The Gift & A Book I’m Reading

Thanks Myrna, for the gift in the mail. I had been wondering how to stitch up those bowl fillers. Now I see that I should use the blanket stitch.

Thank you for answering that question for me. You’ve been so kind to get the bowl fillers all ready except for stuffing and sewing them closed.

I so appreciate you helping me get started.

Sometimes that is the crux of things. Just getting started.

You even sent me the bird templates.

I tried to email you, but the Myrna I attempted to send it to wasn’t you, and the email came back to me. It seems that I don’t have your email address.

Thank You For The Gift:

I wrote out “thank you” with Scrabble tiles, but Ivy jumped up and quickly knocked them over. At least I got a photo of it before she destroyed it.

Ivy likes your sewing projects so much that I found one in the hall to the living room the next morning.

She must have pilfered it during the night, which is when she tends to do these things.

But don’t worry. It was fine and I’ve now put them all in my sewing box so she can’t get to them again.

All these new things just seem to fascinate her.

Doesn’t she look so innocent in the photo above? See a few of the Scrabble tiles on the floor?

She’s as mischievous as they come.

The Book:

I began reading another book night before last. I’m trying not to read it too fast in order to savor it. It is another of Ethan Joella’s novels called “A Little Hope.”

***

Freddie and Greg Tyler seem to have it all: a comfortable home, a beautiful young daughter, a bond that feels unbreakable.

But when Greg is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, the sense of certainty they once knew evaporates.

Throughout their town, friends and neighbors face the most difficult of life’s challenges and are figuring out how to survive thanks to love, grace, and hope.

***

A Quiet Life:

I recently read his other book, “A Quiet Life”, and truly enjoyed that book. You might think his subject matter is sad, but then life is sad.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But perhaps a week from now something may happen that makes you feel sad.

That is the way of life and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

“A Little Hope” follows a number of characters. Each chapter introduces them, one by one.

Ethan Joella is masterful at being able to write about various characters and have the reader be able to keep each one sorted in their mind. That’s not easy to do.

Joella did the same thing with his other book. He creates characters who you feel you can reach out and touch; they seem so real.

He has a way of capturing this poignancy that he threads through and in and out of his character’s lives.

These are the things that happen in everyone’s life at one time or another. He chooses life’s moments and scatters them among his characters.

Then he tells you how they deal with what has been thrown their way.

Here are some sections of the book I’ve chosen for you…

Random Sections Of The Book:

These past few weeks Freddie has had a need to save, to hang on to everything: Addie’s drawings, receipts, and even land that hasn’t been built on. She wants to put yellow caution tape around everything good.

And…

On the refrigerator, Addie’s drawing of a pumpkin with trailing vines and a thick stem. Freddie sees Greg’s appointment card and she straightens it: October 17. One week away.

She doesn’t think she can wait one week, but then she wishes seven days would last forever. Greg. Her Ken doll, she always called him.

Greg, still real, still sleeping upstairs in their bed.

Nothing has happened...

***

Yet, of course. Nothing has happened yet.

This book is about a community and how their lives intersect.

Everyone has something going on at any given time.

One person may be celebrating a new child, while next door someone may have just lost a loved one. These things occur in everyone’s life.

The emotions involved are momentous and devouring at the same time.

One person may think they are going to bust right open with joy.

While the neighbor next door doesn’t think she can bear this loss and wonders how she will go on.

This book is a Read With Jenna Bonus Selection.

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