A Melodious Sonnet

My Top 10 Books in 2021

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I’m fairly certain I intended to write a “book-year-in-review” list last year, but never got around to it . . . last Christmas season was very busy for me, and by the time I got back to things in January, it had slipped my mind. But here we are today with the list for this year! I’m excited to share these books with you.

First, some statistics, because those are always fun, right?

Total books read: 47
Total nonfiction: 13 (28% of total)
Total audiobooks: 9 (19% of total)
New-to-me authors: 17

This year’s reading goals:
Read at least 50 books —NO
Read 50% physical books — NO (only got to 26%)
Read 25% nonfiction — YES! (read 28% nonfiction)

And now, for the top 10 list! I’ll start at #10 and work up to my most favorite one, just for fun, and then share several that didn’t quite make the list, but which I greatly enjoyed, regardless.

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#10: The Nature of Small Birds by Susie Finkbeiner

Ever since reading a Christmas Carol Kauffman book years ago, stories of adoptees have gripped my heart. Add to that my fascination with split-time novels, and the Vietnam Baby Lift, and yeah . . . I was definitely sucked into this story. It isn’t an easy one, in all respects, but I enjoyed this read. I’m hoping there will be a sequel at some stage, although I won’t hold my breath for it. I’ll be looking for more by this author, though!

#9: If I Were You by Lynn Austin

I read the sequel to this book before I realized it was a sequel, but that didn’t end up lessening my enjoyment! World War II, women trying to find their way in the world after disappointments and heartbreak . . . there was a lot to love here, and a lot more depth than I expected. One of the characters fell into sin, and I loved the way that was shown. It wasn’t glorified; instead, the guilt brought them back to Christ. A great story overall.

#8: Hinds’ Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

This is one of those books that I’ve intended to read for years, but never got around to until just recently. I see a lot of myself in Much-Afraid. She tried to do what was right, but failed often, and yet the Shepherd was so gentle and loving toward her. And the way she learned to give things up . . . what a beautiful example of love. It’s a splendid allegory, one I’m sure I’ll be reading again.

#7: To Dwell among Cedars by Connilyn Cossette

I think what struck me about this one was the main character’s desire to go after what was right, even when she didn’t feel like she deserved the blessings that accompanied those choices. I also loved her devotion to and care for her brother, even when he rebelled against it again and again. A great picture of life in Israel at the time of the prophet Samuel, and a great mystery. I wouldn’t mind having this book in print! Read my review here.

#6: The Finder of Forgotten Things by Sarah Loudin Thomas

I just finished reading this book. It kept my attention the entire way through, made me laugh, and made me want to cry. This is based on a true-life tragedy, but the way Thomas wove that in with a story of hope was truly incredible. Parts of the book reminded me of Lark Rise to Candleford, although I would argue that this had a happier ending. For its historical content and story of redemption, this is one worth reading. (Note: It does contain a character who does water-and-other-witching throughout the story.)

#5: Painted Memories by A.M. Heath

I read this book near the beginning of the year, but it’s still stuck with me. While being a mystery, it’s also much more . . . it’s the story of two people who thought they’d lost everything, but then found it again, only to face impossible decisions. The kind of love these two characters showed each other was deeply moving. Heath took a somewhat typical scenario and did something that shocked me, and I love her the more for it. This is another book I’d love to have on my shelf one day! Read my review here.

#4: The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery by Amanda Cox

Cox is a new-to-me author, but I found her work inspiring. Not only does she write extraordinarily well, but she also made me think about my own life while I read about her characters’ lives. This is another split-time novel, about three different women in three generations, and how secrets can be devastating if life isn’t handled properly. Deeply redemptive, I’m sure this story will stay with me for a long time. Oh, and did I mention? It’s also highly amusing at times! I had a hard time keeping the laughter from waking people up a time or two!

#3: Becoming Elizabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn

Elliot’s story has been somewhat at the forefront of my reading and thinking life this year, and I suppose not for a bad reason. Though I was familiar with Jim’s story, many parts of Elizabeth’s story took me by surprise. Hers was a life fraught with trials, yet she faced them with courage and determination, and an eye on the Lord’s will. She wasn’t perfect—Vaughn did a good job bringing that out—but she was a woman who loved the Lord, and for that, I’m thankful to have gotten to know her better. Her story inspires me, and unlike some biographies, I found this well-written and gripping all the way through. Read my review here.

#2: Sensible Shoes by Sharon Garlough Brown

This was my favorite Christian fiction for the year. It closely tied with several others, but I chose Sensible Shoes because of the way Brown helped me to see myself. This is more than just a story of four women trying to follow the Lord; it’s the story of all of us—us, with our buried hurts and insecurities, our longing to know and love God, and the sometimes good, but often difficult, process of learning to accept ourselves and our identity in Jesus. This book was deep, sometimes lighthearted, and one I wanted to savor. Read my review here.

#1: Devotedly by Valerie Shepard

I’m delighted that one of my nonfiction titles made it to the top place for me this year! Several usually prominently figure in the list (why is it that the ones I find hardest to read are often the ones I look back on and appreciate the most?), but this one, in particular, grabbed my heart. This is Jim and Elizabeth Elliot’s love story told from their letters and journal entries. It’s raw, honest, painful, yet full of that peculiar love of the Lord that sets His children apart from all others. They were determined to follow Him first, foremost, and always—and that meant many years of patient waiting for His timing. It’s a beautiful story. Every single person who has ever even slightly struggled with their singleness should read this—and I believe everyone else, in whatever season they’re in, would also find it encouraging. This is a portrait of what God can do with two lives sold out to Him, and it’s a masterpiece.

Honorable Mentions:

A Waltz for Matilda by Jackie French

This book is Australian history at its finest. There were some things I didn’t appreciate in it so much (see my review), but French does an excellent job bringing the people and their times to life here. I loved how this put parts of history I’ve heard about into perspective and delivered a solid story at the same time.

All Saints by Michael Spurlock and Jeanette Windle

This is a truly incredible story, made even more beautiful by the fact that it’s true. I found parts of it a bit dry, but overall I loved seeing how God can work through us if we’re willing to let Him have a free hand in our lives. I’m also hoping I can get to see the movie someday!

Penelope’s Pursuit by Chautona Havig

By rights, I suppose this should probably have ended up in the top ten list because it was so good. But . . . it’s hard to make the cut sometimes. This is a beautiful picture of love and self-sacrifice, as well as showing a sobering reminder that history isn’t always what we’d like it to be. I really appreciated this read, even though it was hard in places.

Whew! And there you go. I hope you’ve found one or two that piques your interest—I always love looking over what other people have to say about their favorites for the year!

As for next year, I haven’t decided yet what my reading goals will be. I’m getting there . . . it just takes time. I’m thinking I’ll aim for 40-50 books again, but I also want something to challenge myself with. This year, it was to deliberately try to include more physical books and nonfiction, because I tend to read a LOT from my kindle and avoid the nonfiction side of the shelves. That worked to an extent, although I didn’t hit my goals for either of those, but I read a lot more with those two goals in mind than I would have otherwise, so I’m still counting it as a win.

Next year, I think I’ll continue on with the physical books goal (but instead of a percentage, I’ll aim for a certain number), and I also want to include at least two classics. There are so many out there that I’ve heard of, but never read, and I find those just as difficult to get into as nonfiction titles. I’m dreaming of reading War and Peace one day (but I feel like that would be jumping into the deep end a little too far!), but I may try something a bit easier like Gulliver’s Travels or a George McDonald book to get me started (he counts, right? he wrote in the 1800s!). We’ll see.

For now . . . if you wrote a top 10 book list for 2021, what would yours include? I’m always looking for suggestions for more good books! And if you’ve written a blog post about your favorite reads this past year, please share in the comments below—I’d love to read it.

Sewing and a Loft Bed

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Today is two days after Christmas, early Monday afternoon, and I’m sitting at my desk for what feels like the first time in a long while.

For years, I had a routine of writing something every day. And then sometime in the last year, that slowly faded away. I got burned out writing creatively, and even things like writing reviews started going by the wayside a lot more than I thought they would. These past two months, as summer has come on and garden projects have become more urgent, I’ve hardly sat down at my desk at all.

But today has turned out to be a beautifully warm, rainy day, and instead of painting our new set of bookshelves as I was planning to do, I thought I’d wake my computer up, turn on some Paul Cardall music, and see if I can get a note written here. In the kitchen, Mom has a podcast running while she makes lunch and works on a sewing project. Outside my bedroom, there is a multitude of thumps and bangs as Dad and my brothers work on putting new cladding up on that side of the house. And I’ve got a jar of lemon water sitting in front of me, hopefully aiding my muse as I write. 🙂 It’s surprising how refreshing little things in life can be.

One of my major projects this month was getting some sewing done. When clothing starts to rip, or the only nightclothes you have are made of flannel (and it’s summertime . . . ), it’s about time to find some more. And when you tend to make your own clothing, that means you need to take time to cut more out and sew them up. I wasn’t sad about that job! I love sewing, although I don’t take a lot of time for it because other things are often more pressing—it feels like playtime when I do get to sit down at the sewing machine!

Sewing Project

This time, I was pleased to be able to get two nightgowns out of a duvet cover I picked up at a local second-hand shop. We do have some fabric available in the country, but it’s quite expensive, so where I’m able, I try to find pieces I can repurpose for my needs. (The floral fabric you see above is something I cut out months ago, but never sewed up; I used it as my pattern for the nightgowns I made recently.)

Another major project was helping to build a loft bed in my room! My baby sister needed to move out of my parent’s bedroom into the room my next-younger sister and I share, but before we could do that, we had to get an extra bed in my room. We debated getting a set of bunk beds, but I wanted to keep my comfortable queen-sized bed, and I wasn’t looking forward to giving that up as well as not being able to sit up in bed anymore (a notorious problem with bunks). One of my brothers is quite clever with his carpentry skills, though, and came to the rescue with a loft bed! Here he is, screwing the plywood base on:

I spent quite a few hours painting it, and I’m so pleased I did! It’s exactly what I wanted—something that looks nice while being practical, and I can still have full use of my own bed. I’m thankful we were able to do that! Here’s the finished product, with my two delighted sisters:

I still have a tiny bit of painting to do—you can see screw holes on one of the posts of the railing in the above picture, and I need to put another coat or two of paint on it before it is completely done. My brother, the carpet-layer, is also going to install a small piece of carpet on the landing, because of the way he had to join two pieces of plywood together to make that. That will happen sometime in the new year when he gets back to work, I’m assuming, when he can get the right tool from his boss for the job.

Well, the rain keeps coming and going. Maybe I’ll have time to get some more writing done before it’s time to head off and do something else!

What projects have you had going lately?

Spring Planting

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This past month was full of planting and mulching. I haven’t helped out in the family garden much the past few years), and I quickly found out, soon after starting this year, just how little I had done when a few hour’s work produced blisters and aching muscles! Ahem. It’s good for me, I’m sure.

We started out the season planting our beds of potatoes. One of my brothers has been studying soil health and regenerative farming for his last year of school, so we decided to try “no-till” planting our potatoes—one person pushed a grubber handle in the ground (a grubber is sort of like a short-handled hoe), and another came behind dropping the seed potatoes in. Then the others of us followed, layering on hay for mulch.

We ran out of seed potatoes after a while, so had to go dig up the potatoes we’d missed when we dug them last season—there was quite a number coming up in the old potato patch again! This is one of the buckets I filled when digging for more seed potatoes:

Another day, several of us worked on pulling out grass and buttercup roots from a freshly-tilled bed, readying it for planting the carrots, radishes, and beetroot.

One thing we’re trying to do this year is put down as much mulch as possible. Last autumn, we were given some old silage that needed to be cleared out before the new crop came in, so Dad and my brothers spent several weeks hauling loads whenever they could. They got a nice, big pile for their efforts—and by the time we were ready to use it this year, the height had dramatically reduced, and most of what we had left was black with worm castings!

There’s a small quarter-acre section in front of our place, where some of our neighbors graze their ponies, and when they mowed it recently, we raked up the grass clippings to put on the garden—I was surprised at how much we got off of just less than half of the section!

Most of the grass clippings went into our greenhouse. There isn’t much planted in there at the moment, but Mom and I just went through and weeded the entire thing (it was quite overgrown, after just a few months of sitting!), and now that it was clear, we wanted to get something down to discourage any more weed growth. She’s planted peppers in there, and has a patch of brassicas, several more of garlic, and a patch of multi-year peppers. We’ll be putting more plants in soon.

I wasn’t involved with the most recent garden project—cutting and sharpening willow stakes to trellis our tomatoes with this year. My brothers did that last weekend, and hopefully, they’ll have time sometime this week to get the posts in the ground for me so I can start tying up the tomatoes.

Now the garden is almost all planted! We got the corn, beans, and pumpkins in the ground, the tomatoes and cukes are in, and now we need to focus on keeping on top of whatever weeds dare to come up through the mulch (turns out silage isn’t the best as far as weed control is concerned—maybe what we have is too broken down already?). By the time this post goes live, we’ll hopefully have more of the greenhouse planted, since it’s currently about half empty.

Spring Pictures

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I wrote this post back near the beginning of September, but wanted to add a few more pictures before posting. Those “few more pictures” didn’t happen, and I forgot about the post . . . until I came across it again. I’ll go ahead and post it now, even though I’m a little late now! (It is still technically spring, right?)

My favorite time of the year is finally here! As I write, I’m looking out at a beautiful clear, blue sky—the third or fourth day in a row now! That’s quite unusual here on the coast. We’re known for our wet weather, especially in spring (we haven’t earned the nickname “Wet Coast” for no reason)—but this week has been an exception, and I’m grateful.

Warm weather also means that the grass starts growing, and so do the flowers! Today, I’d like to share with you my annual spring pictures. Because yes, I never can get enough of the beauty, and what is life without a little celebration of the glories God has revealed around us?!

Not pictured: The birdsongs I’ve been enjoying every morning this past month. A couple of days ago, I was working on a painting project, and a thrush came and warbled just outside my window for about five minutes. It was beautiful! I didn’t get a picture of him, though, because my hands were covered in paint. 🙂

First up, my favorite early herald of spring—our tulip magnolia tree in the middle of our garden!

The magnolia is past its prime now, but I have really enjoyed seeing it from my bedroom window as it bloomed during the month of August!

A peek into Mom’s greenhouse—she’s an excellent gardener, and all these fresh salad veggies are a real treat!

The other flowers I’ve been able to spot around the place: 1) Our little plum tree, almost done blooming. 2) The roses that are now leafing out—we’ll be getting flowers there soon! 3) Daffodils (my baby sister brought one in for me the other day!). 4) The forsythia we can see out our living room window—so pretty, maybe not the flowersindividually, but beautiful as a whole bush!

An aside: When looking up the name for our forsythia, I discovered that they are part of the olive family. Who knew?! I would have never guessed!

What beautiful things in nature are you noticing right now?

Joy in Everyday Moments

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I’ve been wanting to write, wanting to share some of the many joys and jumblings (is that even a word?) in my mind over these past months . . . but that hasn’t happened. A good portion of that, upon reflection, is that I didn’t want to share from a heavy heart. I want this place to be a snippet of joy for your day, instead of something that drags you down. And somehow, it feels like I’ve often been working out of a heavy heart this past season.

Life is tough sometimes. Questions come that cannot be answered. Grief hits us in unexpected ways at unexpected times. Whys and what-ifs pile in until it can feel like we’re drowning under them.

But beauty, too, abounds. Such as this moment in my camera roll from the beginning of the month:

Tea Party

This is what I call one of my “jewels”—memories that stand out as especially joy-filled or beautiful. My little sisters decided to have a tea party out on our front lawn one afternoon, so we got out our pretty teacups and saucers, made some “hundreds and thousands” bread (sprinkles on buttered bread), and sliced up an apple or two.

There is joy in the uncertainties, joy in the life around us, joy in the very breath in our lungs. Because yes, even that is a miracle, a gift, every nanosecond of every day.

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

What joys do you see around you today? Praise our Father for them!