A Melodious Sonnet

Where Dandelions Grow: My Review

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It’s one of those brilliant blue spring days outside. My brothers are mowing—I hadn’t realized how long the grass had grown in the last couple weeks since the last mowing! The mound of clippings beside the greenhouse is pretty tall now.

The spring daffodils are pretty much done now, and the apple trees are in full bloom. They’re the last of the fruit trees to bloom, if I remember right. The dandelions are also just starting to bloom. Another week or so, and there will be hundreds of them all over the yard and down the roadsides. So pretty!

Mowing

And speaking of dandelions, I’m excited to share with you a new book I’ve had the privilege of reading recently: Where Dandelions Grow! It’s written by one of my favorite bloggers, Lydia Howe, and it released today!

Note: Some of the links today may be affiliate links. Your purchase through these links will not cost you any extra, but will help keep this blog going.

I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up the story for the first time, but I knew I really appreciated what the author blogged about, and I had great hopes for a good book. I wasn’t disappointed. This book blew me away in some aspects, and overall, I loved the story.

Where Dandelions Grow by Lydia HoweDestiny isn’t quite sure what to expect when she decides to go against her mom’s wishes and go back to her roots—back to Swallow Ridge, where she was born. And had lived, until she was ten, when for some inexplicable reason the family up and moved away. She didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to her three best friends—her cousins. Now, she’s heading back, hoping against hope to be able to track her family down and find answers to the questions she’s been silently asking all these years. She’d also really like to prove that for once her mom is wrong: That she can write a book, and that she can do it well. Will her move prove fruitless in the end? Will she ever be able to figure out what happened so many years ago—and even if she can, is there any way she or her cousins can help to bring healing to their fractured relationships? And how is she even supposed to start looking, when all she knows are first names?

I loved the fact that while this is a young adult novel, it didn’t have the stereotypical triangle of love interests—or any romance in it at all, for that matter. That fact both shocked and delighted me, not because I don’t like romance, but not having it in the story (especially since in this case it wasn’t needed) was a refreshing change. The story also wasn’t fantastical fiction (is there such a thing? the characters certainly didn’t attempt to do things that under normal conditions would be impossible), rather, it felt fairly believable and the characters were delightfully relatable. I read the book in close to one sitting, and thoroughly enjoyed the pacing—it wasn’t too fast, but fast enough to keep me interested. In all, if you’re looking for a clean book—not necessarily hold-onto-your-seat fiction, but gripping enough to keep going—with a good theme, I’d recommend checking out Where Dandelions Grow.

Note: I received this book for free from the author, in exchange for my honest review.

Now for a couple of my favorite quotes from the book:

Where Dandelions Grow Quote 01

Where Dandelions Grow Quote 02

There’s a giveaway going—enter here!

And join in the fun over at Lydia’s blog here.

(Psst…Where Dandelions Grow is still $.99 as of this writing right now. I’m not sure what the “normal” price will be, but I believe it will be going up after a while.)

Website Building and the Vine

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Ever since—well, almost before Learning Resource Directory was launched, I’ve been wanting to change to a different name. I knew I wanted something shorter, easier to type, and catchier, but laid that aside to let my subconscious mull over it while I got more important things, like the website launching and more book reviews written, done.

Just a few months ago, I finally came across the perfect name. And although I’m not (quite) ready to share that with you yet, suffice to say I’m thrilled to finally have a name I love!

I bought the domain name several months ago, but didn’t have time to do any more then, as I wanted to research hosting (Gretchen Louise’s tips have been extremely helpful in that area!). I eventually decided to do in-between hosting on Bluehost, where I’m currently hosting this website. I’m not planning to stay here long-term due to a plethora of problems I’ve had, but for now I’ve got another year on the contract I’m on and I may as well use it.

Website Building and the Vine

This past week, I’ve transferred the domain to Bluehost, and am now getting into the exciting phase of deciding on a theme and how to put it together, what I’d like for a logo, how I want the reviews to show up (static, like I have now, or more of a blog layout?), etc., etc.

For someone who’s been through all this designing and tweaking multiple times before, for multiple websites, this is where all the magic (and a lot of the “Oops! I broke it. Now what did I do wrong…?) happens. Next job is to contact someone who designs themes, who has done one particular theme I’ve got my eye on, and ask if she does 30-day money back guarantees in the off chance it doesn’t end up being the right theme for what I need.

And as I sit here, pondering the work I have ahead of copying and pasting, and messing up and trying again and maybe—just maybe—getting it right the first time around for some things, I can’t help but think of that passage in John 15 where Jesus speaks of the vine and the branches. He’s the trunk, the roots, where all the nutrients and plant strength comes from. If that gets cut off, the vines and branches can wither in just a few hours.

Just like a new domain name on a new host—it has potential to do a lot, and if fed the right bits of code and has the correct files that are all interconnected properly, it works well and delivers the information to those who need or want it.

But if just one part of the coding is wrong—even one character off, it’s broken.

Like what mysteriously happened last night when somehow the connection between the two major parts of the website and this blog got disconnected, and they went down. Turned out all I needed was a few bits of text—a database name and a username, and perhaps a password—put in the right places, and we were live again (don’t ask me how they were wrong in the first place, but anyway—it’s obviously fixed now, if you can read this!).

Sometimes, it seems to take daily checking to make sure this website is up and running like it should, no pages showing funny gobbeldy-guck or not showing up at all.

And I have to think how important it is to keep going back to the trunk, the Word, to make sure everything’s still lined up right. No character misplaced, no essential file accidentally deleted. It often takes daily refreshing—both the browser tab kind, and the prayer and reading kind.

But it’s all worth it. Because, in the end, if we are still being fed through the trunk, getting the nutrients we need, we can thrive and grow and through that growth be a blessing to others.

Keep your eyes and heart on Jesus!

What have you been doing lately? Have you ever worked on putting a website together?

Top Ten Books on My To-Read List

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A week or two ago, I set about trying to make a list of all the books I’ve been given for review or borrowed over the past four months. I was prepared for a decent-sized list, but I admit I did have to gulp a little when I saw the full extent of it. I’m a little more behind than I thought. However, since making this list, I can see progress! My hope is that by November, I’ll be mostly through this stack. There are thirty-two books altogether there so far, with fourteen of them being physical copies and the other eighteen being ebooks, mostly “e-review” copies, which means most of them were given to me in exchange for my honest review (and, obviously, the authors hope that I’ll get it done in good time!).

Top 10 To-Reads

My want-to-read list, however, isn’t just contained on this page. If I would write out all of those, I’d easily have somewhere between 1 and 500 books written down!

However, the top ten books I’m looking forward to reading over the next couple months are as follows:

Note: Some links are affiliate links. Your purchases through these links will not cost you any more, but will help support this site—thank you!

#1. Love Lifted Me by MarJanita Geigley. Borrowed from my aunt’s shelf, this is a story of two people from tough pasts finding the Lord. I love salvation stories, and I think I’ll love this!

#2. Savior, Like a Shepherd by Faith Blum. I read the sequel, All the Way My Savior Leads, and participated in the blog tour back in May. When I was sent the latter book, Faith kindly included Savior as well, and I can’t wait to read it. I really enjoyed All the Way!

#3. Such a Tease by Chautona Havig. I read the prequel to this story, Sweet on You, back when it was released—and got this one to read and review at this one’s release, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. Seeing as it’s written by one of my favorite authors, and I loved Sweet on You, I can’t wait to read this as well!

#4 and #5. None So Blind and Will Not See by Chautona Havig. I’ve been eyeing the first book in the Sight Unseen series for months now, and just this last month the second book was released! Which is so exciting, but now I’ve got two stories to read instead of one (yay!). Next time I’m ready to lose my afternoon to reading, I’m planning on picking one of these up.

#6. The Last Jew of Rotterdam by Ernest Cassutto. World War II story? Jews? Hope in the midst of despair? Yes, please! Another book borrowed from my aunt, I can’t wait to dive into it!

#7. They’re Rugby Boys, Don’t You Know? by Natalie Vellacott. I’ve been following this author’s blog for a while, and wanting to read her books, and I was absolutely delighted when she contacted me one day after I added several to my Goodreads want-to-read list, asking if I’d like to read them. What? YES, PLEASE! Can’t wait to pick these up!

#8. Dreams and Devotion by Sarah Holman. Although this hasn’t been my most favorite series by Holman, I do enjoy getting to read her books, which are generally very clean and family-friendly. According to my brother, who happened to read this before me this time, it’s very good.

#9. Outlining Your Novel by K.M. Weiland. I’m really wanting to improve my writing, especially in the plotting/outlining area. To that end, I’ve started reading this book, and also bought the workbook to go along with it. Although I’ve only made it part-way through the second chapter so far, it’s excellent!

#10. The Savvy Solopreneur’s Guide to Content Creation by Karen Banes. I’m always looking for ways to better my knowledge of writing, online basics, etc., and I’ve sort-of followed along with Karen Banes for quite a while. I can’t say I’ve learned a lot from her (yet!), but I’m looking forward to what I can learn from this book!

And a bonus: #11. Where Dandelions Grow by Lydia Howe. Okay; I admit—I just finished reading this book Monday. But before that, it was at the top of my list. This book was so good. A young adult book without a romantic element, a family story without being too ridiculous or tedious, and a Christian story with a fairly good Christian element without feeling preachy or too “fluffy”—one character, especially, was excellent this way. Overall, I loved it. Can’t wait to share my thoughts about it at the end of the month when the book releases!

Although it’s hard to choose what my top books are, these are the ones that I believe I’m most looking forward to at the moment. Five fiction, three biographies or biographical-type books, and two non-fictions. The non-fiction titles will probably be the hardest for me to get through, but I’m looking forward to what I’ll learn from them. And if I mix them up with the other books, it’ll definitely be doable!

What books are on your to-read list right now?

In Which I…Embark on Being a Writer Again

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Eleven days ago, I started a journey I’ve been pondering for quite a few months now, but hadn’t figured out how to do until then. But once I did figure it out—at least, the first step—I jumped in. And I haven’t looked back. Until today.

If you had known me back in 2012, you would have found me a girl who was just discovering the beauties of creative writing. Just testing the waters, starting to feel the potential, excited that my dreams, thoughts, and ideas could be expressed in such an exciting way. I signed up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, or NaNo for short) that year, and my first task was researching what this “novel” thing mentioned in the website’s name was. The next year, I read every writing blog I could find, and grew by leaps and bounds in my knowledge. I loved it.

In 2013, I went into NaNo with a much better idea of what this whole thing was about, eager to tell the story I’d been trying to write for a year and a half at that point. I lost myself in the story, reveling in the descriptions and characters that seemed to leap from my head to the page. For those first three weeks of November, I lived the rest of my life as an automaton, completely caught up in my story. Then I won NaNo, finished the book, and suddenly realized…what do I do next?

Writing Again

Over the course of the next few months, into early 2014, I edited the novel, and dreamed about the new ideas I had as a result of all the creative writing I’d been doing.

Then I stopped. I had a new story idea that I loved, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work—so from early 2014 until now, mid-2017, I barely ever picked up the creative pen, so to speak. Last November, I briefly tried again for NaNoWriMo, but almost immediately got stymied because I couldn’t figure out where the story was going.

This month, I’ve started again.

I decided to be simple, but intentional about writing. I’ve really missed using my imagination in the story realm, and the longer I let it go the more I miss it, so I’ve decided to simply write 100 words per day—so that if nothing else, I can practice the craft at least a little every day. You know, the old “practice makes perfect—or at least makes you better at it”.

I asked a dear friend if she’d be willing to be my accountability partner for this goal, and (thank you, Rachel!) she agreed. So now she’s getting an exorbitant amount of emails from me now, but it’s keeping me on track. I’m thankful—and loving to be back “in the saddle” again!

(By the way—you should totally check out her blog. I love it, and she tends to do an excellent job of stepping on my toes, too, in that excellent way she has. She’s shared some very good articles lately.)

Do you enjoy creative writing? What have you written recently?

Hospitals and a Little Thing Called Thoughtfulness

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Hospital waiting rooms are notoriously tiring. And actually, that’s one statement I agree with—because I’ve experienced it! Three hours doesn’t hold a candle to the many, many other people’s experiences in such things. But as for me, while I did find it somewhat tiresome, I did have a book to read and interesting people to talk to, so that made the time pass faster.

For a lot of my time in there, there was another couple waiting as well whose fourteen-year-old son was in for a complex procedure. We got to talking a little, and I enjoyed the glimpse into their lives. Very sweet couple. At one stage, the husband decided he needed his morning coffee, so he made himself one with the service provided in our room (very nice of the hospital, in my opinion!). After downing his first cup, and another hour or so passing, he said something about maybe having another cup.

“Maybe I should join you,” I half-jokingly replied, “this instant stuff isn’t nearly as good as the real, but at least it’s caffeinated.”

Bouquet from Little Brother

He set to work making himself another one, and soon a steaming hot beverage came my way as well. I was surprised; strangers, even ones you’ve talked to some, don’t normally do things like that for you! And while, yes, that coffee was not nearly as good as what I’m used to, his act of kindness really blessed me while I waited. Which totally made up for it!

Last evening, I walked into my room, tired and ready to finish up for the night—and discovered a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a mixture of daffodils and plum blossoms, sitting on the table under my window! One of my youngest brothers gathered it for me as a surprise, found a container to put it in, and even found something to set under it so it wouldn’t mark the table. What a beautiful, cheery gift to give! In my opinion, that’s one of the best bouquets I’ve ever received—I know the heart behind it is pure gold. Or close to it, anyway.

All that to say that on two different occasions just recently, I was very blessed by little things people did for me. So next time you see an opportunity (and this goes for me as well!), do something for someone else. Be that blessing to them. You never know how even a little thoughtfulness might brighten someone’s day considerably!

What was one time you remember someone did something special for you, even if it was small?