“So, don’t hate me, but . . .”
It’s a conversation my husband and I have had about twenty times this pregnancy, usually about the name we’ll use if our baby is a girl. The formula is quite clear: we discuss the names on our shortlist and settle on a combination, and then a few weeks later, I start having doubts.
2 CommentsIt’s Christmas in July, and Ornamental Graces is for FREE on Kindle July 25, 26, & 27! Ornamental Graces
Leave a CommentIn Matthew’s Gospel with concern to prayer, Jesus says, “Pray then like this,” then follows up with the glorious words of The Lord’s Prayer, also known as the Our Father. Oblivious for most of my life of the origins of this prayer, I often resisted reverting to it while in prayer. Ironically, spending my time in my conversations with Jesus asking him to teach me how to pray better, how to grow closer to Him, and how to be more faithful to His teachings.
Had I opened the Scriptures or maybe even paid a little more attention during the readings at Mass, perhaps I would have discovered this connection much sooner. The quote from St. Jerome, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ!” was quite fitting of my situation.
I recently read The Grace Crasher by Mara Faro in less than a day, and it rocketed to the top of my list of favorites for the year! See why you should get a copy of your own.
Novels in which the hero or heroine are battling an addiction are not typically easy reads. Both My Unexpected Hope and Blue Columbine are childhood sweetheart/second chance romances that make your heart hurt in the best ways as the characters fight to break the bonds of addiction (alcohol in Blue Columbine and alcohol and illegal drugs in My Unexpected Hope). The Things We Knew includes a large cast, several of whom are addicted to alcohol and drugs. Gray Carlisle is the character to watch, as he struggles to get clean for the sake of himself and those he loves.
The Grace Crasher includes a minor character addicted to alcohol, but the heroine in this hilarious novel is addicted to love. (Say that out loud without singing the refrain of the Robert Palmer song. I dare you.) Hip and funny, yet serious when it needs to be, The Grace Crasher tackles the “less popular” addictive behaviors, such as those involving serial crushes and (in another minor character) overeating.
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Last Labor Day weekend, we gave family camping another shot. After several years’ hiatus allowing our babies and toddlers to grow into preschoolers, the six of us tent camped for a weekend. You can read about our adventures with pit toilets and fish pedicures here, but all in all, it was well worth it.
This year, we chose better when it came to the facilities, more memories were made, more lessons learned.
We went from putrid pit toilets and no showers last year to pristine bathrooms and showers this year. What a difference it makes! My camping bathroom standards aren’t ridiculously high. We are in the outdoors after all, and I expect a certain number of moths, spiders, and other creepy crawlies to make their way inside. But these bathrooms had next to none! My only quibble is the fact that no paper towels were available, only weak hand driers. (But that also probably contributed to the cleanliness factor.)
While this site was another previously-unseen walk-in, its steep incline from parking spot to tent site amounted to a matter of yards. No excruciating, back-breaking treks up and down with gear or to the potty. Speaking of the potty . . .
As the author of Catholic fiction for teens and young adults, I find myself in a constant battle of the wills. There’s this desire to delight the reader with an entertaining and relatable story, while still remaining focused on pleasing God and sharing His Word. Some may not think this much of a challenge, but when you reflect on the world we live in, as well as what passes for entertainment these days, hardly a fraction of it would be considered godly. In fact, entertainment is so focused on stories that do everything but promote God’s word, or worse, indulge in ideas that are contrary to God’s word.
Welcome to the July 2017 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com! I had long been looking forward to reading…
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