People say their kitchens are awful, but I don’t think they know what awful means. Around the country, families are remodeling kitchens that, from my perspective, are already quite serviceable.
Give me your tired, your worn, your avocado appliances. Your vinyl floor yearning to be wiped clean. The sparkling product of your gleaming double sink. Replace my crumbling kitchen from a bygone era.
Which era, I’m not certain. Continue reading
When I say, “the witching hour,” I’m not talking about some spooky hour in the inky blackness when supernatural creatures roam the earth making the time ripe for witchery. I’m referring to the common parlance of parents of young children who are all too familiar with the early evening fussiness of babies.
Early evening, you may know, generally coincides with adults returning home from work, kids heading to and from after-school activities, and preparing and eating dinner. Continue reading
As companion to my favorite contemporary Catholic fiction-writers that I posted in August, here are my favorite contemporary Christian romance authors (with a few bonus honorable mentions at the end.) The prominence of Christian themes vary from author to author and story to story, but all are perfectly blended with the story and none are pushy or proselytizing, which frankly, no one wants to read.
Authors are listed in no particular order.
I don’t drink coffee. I never have.
I’m the mother of four young children who on average begin to sleep through the night consistently at age four. I’m also a writer.
I repeat. I don’t drink coffee. Continue reading
Why small success? Because that’s the only kind I know! Even the big ones come in small steps. Here’s my paltry offering for the week:
Maybe it’s the fuss over Back to the Future Day that’s got me thinking of time and space and where I fit into the universe. Maybe it’s the questions of my seven-year-old who is trying hard to grasp the space-time continuum. (I didn’t dare breach the subject of time travelers and the Temporal Prime Directive with her.)
For all the world’s fascination with time travel, its possibility, and its implications, no one has accomplished such a feat. (Unless you listen to late-night talk radio and then, well, time travelers already live amongst us.) Continue reading
The Rosary drifts in and out of my life. Seasons change, lifestyles are uprooted, and my interest in the prayer waxes and wanes. Yet, same as the beads scattered across the dining room buffet, it remains within reach.
October is the Month of the Holy Rosary, and I’m bothered by the fact the Rosary isn’t part of my routine the way it once was. I had no experience with a family recitation of the Rosary, so praying it privately during my daily commute for years suited me just fine. Then the commute ended, and I’ve struggled ever since. Continue reading
The longer I live, the more I’m convinced that evil is real. It’s a tangible force – one commonly overlooked in our “enlightened” post-modern era. That’s why I was struck by these four novels: one the sequel to a historical romance, if we can call the 1980s “historical” now, and the others a dystopian trilogy.
The Gifting has a little bit of everything – mystery, suspense, romance, action, and a full-out battle between good and evil. In fact, what struck me most about the series, beginning with The Gifting, was the acknowledgement of evil. As a demonic entity tells Tessa, “You see, people have a hard time fighting against something they don’t believe. Their denial makes our job easier.”
The dystopian setting allows the reality of good and evil to penetrate without inducing nightmares. The Gifting hits its mark in making the reader consider unseen realities without fear-mongering. Continue reading
