50 Blessings

Our challenge today at church was to list 50 blessings- things to be thankful for, look on the positive side of life, and all that jazz. Yay! 

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1. My awesome husband! He's a go-getter, a hero, a veteran, and a great dad. 

2. Our firstborn daughter, 20. She loves her boyfriend, horror movies, choir singing, hiking, and The Office.

3. Our middle-born daughter, 18. She loves her BFF's, soccer, horses, sunbathing, and Nike sportswear.

4. Our son and youngest child, 11. He loves Marvel movies, beef stroganoff, mango juice, and UNO cards.

5. Our home in small-town Wisconsin where we've lived for over 20 years.

6. Diet iced tea. 

7. My air conditioning unit. 

8. Lake Hayward, with its deep drop off point that makes your feet feel chilly.

9. My friends who manage to drag me out of my house once in a while.

10. The aspen tree and pine forest behind our backyard.

11. The field of long grass in our backyard; the way it sways in the breeze.

12. Laundry hanging on the line in the summertime.

13. Daisies.

14. 80's music.

15. Our choir cantata that I sing in, and our director Holly.

16. Black cherry diet soda.

17. Refillable plastic water bottles.

18. Coffee.

19. The maple tree in the front of our house, that has grown from a sapling over 15 years.

20. Our dog, Lexie.

21. Facebook and Twitter (when I can use them without addiction)

22. My blue bedsheets, the super-soft ones.

23. Ibuprofen pills.

24. Maxi pads.

25. My laptop, which I use for writing and for wasting too much time.

26. Marvel movies. 

27. The 'oldies' radio show on 101.7 that plays good 70's and 80's music.

28. Disney movies.

29. Amazon.com's Kindle program and various other websites, (including this one!) which have allowed me to publish my mediocre writing- and improve my writing abilities to where I've published my own novels.

30. Books. Lots! Of! Books!

31. The Sherman and Ruth Weiss Community Library.

32. Miller's Market.

33. Backroads Coffee.

34. Hayward Coffee Company.

35. DiGiorno's Stuffed Crust Frozen Pizza.

36. Snap Fitness. (So I can eat DiGiorno's pizza, drink Backroads' frappes, and eat Miller's subs!)

37. Bath and Body Works' shower gels and hand soaps.

38. Maurice's clearance rack.

39. Walmart's clearance rack.

40. The song of the Red-Winged Blackbird, especially when springtime begins.

41. The song of Eastern Grey tree frogs at night.

42. The full moon, which rises over the eastern skyline from my backyard.

43. The stars on a clear night.

44. Lilacs in June.

45. Fall- the turning colors, pumpkin patches, apple pie baking, and cooler days.

46. Thanksgiving time, when Ben and I have our birthdays, which leads into Christmastime.

47. Christmastime.

48. Kohl's store in Rice Lake.

49. My Dodge Caravan which is still driveable and has a working A/C and heat.

50. Our church. And thank you to Chad, for challenging us to make this list! :)

A Prayer for My Daughter, on her Graduation Day

A cap and gown hang in my younger daughter's room.

She's graduating soon, and I cannot believe how fast time has gone. She's ready and excited, and so am I, but it's bittersweet. 

Since the day she was born and wrapped her tiny fingers around mine, and I could see that her eyes were brown, not blue like her sister's nor green like mine, I knew she was a unique person. 

This parenting journey has been the hardest, funniest, most terrifying, inspiring, holy mess…and there are a lot of parts I messed up that I wish I could do again.

I look back at it all, and could not be happier with this gift of a daughter, 'my Christmas present' I like to call her, since I went to the hospital in labor with her on Christmas Day, and she was born 10 minutes after midnight. She is my pride and joy, my middle child. 

Gee, I haven't posted in a while!

Here is a pic of our choir performing the Cantata "Hope is Born Emmanuel" last week. I loved these songs and the way the narrators presented the story so much! I'm in the second row from top above a lady with white hair.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! 

Book Review- And She Was, by Alison Gaylin

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https://www.amazon.com/She-Was-Suspense-Brenna-Spector/dp/0061878200/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473194449&sr=1-1&keywords=and+she+was

Okay, summer is over, school is back in session, and looking back, I definitely can tell you what my favorite book I've read over the summer of 2016 is.

"And She Was, a Brenna Spector Mystery" by Alison Gaylin is a mystery crime suspense about how Brenna Spector uses her unique gift of recalling her most detailed life memories, to the exact date- to help solve crimes.

It is also a book that takes a look at missing persons, a grim topic in the light of the news of a 27 year old case of an abducted boy from Minnesota being confirmed as murdered- a story I'd followed since I was an 18 year old freshman in college. I wish there had been a happier ending for that. Prayers to his mom and family. :(

There is a connection between the recent disappearance of a suburban wife named Carol Wentz, and a little 6 year old girl named Iris, who went missing several years back. That is what Brenna is fighting to prove to the skeptical authorities. Her only allies are her tech assistant Trent (a fun character! He's kind of like a male, muscle shirt wearing version of Penelope Garcia, lol!) and detective Nick Morasco, who Brenna has a very subtle chemistry with. I do ship them, but I really liked the idea that there were no romances in this book to detract from the suspense and mystery plot. I also like how the author describes the setting, this pristine suburban town founded by a millionaire family, who huddle together with the local police department to protect their dark secrets.


Brenna's backstory is interesting, too. When she was a little girl in the 80's, her big sister Clea was also abducted and remains missing. When I found out there was a sequel, I was so excited. I have all of Gaylin's other books on my 'must read' list.

I was quick to give this book 5 stars on Amazon.

Book Review- 'A Picture Purrfect Christmas (A Klepto-Cat Mystery)'

http://www.amazon.com/Picture-Purrfect-Christmas-Klepto-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B016BBY2GY/ref=cm_rdp_product

"A Picture-Purrfect Christmas (A Klepto Cat Mystery Book 13)" by Patricia Fry, is a book in her series that works perfectly fine as a stand-alone novel.

This is a very sweet and heartwarming story! Even though it touches on the dark subject matter of child abduction and abuse, the tone of the book is positive, full of adorable moments with children and animals. Of course, the heroic pet and the title character is the loyal and brilliant cat named Rags, who belongs to the main protagonist, Savannah Ivey.

Savannah and her husband Michael are veterinarians, whose home is filled with love and pets as well their baby daughter Lily. Savannah and her schoolteacher friend Shelly become involved in teaching a photography class to at-risk children. The characterizations of the kids in this group, ages about 10-12- is probably my favorite part of the book, because they seem so REAL. One of the kids in the group is a young girl named Marissa, whose legs were damaged by an early injury and never repaired. Marissa is a half-orphan who is living a nightmare in a squalid and unmonitored foster home. Her older foster sister, Erin, has been the only comfort in her life.

Marissa's life begins to be turned around when she joins the photography class with Shelly and Savannah. Shelly has an acquaintance, a man called Esse, who seems overly eager to come along and teach photography to the children. This is where things get odd and interesting. Rags, Shelly's cat, acts strange around Esse, as he has a 'sixth sense' about people and shows strong preference in which humans he likes and who he doesn't like. Esse is on Rags' 'bad' list, and little Marissa feels uncomfortable about him when he tries to push her wheelchair away from the group to get her alone. Marissa tells Savannah that she feels uncomfortable with the man as well.

Eventually- the concerns Savannah has about Esse, Marissa's foster family, and some shady characters in the community come to pass. Marissa is abducted. Savannah, her husband Michael, and her detective friend Craig join their animal heroes Rags the cat and Peaches the horse on the hunt to find the missing girl. I do think there could have been more background on the 'villain' characters and why they did what they did.

I liked Savannah, but she seemed too judgemental and 'classist' at one point. She judged a whole neighborhood for the way they 'left cars parked on lawns' and 'people lounging on their porches like they have nothing better to do.' It was good to show a little bit of Savannah's flaws though, because she comes off to me as the 'perfect' woman, a career mom with lots of productive hobbies, compassion for kids and animals- but I sensed some snobbiness in her, too.

I enjoyed this story and the sweet moments with all the characters, both human and animal. I hope to read the rest of the series!

I was given a free copy of this Kindle book for an honest review.

Is it spring yet?

I just came in from letting our dog out and feeding our bunnies in their hutch, and it's finally warm and sunny after a week! Such a big change from Tuesday's big snow. I finally want to declare winter over! But you just never know. We were all declaring winter over on Easter weekend two weeks ago, but guess what- there was another blizzard a few days later.

Today, it's beautiful! The green grass is sprouting up, and yesterday as I was walking the dog, I heard so many frogs and wildlife along the marshy area by the road. I need to get out for a longer walk soon.

Lovely spring day, and my Family Tree research!

Oh mid April, you are not here yet, are you? With the sleet, freezing rains, snow and ice on the ground, and a high of 38 degrees? Well okay, spring is here at least calendar wise.

I have been hanging out at home with my son today, he is watching Scooby Doo and before he was playing with his toys on the living room floor. And guess what I found today!

I found the names of some of my ancestors on my maternal grandmother's side, going back to the 1820's! How cool is that?

Here are the names. First of all, there's my mom, Debbie. She is still alive,  so I won't give her last name, she has no computer or Facebook page of her own, still I will protect her privacy. Everyone else listed here on my family tree is deceased:

My maternal grandmother: Lois Rita McBride. (Died in a tragic car accident in 1971, so I never knew her. Her daughters, ages 12 and 15 died along with her. They were my aunts, who I never got to know.)

Maternal great grandparents: Jeanette Lydia (Tong) McBride, Joseph Michael McBride.

 (I was very close to Grandma Jeanette as a kid. I spent many weekends staying with her in her apartment building in Ashland WI. She was a bit eccentric, but she liked to talk and she spoiled me when I was at her house. We used to go out for ice cream a lot, which made me tolerant of her eccentricities.)

Maternal gg grandparents: James Ranselar Tong and Mary Alice (Conlon) Tong,
                                           Bernard McBride and Katherine Skahan McBride.

Maternal ggg grandparents: Ben Conlon, (born in Canada) Job Tong (from Yorkshire, England) and  
                                              Mary (Vickerman) Tong.
                                              Owen McBride (from Ireland) and Rosele (Carragher) McBride,
                                              Michael Skahan (born in 1820!) and Bridget (Gill) Skahan.

And that is what I was able to find on Ancestry.com today! Now that is just the lineage from my great grandma Jeanette, who I was close to growing up in Ashland, WI. She died in 1990, and her sister, my great aunt Fern, who I was also very close to growing up (she and her husband would take me camping in her Coachman camper! Loved her!) died in 2002 at age 90.

This was really interesting! To find an ancestor going back to a birth year of 1820 was fascinating, and it seems like my family on this side is Irish and English, which I knew. The surname "Skahan" is very intriguing, it doesn't seem like an Irish or English surname, it may be Scandinavian. Which would be so neat, since many of my friends and people in my area I grew up in were Scandinavian, and I didn't think I was. (which was perfectly okay because Lutefisk would never be my thing...)

On my father's side, his surname is Hunt, which is such a common name it is impossible to find anything. I googled the name Hunt, his dad's first name, and the city of Batavia, Illinois, but there was nothing I could find, and nothing on Ancestry.com.

Finding the names of some of my ancestors is certainly fun, and surprisingly easy so far. I should look up my husbands farther back, but he has most of his written down already. One of his paternal great grandparents was from Croatia, which was interesting for him to find out!