The Saturday Six

One.

Listen here!

If you like suspense fiction, I think you'll enjoy Patricia Bradley's books! Her newest, Justice Buried, released just a few days ago, and it's the second book in the Memphis Cold Case series, published by Revell. I enjoyed her books, but I also had a BLAST talking to her. She's got some surprising passions, dreams, and missions, and I think you'll enjoy hearing what she has to say! If you have a few minutes, take a listen!

Two.

For those of you who are in the central Indiana area, this is a fun list of date ideas for Indianapolis. I have done a decent number of these, some with Ryan and some with friends before he and I got married. I found a few more that looked intriguing! (We don't drink, so any that involve wineries and such are out for us, but there are still a lot of other great ideas.) I can vouch for the following numbers: 1, 3, 4, 6(ish), 11, 12, 15, 27, 37, 41, and 49!

Three.

Loved this post about living simply. (And not just because she likens it to Green Gables.) (But that helped.) 

Four.

My third grade teacher's mom turned 100 years old this week. (What...you don't keep up with your 3rd grade teacher?? LOL! Facebook!) 100 is a big deal no matter how you look at it, but an even bigger deal was what her mom did at 96. NINETY-SIX!!!! Check it out.

Five.

Since the IKEA just north of Indianapolis is about ONE MONTH away from opening, I thought this article would be helpful for any of you who have never been and are pondering a trip to see what all the fuss is about. I agree with nearly everything inside and would heartily add my own bullet point of EAT THERE! They have surprisingly good and affordable food, and you can't beat the coffee.  

Six.

Every year, I try to read a Christmas book. I love it that authors write Christmas books for grownups. Kids get them, after all, so why shouldn't adults? Sometimes, Christmas books (like Christmas movies) can lean a bit to the cheesy side, but I don't even care, because it's Christmas, and it all just makes me happy.

This week I read a new release for this Christmas, written by Melody Carlson, called The Christmas Blessing. I've read a couple of Melody's summer romances before, and they were light-hearted, quick reads, so I expected more of the same from this book and was looking forward to it!

The book is set back in the mid 1940's, which I loved, because there was such nostalgia in the pages. I love pushing my brain to create scenes beyond those I can easily envision by just looking around me every day.

The Christmas Blessing tells the story of Amelia Richards, who received word that her baby's father, James, was shot down in the South Pacific. She knew when she fell in love with a soldier in the middle of a war, that she had to be prepared for bad news, but as she calculated the timing of her letters, she realized James probably never even got the news that little Jimmy was on the way. Struggling financially and exhausted from single-parenting a colicky baby, Amelia sets out for James' hometown to meet his parents.

It would be a difficult meeting under any circumstance, but showing up on their doorstep the day before Thanksgiving to introduce herself and a baby they didn't even know existed raised the anxiety meter more than a couple of notches.

She knows the baby needs and deserves more than she can give, but she doesn't know where to find the solution. Amelia needs an impossible miracle, and she hopes Christmas can bring one.

I read this book in one afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it. While it was a completely easy read, I did find it to have a little more depth than the summer romances I'd previously enjoyed. I appreciated the peek into another time period and the reminder of opening our hearts to try to understand what others are facing.

A couple of full-disclosure items (in case these matter to you in book selection): though the Gospel message is not blatant in the pages of the book, there are faith elements present. Personally, I wish that part of the story had been explored and impressed a bit more, since it is the entire point of the Christmas season. But I appreciated that it wasn't entirely ignored. Since James and Amelia were not married when they conceived their son, and the book was set in the 40's, the stigma of the pregnancy is addressed throughout the book. While it was addressed from a social standpoint, their choices were never addressed from a spiritual standpoint, and I wished that had been fully explored as well.

But those things aside, I enjoyed the story very much and found it to be a great beginning to Christmas reading, 2017!