomplished the things I set out to do, my year would not have included much of anything. Truthfully, I might not accomplish much more this year but I think I’ll be happier for some intention setting.

I don’t know to hold myself accountable for some things. I am hoping that by remembering my focus word and focusing on my intentions I will be able to achieve greater personal happiness in 2020.