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For a long time, now, I've wanted an avatar on fanfiction.net, but I didn't want to use a character... person, animal, or fantastic creature.

The other day, I finally chose my avatar, and I made sure that it was available for public use.

Books Read In The Past Week

Books read for the first time are marked with a #

Books are listed by author (or series creator),

and not necessarily in the order read.

"My Daily Spiritual Companion"

by Marci Alborghetti

daily devotional reading for 2017

I liked the book I used last year better

Chapter 3 of

"Minutes From The Great Women's Coffee Club
Timeless Wisdom From Remarkable Women" #

by Angela Beasley

[nonfiction]

there are 12 chapters, and I'm reading one a month.

I've given my reason in this post

"Mama's Way"
by Thyra Ferre Bjorn
[nonfiction, Protestant]

"That Julia Redfern"

(physical copy)

"Julia And The Hand Of God"
"A Room Made Of Windows"

(openlibrary.org loans)
by Eleanor Cameron  
[children's fiction]
I have never yet read the Julia Redfern series
without wanting to THROTTLE Aunt Alex

"Try Giving Yourself Away"
by David Dunn
[nonfiction]
a great favorite of mine,
with some wonderful anecdotes 

"The Books You Read: Devotional Edition
edited by Charles E.T. Jones
[nonnfiction]

"The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ" #

by St. Alphonsus Liguori

[Catholic spirituality]

(Kindle book)

"Pilgrim Cat" # 

by Carol Antoinette Peacock

[picture book, historical fiction, 1620s]

(Kindle Unlimited loan)

"Thy Friend, Obadiah"

by Brinton Turkle

[picture book]

(openlibrary.org loan)

"All The Time You Need, The Greatest Gift In The World"

by Robert R. Updegraff
[nonfiction]
(The author also wrote "Try
Giving Yourself Away" under
the pen-name David Dunn. )
This book has some good advice, and interesting anecdotes.

This Week's Fan Fiction

Chapters were added to the following stories: 

The Poem

an AU prequel to The Waltons

To go directly to the new chapters, click here.

Dante's Troubles
An Another World fic, set about four years
after the show went off the air.
To go directly to the new chapter, click here.

Unsuited To Each Other 
An AU Katie Rose and Stacy Belford fic.
To go directly to the new chapter, click here.

Chloe, My Love
An AU Bonanza fic.
To go directly to the new chapter, click here.

Going Backwards, Moving Forward

Lately, I've been moving forward by going backwards.
What do I mean by that?

Years ago, before there was an Internet, before I had a computer, I wrote something every day.  Sometimes it was
a poem, (although I don't write much poetry these days; the poem I used in my AU Waltons prequel is one I had written
a long time ago.) sometimes a story, or part of a story, and sometimes just an idea for something to write later.

But for some time now, I was just writing on and off, and, unfortunately, mostly off.

But then I decided to quit being lazy... yes, LAZY... as a writer,

and get back to work.

Now, I work on my fan fiction every day.  Some days, it's a new story, a new chapter in an in-progress story, or just a few lines in a fic I'm working.  Some days, it's just a few new ideas to be developed in the future.  Some days, it's a few changes to an already published fic.  And quite often, I do several of these things... new story, new chapter, several lines, new idea, changes... in one day.

"Not a day without a line."

I feel most like me when I write.

Books Read In The Past Week

Books read for the first time are marked with a #

Books are listed by author (or series creator),

and not necessarily in the order read.

"My Daily Spiritual Companion"

by Marci Alborghetti

daily devotional reading for 2017

I liked the book I used last year better

"Mama's Way"
by Thyra Ferre Bjorn
[nonfiction, Protestanf]

"Julia's Magic"
"That Julia Redfern"
by Eleanor Cameron  
[children's fiction]
I have never yet read the Julia Redfern series
without wanting to THROTTLE Aunt Alex

"Try Giving Yourself Away"
by David Dunn
[nonfiction]
a great favorite of mine,
with some wonderful anecdotes 

"Sisters At The Chalet School" #
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer's Chalet School

by Amy Fletcher

[children's fiction]

"Reproachfully Yours"

by Lucile Hasley

[nonfiction, Catholic, humor]

"The Books You Read: Devotional Edition
edited by Charles E.T. Jones
[nonnfiction]

"The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ" #

by St. Alphonsus Liguori

[Catholic spirituality]

(Kindle book)

"Pollyanna"

"Pollyanna Grows Up"
by Eleanor H. Porter

[fiction]

"Stop Picking On Me
A First Look At Bullying"#
by Pat Thomas
[picture book, nonfiction]

"Meet Felicity, an American Girl"# 

"Felicity Learns A Lesson

A School Story"# 

by Valerie Tripp 
[children's fiction, historical, 1770s]
(openlibrary.org loan)
I have to admit I'm not crazy about the American Girl books.

"All The Time You Need, The Greatest Gift In The World"

by Robert R. Updegraff
[nonfiction]
(The author also wrote "Try
Giving Yourself Away" under
the pen-name David Dunn. )
This book has some good advice, and interesting anecdotes.

This Week's Fan Fiction

I've just added a new chapter to my partly AU Another World fic, Revealed Relationships.

To go directly to the newest chapter, click here.

My Friend Tony

And yep, I mean St. Anthony of Padua, whose Feast is today!

How many times have people prayed some version of the prayer:

"Tony, Tony, come around.

Something's lost and must be found"?

I know St. Anthony is ALWAYS helping me find stuff.

Years ago, when I had just recently converted to Catholicism, I called

Mom at work (It was her usual break time.)

Mom said, "I can't talk right now. We're missing an important file and

we've looked all over for it."

"Okay," I said, "call me back when it turns up."

Well, within five minutes she called me. The file had been found.

"Aren't you going to thank me?" I asked.

"Thank you? What for? You're not even here."

"I know," I said, "but who do you think prayed to St. Anthony?"

More recently, I was chatting with a couple of my online friends, and

one of them was going slightly nuts because she had misplaced something, and couldn't find it anywhere. I said a prayer to St. Anthony, and then typed,

"Try looking again."

She didn't want to, but I persuaded her. And then she typed, in caps

"I FOUND IT!!!!!!"

I wasn't a bit surprised!

Does St. Anthony ALWAYS get lost articles back for me? Well, almost! One morning I couldn't find my Rosary. I looked. I prayed. To my surprise, I still did

not find it. But later that morning, I received a brand-new, beautiful Rosary from a Catholic organization. I'm almost SURE I heard St. Anthony chuckling.

BTW, the lost Rosary did turn up eventually.

Of course, there's much more to St. Anthony than just running the Lost and Found! :)

St. Anthony of Padua

Updated in 2013 to add Fr. Anthony's very inspirational homily.

Attracting Angels????

I recently learned about a book that supposedly tells how to attract angels.  Well, that is one book I won't be wasting my time or my money on.  After all, I didn't need to do anything to ATTRACT the Guardian Angel God gave to me the second I was born.  (While I was in Mom's womb, I was under the protection of her Guardian Angel.)

But I'll admit that when I found out about that book, I couldn't help thinking, "What does the author think we should do?  Spread angel-food cake crumbs around and call Here angel, angel, angel the way one calls Here kitty, kitty, kitty?"

Books Read In The Past Week

Books read for the first time are marked with a #

Books are listed by author (or series creator),

and not necessarily in the order read.

"My Daily Spiritual Companion"

by Marci Alborghetti

daily devotional reading for 2017

I liked the book I used last year better

"Last Term at Malory Towers"
by Enid Blyton
"New Term at Malory Towers"
"Summer Term at Malory Towers"
"Winter Term at Malory Towers"
"Fun and Games at Malory Towers"
"Secrets at Malory Towers"
"Goodbye Malory Towers"
by Pamela Cox
(authorized continuations)
[children's fiction]

"Try Giving Yourself Away"
by David Dunn
[nonfiction]
a great favorite of mine,
with some wonderful anecdotes 

"Reproachfully Yours"

by Lucile Hasley

[nonfiction, Catholic, humor]

"The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ" #

by St. Alphonsus Liguori

[Catholic spirituality]

(Kindle book)

"Audrey,  A New Girl" #

by Joanna Lloyd

[children's fiction]

much to my delight, this book briefly mentions a character named Gladys Brown.

Mom would have gotten a kick out of that!

"Anne Of Windy Poplars"

by L.M. Montgomery

[fiction, historical, 1880s-1890s]

"Josefina Learns A Lesson

A School Story"# 

by Valerie Tripp 

[children's fiction, historical, 1820s]

(openlibrary.org loan)

I hadn't read any of the American Girl books, so I decided to give them a try.  I'm pretty sure that if this series had been around when I was little girl, I would have wanted

ALL of the books and ALL of the dolls.

This Week's Fan Fiction

I've finally added a new chapter to my Waltons prequel,

The Poem

To go directly to the latest chapter, click here.

Even Funnier Than I Thought

There are people who claim that the Bible is a serious book.... and I'm not denying that it is.  It's only when they say that it is only a serious book, with no humor in it, that I have to ask myself, "Are we reading the same Bible?"

I'm not going to make a long list of verses and passages that I find humorous in Sacred Scriptures, but I will share two of my personal favorites, using the RSV-CE.

(Matthew 7:3-4)

"Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, `Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye?"

Now there's an image for you... someone walking around with a great big log in his eye.
I can imagine the crowds who were listening laughing!

And then we have my absolute favorite:

(Matthew 23:24)

You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

I recently realized that I was missing out on a lot of the humor in the Bible, since the puns can so seldom be translated into English.  So I Googled "puns in the Bible", and discovered that the word for "gnat" was galma, and the word for "camel" was gamla.

So it turns out that it's not just a humorous verse... it is also a pun!

I was delighted to find out that this verse is even funnier than I thought it was!

Books Read In The Past Week

Books read for the first time are marked with a #

Books are listed by author (or series creator),

and not necessarily in the order read.

"My Daily Spiritual Companion"

by Marci Alborghetti

daily devotional reading for 2017

I liked the book I used last year better

"The Home Has A Heart"

by Thyra Ferre Bjorn
[non-fiction; Christian (Protestant) themes, recipes, 
anecdotes]
(June chapter only)

"First Term at Malory Towers"
"Second Form at Malory Towers"

"Third Year at Malory Towers"
"Upper Fourth at Malory Towers"
"In The  Fifth at Malory Towers"
"Last Term at Malory Towers"
by Enid Blyton
[children's fiction]

"Reproachfully Yours"

by Lucile Hasley

[nonfiction, Catholic, humor]

"Anne Of Windy Poplars"
by L.M. Montgomery
[fiction, historical, 1880s-1890s]

"Lily's Passport To Paris"
by Nancy Rue
[children's fiction, Protestant, no
denomination(s) specified)]

"Meet Josefina, an American Girl"# 
by Valerie Tripp 
[children's fiction, historical, 1820s]
(openlibrary.org loan)
I hadn't read any of the American Girl books, so I decided to give them a try

"Ginnie Joins In"

(openlibrary.org loan)

by Catherine Woolley
[children's fiction]

In Other Words..... Meow

Winky has several different ways of meowing at me... none of which are 100% "meows."  Among his sounds are "um-yow", "merrow", "ma-yow", several "mews" in a row, "moi" (French pronunciation), and several others impossible to put into our alphabet.

Incidentally, I read awhile ago that no two cats "meow" at their humans in exactly the same way, and, having known quite a few cats, both mine and other people's, I believe it.  Besides, it makes purrfect sense.