Good
morning, friends! Happy Saturday to you! Ryan and are enjoying our weekend and
are thankful for some time to squeeze in just a little bit of everything:
family, friends, rest, responsibility…it’s a good balance. And here are some
gifts for you on this beautiful June day!
I love
finding free printable art for the home because I can easily change up the look
of a room without spending a bunch (or anything, really, except my paper and
ink) or feeling guilty when I want to change it up again. Heidi has great
printables, and she recently released some Americana
options. There
are some great ideas here that pull in red, white, and blue, but you have
choices about whether or not you want them to be heavy on flags or just on the
colors!
KariAnne
from Thistlewood Farms is such a great blog storyteller, and now she has gone back to read a few of
her favorite posts so you can hear her stories. I think it’s brilliant. She has
such a joyful voice – especially when she cracks herself up – and I think
you’ll love hearing her words in her actual voice!
Speaking
of KariAnne, she also shared this post about how to select and display faux
greenery inside your home in a way that looks less faux and more authentic. I
like the idea of some faux flowers and greenery because over time, it’s more
cost effective (as long as you have a place to store it in the off season! Her
ideas are helpful!
When I
read this piece, written by Scotty Smith, I had to
go back and read a second time just to let it wash over me. “Many of us have no
clue how angry we are…” – WOW! That made me pause to think. Do I struggle with
more anger than I want to admit? More than I even realize?? It’s worth a read
and then some consideration!
Candace
posted this back before Memorial Day, so the
items marked sale price may no longer be accurate, but with Independence Day
coming up, I thought it would be a great one to share if you’re looking for
outfit inspiration for the holidays! There are some awfully cute and
comfy-looking pieces in this mix. This year is a big milestone for the USA, so
maybe a new outfit is in order??
Yvonne’s tutorial on container plants is AMAZING. While you have probably
completed this project for this season, you can find great info for next year –
or for sprucing up anything in your collection that is already looking a bit
tired this year. We do a lot of container flowers around here, and I learned
some good new-to-me facts and ideas from her piece. It’s comprehensive and
practical!
Reading has eluded me much of this
year. There simply hasn’t been time, and that is such a sad sentence to type –
or even think, really. But I recently finished reading a novel that I wanted to
mention, though I’m guessing most of you have heard of it or even read it. Theo
of Golden is a bestseller and quite the book right now. It feels strange to
write about having read it because I am not a NYT bestselling book
reader as a general rule. But several friends nudged me to read it, and while
Ryan and I were shopping at Sam’s Club one night, I pointed at the book and
told Ryan I’d heard it was a good one. He pulled it from the shelf, put it in
the cart, and that was how it came to be mine!
I started it on vacation and devoured
the end of it not long after we came home. I am not going to attempt to do a
traditional book review on this here, because there are a million of those
floating around the internet that you can read – reviews that are much better
than what I could write. But I do want to tell you what I loved about this
book.
It’s a secular book, but it does
have a strong faith theme woven in. While I might not hang my entire hat on the
theology of it (I really would need to spend more time rereading the exact
words) I appreciate that a faith aspect made such a strong appearance in a
secular book. I also think that (even with…maybe especially with…the language
peppered throughout) the book is a wildly accurate representation of people living
in real life – including those within the church walls. I say that last part
for better and worse. There was a church scene about halfway through the book
that was unfortunate and accurate all at once. It was profound to read and
consider.
I loved Theo. I loved his way of
thinking. I loved the spectrum of his emotions and who he was deep in his soul.
I loved his adherence to his convictions, his listening skills (oh how much I
need to work on that!) and his generosity.
And I loved Allen Levi’s
writing. That’s really what I want to talk about here. He is a masterclass in
craft. And what is amazing to me about that is that this is his debut novel,
and he’s 70. If that doesn’t remind us all that we’re never too old to start
something new and do it very, very well, I don’t know what is. I read a quote
the other day – by an author named Hannah Brencher – and her advice to writers included
this: “Read a few pages of a book by an author you love – not to study it or to
take notes, but to play in the puddles of the greats for a moment or two.” And
that is what Theo of Golden is. Playing in the puddles of the (new)
great novelist, Allen Levi.
I was inspired as a person AND a
writer by this book.
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