• Literary Pursuits

    Sue Ellen’s Girl – Review

    “Where are you from?” he asked as he scanned my groceries at the local WalMart. “Why, I live here in Post Falls,” I answered innocently, even though I knew what he was getting at. In spite of having lived in Idaho for 13 years, and Kansas for 12+ years before that, people seem to think I still have a southern…

  • Literary Pursuits

    How Huge the Night – review

    When I post book reviews on Amazon I am asked to assign a star rating to each title, from 1 to 5 stars. I don’t give very many books 5 stars simply because I like to reserve the 5-star rating for those which are real stand-outs. How Huge the Night by Heather Munn and Lydia Munn is such a stand-out.…

  • Literary Pursuits

    Circle C Beginnings – review

    I recently got to read the third and fourth books in the Circle C Beginnings series… a spin-off of Susan K. Marlow’s Circle C Adventures for older readers. The Circle C Beginnings series is based on the same characters, but at a younger age. They are perfect for children who are just beginning to read chapter books. The stories are…

  • Adventures

    Campfire Fuel

    We don’t heat with wood at home, but we do love a good fire when we’re camping. So Lyle keeps an eye on Craig’s List for bargains on firewood. Last weekend he found a deal on “mill ends.”  We loaded up the back of the pickup with short pieces of 2x4s. Then we packed it into paper boxes. It packed…

  • Heritage

    Pleasant Places

      O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance. –Psalm 16:5-6

  • Lifestyle

    Thinking Outside the Box

    After I posted about the nice pickup topper we got a couple of weeks ago, I tried driving with the thing on. It was dark and rainy the first time, and with droplets of water on the back window I couldn’t see to back up. Driving the truck without the topper makes me nervous enough, because it just feels so…

  • Adventures

    Not Complainin’

    It’s a blizzardy morning in my neighborhood today. The view out my kitchen window is rather bleak. It’s cold and blustery. We haven’t really had much snow to speak of since Christmas time, and the ground has been mostly bare for at least a month, so I had hoped perhaps we would get an early spring. I should have known…

  • Lifestyle

    Random Acts of Kindness

    My family collects favorite television series on DVD. This way we can watch them whenever we like and not have to worry about commercials. Plus, some of the old shows are just better than what’s available nowadays. I know, that’s just my opinion… but I’m entitled to it, right? About 3-and-a-half years ago I joined Swap-a-DVD (a sister site to…

  • Adventures

    A Man and His Truck

    It’s a nice sunny day (for mid-February) and I heard Lyle putzing around out in the garage, so I decided to go out and snap a few pictures of whatever he was doing. He grinned at me. “Are you going to blog about me again?” he said. “Why, I hadn’t thought about it. I guess I could. I haven’t blogged…

  • Heritage

    Grandmother’s Letters

    For the past year or so I have been sorting and archiving my Grandmother’s “papers.” She was a prolific letter writer, and she kept most of the letters she received over the years. (My mother has done the same, so I have two generations worth of letters going back to the 1930s!) Grandmother had 10 children, and as far as…