Book Review- Accidentally Amish

 

 

Accidentally Amish

by Olivia Newport

Published by Barbour Books, October 2012



I really did not know what to make of the first chapters of this book, and I didn't know if I was going to enjoy it enough to continue reading. After a slightly hectic and initially confusing (to me, at least!) beginning, the book began to gain strength after strength, and I found I was thoroughly enjoying it.

Past and present are intertwined in the book, as our heroine, Annalise (Annie) Friesen, meets the Amish Beiler family under under highly unusual circumstances; she is the wealthy and successful owner of a company writing and selling business computer software and is being pushed by her soon-to-be former boyfriend/ lawyer to sign documents about which she has serious reservations. When she becomes concerned about her own physical safety, she goes on the run  and accidentally ends up at the Beiler family farm in the San Luis Valley.  She discovers a way of life diametrically opposed to her own, and is forced to re-evaluate her own beliefs about how best to conduct her life.

We also follow the historical journey of the original Beyeler family from religious and social persecution in Europe, to America, more specifically Pennsylvania, where they are encouraged by William Penn to settle and become an established community. Things do not run smoothly for the Amish settlers, and with the marriage of Jacob to a non- Amish woman after his wife dies, leaving him with a young family to care for, the family gradually splits into Amish and non-Amish branches.

The developing love interest between Annie and Rufus Beiler is a tad predictable but nicely handled,  and while it becomes ever clearer to Annie  that she may have to take decisive legal action to protect her intellectual property and her business, Rufus is faced with having to deal with sabotage and treachery from a business rival in a way that is congruent with his Amish beliefs.

Their paths continue to cross intentionally and unintentionally, and as she finds out more information about his family's emigration to America, she investigates her own family history, intrigued as they shared the same family name a few generations back.  Annie finds peace of mind in the small town setting rather than in the hustle and bustle of Colorado Springs; her decision to live more simply  and make some radical changes in her life makes no sense to her family and colleagues, but it does to Rufus and Annie is the catalyst for healing some family breaches both from the past and in the present.

The book is cleverly constructed and although I could see where the plot was headed, I did enjoy the resolution at the end. The only quibble I have is that Annie is pretty much a very nominal Christian at the outset, and over a very short period of time seems to be surprisingly willing to adopt Plain ways without having the necessary underpinnings of faith behind them, though to be fair, her faith does grow stronger and her relationship with God deeper as the book progresses.

The book is based upon the true story of the author's emigrant ancestors, and knowing that, the sufferings of the Beyeler family are all the more poignant.  This is the first in a series, with two more books being released in 2013. I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for them.

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Not Quite The Weekend We'd Expected....

Only now am I sufficiently de-stressed to be able to look back on last Sunday and smile.

Earlier this year, we bought season tickets to enable us to travel to Longleat whenever we wanted  could afford to. We've managed to go back on several occasions,  and had great fun visiting the safari park, stately home and various other attractions.

After our last visit, which we all loved, we checked on the website and found that  Longleat was putting on a firework display last weekend.  Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, we were able to book a cheap family room at  nearby hotel, and leaving Basil in the loving care of Mrs DoomHamster, we left on Saturday morning. The journey there was very uneventful and pleasant, full of autumn colours and we  were lucky to avoid any traffic snarl-ups.

As always, I simply had to snap the Second Severn Crossing !

 

I also managed to get a snap of the first Severn bridge in the distance for DH, who likes it better.....

 

 

 

We passed through lovely countryside and some interesting places:
 

 

 

 

 

 

and finally, the stretch of Roman Road.

 

We arrived in Longleat nice and early, knowing that lots of local people would be taking advantage of the cheap rate £6 entry ticket just to see the fireworks starting at 6.30pm. We were directed to parking areas on the field of long grass near the river, which did make DH wonder what would happen if it rained later on as we do not have a four wheel drive vehicle.....

Longleat was its usual lovely self:

 

 

and we went on the train, which had been spookified for the occasion!

 

 

 

Because we had arrived early, we avoided the truly massive queues that built up later on.

 

Part way through the journey, the train slowed, then stopped,  and several of these jumped out at us.....

 

 

 

.... making the younger children scream.

They were in fact handing out sweets to all the passengers, and as I tried to photograph the one who leaned into our carriage, the train started to move, so this is what happened in the rapidly fading light.

 

 

 

Enough to give me nightmares :-)

 

 

We ambled over to the display area, where thousands and thousands of people were crammed in. It was dark and bitterly cold, and I could not believe that some parents were wearing hat, coat, scarf and gloves themselves, but were carrying very young children who wore only thin winter coats. One little girl we saw had hands that were blue with cold, and lots of babies were out without hats on. Crazy.

 

The fireworks were lovely, set to music. My camera in no way did them justice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had carefully positioned ourselves right by the only exit point, so we could make as speedy a departure as possible once the display ended. After the last firework, we turned and galloped as fast as we possibly could back to the car, knowing that if we had to wait for long, all the other cars passing over the grass would have churned  it into muddy ruts which our car would never have been able to safely navigate, especially in the dark and with hordes of other cars waiting impatiently behind us.

 Other people obviously had the same thought, as we were closely followed by one man who was running and pushing a small child in a pushchair at the same time and then by a procession of others. We reached the car, and were still fastening our seatbelts as DH carefully drove off the grass and onto the private road leading out of the estate. There were five or six cars ahead of us, and by the time we reached the junction between the grass and the road, the ground had indeed been churned into ruts, and it took us several attempt to get over them and safely onto the road. If we had left it any longer, we would most likely have been stuck there :-)

 

The traffic queues behind us were unbelievable by the time we reached the brow of the long incline leading out to the main road, and we headed straight for the supermarket to get some food, then back to the very comfortable hotel  room and a nice hot drink. 

 

Next morning, we slept late, till about 8.30am, and we were discussing what time we should get some breakfast and go back to Longleat to while away a few hours. We thought we'd made sensible plans, and it was only when DH opened  the curtains that we realised we would have to cancel our plans and head straight home as fast as we  could. At no point had the weather forecast included snow, but it was snowing heavily and settling on the ground. My husband said he'd been aware of some heavy rain in the night, but we hadn't expected this....

 

Needless to say, we grabbed our things and headed for the car, knowing we would be crossing lots of small country lanes and minor roads before we got safely back on to the motorway.

 

 

 It was lovely, but unnerving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The journey home took almost four hours, and in some places there were nearly six inches of snow, which is a lot for those of us living in temperate climes :-)

 As many of the country roads were up and down hills, this meant some hair-raising moments, including when one police vehicle was stuck coming up a narrow hill and we were travelling down it.

 

 At several points we were travelling at  5 - 10 miles per hour, and then we hit the areas which had been hit by flash floods.  We ended up traversing many deep floods, crawling along at one or two miles per hour to avoid creating any "waves" which could send water up the exhaust of the car and causing us to get stuck. Of course, these were always the areas furthest away from civilisation and had no mobile phone signal either. It was really quite scary, and I was so unnerved I could not take any photos. That was the first time I'd ever been in a vehicle crossing flooded roads, and luckily our people-carrier is a "high" vehicle; if the floods had been an inch deeper, we would have been stuck. Several roads were completely impassable and one near Bath town centre was blocked off by police cars to prevent vehicular access as it was deemed too dangerous.

 

No sooner did we leave a flooded area than we would travel a few  miles and hit snow again. Luckily the  travelling conditions  improved a great deal when we managed to rejoin the motorway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was only when we reached the approach to the Severn Bridge that we took a deep sigh of relief and all trace of the snow disappeared.

 

 

 

And soon we were back on my beloved bridge again......

 

 

 

 

 

...and giving thanks for getting safely home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Book Review - Always Put in a Recipe and Other Tips for Living from Iowa's Best-Known Homemaker

 

Always Put in a Recipe and Other Tips for Living from Iowa's Best-Known Homemaker
by Evelyn Birkby
Bur Oak Books/ University of Iowa Press

 September 2012

 

 

Evelyn Birkby started to write her column - "Up a country lane" - in the Shenandoah Evening Sentinel newspaper in 1949, and has been writing it ever since. She went on to develop a career as a radio then television broadcaster, as well as writing several books. In this volume, she has revisited her articles and reflected and expanded on her favourites, producing an autobiographical memoir which is utterly absorbing and is one of the very nicest books I have read this year.

 

Despite the title, not every chapter does contain a recipe, but each one is sweet, honest, and rings very true to the reader. Life in a rural part of Iowa is described matter of factly but vividly, conjuring up a multi-faceted picture of the columnist's life as a farm wife with a young family and a variety of pets. Their family history, her memories of local history and events are all given this straightforward but lyrical treatment. Sixty five years of marriage and four children later,  she writes with enormous amounts of wisdom, humour, poignant reflections and plain good old common sense, which is in all too short supply these days. Living in the good old days was often harsh and hard when weather conditions were dreadful in the winter months. She looks back on the past with fondness but crystal clear clarity and does not fall into the trap of donning rose-tinted spectacles. The horrors of having to brave the elements to visit the outhouse on a cold winter's night are not glossed over!

She is honest about her cooking failures and mistakes; she was not initially a terribly good cook, but armed with the recipes given her by family, friends and readers, and after much practice, she became a good cook and realised that food was an important form of social and familial cohesion and bonding  as well as fuel for the body. Her section on potlucks will bring a chuckle to anyone who has ever provided food for a potluck. The entry about aprons, their uses, abuses, and cutting the apron strings off for her children when they grew up was one of my absolute favourites.

 

 I am not surprised that she was such a popular columnist for her local newspaper; I found something to enjoy or marvel at in each article. An absolute delight of a book, and the recipes are pretty darn awesome too !

 

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Book Review - The Horologicon

The Horologicon
A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language

By Mark Forsyth

Published by Icon Books, Nov 1st, 2012

 

 

For anyone who loves words, is intrigued by words, is baffled by words, or just likes to use intriguing words, this book would make the perfect present.

I actually fall into all of the above categories, so I settled down to read this with enormous anticipation and I was definitely not disappointed. For those of us who like browsing in dictionaries, but would like something novel, Mark Forsyth has come up with a remarkably clever plan of structuring unusual words according to the hour(s) of the day when one would be most likely to need them. Hence we start at dawn, with the dreaded alarm clock and debating whether to get up or feign illness, followed by washing and dressing, having breakfast, and so on. This provides time and space for the introduction and elucidation of interesting words and snippets of history and geography too, in some entries, especially 4pm, which is devoted to Tea.

The very first word in the book, the Old English "uhtceare", has only ever been recorded once, and means to lie awake before dawn worrying. Most of us have done this at least once, so it is a shame this potentially useful little word doesn't enjoy popular acclaim. One can only hope it will find a new lease of length after the publication of The Horologicon ! I was familiar with a handful of words through havng read the books of the wonderful Georgette Heyer, who was a rigorous researcher, determined to make her portrayal of the Regency period accurate to the minutest detail, but I have found dozens and dozens of new words to delight me and quite possibly drive the rest of my family insane.

If you've ever wanted to find a way to use the immortal phrase "night-foundered vicambulist" - a street walker who has got lost in the darkness, look no further, for this is definitely the book for you.

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Book Review - Mac & Cheese Please!

 

Mac & Cheese Please!

By Laura Werlin

Published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, December 4th, 2012

 I was thrilled to find this book available for review at NetGalley, as my second daughter has been a massive fan of macaroni cheese ever since she was a toddler, and she is now grown up and living away from home! She has never met a macaroni cheese recipe she didn't like, and in this book there are loads more variations for me to try for her when she visits.

The book is chock full of hints and tips to make your mac n' cheese a triumph, whether you are cooking it on the stove- top or in the oven. Pages of cheese suggestions are given, most of which are available on both sides of The Pond. The only real drawback is that Velveeta cheese is not available here in the UK, but I am assured that a good substitute is Red Leicester cheese, which is widely available in British supermarkets.

 I was surprised to discover mac n' cheese's venerable history; it dates back to the time of Thomas Jefferson and was first included in a recipe book by his cousin, Mary Randolph. I knew it had a long history as a "boxed” food produced by Kraft in the 1930s, but not that it was this old. There are 50 recipes, each of them provided with a number of variations. They range from the basic, cheap and cheerful types to the luxurious and positively decadent, eminently suitable for entertaining guests.

 Whether you like your mac n' cheese cheesy, hot and spicy, filled with seafood, meat, poultry, vegetables or grains, made with whole-wheat macaroni or gluten-free, there will definitely be recipes for you to enjoy in this great little book !

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NaNoWriMo 2012

Yes, I have entered the glorious month of insanity that is NaNoWriMo for the fourth consecutive year!

I woke up this morning wondering what topic to choose, and sat at my computer desk with a blank page and an equally blank mind.......so, I posted on Facebook:-

"I could write:

•  a fictionalised history of our town
• stories of the lives of the Saints of Wales
• something dark, brooding and introspective
• or have a bash at something completely different, maybe a hybrid Orthodox/Amish community.

Hmmm, some possibilities there. Time for coffee and some focused pondering..."

 

 

After some interesting banter with my FB friends, I decided to see how many of the above I could manage to incorporate into a post-Apocalyptic type scenario.  Surprisingly, I managed to crank out 1819 words in 55 minutes.  My typing is atrocious, and it wll take a while of editing to make it legible to anyone else, but I don't know whether to be impressed by my creativity or absolutely terrified by my undoubted ability to ramble excessively :-)

 

 

 

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Word Verifications Revisited

Lots of spam comments are landing in my Inbox since I abandoned the word verification process, so I am really glad I kept the comments on moderation!

Most of the spam seems to be related to encouraging me to  purchase large quantities of cigarettes, which I find really rather ironic as I have never smoked in my life and don't intend to start, having watched my father die of lung cancer and my mother from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease as a direct result of her smoking habit.........

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Book Review: Potatoes On Rooftops

Potatoes On Rooftops

By  Hadley Dyer

Published by Annick Press, September 2012

 

Annick Press produce some amazing books for children, and I always try to keep an eye out for their latest titles.

This one, Potatoes On Rooftops, is a vibrant, attractive book which aims to encourage urban youngsters to have a go at producing their own food, no matter where in the world or how unlikely their environment might initially seem for this endeavour.

Hadley Dyer has managed to produce a book which is attractive, inspiring and chock full of information aimed squarely at children.  Presented in easily assimilable “soundbites”,  each double page spread will make children think  about where they live, what they eat and how they can adapt and improvise to “grow their own”. Children are perfectly capable of taking on board sometimes complex concepts such as  food miles and the importance of sourcing things locally to keep both costs and the impact on environmental resources to a minimum, and getting children used to this way of doing things will undoubtedly pay dividends to communities in future years. History is thrown in too, describing how during both World Wars, people were encouraged to grow their own and “Dig For Victory” to make the best use of scarce resources.

Vegetables can be grown in bottles, boots and buckets as well as in plant pots on windowsills, balconies of flats, in the gardens of houses, and even – in the case of one group of enterprising children in Tokyo – in an underground bank vault, which they turned into a hydroponic greenhouse! Poultry can be kept on rooftops as well as in gardens, and in many cities, chickens are legally considered pets. Consequently, it is acceptable to use them to produce eggs, but in most parts of the developed world, they cannot be killed for food purposes.

A huge amount of information is crammed into the book, including how cities can actually be environmentally friendly, and how to reduce global warming by “cooling down” cities. Water harvesting  and usage is described, and the social impact of food producing is considered, along with using schools to teach young people to grow their own food.

This is a timely and quite remarkable book, of interest and value no matter where in the world the young readers  – and their parents and teachers -  may live.

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Book Review: A Hobbit Devotional

The Hobbit Devotional
- Bilbo Baggins And The Bible

By Ed Strauss
Published by Barbour, 1st September, 2012

Being a Tolkien fan, and currently reading The Hobbit to my youngest daughter each bedtime, I have to say that this book is a joy. From the gorgeous cover picture, title font  and thoughtful introduction, right through the 60 chapters of the text to the useful glossary of Hobbit related words and a timeline of how long the events in the story took to unfold, each page was a pleasure to read.

Each chapter starts with a quotation from the story, followed by Strauss’ insightful , deceptively simplistic but actually quite profound commentary, summed up by  the Scripture quotation which expresses the intent of the story and the devotion.  No particular age range has been noted by the publisher, but I definitely believe my 11 year old daughter would enjoy and benefit from this book as much as I did myself.

Tolkien’s own background as a committed and devout Roman Catholic underpinned all his writings, so I am only surprised that it has taken so long for someone to produce such a great little devotional guide to The Hobbit.  I do hope that in due course,  Ed Strauss will produce one for The Lord of The Rings too.

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Book Review - Angels On The Night Shift

                                                                 Angels On The Night Shift

                                                               By Robert D  Lesslie

                                                             Harvest House, October 1^st, 2012

 

I generally enjoy non-fiction books about the lives of medical professionals,  but this book, which is part of a series,  is very much in a league of its own.  It drew me in  - and had me hooked - on the very first page, to my delight.

The book opens in the ER, with the arrival of a patient with chest pain, and soon we are drawn into a mystery – why were empty vials of the drug Vistaril in the room when they should not have been?  In the rush to deal with this patient’s critical medical condition, the issue of the drug is temporarily overlooked and life in the busy department continues.  The medical problems of the patients are dealt with in fascinating detail in clear, plain English, easily accessible and understandable to the lay reader.  How diagnoses are arrived at is rather like the deductive processes in a detective novel, and it is quite fascinating to see how this works, and how it can run into problems. Birth, death, accidents and the diagnosis of life-changing and life-threatening diseases are common occurrences in a busy hospital, and all affect the lives of the patients and their families, who often need as much care and support as the patients themselves.

Dr Lesslie, a doctor with thirty years of ER experience,  introduces  the team of medics , nurses and technicians who staff his close-knit and well-run department;  the staff  function well as a team, appreciate their individual and collective strengths, look out for each other and know they can rely on each other, but gradually the feel of the ER department changes.  When a member of staff makes uncharacteristic mistakes and things start to go wrong , blame is unfairly apportioned by senior management  and soon everyone is on edge and unhappy.  Will the truth be unearthed, or will there be a massive miscarriage of justice, with a dangerous person on the loose in the department, posing a danger to patients and staff alike…….

The pressures and stresses the staff  face every day are clearly portrayed as is the deep Christian faith of many of them which underpins their strength, as is also true of many of the patients and their families.

Fast-paced, fascinating, well-written and absorbing, giving us glimpses of heartbreak, tragedy and stress ,  I thoroughly enjoyed this  and will be certainly looking out for any other books written by this medical author.



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Word Verifications

I didn't realise that so many of you were having difficulties with the word verifications that Blogger is asking you to complete when leaving comments here.

 I have disabled the word verifications but will be putting all comments on moderation to avoid the blog being spammed by automatically produced adverts for property, health products and items of a less than salubrious nature from a variety of countries across the globe :-)

Your comments *will* appear, but it may take a few hours for me to receive the email notifications and manually "publish" the comments.

I too have had problems with Bloggers's bizarre verifications in the last week - on one site, I attempted to leave a comment and was informed *eight* times that I had entered the wretched codes incorrectly, even though I carefully checked each entry.
I gave up in the end :-(

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After The Rain, Some Sun !

 

 

An unkempt but magnificent hedge alongside a paddock...

 

 

 

 

And in close-up :-)

 

 

 

A glimpse through a gap in the hedge.

The water is not a stream, just water-sodden paddock !

 

 

I just liked the shape of the tree!

 

Seagulls on the pond, hoping to steal bread from the ducks......

Autumn foliage. I have no idea what the tree is, to produce such ephemera.

 

 

I believe this to be a Rowan, complete with a great display of berries.

 

 

And this tree, almost bare of leaves now.

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Sometimes You Just Have to Smile

Last week, it rained so hard and for so many days that DD4 turned to me, and asked in genuine enquiry and with some degree of anxiety, if I was absolutely certain that there would never again be a flood like Noah experienced.

 Considering  that we were having flash flood warnings on an almost daily basis due to inches of rain falling in a very few hours, it was understandable for her to be concerned when I was wearing first stout shoes, then hiking boots and ultimately wellingtons to wade through the increasingly deep  lakes in the school yard each day to pick her up........ reassurance was given and the rain did eventually stop.

The weekend weather was fine, but we have had very heavy rainfall today, and one particularly heavy shower simply had to time itself for when I came out of the supermarket laden with shopping after my Latin class. I decided to catch the bus home, rather than walk :-)

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The Winner....

...of the book give-away for "Walking In The Dust Of Rabbi Jesus" is Mary R.

Many thanks to those of you who entered by email (as Mary did) or by leaving comments on the blog; I wish you could all have won !

There will be another give- away next week, courtesy of the Potamitis family in Greece :-)

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Book Review - I Love My Slow Cooker

 

 

I “ Love" My Slow Cooker

by  Beverley LeBlanc

Published by Duncan Baird Publishers, London, 2012

(There is also a US edition)

 

This cookbook has so many wonderful and unusual  recipes for a slow cooker devotee !  One thing I hated about my first slow cooker recipe book was that so many of the dishes all tasted similar as they had the same tomato base and herbs.

That is definitely not the case with this well-illustrated book, which advises you to consider increasing the amounts of herbs and spices used when compared to cooking a conventional casserole, and lots of different “bases” are used, not just the ubiquitous tomato …..

 Divided into sections, it covers  Soups & Sauces, Meat & Poultry,  Fish & Shellfish, Vegetarian dishes and Desserts. The recipes span the globe, with China, India, Vietnam, the Middle-East , Italy, Greece, Spain and France all well represented, as well as many classic American recipes , so there truly is something for all budgets and palates. The vegetarian recipes are unusual, including Pumpkin and Dolcelatte Rice, Lentil Dahl and Vegetable Tagine.

Smoky and Spicy Black Bean Soup is definitely on my list of favourites as the autumn is moving towards winter, and I confidently anticipate that my slow cooker is going to be a permanent resident on my worktop this year, thanks to Beverley LeBlanc’s book !

 

 

 

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Josiah For President - A Review

 

Josiah For President

By Martha Bolton

Published by Zondervan, October 2012

 

 

This is most definitely not your typical Amish novel :-)

When a disgruntled American Congressman decides to abandon his entry for the Presidential elections, he little expects to have an accident when driving on his way home and meet an Amishman who changes his life in a multitude of ways.

Mark Stedman's encounter with Josiah Stoltzfus makes him re-assess his attitudes and priorities to the point where he feels what America really needs is someone like Josiah at the helm. When, with Mark's help, Josiah wins the Presidential election despite all the usual back-stabbing campaigns and attempts to discredit him, America suddenly has a President who acts according to his conscience and in accordance with the mandates of Scripture.

This is a clever premise, and provides much information both about the Amish and about how the American electoral system works. Both Josiah, Mark and their wives are engaging and believable characters. The main rival candidate, Harley Philips, is a little exaggerated but still an interestingly devious character and I *so* enjoyed disliking him!

It is an amusing book, which caused me to laugh out loud on several occasions,  although there is a very sad but perhaps inevitable twist in the tale towards the end.

 I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and had been "champing at the bit", waiting for the postman to deliver my copy to me.

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One Of Those Days

Today really has been one of those days.

When I went shopping for a birthday card for our youngest child, as I was browsing through the "Daughter" section in the card shop, it hit me like a hammer blow that never again will I have a card with "Daughter" on it from my Mum, who always spent a lot of time browsing for the perfect cards for all her family members.

Neither will I ever have a card with "Sister" on it from my brother.

Despite having my husband and my daughters, I feel alone and more than a little bereft. The three year anniversary of my brother's death has been very hard, with grief re-awakened with a vengeance after Mum's death earlier this year........

For those of you who are blessed to still have parents and siblings alive, be thankful. It hurts so very much when they have departed this life :-(

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Book Review - Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?

 

Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?

By Rhoda Janzen

Published  by Grand Central Publishing,  Oct 1^st, 2012

 

Having read Rhoda Janzen’s first book of memoirs, Mennonite In  A Little Black Dress, and enjoyed it, I was keen to read what happened next in her somewhat roller-coaster life.  Returning to her Mennonite roots and family after a divorce, she met an unusual man named Mitch, with whom a tentative relationship springs up.  At the time, I wondered what happened next, and with this book, we get to find out.

Mitch turns out to be a committed Christian whose life was totally  transformed when he found Christ, and as Rhoda ‘s relationship with him grows deeper, so does her own relationship with Christ and she becomes involved in his church, which is  Pentecostal and something of a culture shock to a former childhood Mennonite.

This book is funny, raw, brutally honest and heartbreakingly sad in equal measure. When Rhoda is diagnosed with a life-threatening and highly invasive form of cancer, she wonders if she should call off her relationship, but Mitch is solid as a rock and together they continue their journey. Despite everything, God provides, and Rhoda learns to integrate her faith into her academic life.

 I’ve enjoyed this enough to want to read it right through all over again, and the relationship between Rhoda and Mitch is truly inspirational. By the end of the book, we get to find out the real names of Mitch and his family, but yu’ll have to read it to find out J

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Book Review - Susanna's Christmas Wish

Susanna’s  Christmas Wish

By Jerry S. Eicher

Published by  Harvest House, 2012

 

A short but very sweet novella in which we meet the Amish newly-weds Susanna and Herman Wagler and their families.  Susanna was jilted by Matthew Yoder before she married Herman, and occasional doubts plague her as to whether they each love the other as much as they think and hope they do.  When Matthew unexpectedly reappears in their community, all of Herman’s worst fears appear to be coming true.

An innocent remark about spending Christmas with Susanna’s family sparks an intense disagreement between the young couple, and the reader discovers that Herman’s family follows a very old custom of adhering to the Old Calendar date for Christmas, which means that he expects them to postpone their celebrations  till the 6^th of January along with the rest of his family………..

As a good Amish fraa, Susanna is committed to acknowledging her husband’s headship of their family, but struggles to come to terms with feeling she has to abandon her own family’s customs and traditions. This threatens to cause a rift between the young couple, especially as Herman’s domineering and interfering mother appears to dislike Susanna and places pressure on him to conform to their family’s “purer” celebration of the Lord’s birth.  Susanna prays for the grace to fully accept her role as a wife and conform to her husband’s expectations in this situation with a cheerful and loving heart, as well as resisting her old feelings for Matthew.

Will the young couple be able to resolve their differences of opinion and reach a compromise acceptable to all parties? Do they love each other enough to truly forsake all others, including their families, if necessary?

One of the things I particularly like about Jerry Eicher’s writing is his ability to focus in on the things which can make or break a relationship and write about them tenderly, compassionately and honestly and with faith.

 A thoroughly enjoyable read !

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Book Review - Pets At The White House

Pets At The White House

by Jennifer B. Pickens

Published by Fife & Drum Press, 2012

 

 

 

 As a Brit living across the Pond, this book was a revelation and a thoroughly enjoyable, beautifully illustrated read about the presidential pets of the last fifty years.

 I had no idea of the pets kept at the White House by presidents in more distant history, notably the two grizzly bear cubs kept by Thomas Jefferson, and I only recall having seen very occasional press photos of pets kept by more recent presidents being shown in newspapers in Britain, so it was great fun to read about the varied pets owned by First Families. Illustrated with candid photographs, it provides an intimate and affectionate look at life in the White House from a pet's point of view. Great fun!

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Book Review - Life With Lily

Life with Lily

By Mary Ann Kinsinger & Suzanne Woods Fisher

Published by Revell, 2012

I read this utterly magical little book right through in one sitting, unwilling to put it down till the very end. Ostensibly aimed at young children, I can confidently say this book has infinitely greater appeal to all age groups; I have read chunks of this out loud to my daughters who are aged from 26 to 10, and without exception, they have all loved it too.

Lily, our truly delightful but very human little heroine, is five years old when the book opens though she turns seven towards the end of the book. She lives with her Amish parents and younger brother Joseph as part of a tight-knit community in Pleasant Hill, New York State . Everything is looked at primarily from Lily's point of view and the book opens with the arrival of the newest member of their family. Soon they have a barn raising at their home, and acquire new livestock, with the accompanying celebrations.

Lily's life, though geographically circumscribed, is *anything* but boring. There are always interesting things to see and do, people to meet and situations to deal with. Despite her young age, she helps out with everyday household tasks in the home and garden of Singing Tree Farm, and keeps a watchful eye on her younger brother and her very new baby brother. Things are not all they seem at Lily's home, and the family nearly falls into danger at one point, quite literally. There are run-ins with an English neighbour which take a little while to resolve peacably and amicably, and which frighten poor Lily. The extended family has to deal with disability, severe illness and great anxiety, and Lily is aware of what is going on, though at a level which is appropriate for her age and understanding.

When Lily starts school, her adventures continue there. Although the Amish are generally peaceable, honest and kind, Lily has to learn to interact peaceably with an unpleasant Amish girl who frequently manages to get poor Lily into trouble and causes her distress. Lily is a thoughtful, clever and resourceful child who finds a way to deal with the difficult Mandy Mast.

This book ends with Lily's family eventually making the decision to move to a larger Amish community in Pennsylvania, but I am sure that Lily will continue to have adventures wherever she goes!

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Book Giveaway!

Thanks to the immense kindness of Lois Tverberg and her publishers Zondervan,  I am delighted to announce that I have a brand new copy of her book "Walking In The Dust Of Rabbi Jesus" to give away :-)

I reviewed this fascinating book here ; if you would like to enter the giveaway competition, either leave a comment on this post, or email me:  orthodoxmum at gmail dot com  before 9am GMT on Monday 15th October 2012. I will ship the book anywhere in the world to the winner !

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I'm Back !!

We are now safely back in our own home and are slowly - oh so slowly - getting the house into some semblance of order and tidiness.

We are using the opportunity to throughly declutter the entire house, and I am amazed and appalled at how much stuff we have collectively accumulated over the last four years. In the last two days, we have shredded six large refuse sacks full of old documents and demolished the piano that was sitting in our kitchen, as well as having sorted and tidied up two rooms. We are making progress, even if it is at a glacial speed..........

We have had a new bathroom fitted at Mum's old house, and that too has been a mammoth undertaking which ran into lots of hiccups and went way over budget and timescale. It is looking good, though, and we are glad we had it done. Whether we choose to move into Mum's house and sell our current house or vice-versa, that bathroom seriously needed to be updated and made functional for a family.

DD1, Mrs DoomHamster, is still waiting for her visa to live and work in the USA so she can rejoin her husband. Prayers for this to be resolved quickly would be very much appreciated indeed ! DD2 is looking for a new job, so we are praying about that too, and for our very dear elderly friend John, who is very nearly 90 - he is having health issues and is waiting for the local NHS to get round to seeing him and treating him.

Other than that, life continues as normal. Or as normal as it ever is :-)

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Good Intentions

The old adage says that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions......

I was planning to write and post at least four more book reviews and several photo posts in the last week, but we have been having some much-needed work done on the wooden flooring throughout the ground floor of our house. This necessitated removing every book (there were a lot!) and scrap of furniture from the dining room and hall, and somehow finding room for everything in the other rooms.......

I ended up with the piano in the kitchen, where it still broods in solitary state, tripping up unwary members of the family whilst awaiting its imminent destruction. Nobody in the family can actually play it, and it is occupying room we cannot really spare so we have made the sad and difficult decision to dismantle it, salvage some of the nicer wooden parts to convert into book shelves and take the rest of it in pieces to the dump, as we cannot find it a new home anywhere. Nobody wants a free piano, it seems, and even the rag and bone scrap collectors won't touch it due to its size :-(

On a happier note, the wooden floors are  looking absolutely stunning after being stripped, sanded and given multiple coats of varnish. Gone is the gloomy and grubby-looking antique pine, and instead we are enjoying looking at our gorgeous light honey coloured flooring.  We have now replaced the permanent furniture and books in the dining room and have been busy emptying the living room instead in preparation for the floor in that room to be done this week.

Book reviews and photos will appear sometime this week - I hope :-)

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Pleased To Report.....

....some good news !

I saw the Consultant surgeon on Wednesday; everything has healed up after my operation in July and the operation has been entirely successful. I am hoping this marks the end of a very difficult and painful six months of health problems.

Now I just have to shift the stone of excess weight I gained during my periods of relevant immobility :-) I am now able to walk the dog for several miles each day, which makes us both happy, and I am really hoping that exercise and more healthy eating will shift the weight..........

DD3 & 4 returned to school on Tuesday, Latin class will recommence for me next monday and I have already been asked by DD4's school to help in the school library again this year, which I am more than happy to do.

Due to some legal hiccups, we will not be able to sell my mother's house till after Christmas, but the delay has been fortuitous as I have been able to rest and recuperate rather than run around like a maniac sorting and clearing all Mum's possesions. I still have to do it all, but we are busy re-decorating a few rooms in our house prior to putting it up for sale. We will be getting some of the floors sanded and re-sealed next week, so it will be busy, busy, busy !

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