Restless in Carolina takes the basic long-stemmed rose of a boy-meets girl romance and adds in some crinkly-petaled carnations of family dynamics, some grenery of environmental awareness and some baby’s breath of faith and grace delicately placed among the conflict and characters to create a Christian romance that is as unusual as it’s characters.

Bridget Pickwick Buchanen is forced to face her long held grief over the loss of her husband when confronted with her sister’s words through the mouths of her five-year-old niece and nephew. Clinging to grief, this barefoot, jeans wearing, landscaper finds herself in designer-business professional attire to come up with an environmentally friendly option for the sale of the family estate. As the faux fascade fades back to her Levis, so does the acuity of her grief as ahe finds that just maybe there could be another ‘happily ever after’ in her future.

Tamara Leigh does a wonderful job of incliding subtle details to fully portray her characters: each of whom holds their own conflicts and secrets. Having not read the first two books in this series (Leaving Carolina and Nowhere, Carolina), I feel Leigh has done a great job creating a stand-alone story. While reading the books in order would provide depth to the other family members, Bridget’s story stands alone nicely.

Restless in Carolina was a very quick vacation-week read for me and I look forward to looking up the other books in this series.

Disclaimers: I received a complementary copy of this book from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review as part of the Blogging for Books program.  The opinions and thoughts of this are my own and are not influenced in any way.  This post contains affiliate links.

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Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week(s) and practicing gratitude by giving.

My heart is full, like the clouds that are pouring rain right now.  I was blessed with a week away with my family last week.  I’ve picked my first tomatoes and my garden runneth over! We were blessed to be able to invest in our home and add a little bit more space that will provide a much needed eating area (for he who designed our house, didn’t put one in and we were running out of elbow room at the breakfast counter!)

Our time away included great time with friends and family, way too many late nights talking and playing games.  Thought provoking messages from the camp speaker and great play time for GTot and “other kids”.  We arrived on Sunday and by Tuesday GTot would wake up calling “Other ki-ids, where are you?!”

Life is full.  My priorities are again taking on a new appearance.  We are blessed.

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

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Practicing contentment by remembering the gracesof the week(s) and practicing gratitude by giving.

The heat of summer has set in and while it has been HOT, I’m so thankful for the sunshine!  We have had lots of time to play in the water at the local lake or pool and in the backyard pools of gracious friends. G love the water and has had a lot of fun this month!

This week we were also blessed with a night away - thanks to the Granny Nanny who came to stay with G.  HandyMan and I got to go see one of his favorite bands (highlight of his year) and I got an hour to go play at Ikea (highlight of my month!).

Life is full.  We are blessed.

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

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In the midst of a very full summer, I finally caught an evening when the G-Tot was settled in bed before I ran out of energy and I was able to take a stroll with the camera to catch some of my yard and garden to share.

One of my favorite things this summer is this fantastic hanging pot that was gifted to my husband.  A local farm grows these and they’re gorgeous and it really hangs almost four feet.  With all my purple hostas in bloom – it’s one of my favorite views right now.

On the vegetable front, I have the most beautiful broccoli I’ve ever grown:

We’re picking green beans by the bucket load every two days (ok, its a 2 quart bucket):

It also looks like it’s going to be a great year for tomatoes in our garden too!  I am so excited but don’t want to count my tomatoes before they’re ripe.

Things are great in our yard this year.  How’s your garden growing?

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Practicing contentment by remembering the gracesof the week(s) and practicing gratitude by giving.

It seems that I’ve entered a season of life in which time for reflection is sparse.   G-Tot is adding words and phrases to her vocabulary on an hourly basis and wakes up running!  I grope for coffee and breathe a prayer, and shuffle into the day.

I’m so thankful to have a little bit of time today to get organized for the week to come, to process the last few weeks and to just sit, alone, with my thoughts.

We have enjoyed visits from family, a decent craft show, and today celebrated church members who have celebrated 80 (or more) birthdays.  What a blessing to see these spry “youngsters” join us each week, and oh the stories they tell!

I’ve been pulled into the tidal wave of planning and fundraising for our church’s VBS program that will take  place in August.  It’s a joy to see all the little folks involved and running around at church too.

While it is only July, I’m glad for craft supply sales as I begin to plan what I’m going to do with G-Tot and another two-year-old that I baby-sit in the fall.  I’m also grateful for all the moms who are much better at that kind of stuff than I am and post their ideas on their blogs!

The gloomy fog of June has lifted and sunshine reigns in our area.  My garden thrives and wild berries are taking over my flower beds.  I choose to have no complaints.

I hope you can choose to do the same this week!

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

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In the last few months, I’ve found that it is increasingly dangerous to have a laptop on the kitchen counter in the presence of food preparations and a toddler.  I’ve also found myself being sucked in by the shiny screen and going off on recipe chases and toddler activity scavenger hunts and losing large amounts of time.   It is also the information center for many of my day-to-day activities: recipes, weather, calendar, communications.

As I try to balance a home, toddler, work and life in general, I’m finding that sometime this wonderful tool is more of a hindrance than a help.  As I work on finding balance, and in an effort to save it from getting a bath in strawberry jam,  my cute little netbook is getting grounded.  I’m trying really hard to only fire it up when either a) GBaby’s asleep or b) it is a designated working time.  (Read: I’m hiding somewhere and HandyMan, or some other gracious soul, has eyes on the tot).

When I tried implementing this type of limit on myself in the past, it worked great for about 3 hours until I was setting out to prep a meal and needed a recipe online.  Then I’d jump on the computer really fast to pull it up.   Then since I was already on, I needed to check the weather and the news and blogs and, oh yeah, the calendar too to see if HandyMan is home for dinner tonight… You get the idea.

So, as a solution to this problem, as well as to encourage myself to more reading and less surfing, I recently got a new toy, er, I mean organizational tool. It has basic web capabilities which is great for pulling up those recipes.   So, I’ve added a new page to my little corner of the internet here: The Menu Board.  See the tab up at the top?  If you click, you’ll find all the recipes that are on my menu for the week with links, and a few other categories of recipes that I like to have at my fingertips.  Think of it as a notepad you might find on my kitchen counter – because there’s not much glamour or organization to the page [yet].  I’ve bookmarked the page on my new toy and have my recipes for the week one click away.

Someday I may take the time to actually organize it into one of those nifty Monday Menu posts, but for now, I’m keeping it simple!  So if you’re in need of some menu inspiration, check it out and click around.  There’s some yummy stuff there!

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Practicing contentment by remembering the gracesof the week(s) and practicing gratitude by giving.

This weekend is marking the beginning of a brief summer schedule for our family.  While it has been great a baby-sittee in the house during the weeks, it will be nice to have a break from it for the next couple of months.  I continue my work for camp and for candles which has helped us save towards our “one of these cars is going to die soon” fund.

I love this time of year when fresh produce abounds: strawberries, spinach and asparagus have all arrived on our table fresh from the garden.  Ripe tomatoes and fresh green beans are right around the corner!  GBaby loves to help water.

In this season for outdoor activity, I’m so glad that GBaby will happily endure sunblock and bug spray.  She is very conscious of “bad bugs” since she seems to be a walking bug bite since the end of April.  As soon as we call out “bug spray” she knows it’s time to go outside and with come and hold out her arms and legs.

Life is full.  I am blessed.

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

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The weather is warming up, this is the last week of school in our area.  I know – they go so late up here! I thought I’d put up a few of my favorite summer goodies that are pushing their way onto our menu and into the cooking line-up in the coming weeks.

Reduced Sugar Strawberry Jam – Strawberries are in peak season right now and we’ve already picked about 15 pounds worth that have been put in the freezer.  I’m planning on going back on Saturday to get some more for jam.

Fajitas – This wonderful grill meal has already made it on the menu in June and will be making an encore appearance in July.  It is such an easy meal that can keep everyone happy!

Dozen Layer Finger Jello – When I asked HandyMan back in May what he wanted to see more of on the menu, he said “jello”.  Go figure. I guess it’s time to make finger jello again!

Peanut Butter Cup Freezer Pie – This is a go-to easy recipe for a quick, easy, cold summer dessert.  I just have to figure out what occasion to make it for.

What fun summer recipes are you dusting off as the weather warms up?

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Today I am working my hours at Made in Chenango.  It’s a great little crafter’s co-operative in Norwich NY.  As  part of my candle business, I am a member here and part of the requirements are to sit hours manning the store.  After an unfortunate incident in March, involving rain pouring into our first floor store, the co-op was closed while we determined what we wanted to do next.  After a lot of work on the part of our board of directors, they found a new location that is beautiful.

Over the last three month’s I have missed these days working at the store.  I’ve realized how much I enjoy these days of going to work and getting a break from the multiple hats I wear at home: mom, baby-sitter, cook, house-keeper, gardener, and the list goes on.

Today, rain falls, soft music plays and I get to work - uninterrupted - on my stack of projects.  It is absolutely wonderful!  And the icing on the cake of the new location: WIFI!  It is a good day!

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This year I really have not put much energy into my garden.  I’ve put in seeds and plants, offered up a hope and a prayer and just hope to end up with produce.  I started the season with great energy as I planned and prepared my early bed.  Our tomatoes were even more of an experiment as I planed two under the cover of my early bed and HandyMan had two in the wall-of-water type protectors.  Both are doing great – although the two in the water walls needed stakes right away after the walls were removed.  I am totally thrilled with the progress on these tomatoes – we have blossoms already  I’m hoping to have tomatoes to pick before August this year!

In order to stagger my tomato crops, I planted the rest of my tomatoes a week and a half ago.  They look so tiny!

So far so good!  The rain we’ve been getting regularly is helping too!  How is your garden doing?

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