This Perfectly Imperfect Life

Sufficient Grace: A Novel by Darnell Arnoult My rating: 5 of 5 stars From the back cover: (Spoilers Possible) "Set against the backdrop of two neighboring Southern towns, Sufficient Grace is the powerful, affecting story of two families over the course of a year, from one Easter season to the next." One quiet spring day, Gracie Hollaman hears voices in her head that tell her to get in her car and leave her entire life behind - her home, her husband, her daughter, her very identity. Gracie's subsequent journey releases her genius for painting and effects profound changes in the lives of everyone around her. A spellbinding work, Sufficient Grace explores the power of personal transformation and redemption, and the many ordinary and extraordinary ways they come to pass through faith, love, motherhood, art, even food. This poignant, poetic study of the human condition affirms the enduring importance of relationships and the strength we derive from them, Even th...

The Quarry by Damon Galgut My rating: 4 of 5 stars From the back cover: "The Quarry is another stark, intense novel in which human nature betrays itself against the desolate backdrop of rural South Africa. It opens with a chance meeting on a lonely stretch of road, when a man picks up a hitchhiker. The driver is a minister on his way to a new congregation in an isolated village and the passenger, a fugitive from justice. When the minister realizes this and confronts his passenger overlooking an empty quarry, the response is deadly. As the fugitive and the local police chief play out a tense game of cat and mouse, Damon Galgut gives us a devastating combat for man's most prized attribute: freedom." This was an interesting, odd and compelling read. I doubt I would have ever read it had it not been this month's book club selection at the library and I'm glad to have had the chance. ***SPOILER Possible-->***The confrontation between the minister and the passen...

Hello friends! Hope all is well with all of you. We've been away since last week, up at our 'home away from home' in the mountains. We got another property to cover ours so we could be away and not have to worry about the apartment complex at all (which is a very necessary break every so often). It was nice being away even though it POURED Sat night through Tuesday morning! Then the temperature dropped and we had snow & hail showers around dinner time last night. It got down to 32° too! More oddball weather this morning while we were packing up to come home. (Rain, snow & hail all at the same time while it was sunny in one direction and cloudy in the other). Yes, that Is the resident Swan hanging out with us by the fire last night! She's taken quite the liking to us and seems to like to spend time near us even if we don't feed her (which we do often enough) though I know she's just hoping we'll feed her anyway. The res...

Seriously. (And yes, that's my Hubby). Posted via My Palm Centro.

For my favorite photo from the slideshow, click here .

I can't believe we hadn't stopped here before yesterday and we've lived minutes from here going on 5 years. (Photo is the view from across a lake). For more photo's of this area, click here .

For more Garden Blogger's Bloom Day posts, go to May Dreams Gardens .

Over at New Jersey Through My Eyes . (Scroll down a bit past the header & into).

On our way to our weekend home in the mountains. Each time we go up in elevation, you see this on the northbound side of the highway. The colors are beautiful when it's wet from rain.

Whew! Not only is this a long post, but, I'm very tired and my arthritis is Flaring something horrible right now, however , the seeds are sown and Dahlia tubers are planted! Happy Dance! (Y'all can do it for me since I'm in no shape to be shaking my groove thing right now). Since the container re-arranging both out front & in the yard was finished in the last week or so ( Hubby helped with all of the heavy lifting & moving without my having to ask! ), pretty much everything is done, aside from a few odds & ends, so now I can wait and watch things bloom. (Along with watering & fertilizing as needed, of course). Really, it's a bit strange to be... done . Huh. Anyhoo, here's my gardening 'down-low' (prepare yourselves!)~ Annuals & perennials: I made my own perennial & annual seed mix for the Dogwood raised bed using 3 different Wildflower seed packets & 1 perennial mix packet plus: Purple Coneflower, Blue Columbine, Johnny J...

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Just before we had our own dinner last night, Waddles (the resident female Mallard duck) came a visiting with us and I was able to snap this photo just after feeding her some country white bread. (She prefers potato bread but 'any port in a storm' as they say). She's very sweet and will eat from your hand without nipping you, which surprised me. Hope this brings you a smile as it did me and y'all have a great Saturday! Posted from 'Home Away From Home' via My Palm Centro.

Murals abound this area. This one (which is only a partial photo, the mural continues on either side outside of the photo) appears inside of the local American Legion Post. I'm unsure who painted it but it's beautiful. It's what this area used to look like, many years ago (not to scale obviously). See Twin Lights Lighthouse at the top? Same Lighthouse that's in my previous blog header! Posted via My Palm Centro

While it's nice to see that my purple Grape Hyacinths are the first to appear each Spring, it's my Bleeding Heart bush (pictured above) that I anxiously await to bloom each season. My first splash of Pink! And its' foliage is such a pretty green color. Makes me smile and lifts my Spirits as I watch it grow & bloom. Posted via My Palm Centro.

Frustrated Sad Lonely Scared? Clueless Overwhelmed Drifting Living Not living. Stale Too settled. Comfortable Uncomfortable Not where I belong. Where do I belong? Left behind. Staying put. Don't want to stay put. Restless Scared Undecided Purging Turning back to the soil to help me find my way. Will I ever find my way? Floating Unsure Insecure Old before my time. Straddling my youth & my fading youth. Back to doing what's easy instead of what's best. Saying goodbye. Saying hello. On-shore breeze is making it chilly. Air is warm, ocean is cold. The fog is rolling in again. Posted via My Palm Centro.

On the lake, in the Kittatinny Mountains. (That's our resident Swan on the grass on the other side of the boat - he loves Corn Flakes). Posted via My Palm Centro

A morning as beautiful as ours above. (Taken up here at 'Home Away From Home.' That's our resident Swan on the other side of the boat on the grass (he loves Corn Flakes) and a female Cardinal on top of the boat - not sure how well they come out). Posted via My Palm Centro

When this day arrives, I cannot help but think of my Nana. When I was young, still in grammar school, I remember going with her to an (early) evening Holy Thursday Mass. It must have been fairly warm as I remember wearing a blue windbreaker I had back then. The Mass was unlike any Mass I had been to at that point or since. No organ with Mr. Fitzpatrick, our school's music teacher, leading the Hymns, but a man with an acoustic guitar, the father of a classmate. There was something less forced, less routine and more uplifting & peaceful about that Mass. The Church was bright, the colors in its' murals more brilliant than they appeared during the day. Those there were there because they wanted to be (I wasn't sure I wanted to be there at first but was soon glad I went). It started and ended with the few who attended praying the Rosary aloud. It was beautiful. I don't recall going to a Holy Thursday Mass prior to or after that one with my Nana and I can't ...