At Home in Wyoming

Tick Tock

Perched on the top of our living room mantel sits a crescent moon Santa...watching the seconds tick down until midnight, Christmas Eve.

I wanted to post today, but I have nothing to say.  So I thought I would hang a picture and be done with it.

But just so I don't leave you with nothing for tuning in, I am going to share something that Father Tim in the fictional town of Mitford said:

"Knitting, he thought, was a comfort to the soul.  It was regular, it was repetitious.  And in the end, it amounted to something."  (At Home In Mitford by Jan Karon)

I will leave you with this thought...are we doing anything today that in the end 'amounts to something'?   DLB

From My Bookshelf

This photo is of the Nativity in my living room...watched over by two angels that I found at the Bargain Box last week!

If you are in the mood for a good novel to read over the Christmas holidays, try "Winter Solstice" by Rosamunde Pilcher.  Since it was published over 10 years ago, you may not find it at the bookstore, but can order it new on Amazon.  It is one of my favorite books with a Christmas background...you will fall in love with the characters. 

I read this book when it first came out, and now every other year or so I hunt it off my bookshelf and reread it during the holidays.  I just finished it again last night...and as usual I was sorry that it ended. 

But that's ok...I just got "Shepherd's Abiding" by Jan Karon off of the bookshelf, and will switch from Christmas in Scotland ("Winter Solstice") to Christmas in the small town of Mitford, North Carolina.

Too bad Mitford is fictional...if it was a real place I would pack my bags and move tomorrow!

Whatever book you get your hands on this month, I wish you happy reading!   DLB

Take A Trip To Mitford

 

An antique Clorox bottle makes a unique base for a droopy Valentine tree made of lilac branches, Easter grass and some dollar store hearts.  I love the way that the sun shines through those old amber bottles.

I read somewhere that you can tell a lot about a person not so much by what they read, but by what they re-read...over and over again.  Do you have books like that?  Worn and spotty, with pages kind of mottled because you got water on them while reading as you soaked in the tub, or personalized with catchup stains because you hauled them to a picnic and tried to eat a hamburger and read at the same time.

If you looked on my bookshelf, that is the way that you would find my Mitford books.  The Mitford books (there is a whole series of them, starting with "At Home in Mitford") are books written by Jan Karon about life in the fictional small town of Mitford.  Where everything and nothing much happens at the same time, and God is woven into the story of everyday people just living out their everyday lives.  I love how this author takes the ordinary, throws in God...and the ordinary becomes extraordinary.  And you know how she does it?  She uses scripture and sprinkles it around as liberally as my husband does salt on meat.  And as with salt, the scripture is what flavors these little books.  I read them over and over again, and they have become as familiar as old friends.

So if you have had a day that pinched like you had on a too tight pair of shoes, give the Mitford books a try.  They are as soothing as a pair of old slippers...and I always leave smiling when I can relax and spend a few minutes in Mitford!   DLB