Once in awhile, hubby and I sneak away to catch a matinee, which we did this week. Movie choice: Soul Surfer - the true story of Bethany Hamilton, the 13-year-old in Hawaii who lost an arm to a hungry shark. Love, loved it. Take your spouse, kids or just yourself and go see it!
Well obviously, matinee showings aren't filled ... so when we were the first to take our seats ten minutes early, we figured only a few more would trickle in.
Trailers start. No one.
Concession ads. Still no one else.
The movie begins and Bill whispers, "we might really be the only ones here!"
"Why are you whispering?" I whisper back.
So no other mid-week, mid-day movie-goers ever came. There we sat, with our choice of 300 seats, all alone with a huge tub of popcorn. Weird but fun.
Go see Soul Surfer!
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
how books influenced my life
While on the topic of reading, I pulled out an essay that won a contest I entered six years ago. The contest topic, "How Books Influenced My Life," came from an online writers' forum. Word maximum was a short 250 words. So I wrote up this little essay and emailed it. And won. I believe there were only a handful of entries. But the prize was a critique by Carol Rottman and a copy of her writers' devotional, Writers in the Spirit which I totally love. It was neat to correspond with Carol, and I still occasionally keep in touch with her.
My mother’s Tennessee drawl eased me gently away on nightly adventures with Pooh and Piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh and Mole and Ratty in Wind in the Willows. Their magic, like my mother’s southern meals, was poured into me and grew an appetite for words, a love of stories, and a craving for more and more books.
Books and bedtime, books and blankets, books and the beach all wove a tapestry of my earliest, fondest memories.
Like a close childhood friend, my time with books has ebbed and flowed over the years. Babies, child-rearing and housekeeping reduced my personal reading time substantially. I was, however, honored to expose my four children to the wonder of reading as we hauled in stacks of library books on snowy winter afternoons.
These days, books continue as my faithful companions, whether crammed in a tote bag on summer vacation or balanced precariously on my bedside table. My childhood friend is back, to pick up where we left off before life became so full.
And I live with another lover of books: my teenaged daughter, who loves nothing more than to nestle with a book on her bed, under a blanket, and call to me, “Mom, I’m going to read for awhile!”
(c) Barb Haller 2005
How Books Influenced My Life
A 45-year-old black and white snapshot reveals my lanky young mother, my pajama-clad brothers and me nestled on a bed, tethered together by an open picture book. My mother’s Tennessee drawl eased me gently away on nightly adventures with Pooh and Piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh and Mole and Ratty in Wind in the Willows. Their magic, like my mother’s southern meals, was poured into me and grew an appetite for words, a love of stories, and a craving for more and more books.
Books and bedtime, books and blankets, books and the beach all wove a tapestry of my earliest, fondest memories.
Like a close childhood friend, my time with books has ebbed and flowed over the years. Babies, child-rearing and housekeeping reduced my personal reading time substantially. I was, however, honored to expose my four children to the wonder of reading as we hauled in stacks of library books on snowy winter afternoons.
These days, books continue as my faithful companions, whether crammed in a tote bag on summer vacation or balanced precariously on my bedside table. My childhood friend is back, to pick up where we left off before life became so full.
And I live with another lover of books: my teenaged daughter, who loves nothing more than to nestle with a book on her bed, under a blanket, and call to me, “Mom, I’m going to read for awhile!”
(c) Barb Haller 2005
Monday, April 11, 2011
35 years of reading
One of the greatest gifts from my husband came right after we started dating. He encouraged me to start a reading log. And so, in the summer of 1975, I began logging my reading in a green spiral notebook. In it I recorded the title, author, date completed and a brief opinion of the book.
I'm always fascinated to look back through my log. Books on adoption when we were considering that. Books on sibling rivalry when my chickies were terrorizing each other. Books on faith before I even came to faith. Pretty much no rhyme, reason, or plan. I'm a spontaneous reader, I guess.
Two years were book-less: 1984 and 1986. Career changes, two babies and two moves were going on. I was doing good to keep us all fed. If you're into stats, my highest average was ten books a year, and in the last ten years my annual reading average nearly doubled.
How many books did I read? Officially: 164. Add in Bible studies and scores of magazine articles and it might be 200. I don't think it's nearly enough: think of all the great ones I've missed!
When the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird rolled around, I decided to read it. Only to discover, looking back over my log, that I'd read it 25 years earlier! Uh, and it did seem awfully familiar after a chapter or two.
It may seem like a pointless pursuit to you. But I treasure my log book and I challenge myself to read more each year.
And maybe someday my granddaughter will find Baba's reading log and get a sense of my love of reading.
I'm always fascinated to look back through my log. Books on adoption when we were considering that. Books on sibling rivalry when my chickies were terrorizing each other. Books on faith before I even came to faith. Pretty much no rhyme, reason, or plan. I'm a spontaneous reader, I guess.
Two years were book-less: 1984 and 1986. Career changes, two babies and two moves were going on. I was doing good to keep us all fed. If you're into stats, my highest average was ten books a year, and in the last ten years my annual reading average nearly doubled.
How many books did I read? Officially: 164. Add in Bible studies and scores of magazine articles and it might be 200. I don't think it's nearly enough: think of all the great ones I've missed!
When the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird rolled around, I decided to read it. Only to discover, looking back over my log, that I'd read it 25 years earlier! Uh, and it did seem awfully familiar after a chapter or two.
It may seem like a pointless pursuit to you. But I treasure my log book and I challenge myself to read more each year.
And maybe someday my granddaughter will find Baba's reading log and get a sense of my love of reading.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
welcome
Why, hello daffodils.
You tiptoed in without my realizing it.
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
(last two lines of the poem 'Daffodils'
by William Wordsworth)
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
(last two lines of the poem 'Daffodils'
by William Wordsworth)
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
a foundation of love
I'm just four days into a new projectand it's about to swallow me.
Photographs.
Years and years of photographs.
The time has come to get them in order.
28 years with children.
More if I dig deeper for photos of our
early days of marriage.
But I persevere.
It is altogether
happy and sad
sentimental, sweet
and bursting with the love
that is the foundation
of our family.
I have a feeling this will be quite a journey.
Daughter Katie, 11, on vacation
in Michigan ~ 2001.
Monday, April 4, 2011
the gift of my ordinary days
I recently read The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison.
An editor for nearly two decades, Kenison is a gifted writer. I admire her skill at crafting words and in Gift she captures a mother's heart as she enters the season of releasing her children into young adulthood. She describes parenting two very different children, a new season in her marriage, and the unsettled desire to start fresh by relocating and building a new house: themes which resonate with me.
Faced with losing her job and unexpected time on her hands in their new home, Kenison grapples with what comes next at mid-life. She writes, "I am ready to sit, to listen, to allow some long dormant part of myself a slow, quiet awakening, an unfurling into new life."
I loved crawling into bed each night to read Kenison's steady prose, and I identify with the rich and raw emotions of a mother nearing the finish line of child-rearing. On the surface it's a beautiful book.
But. For all the 300 pages of outstanding writing, for me this book is disappointingly secular in ways I couldn't ignore. In nearly every corner of her book, Kenison dances close to acknowledging the need for God in the questions of life, but never quite gets there. When Kenison's father-in-law dies and her son questions her about life after death, Kenison evades an answer and points to a full moon as a message from God.
From death to gardening to her sons' growing independence, Kenison looks to nature, other people, and herself for comfort. There was a time when this was my practice, too, but eventually it rang terribly hollow.
Like Kenison, I've found that life's not easy, especially when the inevitable challenges and changes come along. My husband doesn't always understand or love me as I need. Kids push me to the edge. They demand, disobey or disappoint in the face of my unwavering love. My mothering must constantly evolve as my children grow. In the end, no one can really, fully make me happy.
That sums up the simple reason I'm thankful to have a reliable constant in my life: a God who made me, knows me, guides me, loves me more than anyone, cares about every detail of my life, and is the source of true, lasting contentment. And who can handle all my questions ... about life, love, defiant kids, and what to do when I'm just cranky with life.
Come to think of it, you might say that God is the gift in my ordinary days.
An editor for nearly two decades, Kenison is a gifted writer. I admire her skill at crafting words and in Gift she captures a mother's heart as she enters the season of releasing her children into young adulthood. She describes parenting two very different children, a new season in her marriage, and the unsettled desire to start fresh by relocating and building a new house: themes which resonate with me.
Faced with losing her job and unexpected time on her hands in their new home, Kenison grapples with what comes next at mid-life. She writes, "I am ready to sit, to listen, to allow some long dormant part of myself a slow, quiet awakening, an unfurling into new life."
I loved crawling into bed each night to read Kenison's steady prose, and I identify with the rich and raw emotions of a mother nearing the finish line of child-rearing. On the surface it's a beautiful book.
But. For all the 300 pages of outstanding writing, for me this book is disappointingly secular in ways I couldn't ignore. In nearly every corner of her book, Kenison dances close to acknowledging the need for God in the questions of life, but never quite gets there. When Kenison's father-in-law dies and her son questions her about life after death, Kenison evades an answer and points to a full moon as a message from God.
From death to gardening to her sons' growing independence, Kenison looks to nature, other people, and herself for comfort. There was a time when this was my practice, too, but eventually it rang terribly hollow.
Like Kenison, I've found that life's not easy, especially when the inevitable challenges and changes come along. My husband doesn't always understand or love me as I need. Kids push me to the edge. They demand, disobey or disappoint in the face of my unwavering love. My mothering must constantly evolve as my children grow. In the end, no one can really, fully make me happy.
That sums up the simple reason I'm thankful to have a reliable constant in my life: a God who made me, knows me, guides me, loves me more than anyone, cares about every detail of my life, and is the source of true, lasting contentment. And who can handle all my questions ... about life, love, defiant kids, and what to do when I'm just cranky with life.
Come to think of it, you might say that God is the gift in my ordinary days.
I am the way, the truth and the life.
John 14:6
Saturday, April 2, 2011
oh, hail!
Just back from a walk with my friend Lisa. On weekends when it's not icy/snowy/horrible weather we try to take a longer walk beyond my neighborhood. So Ellie and I started out to meet Lisa part-way. In the upper 30's, windy and cloudy: not bad by winter's standards.
Just at the point where Lisa and I part paths for home, something started falling: white, frozen stuff. Small, about the size of a pencil eraser. In fact, it looked much like Dippin' Dots! Bouncing off the sidewalk, my head and Ellie. She seemed a little confused.
The Dippin' Dots only lasted a few minutes, but I felt kind of silly, like a kid caught in a rainstorm.
Gee, when spring finally gets here it's going to be boring!
Just at the point where Lisa and I part paths for home, something started falling: white, frozen stuff. Small, about the size of a pencil eraser. In fact, it looked much like Dippin' Dots! Bouncing off the sidewalk, my head and Ellie. She seemed a little confused.
The Dippin' Dots only lasted a few minutes, but I felt kind of silly, like a kid caught in a rainstorm.
Gee, when spring finally gets here it's going to be boring!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)