A Melodious Sonnet

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!

Guest Post: The Story Behind The Engagement Cover

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Just recently, I got the chance to read The Engagement Cover by A.M. Heath. It’s a very fun book, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. After I finished reading, I asked the author what inspired the story. That led to asking if she’d be willing to write a guest post sharing the backstory of what led her to write the book, so that’s what I’m sharing with you today! I doubt I’m the only one who finds backstory interesting—am I right?

(Some links in this post will be affiliate links, which help support this blog at no extra cost to you.)

So here goes. From Anita Heath’s pen:

Where did the fun idea for The Engagement Cover come from?

I’m so glad you asked…

The Engagement Cover is a Christmas story about a woman pretending to date (and then get engaged) two different men, and all for the sake of her dying grandmother. The concept was actually a combination of two fun story ideas that needed a home.

The Hockey Date:

I was minding my own business, watching the Nashville Predators’ hockey game, when someone in the stands was hit with the puck.

I’ve seen this on a sitcom before but never actually saw it happen to someone.

I thought to myself, “Someone’s having a rough night.”

Then my imagination kicked in. “What if that person was on a first date? What if they weren’t enjoying themselves when this happened? That would make a bad date far worse!”

That’s when I knew I was on to something. So I mentally filed away this idea of a terrible first date and went on about my life. But the hockey puck story continued to brew in the back of my brain.

The Fake Relationship:

I love a good fake relationship story. There’s great chemistry between two people pretending to love each other when they can barely stand each other. Kinda like being in a play, but without the script to guide them.

So it’s not surprising that I should want to write my own fake dater story. But as is my custom, I paused to consider what is and how I could shake things up a bit.

In any fake relationship, it’s a given that the person she’s set up with will be the person she falls in love with in the end. But what if…things weren’t that simple?

What if…she needed a replacement?

I started toying with this idea that the man she first brings home isn’t the only man in the picture. That maybe he’s too busy to show up and she needs a lookalike. Someone to take his place when he’s not there.

But who is this guy? How does his involvement make for an interesting story?

Then, BAM, like a hockey puck to the face, I knew who it should be.

The Marriage:

So I wedded together the hockey puck story to the fake relationship one and created a match made in heaven.

The one guy she never wanted to see again is the only guy who can help her when she needs it the most.

First line

The Taste of Tamales:

I honestly had no intentions of tapping into my Hispanic roots, but when I sat down to get to know the family, Mrs. Bradford made it perfectly clear how things were going to be. And when you meet her, you’ll understand exactly what I mean. She’s a force to be reckoned with.

From day one, her accent was as clear as her demands: No man; no tamales.

I tried to talk her out of it, but she won…as she typically does. And suddenly, I’m using a partially Mexican cast for the first time ever.

I hope you enjoyed this quick behind-the-scenes look at the novella. Teresa, the two men she’s not engaged to, and their families invite you to come spend Christmas with them. You’ll laugh, cry, fall in love, and walk away craving Mexican food.

(Note from Esther: I have a wonderful memory of eating tamales with my grandma one time when I went to visit her, so this part of the book was especially special to me!)

About the book:

He nearly ruined her life. Now he’s the only one who can help her.

After a disastrous dating app experience that nearly destroyed her modeling career, Teresa Bradford knows what she wants, and Justin Reynolds seems to check every box. But when her family pressures her to bring him home as her fiancé in order to ease the mind of her dying grandmother, their relationship takes a weird turn, and his absences create the need for a fill-in fiancé.

Since his mom’s passing, and with his dad working out of state through the holidays, Alex Landry misses the feeling of home. So, when his friend Marc Bradford asks him for a strange favor with the promise of family for the holidays and all the tamales he can eat, he’s all in. What he didn’t expect was Marc’s sister to be the girl he’d gone on an awful date with two years ago.

Committed to a fake engagement to fulfill a dying woman’s wish, Alex and Teresa form a rocky friendship. As first impressions change and it becomes clear that Alex fits in better with her family than Justin does, Teresa is forced to reconsider what she wants. She’s drawn to both men for different reasons, but the one who nearly ruined her life might be the one to help her find what truly matters.

The Engagement Cover releases today!

Buy it on Amazon | find Anita on her website | sign up for her newsletter

Thanks for coming on the blog, Anita! It was a lot of fun to get to know the story-behind-the-story!

Lockdown Painting

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Spring is coming here on the coast! I’m hoping to get a few pictures to share with you soon, but for now, it’s not an understatement that we’ve thoroughly been enjoying warmer, sunny days!

With our country being in lockdown for the past two weeks, most of my family has been home and unable to work. Was I ever grateful that we’d already bought paint to do up our guest house! (And—is it just me, or does it seem like everyone tends to bring out their handyman projects when they’re stuck at home?)

We were given this guest house near the beginning of the year—the original owner built it as a tiny house for himself, and eventually decided he didn’t want to keep it. He offered it to us, and we were delighted to take it. Our home is relatively small, and when we have company, it isn’t always easy to fit everyone in—although it’s amazing what you can do when you have three bedrooms!

Over the past three or four months, my brothers have been working tirelessly to get the house insulated, re-lined, and prepped for painting…and finally this week, all that work was done, which meant the fun could begin! And since I had a brother at home who was willing to help me, we seized the moment and spent several full days in there over this past week.

Here’s what the interior looked like as we were starting to paint:

Part-way through, the first coat finished on the ceiling:

Second coat on the ceiling and first coat on the walls:

My patient, helpful brother, and painting buddy! (Any guesses as to who got the most paint on themselves?)

And the finished product! Four coats on the ceiling and three on the walls.

It’s a little hard to make out from the pictures, but the ceiling is flat white, and the walls are a very light cream. Depending on the lighting, it can really look like it varies! The picture above was taken in the late afternoon with the golden light coming in; the one below was taken this morning.

Now I’m working on doing the windowsills, and after my builder brother (who is super talented, by the way) gets the skirting done, I’ll paint that as well. The windowsills only need one more coat of paint, but the skirting will probably need two or three more coats. We’re almost there! I’m looking forward to when the flooring can be put down by my floor laying brother (I tell you, it’s handy to have brothers in the trades!). I’m also looking forward to finishing the curtains and getting them up! Hopefully, it will be a restful place for our guests. A place removed from the craziness of our household, but not too far away, either.

I’m trying to decide if I want to name the house, and if so, what name—and where we should put a sign, if I do name it. I’ve been tossing around ideas like “Moonlight Cottage” (after the area we live in), or perhaps something like what John Bunyan did in The Pilgrim’s Progress at the House Beautiful—each bedroom had a different name, and Christian slept in the one named “Peace”, if I remember right. If you have any ideas, feel free to share them below. I’m planning to bring it up for family discussion sometime soon.

The New Calf

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It’s the end of a busy day, the sun just set behind the mountains. Mountains that, at the beginning of the week, had a beautiful layer of snow over them! I’ve got a cup of hot matcha and passionfruit tea sitting beside me—a friend gave me a boxful several months ago, which I used for a while and subsequently forgot.

I just stopped to re-read that paragraph. Isn’t it amazing how life can be made to sound so idyllic at times? And it is, in many ways, I guess. I was able to sit down to read a book for almost an entire hour today—broken up into many 5–15-minute segments, true, but that’s still a lot more reading time than I get some days. What a blessing.

Earlier today, I helped out in an hour-long hunt for our new calf. That wasn’t quite so idyllic. My brother was certain last Monday that the calf would come that night, and Mom had a look at our cow. “No, probably not.” Then he was certain last night that it was again impending. Mom had another look—“A few more days, perhaps.”

She was due today . . . and this morning, when taking care of the other cows, he discovered evidence that indeed, the calf had been born, but where did it go? The cows were up in a hill paddock surrounded by moveable fencing, and one side drops steeply away in a cliff. Steep enough that I’ve never desired to try to descend it. After he and Mom spent half an hour searching the easier surrounds this morning—stumps and a great variety of bushes and other hiding places around the general area—they gave up. Perhaps the cow had just hidden him, and this afternoon, the calf would get hungry enough to come out for a feed. We could catch him then.

Several rainstorms blew through, pounding rain for a few minutes before clearing to brilliant blue sky and warm sunshine again. In one sunny patch, around noon, several of us decided to go up and give a concerted effort to see if we could locate the new calf. It was a bit concerning to know it was here, but not to know just where it was.

My search area was a tangle of wild gorse, broom, and other native bushes interspersed with patches of wild crocrosmia (one of my favorite summer flowers, and yes, I can never remember the name). Those lined the cliff edge, and then, further along, were stacks of old rusty tin, pipes, iron, bits of wood, old trailers, and who knows what else surrounding the sheds bordering the far end of the fenced-in area. As I searched, I prayed. Where did that calf go? I imagined it curling up under a piece of roofing iron, tucked just out of sight under a patch of ferns, or hiding in a dark cranny in one of the sheds.

Finally, I thought I heard someone calling my name. Three of my brothers were also searching, and they had decided to take the cliff’s slopes, amidst great tangles of gorse and blackberry vines and other creepers and bushes, large and small, to see if they could spot the calf. I wasn’t sure whether I had heard correctly—sound doesn’t always travel up and through bushes and around buildings all that well! After several tries, I could make out that they had found it! It was alive and uninjured (praise the Lord; it could have easily fallen to its death or been injured on the way down), and now all they needed was a machete to free them from the blackberry vines. Mom brought that up for them, and then once they had disentangled themselves from that mess, it was a fairly steep climb back to the top.

I circled down and around to the bottom, to see if there was any chance of an easier path out beside the 20–30 meter (60–90 ft) straight-up-and-down tangle of the cliff. As I soon saw, if they went down, they’d have to carry the calf through at least another 10 meters (30 ft) of old blackberry vines, so old and tangled that they were up to a man’s chest or deeper in places. Then they’d have to cross a swampy basin, fighting through tangled bush again, before climbing another 2-meter cliff to get up to the road! My oldest brother decided it would be easier to go up–the distance was about the same either way, and this way they wouldn’t be ripped to shreds by the blackberries.

It was a tough haul. But he made it, mud-splattered, scratched, kicked, and all—impressing me with his strength and determination!—and we were able to reunite mother and baby. They are now staying in another paddock with better fencing and without a steep drop-off along one edge. Both seem quite happy now.

New Calf

God is good.

And so ends an idyllic day. The sky is now quite dark, even though it’s only 6:30 pm—we’re still very much in winter!—and soon we’ll be sitting down to have dinner together. I can hear Mom out in the milking shed, finishing up for the night.

Several times, while I’ve been writing this, my youngest sister has come in to say hello to me, to talk about different troubles she has. One time, she was pointing at her forehead, saying it was ouchy.

“Do you need a kiss to fix it?”

“Yeah.” So I kissed it.

She just came back again, pointing to her tongue. “It ouchy!”

“You want me to kiss your tongue?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Big sister duties. . . .

What have you had happening lately?

The Nature of Small Birds: Book Review

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It feels like a good while since I’ve posted any book reviews on here! Today, I’d like to share a special book with you—special, because even though it would fit in one of the genres I tend to frequent (historical fiction), it isn’t a time period I have experienced in a book before: The 70s, after the Vietnam War. It’s also a unique book because it’s a split-time novel; there are three different parts to the story, and each of them takes place somewhere around 10-20 years apart. I stayed up late to finish reading last night, partly because I knew I needed to get this review up, but also partly because it was really interesting. But…enough waffling. Let’s get on with the synopsis.

And of course, I do have to put a disclaimer in here—some links are affiliate links, that support this blog at no extra expense to you (thank you!), and I was given a copy of this book for free in exchange for my honest review. 🙂

Book review: The Nature of Small Birds by Susie Finkbeiner

About this book:

In 1975, three thousand children were airlifted out of Saigon to be adopted into Western homes. When Mindy, one of those children, announces her plans to return to Vietnam to find her birth mother, her loving adopted family is suddenly thrown back to the events surrounding her unconventional arrival in their lives.

Though her father supports Mindy’s desire to meet her family of origin, he struggles privately with an unsettling fear that he’ll lose the daughter he’s poured his heart into. Mindy’s mother undergoes the emotional rollercoaster inherent in the adoption of a child from a war-torn country, discovering the joy hidden amid the difficulties. And Mindy’s sister helps her sort through relics that whisper of the effect the trauma of war has had on their family–but also speak of the beauty of overcoming.

Told through three strong voices in three compelling timelines, The Nature of Small Birds is a hopeful story that explores the meaning of family far beyond genetic code.

Buy your copy here.

My thoughts:

Several years ago, I heard a mention of a new novel by Susie Finkbeiner. I admired the cover, but never actually stopped to pick it up to read it—despite it sitting on my Kindle almost begging me to read it for quite a while! Fast forward to a month or so ago, when I saw that she had another one coming out. This one came recommended by an author I know and appreciate, so I signed up to review it. Little did I know the story would suck me in the way it did. I remember catching something about Operation Babylift, Vietnam, and split-time novel from the description, but I was unprepared for the depth and beauty I’ve met within these pages.

These characters each have heart-touching stories of love, hope, and a dash of grief—the things we run into in our normal lives. I admired the author’s ability to pull me into each time, helping me to get to know the characters at their different stages. I never was confused about whose head and what time I was in (and got more than one good chuckle at the observations about 70’s styles or decor!), and each thread of the story is expertly woven into the others, while still pulling its own weight. I’m in awe—and, yes, a little jealous—of how the story crafting was done.

The history? I could rhapsodize about that, too, but I won’t. This book is well worth reading if you enjoy stories that aren’t necessarily your typical historical or contemporary reads. It also isn’t that strong on romance, which I enjoyed as a change—there’s a married couple in here, but the focus is on the family growing as a whole, rather than their relationship. You see little hints every now and then—with a kiss or some other romantic gesture, but that’s not the main point of the book. A recommended story!

Conclusion

If you enjoy historical fiction (like me) and aren’t necessarily looking for a romance novel, but one that deals with normal, everyday life and the struggles and joys we often face, this could be an excellent book for you. I appreciated that the author dealt with some tough topics (like adoption and difficult mothers-in-law) in this story; it never felt forced, but I was glad that it was there.

Have you read any historical fiction that really stood out to you lately?