Gravel Road Musings

Logan Isaiah Glick Born on Wednesday, August 23, 2017 at 7:05 PM He weighed 7 lbs 13 oz and was 21 inches long.  We have all fallen in love with him.  So far he has been the model child, even sleeping decently at night. However, I know that is all subject to change, but I am going to enjoy it while it lasts.  His big sister is smitten, though she needs a little guidance and counseling on how to relate to him. She is also dearly in love with all the books that Logan has received since his arrival. 

I was given three months to live.... Edie was diagnosed with stage 4 gallbladder cancer and went through extreme chemotherapy and surgery to rid herself of the cancer. After being given an all clear five years later, Edie determines to walk the old California Mission Trail, a length of 800 miles. She does it with the help of friends. Two years later the cancer is back. This time her dream is to walk the rest of the trail that goes down into Mexico, the El Camino Real Trail, another 800 miles of mission trail. If she accomplishes this, she would be the first person since the Franciscan Father Junipero Serra walked the 1600 miles in the 1770s. This second 800 miles is no walk in the park. There is virtually no trail, she has to have a vaquero or guide for the entire trip and is constantly changing guides. Some of them know the trail well and others lead her needlessly in wrong directions. Finally, 38  miles from the end of the trail, Christmas is a few days away, and a PET scan...

I'm not generally a big fan of crime and mystery books, but Janice does an excellent job of making the books interesting and fun and intriguing. In this first in "The Line of Duty" series, Tess has shot an unarmed 14-year-old who she thought was going for a gun on a fallen officer. This brings down the wrath of the anti-police people in her hometown and basically forces her to resign even though she has been acquitted of all wrong doing. She is able to get a job up in Oregon in a small town that has no crime until she shows up. Then things fall apart, but, of course, she does a good job solving the mysteries. Probably one of the things I like about Janice Cantore's writing is it doesn't all end up happily ever after. Sometimes the innocent do die, the guilty are always caught of course. In this book, Tess has no real faith in God, but she is put in close working relation with a pastor who has a solid faith in God. There isn't a lot of faith talk/Christ...

Awhile ago, I reviewed her book of 31 Verses to Write on Your Heart. This is very similar to that book. It's been awhile since I read that book, but I think I liked this one better, but I have no idea why. This would be a great book to take a month to read and read one chapter a day. She expounds on each phrase in the verse and most chapters start with an illustration or story of some kind. Some of the verses were quite applicable to my life. At the end of the chapter, she has a short one minute exercise she wants the reader to do. This can be anything from putting some cash in an envelope to give to the person the Lord prompts you to give to, to listing all the things you can think of to be grateful for in 60 seconds, to laying your clothes out for the next morning. It appears random, but does go along with the context of the verse that was just studied. There is also a study guide at the back of the book to go with each chapter, so you could do it as a devotional for yourse...

This is the first book in a new series called "Under the Northern Skies" and it is definitely a series I want to follow. None of this fluffy romance of boy meets girl in this book, rather it is the conditioned, committed love that carries through the rough and tumble of life, a move across the ocean, an impertinent and aggressive uncle and so on. We need more books like this. The boy meets girl is the fun stuff of life, but the commitment and sacrifice and courage required to make a marriage work is the stuff of life, the stuff we face every day and it's what our younger people need to read about. A young family uproots from Norway, moves to Minnesota, and is sharing a house with a mean workaholic uncle and his bedridden wife who screams and screeches about everything. The family deals with a lot, but the husband and wife are committed to each other and they stick it out. The aunt does get better under the care of the wife who will not allow her to just lie in bed and...

Yep, I'm well aware that my title could be entirely inappropriate, but right now I'm not sure I care. But I might change it, but I don't know if I will change these sentences and then you will be left wondering what I originally put there. HA!! So first off, try explaining the concept of a wedgie to a 2 year old who's complaining of something being in her butt. It's interesting and humorous, at least to her mom. If you want to see how you handle criticism, list your car on Facebook. People are more than willing to tell you that you are asking too much money for your vehicle. They know nothing more than what the pics are showing, but they know that $3,000 is too much. Well, kudos to you. And guess what? We know that too, but since when do you actually put your actual selling price on items like this? Everyone wants to have the option of chewing you down, so we started high so they have that option. Then they can feel good about the deal they got and we can feel g...

Wrangling Delight out of this Wild and Glorious Life Mess, I think we can all relate too. Life is messy and it can be hard and that's okay. Moxie, this word seems a little more foreign to us. According to Jen, "It is a throwback to women with pluck, with chutzpah, with a bit of razzle dazzle. It says: I got this...we got this together. It evokes a twinkle in the eye, a smidge of daring and stubbornness in the face of actual, hard, real, beautiful life." And I suppose that really is how life is. It's messy, but it's beautiful, but takes courage to live it and live it well. It's the resilience in the face of the pain and the heartbreak. I think I maybe just now understood this better than I did while reading the book. It all felt a little out there to me, like I couldn't quite grab a hold of it, but writing this out, it makes sense. It is that looking for the beauty in the bleak, the joy in the juggling of the baby years, the intentionality when the da...

I think I have a thing for Bible Study guides. Actually, let's face it, I have a thing for anything that is in a book form and is set up as a question/answer system. So give me Bible Study guides, quiz books, activity books, coloring books, etc. and I will be all in. So it's no surprise that I requested another Bible study book. I need to get going on doing all the ones that I have. Heather is a college instructor on writing and composition. She is into verbs that stick out and make an impact, so she chose seven verbs for this eight week study of the book of Ephesians: included, chosen, seated, strengthened, renewed, filled, and proclaiming. Those words do sound enticing, don't they? Now, I haven't gone through this Bible study day by day, but I have looked through it and read the introduction to try and get a feel for the way it is laid out. It's not as much of a verse by verse as I was hoping for when I requested it, but I do like the idea of these seven w...

And another new author for me to read and analyze and decide if I would read more of her books. Freedom's Ring is set in Boston in two time periods the time of the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the time of the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013 and beyond. At least, that's where the stories start. Again, I would say the author did a good job of flipping back and forth between the two time periods. Connecting the two is a ring that Anaya and Brad are determined to find out the history of. I'm not going to give you much more than that. There was the usual romance, blah, blah, blah, blah, but again the parts I look for are the parts you can take with you and think about later. After the bombing, Anaya walked away from her family in the midst of their grief and struggles. Now two years later, she's trying to pick up the pieces with her niece and sister and her sister is having a hard time forgiving Anaya for walking away and deserting family at a time of great need. But ...

I'm sitting here on my couch this morning, feeling like it's time again to post something other than a book review. I actually want to post something other than a book review, but will admit to feeling a little uninspired, so I'm not sure what is going to come spewing out from under my fingertips. It's 7:15 in the morning, the house is quiet, the sun is shining, the corn is providing a beautiful privacy fence for us this time of year, the AC is humming (which makes me happy in and of itself these days), and I realize anew that life is really good right now. Yes, I feel like an off-balanced duck right now, waddling around. D was mocking me the other day when I said that and was saying, "quack quack" and outside the door I hear our own little echo going "quack quack". There's no good reason to get mad at the mocking at that point!!!! But again, I realize I have so much to be thankful for. I have made it to the final four weeks, I have made it p...

Reigniting the Mission of the Early Believers I was happy to find this book. I have "The Unexplainable Life" by Erica which is a 10 week Bible Study on the first part of Acts. Now this book, "the Unexplainable Church" is a 10 week Bible Study on the last part of Acts, Acts 13 to 22 to be exact. I am currently working my way, very slowly through "The Unexplainable Life" and will likely go straight into "The Unexplainable Church" when I am done. I looked through this book and it seems like both books are set up very similar so I will give my opinion based on how I am enjoying "The Unexplainable Life." Each week is broken down into 5 lessons and each lesson takes a few verses in consecutive order and dissects them down. There are questions to answer and ponder and then Erica shares some thoughts as well. Some of the questions are very basic and simple to answer, some require much more thought and a look inside our own hearts to see...