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Monday, October 31, 2011

Always Baby

Posted on 12:20 PM by Unknown
As writers, we seek to convey the reality of emotion. As readers, we relate the emotion in stories to our actual experience. The young daughter of one of my beloved law partners died suddenly a few days ago. Her obituary filled my heart with the love she brought to her family. I have no life experience to comprehend the reality of this loss, which is so very real. Please read her story and then include Always Baby, and her family, in your prayers.

Picture 6

Rebecca Lauren Woodruff
6/13/07-10/21/11

We called you "Always Baby." When you told mommy you were getting big, she said "you'll always be my baby." And you loved your mommy so much that you named yourself Always Baby just to make her happy. You had a hundred loving nicknames like "Little Girl", "Fickle Pickle", "Rebecca Cheeks", "Moon Monkey", but Always Baby said it all.

You were an inseparable part of Mommy; an extension of her soul and an answer to her prayers. You filled her with love and light and laughter. When you departed, an emptiness was left too great to be filled with anything but God's love. I know you will dispatch the angels to watch over her – you always took care of her and always will.

We all fought for your attention and you had us each wrapped around one little itty-bitty finger.

You commanded Daddy's attention on your terms, in your time. When I worked at home, you treed me like a cat, climbing in my lap and insisting we play games or make letters together. You ran outside to meet me when I came home, saying: "hold you, Daddy, hold you." You gave me daily shopping lists, constant reminders and sweet little girl kisses when once in awhile I would get it right - I never had to wait for my performance assessment. I'd give the world to have given in to you a few more times and the universe for one more super tight hug with your pretty little head buried deep in my neck.

You loved your sibbies so much and they loved you in ways that cannot possibly be expressed in words. Your lyrical relationships were each a verse in a round – a different meter and key, yet somehow in perfect harmony. The works of the bards and the poets pale in reflection.

We cannot possibly understand why God took you from us. We only know that the light that you brought into our lives will illuminate heaven now. The healing gifts of generosity, laughter and love that you brought into our lives must have been needed somewhere else. We miss you so, so much Always Baby! You will always be our Always Baby!

Kingwood Funeral Home


Warms, Cym
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Posted in Family, Personal Info | No comments

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

Posted on 5:51 PM by Unknown




*all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *


amazon

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($25 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...
(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)


Congratulations to Book Diary!

Picture 5


Be sure to check out Book Diary and leave a comment!


Send me your email address for the Amazon eGC.

Warms-
CYM
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Posted in Winners | No comments

Friday, October 28, 2011

Amazon's Books From Hell - The 10 Best Horror Books Ever Written

Posted on 5:10 AM by Unknown
Just in time for Halloween...

1.  It by Stephen King

It

2.  Books of Blood by Clive Barker
Clive Barker's Books of Blood 1-3

3.  Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre by The Best of H.P.
The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre

4.  Song of Kali by Dan Simmons
Song of Kali

5.  The Shining by Stephen King
The Shining

6.  I am Legend by Richard Matheson 
I Am Legend


















7.  The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
The Silence of the Lambs

8.  In the Flesh by Clive Barker
In the Flesh

9. Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Pet Sematary

10. Koko by Peter Straub
Koko


What's the scariest book you have ever read??

~Happy Halloween~
Beachbrights
(guest blogger)
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Posted in Holidays, Top 5 Lists | No comments

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

$25 Book Review Party Wednesday - LIVE!

Posted on 3:16 PM by Unknown

The last party of the year!!!

amazon

CymLowell

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have
written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller
4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list (& now check out book covers).


-CYM

**This week is the last link up party for the year. The busy holiday season is almost upon us and I take a link up break for Nov. & Dec. The link up party will resume in January.**



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Posted in Book Review Wednesdays | No comments

Monday, October 24, 2011

Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis **Review by FlowerPatchFarmgirl**

Posted on 8:11 PM by Unknown

**Guest Post from Flower Patch Farmgirl**


http://www.brookhillscollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Kisses-from-Katie1-300x300.jpg


I struggle to find new words to relay my journey of the past twenty months. What more can be said? I was slapped in the face by reality. For the first time ever, I touched the very edges of humanity, and I was surprised by the burn. In no time flat, the world didn't make sense any more. It was perplexing. Unfair. I didn't want everything to change. I was cozy under my blankets. I did my best, for a time, to jam the pieces together anyway. Oh, I'll make them fit. I'll still live right here, right in this safe place. I can share a chunk of my broken heart with them without actually going there...right?

Well, of course that didn't work. I knew it all along. Because once your heart changes the only thing left to do is let it lead. It wouldn't be right to trap a changed heart in an unchanged life. It would go back to its old way. It would forget the things it had learned. As much as that sounded safer and a lot less complicated to my mind, this changed heart beat back louder. It almost always wins, this heart.

So right now, right when I'm feeling my way through the aches and the thrills and the pinchy toes of change, I pick up Katie Davis's book and suddenly my life feels easier again, in contrast.

Here is a girl who really understands the dusty vaporness of this life.

She was a regular girl living cushy in the suburbs. She had a nice boy who loved her, the college of her choice on the horizon. Then she took a trip to Uganda and her heart split wide. Her passion to share the love of Jesus - the love that she herself knew - drove her heart to crazy ends. She wanted to stay.

Her parents said no. Her friends thought she was nuts. In time, they relented. She was allowed to go back, one last time, just to get it out of her system. Then she would return to the States and live the life they thought she was meant to live - a life of education, wealth, security. A life blind to the plight across the ocean. A life lead by her head and not her heart.

In the end, that's not the way it all went down. Over time, her parents' hearts changed, too. They let go of the dreams they held up in hope for their daughter and they allowed room for new dreams to take shape.

Katie is now in her early twenties. She is single. She sees to the basic care and education of 400 village children. She has adopted fourteen Ugandan daughters of her own. She is their Mama - forever.

My family, adopting these children, it is not optional. It is not my good deed for the day; it is not what I am doing to 'help out these poor kids.' I adopt because God commands me to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress. I adopt because Jesus says that to whom much has been given, much will be demanded (see Luke 12:48)...
                         -Kisses from Katie

She let go of almost every last thing. She lost her life so that she could find it.

She sees that God doesn't trace a line between his American children and his African children. We're all just His. We're all a family, we need to take care of each other.

This book, written in her own words, cuts to the heart of every emotion involved in laying it down, all of those things that we cling to to the death. She doesn't sugar coat. She talks about how hard it is to break into a culture so different from her own. She talks about the times she gets lonely. The times she gets tired. The times she wants to close her drapes to the death at her doorstep and take an eight-hour bubble bath. But mostly, she talks about the joy that she never even imagined. She talks about the fact that her life right now is a no-brainer.

She quotes Frederick Buechner, saying, "The place God calls us to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

This is why it's not optional. This is why safety and seclusion are not a calling, even when we snap our eyes shut so tight and wish, wish, wish that they could be.

So the anxiety bubbles up a little, reading these words, because it's all so open-ended, the world's deep hunger so vast. Who knows where it is that God's calling me. It's enough to make me just a little jittery. But oh, to know that deep gladness. My heart beats faster at the thought.

Find Katie's book here. Pick up a copy. Pass it around. Let it change your heart. Then lead your heart lead on.


Read Katie's blog. Read Flower Patch Farmgirl's blog.

Support Amazima, Katie's ministry.
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Sunday, October 23, 2011

Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

Posted on 7:34 PM by Unknown




*all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *


$15

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...
(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)


Congratulations to The O.W.L.!
Picture 4



Be sure to check out The O.W.L. and leave a comment!


Send me your email address for the Amazon eGC.

Warms-
CYM
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Posted in Book Review Wednesdays, Winners | No comments

Friday, October 21, 2011

Posted on 5:23 AM by Unknown

A Lonely Death
by Charles Todd
Wm Morrow, HarperCollins 2011

Have you ever wanted to seek revenge for long ago traumas? Do you hear a voice in your head at crucial times?

Ian Rutledge is an investigator for Scotland Yard just after the end of World War II. In a small town in the Sussex countryside, a series of murders occurs disturbing the tranquility of the community. There is no apparent connection between the deaths of the young men, gruesomely dispatched with a garrote while alone and helpless.

There is also a longstanding mystery concerning a death at Stonehedge during a Druid ceremony.

Rutledge must sort through the lives of the deceased, each of whom had served for the Brits in the trenches of France during the war. There are a collage of relationships and possibilities. Old romances, family secrets, family members who had disappeared, potential romance, and threats galore keep the pages turning of this the 13th Ian Rutledge mystery.

Charles Todd develops the characters with patience and skill. So vibrant is the explanation, that the reading of the well crafted words felt like watching the mystery unfold in front of me. The voice in Ian’s head is a charming element of the story. Each time it spoke, I imagined the voices I hear sometimes, usually with a cautionary message.

If you have not become a fan of these fine stories, put one on your list.

Warms, Cym

Amazon
Charles Todd
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