Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 123

Sunday Bookends: ‘Is that you spring?’ The ever growing To Be Read pile and Maverick

Welcome to my weekly post where I recap my week by writing about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing, and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.

This post is going up late today (Sunday) because I completely forgot yesterday was Saturday. I don’t know how to explain that really. My family and I went on a small outing Friday and then again yesterday and in between I became obsessed with rewriting A Story To Tell, my first book, to republish it with a new cover on Amazon. I became so obsessed I totally lost track of time. I don’t plan to spend a lot of time “rewriting” it because I have set up an actual deadline to finish The Farmers’ Sons and I want to stick to that.

Our outings this week weren’t super exciting by most standards but at least we left the house. Friday we took Zooma the Wonder Dog to be groomed and while she was being groomed we visited Books-A-Million again, like we did a few weeks ago. They were having an outside used book sale so I snatched up a few Christian fiction authors I’ve been wanting to read. Christian fiction with a little more edge than an Amish romance (good grief, there are way too many of those out there).

I also found Agatha Raisin Mysteries book by M.C. Beaton in the bargain bin. After getting a few pages in, I think I know why it was in the bargain bin. Not only is it not the best written book, but there was at least one, maybe two typos in the first chapter. The typos made me feel a little better about my own typos since the book was published by a well-known New York Publishing House and still had typos!

I will probably still finish the book, but it wasn’t what I expected. More on this book and the other books I found in the next section.

Zooma looked beautiful after her grooming session, but apparently she did not like the heavy duty blow dryer and bit at the air. When I first came in the woman made it sound like she’d bit her, but thankfully she only bit at the air. Zooma is not a fan of hot hair being blown at her, I guess, but I don’t know a lot of dogs (or people) who are.

They put a complimentary bandana on her which I knew I had to get a couple photos of her in as soon as I could because she wouldn’t want to keep it on. I was able to grab a few photographs of her looking regal before, I’m sure, she found some deer poo to roll in. There is so much deer poo in our backyard left over from the winter and she loves to roll all in it. Apparently, there wasn’t enough space in the woods for the deer to do their business so they used our backyard as their toilet.

Yesterday we drove an hour to find a Chick-fil-A in the dining hall of a local campus. That is literally the only Chick-fil-A near us, with the other ones being about three hours south. My son has wanted to go to a Chick-fi-A for years so a couple of months ago my husband took him to one, but yesterday he took the whole family. I can’t eat any of the food there because of my various food issues, but they had a salad place next door, inside the student dining hall, so I grabbed a salad for myself.

Then, because our day just couldn’t get any more exciting, we stopped at Wal-Mart and Aldis for groceries. I know. We are some crazy, crazy partiers. But at least we did it all on the first official day of spring and it acted like the first day of spring, for the most part, with sunny, yet chilly, weather.

What I’m Reading

I am still a bit behind on my reading. Last week I finished Death Without Company by Craig Johnson and continued reading Dark of Night by Indie author Carrie Cotton.

I also continued reading You Belong with Me by Tari Farris, but it’s not really holding my interest as much. It’s a pretty standard romance at this point.

I also continued King of the Wind with Little Miss and we will probably finish that this week. This book has been a little more depressing than the other Marquerite Henry books, but it is still good.

At Books-A-Million I snatched up a couple of Colleen Coble books because I’ve been wanting to read her but her books are pretty expensive in paperback and on Kindle. I also grabbed a Francine Rivers book I haven’t read yet.

I grabbed the first book of a Ted Dekker series that I already had the second book of. Both were bought at two different places, both on clearance.

All the books, except two, were hardcovers.

A run down of the books I grabbed:

The 49th Mystic by Ted Dekker (to join Rise of the Mystics)Strands of Truth by Colleen CobleOne Little Lie by Colleen CobleAnd the Shofar Blew by Francine RiversThe Ezekiel Option by Joel RosenbergThe Dead Ringer by M.C. Beaton

I’m not sure when I will get to all of those books, but I’m sure I’ll be passing them on to my mom first because she reads faster than me.

As for The Dead Ringer by M.C. Beaton (as mentioned above), this is the 28th book in the series, written right before she died in her mid-80s, so it is possible that this book wasn’t even written by her. It would probably be a better idea for me to read a couple of the earlier books in the series, when she was in her prime. Right now the book reads more like a how-to narrative. I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m pretty certain I will still read it, though.

On our way to the groomer Friday, the local library called and left a voicemail on my cellphone to let me know the library is open again. I thought it was funny they said they were calling their most loyal patrons and I’ve actually only been to the library twice in a year.

I’m sure I will wander down there soon but for now I have to finish a couple of books I promised two indie authors I would finish.

What I’m Watching

I’m still working my way through the Agatha Raisin movies, and still making fun of them, but still enjoying them.

This week we also watched an episode of the old Maverick show with James Gardner and then, since I had never seen it all the way through (that I can remember), we watched Maverick with Gardner and Mel Gibson. We watched it with our son and had to explain to him that when we were teenagers Mel Gibson was the hottest actor around.

We did fill him in on Mel’s fall from grace as well and I pointed out it happened after Passion of the Christ, which he himself had predicted it would. Mel told Jim Cavaziel when they started filming Passion of the Christ that forces would come against them and he was right.

What I’m Listening To

I’m still listening to Needtobreathe and since Zach Williams dropped a new single, I’ve been listening to him as well.

What I’m Writing

Last week I rambled about my insomnia battle, which I thought I’d let you know cleared up after I stopped taking the magnesium glycinate at night. I have no idea why I can’t take magnesium glycinate at night, but I can’t. It did, however, make me feel very good the next day, even when I didn’t have a lot of sleep. I tried taking it during the day this week but found, ironically, it made me sleepy during the day. Or, I could have simply been tired during the day because I was actually getting sleep and my body was completely confused.

I also shared some random thoughts, as one does here on my blog.

On Friday, I shared a short section of Lily, a novella or novel (haven’t decided which yet) that I will be working on sometime in the future.

I hope to share more from The Farmers’ Sons this Friday.

So that’s my week in review, how about yours? What have you been reading, watching, listening to or doing? Let me know in the comments.

Fiction Friday: Lily

Chapter 2 of The Farmers’ Sons isn’t ready yet so I’m sharing something I started a few weeks ago. I’m not sure where I’m going with this one but it’s based on a secondary character in A New Beginning and it’s all I have so far.

Lily

That social worker said it wouldn’t hurt to have that baby. She lied. It hurt like that place Mama said I was gonna go for getting pregnant in the first place. I never felt so much pain and thought I was going to die. They wanted me to hold the baby, but I didn’t want to. He weren’t mine anyhow. He belonged to those people I’d met at the agency and he was squawking and hollering; all red and squishy and ugly. I told them to take it away and let those people who were going to be her parents deal with it.

I don’t remember much after that. I slept for hours and hours. Everything in my body hurt and I was so weak I could barely stand. When I opened my eyes, it was dark, and I knew I had to get out of there. I didn’t want to watch that social worker give that baby to those people. It was weird. Having something growing in you for nine months is weird. Pushing it out your private area while you scream is weird. Giving that baby to people you only met once is weird too.

It’s all as weird as what that man did to me that left that baby in my belly in the first place.

The nurses didn’t even hear me leave.

The social worker weren’t even there.

Wasn’t. That social worker said I’m supposed to say wasn’t instead of weren’t.

What do I know? Mama stopped making me go to school in third grade after she married that man who hit me a couple times before Mama kicked him out. She didn’t kick him out because he hit me. She kicked him out because he stole her booze money.

My clothes were in a drawer by the bed at the hospital and I changed into them quickly but cried because it hurt so bad all over. The area where that baby came from hurt the worse. Blood ran down my leg and I wiped it away. I had to get out of there.

I walked a long way to get to Mama. Thought I wouldn’t make it. My stomach ached from hunger and my body screamed for sleep. I could barely lift my hand to pound on the door to her apartment.

“How did you even find me?”

She spat her words at me after I’d finally managed to slam my fist against the paint chipped metal a few times.

“Mama, I’m tired and hungry.”

“What do you want me to do about it? Didn’t those social workers feed you anything?”

“Mama —“

Don’t call me Mama. You know I don’t like that. You’re bleeding all over the hallway. You have that baby yet?”

I nodded weakly and winced when her hand encircled my upper arm and she ripped me forward into the dark apartment.

“Get in here and stop bleeding on my rug.”

She shoved me down the hallway toward the living room and I collapsed on the couch, clutching at the musty smelling cushions as the room began to spin.

I thought I’d die there. It seemed like days before there were voices at the door and strong arms lifting me. Maybe it was days. I don’t really remember.

It was the last time I saw Mama and now I’m living here in this place with a bunch of trees and empty fields and a stream like I saw a picture of once in a book.

I don’t know what life will be like now, but anything has got to be better than where I come from.

Chapter 1 beginning

That baby was squawking again. Lily Parker rolled over and looked at the ceiling, the room lit only by the light of the moon.

Why didn’t that baby just shut up already?

She was sick of listening to it.

She could never figure out why people wanted babies. They were loud, smelly, and couldn’t do nothing for themselves.

She hadn’t wanted that baby.

All she’d wanted was the stuff that made her feel good, made her forget about Mama and how she hated her.

If it hadn’t been for that, she’d have never let that man do what he did to her.

How was she supposed to know she’d end up with a baby in her? No one had ever told her how babies was made.

She heard Edith’s footsteps in the hallway, going down the stairs, then back up again a few minutes later.

Edith’s voice was groggy. “I’m warming the bottle. Hold him until I get back.”

Warm it quieter, Lily thought, rolling to her side, pulling the covers up over her shoulder.

Maybe she should have been taking care of that baby, but she didn’t know how.

She wanted Edith to be that baby’s mama, even though she wasn’t the one who’d birthed it.

Lily didn’t like calling her Edith. She thought she should call her Mrs. Sickler like she used to call her teachers before Mama stopped sending her to school. Edith said she didn’t have to call her Mrs., though, so she didn’t. Jimmy told her to call him Jimmy so that’s what she called him.

She closed her eyes tight against the screaming.

“Make it stop already,” she grumbled, pressing her palms against her ears.

Babies were so dumb anyhow. She was never going to have one. Not for real. Not one she had to care for. Not ever.

Randomly Thinking: Fancy Cat Litter, Weird Wildlife Shows, Funny Dads, and Other Random Thoughts

Welcome to my random thoughts post. Continue at your own risk.

***

My husband, son, and I were talking about TV shows and how when people get hit in the head or beat up, they’re rarely taken to the hospital. I was mentioning how Agatha Raisin has been hit in the head numerous times and they rarely took her to a hospital, if ever. Instead, James poured her a glass of whiskey and told her to lay down. So, then my husband theorized that the subsequent episodes after that initial one where she was hit were all a dream she was having while she was in the hospital. My son said, “Yeah. In real life, she’s actually in the hospital with part of her skull caved in.” 

Ah, teenagers. They’re nothing if not talented at graphic descriptions.

***

My son will sometimes say to me, “Someone looks like they need a hug,” and he’ll hug me. He’s a teenager but he’s not afraid to say, “I need a hug,” and come get one. Now Little Miss is saying “someone looks like they need a hug,” and she will offer hugs, mainly to me and the dog. 

The other day when Little Miss said to Zooma the Wonder Dog, “Ah, Zooma, do you need a hug?”, The Boy said, “I need a hug.” 

Little Miss looked at him with a very bored expression and responded, deadpan, “Go get a hug from Mom.”

***

My son pointed out this week that the Swedish Chef’s hands are real while the rest of him is a puppet. Neither of us were comfortable with this discovery.

***

Little Miss gets very excited about new clothes, even underwear and socks so this week she got a pack of new underwear and decided to open them to check them out. She was having a hard time since they had taped each pair closed. 

“What?! What is this?! There is,” flinging tape off her fingers. “So much tape here! Whoever wrapped this is an overachiever!”

She’s definitely been hanging around her brother too much lately.

***

I just had to share this gem that Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs left on my last Randomly Thinking post. “My week has been weird but because I am a weirdo. I have been updating my friends about our experiences with Pretty Litter everyday – per their request — I am not just randomly sending them updates on my cat’s using the litter box. Lol. However, the litter gives me anxiety because it is supposed to show if your cat has health issues so I find myself looking at them often to check.”

I just — well, I had no idea what to say about that but it certainly made me giggle because it sounded like something I would buy and then obsess over.

Luckily, if you want to know more about this litter, Erin has written a blog post all about it for you.

***

My husband and I were talking at dinner one night and something (I can’t remember what now) triggered a memory for me of a call a college friend received from her dad. To explain, her dad was a somewhat serious, solemn fellow who had a very dry sense of humor. We came into the dorm one day from lunch and I went to my dorm room and Rebecca went to hers. A few moments later I heard laughter filtering down the hallway (neither of us had closed our doors yet). She comes to my room and says, “Lisa, you have to come hear this.”

She pressed the button on her answering machine, which was sitting on the floor of her sparsely decorated room, and the monotone voice of her father came through.

“Um, Rebecca, this is your father. I just wanted to remind you that, um, in order to spend money from your bank account there has to actually be money in your bank account. The bank called me today and I’ve put more money in there but you can’t keep spending money from your bank account if you don’t have money in there.”

It’s hard to describe when you can’t hear her dad’s voice, but if you can imagine a man speaking very serious with a deep voice, sounding completely unamused, then you have her father. 

My memory of him makes me think of the British comedian Jack Whitehall’s father, who I’ve seen clips of in the past and now they have a travel show on Netflix, for those of you who have Netflix.

(Please be aware that there is a swear word in this clip.)

Rebecca’s father was a little bit like Jack’s dad, but without the dirty language. 

***

My daughter is now obsessed with this wildlife show on Youtube hosted by a guy called Coyote Pearson. So, yeah, this is my fault. We watched one video as part of our desert unit and it got out of control. Now she wants to watch it all the time, so I have to watch this slightly weird American travel to different countries and get bit by creatures he’s not supposed to be bit by. He’s a bit like the redneck version of Steve Irwin, without the southern accent. To continue with the above about Rebecca’s dad, he also doesn’t use dirt language. He’s completely clean but I have this awful feeling that one day we will hear about him dying doing something very stupid trying to “get the shot.”

I said to my daughter, as he reached for a sea urchin on one episode, “He’s not very bright is he?”

He got stung once.

She shook her head. “No. He’s not very bright. He’s been bitten by everything.”

He was bitten again by holding it in his palm.

“Nope,” she said. “Not very bright.”

***

I’m sure you’ve never wondered what it is like inside my mind, but in case you ever have, this is it:

So, those are my random thoughts for this week. How about you? What are your random thoughts? Let me know in the comments!

The tale of two sleeps and my little sleep

Insomnia is something I have dealt with a lot over the years so the recent bouts I’ve had off and on for a few weeks (and steady for about a week) is not unusual for me. Since I just finished another round of the dreaded insomnia, I had found myself reading more about sleep patterns and realizing that being up for a couple hours, after 3-4 hours of sleep and going back to sleep for a couple more, as I have been doing,is not actually that unusual, or at least it wasn’t back in the “old days.”

Apparently, in the days of no electricity, people would go to bed when the sun set, sleep a few hours, and then get up in the middle of the night to engage in various activities, such as reading (if they could afford candles), tender — ahem — moments with their spouses, taking a moonlit walk, smoking tobacco, visiting neighbors (can you imagine that? Bob and Mary show up at your door at 2 a.m. and they’re not drunk looking for weed like they might be today if they stop at your house?), and praying for about an hour or two. Then they laid back down and slept for another 2 to 4 hours until sunrise.

There is even a name for this type of sleep. It is called biphasic, segmented, bimodal, or diphasic sleep and some people still sleep this way today. It is popular in Greece, from what I have read.

According to Medical News Today, “Those who practice biphasic sleep typically sleep for a long duration at night, for 5-6 hours, and have a shorter period of sleep or siesta during the day. The shorter period of rest typically lasts 30 minutes and gives an energy boost to finish the day. However, a siesta can last for longer, perhaps 90 minutes. An extended siesta of 90 minutes allows a person to have one complete cycle of sleep.”

There are many books or historical documents that refer to the two sleep periods, according to an article I read on the BBC.

He knew this, even in the horror with which he started from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the presence of some object, beyond the room, which had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream.” Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (1840)“Don Quixote followed nature, and being satisfied with his first sleep, did not solicit more. As for Sancho, he never wanted a second, for the first lasted him from night to morning.” Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote (1615)“And at the wakening of your first sleepe You shall have a hott drinke made, And at the wakening of your next sleepe Your sorrowes will have a slake.” Early English ballad, Old Robin of Portingale

Some medical journals back in the 1600 to 1700s even suggested that if a couple wanted to conceive a child they — ahem — come together after the first sleep when they would be more rested, according to Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech who published a paper about biphasic sleep.

There are so many references from past literature and documents to two sleeps that it is clear it “was common knowledge” and commonly practiced Ekirch says.

As I was reading various articles, I learned that some who study sleep today believe that humans are meant to sleep a few hours at a time, wake up and stay awake, and then sleep again for another few hours. The idea of sleeping eight straight hours is fairly new, some researchers say, and also not always realistic. In many countries the idea of sleeping eight hours straight isn’t the norm.

The industrial revolution helped phase out the idea of two sleeps, mainly because there wasn’t time for it anymore. People needed their sleep to be combined so they could spend the daylight hours working in places like factories. Improvements in street lighting, lighting in the home, and a surge in coffee houses that were open all night also phased out the idea of two sleeps. Nighttime was more active now and the time for when people could engage in two separate sleeps started to disappear.

What didn’t disappear, however, was the normal human physiology we were created with, so there seem to be some people who actually function better with sleeping less at night and then taking a long nap in the daytime or laying down in the morning for a couple more hours.

Sleep psychologist Gregg Jacobs told the BBC that the idea that a person must have eight straight hours of sleep has caused a myriad of mental health issues for many people, mainly anxiety that they can’t sleep the full, non-interrupted eight hours they think they’re supposed to have. That nighttime activity often extends into daytime anxiety.

Jacobs believes that it is possible that the time between the first and second sleeps could have been a time that allowed humans to regulate stress naturally. That time is now gone because most people spend the time laying awake panicking about the sleep they are not getting.

Not too mention we now live in a world where we work or entertain ourselves late into the night, barely giving ourselves enough time to relax and fall into natural sleep, let alone enough time to actually obtain eight uninterrupted hours of sleep. We squeeze every last drop of our days out, failing to give ourselves the time to relax and be patient if we do wake up and are unable to fall right back to sleep. We lay down at 11 and expect to be up at 7 after having perfect sleep. It’s just not plausible or realistic, say many sleep specialists.

I am one of the lucky insomniacs who doesn’t work outside the home, so if I don’t get enough rest at night, I am able to lay down for an hour or two more, having a type of “second sleep.” And luckily this insomnia thing only seems to happen around a high hormonal or stressful time and not every night. I wish I could say I always stay calm during those two hours or so I am sometimes awake in the middle of the night, but I can’t. I do what many articles say not to do — I panic and think about how negatively I’ll be effected the next day by not getting enough sleep.

But knowing that it isn’t that unusual for some people to sleep in two separate periods of sleep is comforting to me on those nights I wake up after a few hours and can’t fall back to sleep. “There isn’t necessarily something wrong with my sleep, I tell myself. “I’m simply harkening back to the days of my ancestors, channeling them so-to-speak, and stealing from them a practice that most of them saw as completely normal.”

Post Script: As I am writing this P.S., I have actually had two nights in a row without laying awake for two hours for no reason at 4 a.m. or 3 a.m. So far it is looking like the magnesium glycinate I was taking to help me sleep, which has been working for months, is now doing the opposite. It was making me more alert and actually giving me the insomnia.

After a search online, it appears that this happens with some people and it may be that they build up a tolerance to it or that they were so deficient in magnesium when they first started that it lulled them into sleep but now their body is processing it better and it is going where it needs to go to make them feel better. I appear to be in the second group because even though I wasn’t sleeping last week, I was feeling better and had a clearer head than I had in months. I’m actually wondering if I am one of those people who do a little better with less sleep. If I sleep more than eight hours I often feel groggy.

I’ve decided to try to take the magnesium during the day now and guess what? It will probably make me sleepy again. That’s how things work for me.

Sunday Bookends: Melting snow, I am a super slow reader, and starting over with The Farmers’ Sons

Welcome to my weekly post where I recap my week by writing about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing, and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.

What’s Been Occurring

The snow has finally melted after two-and-a-half months of it covering the ground. There are still traces of it here and there, mixed among the squishy, yellow and ugly grass, but we expect it will be gone by next week. With the snow gone we could see the damage left by the heavy snow and the damage by the deer eating the bushes down to stubs because they couldn’t find enough to eat during this winter.

We took advantage of the warmer weather by exploring outside one day at my parents’ while The Boy helped my dad load some wood from a tree that fell during high winds last month. We plan to use the wood for our woodstove on the chilly days we know will still come because Pennsylvania always brings warm days mixed with cold well into April. While they loaded wood, my daughter, who doesn’t always like messes, squished her hand in mud and jumped up and down in the water in the ditch by the road.

Zooma the Wonder Dog chased sticks and tried to jump for the ones The Boy was breaking up sticks for the kindling pile.

Our neighbor even journeyed out with their new little Shitsu puppy. It was like people had been sleeping all winter and woke up this week. Of course, we’d seen our neighbors in the winter too – outside, shoveling and shoveling and shoveling and shoveling.

The warmer weather has been nicer for me this week because with it has come sun and I’ve needed that to counteract the effects of hormonal insomnia that has settled on me.

What I’m Reading

I am reading the same books I’ve been reading for the last couple of weeks because I am a super slow reader. I pushed aside the more political non-fiction simply because I need a break from political everything and anything, not because I don’t enjoy the writers.

For fiction I am reading a supernatural suspense book called Dark of Night by independent author Carrie Cotton, which will be released March 25.

It’s a very good and edge-on-your seat novel. I will post more information on it when I finish it later this week, but for now, here is the description:

A new life, a new love, and even a new name. For former secret agent Andromeda Stone – now Joanna Carter – a normal, boring life with her handsome husband was the happy ending. But an old enemy resurfaces, determined to leave nothing unfinished, and Andy must step back into the nightmares once again. Andy and Will each face their own worst fears in their search for answers. Will this new mission cost Andy more than she’s willing to pay?
When the journey takes her to deeper and darker places than she’s ever been before, Andy discovers it’s more than just answers she’s looking for.

I also hope to finish up the second book in the Longmire series, Death Without Company by Craig Johnson this week.

For a lighter romance, I am reading Tari Farris’ You Belong To Me on days when I can’t handle anything too stressful or heavy (which is actually almost any day lately).

Little Miss and I finished Sea Star this week and are back to reading King of the Wind also by Marguerite Henry. This is one of the first full books, if not the first that I read by myself. I still remember picking it out at the library. It was the photo of the stallion on the front that caught my eye because I loved horses and always wanted one even though my dad always told the story of how his horse bit him when he was a kid and how much work horses are.

The book was hardcover, large, like 8 inch by 11 inch, but thin so it did perfectly under my arm when I carried it home from the school library. I loved that book but now that I’m reading it again with Little Miss, I am surprised that some of it didn’t scare me back then. The talk about sultans cutting off heads and killing people in villages to test muskets was graphic and I skipped over it for Little Miss. I was probably in sixth grade when I read it and she’s only six so she can wait a few more years and read it on her own.

What I’m Watching

I’m continuing on with Agatha Raisin. I’m on to the second season which is actually three 90-minute movies. The first season was eight 44 minute episodes. I believe the third season is also three 90-minute movies.

My husband and I finished the mini-series version of And Then There Were None, based on the novel by Agatha Christie. The BBC produced it and it left me feeling very creeped out, even more so than the book did. I wouldn’t say I recommend it, unless you enjoy horror films and psychological thrillers. The actors were excellent, which is probably why it creeped me out so much. I did not like how they changed some parts of the book, especially the ending (although the change wasn’t that drastic since the outcome was still the same). The movie was a lot more graphic than the book and added some extra details to make it more visually exciting, I guess you would say.

I needed some lighter fare after all the murder movies and shows we watched this week, so we watched a couple of episodes of Lovejoy (a British show about an antique dealer who seems to always get himself in trouble or ends up tricking some bad guys out of money) and I also watched a show about farmers on Acorn TV. In other words, we watched a lot of British television again this week.

I also enjoyed this clip from comedian Tim Hawkins and I think many of my readers will too (you just all seem like those type of cool people, you know?)

What I’m Listening To

I had Needtobreathe’s latest album on loop this week and love it. I find it inspiring for when I want to write a little more “artsy”.

My husband has been listening to Cory Asbury’s live album, and I am going to download that because I really enjoyed what I heard on the live feed I found on YouTube.

Last night my son and his friend and I listened to some classic Johnny Cash. It was weird to hear a 14 and 15-year old singing Cash, but always cool. Some

What I’m Writing

I completely dismantled the original chapters of The Farmers’ Sons this week after a bout of depression about my writing and insomnia Sunday night into morning. One good thing about the insomnia is that I get a few hours, then wake up, so during that wakeful period I brainstorm for the book or future books and sometimes I even get up and write it down. It’s nice to have that quiet time with no interruptions to write.

I knew I could make my fiction writing better, so I started trying to do so this week, focusing more on how I used to write when I was a youngin’, though hopefully less dramatic than I was then. I like what I came up with better than what I shared before. I shared the first chapter, rewritten, on Friday.

I’ll be working on more chapters this week, and I am also working on a piece of flash fiction for the summer issue of Spark Flash Fiction magazine. I wrote some flash fiction in the past and enjoyed it. Those pieces could only be 300 words and this one can be up to 1,000.

I also shared an update on how homeschooling went for us in February and what we are doing now for the kids’ lessons.

Welp, that’s my week in review. How about yours? What have you been doing, reading, watching, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments.  

Fiction Friday: The Farmers’ Sons Chapter 1 (restart)

So, I have restarted The Farmers Sons (name subject to change). I mean trashed the other chapters and started all over. I have not, however, trashed the prologue. Not yet anyhow. I will most likely try to figure out how to add it to later to the story, but probably will not have Jason be a volunteer fire fighter. He won’t have time for that with trying to run the farm with his family, while Robert is recovering.

The previous draft was steering the story in a direction far away from how I imagined Jason and Ellie’s story going and it also needed tighter writing. This next draft will still include some of the elements of the previous versions.

For anyone who is new here, I share a chapter from the (almost) first draft of a novel I am working on each Friday. The chapter will most likely have typos, grammatical errors, missing comas, and even plot holes and it’s not the final version of the novel that I release at a later date.

I share the stories and publish the novels for fun so feel free to comment. The first book in this series is also available for sale on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords and various other sites. You can find more info about that HERE.

The sun cut across the barren field, slicing it in half, leaving one side to the darkness, the other to the light. A similar scene played out inside Jason Tanner. A metaphorical sun worked hard to push back the darkness, leaving him split in the middle, one part dark, one part light; one part hope, the other part hopeless.

Bitter coffee burned at the edges of his exhaustion but did nothing to clear the fog in his mind. How many days had it been? Nine? Maybe ten since he’d slept more than five hours a night, waking before dawn, stumbling to his pickup, driving to the barn, fingers numb from cold, watching his breath puff misty white around him.

This morning was no different, other than he’d actually remembered to brew himself a pot of coffee. He had poured half into his thermos and left the other half for Alex. They’d both need a few more pots to get through this week, this day even.

Alex stepped next to him on the farmhouse front porch, mug in hand. “This coffee is awful.”

Jason winced, not from the insult but in agreement as the sludge slid down his throat. “The worse it is, the more it will wake us up.”

Alex sipped coffee from his mug, scowling at Jason over the edge. “Is that like ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?’”

If there was any consolation to where Jason found himself it was that he wasn’t alone in the weariness that had seeped into his marrow in the last five months.

He looked at it in the eyes of each of them — his sister, his best friend, his mother, his uncle, and most of all his father, sitting helpless in a chair on the porch each morning, his eyes completing tasks his body couldn’t, not yet anyway.

He tightened the lid to the thermos, jerked his head behind him toward the kitchen. “Fill the other thermos and let’s get going. The cows don’t care how tired we are.”

Alex grunted. “I’m not sure I want to drink anymore of this. Maybe I can use it to clean the rust off that old tractor behind the barn instead.”

They climbed into separate pickups, pulling up to the barn, one behind the other. Molly stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, waiting for one of them more than the other. She looked through Jason and he had a feeling she wouldn’t have even noticed if he hadn’t been there.

Alex’s arms slid around her waist and pulled her close, a sight Jason still wasn’t comfortable with. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to his little sister and his best friend dating each other, but he’d been too tired since his father’s accident to let it bother him much more than sending a shudder of disgust through him from time to time.

“Save that for later.” His tone denoted a touch of teasing, spun together with genuine aggravation. “We’re behind schedule.”

They locked eyes, small smiles playing at the corners of their lips. It was obvious they were ignoring him. He’d have to start the milking without them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alex pull Molly closer and lower his mouth to hers. Revulsion tinged with jealousy swirled in his stomach. Revulsion over Alex kissing his little sister right there, outside the barn door where Jason had to see it; jealousy because he wished he was holding Ellie the same way. He didn’t know if she’d ever let him hold her that way again.

Several agonizing moments of listening to smooches and laughter later, Alex playfully bumped him in the arm on his way to gather the feed. “It’s never too late for a sweet kiss from your sister, buddy.”

His teasing did nothing to make Jason feel less uncomfortable. “Dude, seriously. Stop that. I don’t even want to know.”

There were moments he regretted convincing Alex to move up to the farm, like right now, bogged down with thoughts of Alex kissing Molly. Most days, though, Alex was like family, as much as a brother as he was a best friend.

His dad’s voice came from behind him. “Are we ready for the big release?”

He’d never get used to seeing his dad leaning on that cane and hoped soon he wouldn’t need it.

“Yep. Just finished up.”

It was an annual tradition for the family to release the cows into the pasture from the barn where they’d been sheltered from the cold weather of winter. It was also a tradition for them to do it together. Jason wasn’t surprised his dad didn’t plan to miss it, making his way to the barn with Jason’s mom beside him.  

Robert Tanner tipped his head toward his daughter. “Molly, do the honors.”

The cows were already standing at the gate, anxiously sniffing the cool spring air. They surged forward within seconds after Molly pulled back the gate and stepped aside.

She affectionally patted a couple on their rumps as they passed. “Get on out there, girls.”

Jason propped his arms across the top bar of the fence, watching the young heifers kicking up their legs, bumping into each other, mouths open, stretched into almost human looking smiles. It was his favorite time of year, letting them loose from their six months inside the barns, six months of being protected from wind and rain, cold and snow.

Robert leaned on the cane with both hands. “Now, that’s a sight I like to see.”

Jason nodded in silent agreement. “It was always Grandpa’s favorite time of year too, other than harvesting the sweet corn.”

Robert laughed softly. “Yeah, he did like his sweet corn.”

Annie Tanner propped a hand on her husband’s shoulder, watching the cows spread out across the hillside. “More like addicted to it.”

Jason pulled his eyes from the joyful scene in the pasture, leaning back against the fence, gesturing at his dad’s leg. “So, two weeks and that cast will be all the way off, huh, old man?”

Robert cocked an eyebrow, folding his arms across his chest. “What’s with you and Alex calling me old man? You both know I could kick your rear ends across this pasture even with a broken leg.”

A broken leg? More like a shattered leg when a tractor had tipped on it four months ago.

“We rarely have survivors when a tractor falls on a farmer.”

The words from the doctor had been chilling but accurate. Eerily accurate. Somehow Robert Tanner survived what so many other farmers hadn’t, thanks to the stump of an old maple tree left from when Ned Tanner cut it down five years before. Jason was grateful time had gotten away from them and they had never got around to pulling the stump from the ground.

Besides the shattered femur, Robert had also had a cracked pelvis, a puncture wound to his back, a collapsed lung, and internal bleeding. It was the bleeding that had led to a minor stroke during surgery and a six-week coma. The cracked pelvis was proving the most difficult to heal physically. Robert’s loss of independence had been the hardest to heal emotionally.

Jason grinned at his dad. “Looking forward to you pulling your weight around here again.” The smile broadened. “Old man.”

Robert lifted a hand from the cane and playfully punched his son in a muscular bicep. “Go clean those stalls out, little boy. Do it right or this old man will show you a thing or two about what it means to be a real man.”

Jason laughed and tapped his dad gently on the shoulder as he walked by.

You’ve already shown me what it means to be a real man, he wanted to say, but didn’t. He didn’t have time for sentimental pauses in his day. There was too much work to do, too many stalls to clean out, too many hours to spend distracting himself from the hole Ellie had carved in his heart two days earlier outside the church.

***

The sight of her standing outside the sanctuary talking to her friend Lucy had taken his breath away. She’d cut her hair short. Gone were the dark, straight strands that had fallen down her back in a long braid since he had known her. Her hair was still straight but hit just below her ears now. curved along the smooth, delicate line of her jaw..

He ached to reach out, trace that line with his fingertips, slide his hand behind her head and kiss away the distance between them.

The open laughter she’d been sharing with Lucy a few seconds earlier faded the moment her eyes met his. She looked away immediately, but in that brief moment he’d watched her face transform from cautious joy to closed down indifference.

He should have taken it as a sign to continue into the sanctuary and leave her alone. Unfortunately, he’d never been good at listening to others, or to his own intuition.

He slid his eyes from her to Lucy, now standing in awkward silence, her head tipped toward the floor. “Good morning, Lucy. Having a nice weekend?”

Lucy glanced up, flashed a tight smile. “Yes. I am. You?”

“It’s been okay.”

What was he going to say? It’s been torture, miserable, like being stranded in the middle of a raging sea during a storm without a lifeboat? It was true, but it wasn’t exactly the pre-church banter most people engaged in. Not to mention it was none of Lucy’s business how his weekend had really been. He had a feeling she was part of the problem, part of the reason Ellie had been ignoring his calls.

Lucy’s hazel eyes darted to Ellie, then back to Jason. She let out a quick, quiet breath, chasing it with, “Well, I’m going to go find a seat, so . . . yeah.” She leaned her head close to Ellie, her hand on her forearm, as if they were sharing a secret. It was futile. Jason still heard her, her whisper echoing in the now empty lobby. “You going to be okay?”

Ellie nodded, flashed a quick, obviously tense smile. “I’ll meet you inside.”

Lucy nodded back, looked at Jason, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She looked away, turning her attention to Frank Troutman standing in the entryway with the bulletins. Frank smiled, handed Lucy a bulletin, and she cast one more look at Ellie over her shoulder before going inside.

Ellie bent her ankle back and forth, looked past him out into the parking lot, both hands hugging her Bible to her chest like a shield against him.

“I miss you.”

The words flew out of him before he even realized he was saying them out loud.

Something flashed in her eyes.

An emotion he couldn’t read.

He couldn’t read her. At all. He wasn’t used to that, to her closing herself off to him.

Her hands hugged the Bible closer against her.

“I miss you too.”

The words were what he’d wanted to hear, but not in the monotone, emotionless way she said it. Her voice was detached, a thousand miles away from meaning anything. Her gaze moved from side to side, focusing anywhere but on him.

She’d never talked to him in that tone, at least not before the afternoon she’d overheard him talking to Alex.

The memory of that moment had sent a chill straight through him. He felt the same heaviness as that day, the same all-consuming desire to pull her close; to tell her again how sorry he was, how wrong he was to wait so long to tell her the truth.

“The service is about to start.” Her voice silenced his internal dialogue. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

He grabbed on to her words. “When will we talk? I’ve been trying to talk to you for almost four months.”

A muscle in her jaw jumped. Her eyes met his, darkened emotion smoldering there. “I said I needed time, Jason.”

“I know what you said but — “

“We need a break, Jason, okay?”

“We’ve been taking a break.”

“I need a break. A long break.”

He could hear the strain in her voice, the struggle to keep her tone low and even. The doors to the sanctuary closed as the worship team started the music. She gestured curtly toward the glass doors leading outside and darted past him, shoving the front doors open. He followed, taking a step back when she swiveled to face him, eyes flashing. There was no mistaking her emotion now.

It was pure rage.

Let her be angry. 

He wanted answers, and he wasn’t waiting anymore to get them.

“How long of a break? A few days? A couple of weeks? Months? Permanently?”

She raised her hand, palm out, against the assault of questions, peppering at her like bullets out of a howitzer.

“I don’t know. Stop asking me.” Each word snapped out of her like sharped-edge glass cutting at his skin.

 She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out again. Her expression had softened when she met his gaze again.

“I don’t know who I am anymore, Jason. Who I ever was, really. I built my identity around you, around us, for so long and now . . .”

The wall was up again. Her tone flat as she lowered her gaze to the asphalt of the parking lot. “You’re not who I thought I was. Nothing feels the same. I don’t feel the same. I need to see what life is like without you for a while, decide if —”

He didn’t even try to hide his anger. “Decide what? Is this like college again? When you wanted a break? Whatever that meant.”

“I didn’t want a break. You wanted the break, Jason.”

Her recollection skills were clearly lacking. He scoffed, pointed his finger at her accusingly. “No. You said we should take a break and figure out if we were supposed to be together. That if we missed each other, that would tell us what we needed to know. I didn’t want a break, Ellie. You did. You were the one who couldn’t make up you mind. And now you can’t again. Apparently, I’m the only one of us that doesn’t have to ask if we’re meant to be together. I know we’re supposed to be together.”

Her cheeks flushed. “I only suggested the break, Jason.” She folded her arms tight across her chest. “You were the one who seemed thrilled with the idea. Obviously you didn’t miss me that much or you wouldn’t have — ”

“No.” The rumbling timbre of his protest echoed across the parking lot. “No way. That is not fair. I told you what happened. I told you how I thought you didn’t want me. How lonely and messed up I was in college. I told you how upset I was after that night, how I — .”

Her words spilled over his, drowning them out. She tossed her arms to the side. “You told me all that seven years after the fact. Seven years, Jason. I mean, if you hid that from me, what else did you hide from me? What else are you hiding from me now?”

Jason shook his head, hands on hips, looked at the black surface under his feet to calm the storm raging inside him. An ant climbed toward a crack in the asphalt, running along an uneven line of tar. He focused on it, on the freedom it had, and for a split second considered stomping the life out of it to keep it from having the freedom he couldn’t. He lifted his eyes back to hers, releasing the ant from his judgment, killing his own peace with what he said next.

“There’s nothing else, Ellie, but if you don’t feel you can trust me then fine.” His voice trembled under the effort to rein in the rage. “Take your break or whatever it is you’re calling it. Throw away everything we’ve had together for the last ten years. Walk away. If that’s what you want, do it.”

A breeze caught her hair, whipped a few strands across her face. She didn’t push them away. “Jason, don’t be a jerk. How did you think I was going to take all this? Finding out the man I thought saved himself for me was sleeping around in college behind my back?”

He tossed his arms up, slammed them down against his legs. “I wasn’t doing anything behind your back. You’d broke up with me. And I wasn’t sleeping around!” His voice thundered. He took two steps toward her and held up a shaking finger a few inches from her face. “It was one mistake. One stupid mistake. I told you that.”

She met his rage, gaze for gaze, harsh words for harsh words, slapping his hand away from her. “If it was so stupid, why didn’t you tell me when we started dating again? Why did you wait?”

He stepped back, laughed darkly. “What like how you told me about going out with my cousin? Oh wait. You didn’t tell me about that. I found that out from Brad.”

He didn’t miss the fleeting flash of surprise in her eyes before a facade of calm concealed it. She regarded him with a well-practiced poker face, saying nothing.

He didn’t back down. “Yeah. That’s right. You had secrets too, so maybe I should be worried about what you’re not telling me.”

She suddenly gulped back a sob, tears filling her eyes. When she stepped back from him she raised her arm in front of her face, as if to protect herself, as if he’d physically slapped her. In one quick move she pivoted, her back to him, walking swiftly across the parking lot toward her car. He chased after her, reached out, grasped her around her upper arm.

The growl in her voice when she wrenched free stunned him. “Don’t touch me.”

She sucked in a ragged breath, swiped the back of her hand across her tear soaked face, and worked at the key in the door of her car, her entire body trembling.

Panic curled up into his throat, threatening to choke the air out of him. His head felt like a hot-air balloon and the earth intangible around him. “Ellie, we can work this out. Don’t do this.”

She wouldn’t look at him. The lock clicked open, and she slid the key out, flung the door open. Her grief-stricken expression as she looked at him from the driver’s seat dissolved his anger into desolation.

“I don’t think we can, Jason. I really don’t. It’s like I don’t even know you, like everything you are, that we were, was a lie.”

The slam of the door reverberated in his ears long after she closed the door and sped away. He didn’t know how long he stood there, his mind numb from a conversation that had reeled out control.

When he turned toward the church, he saw Molly ashen faced, arms hugged around her as if to protect her from the truth she’d overheard, the truth of who her older brother really was.

Fiction Friday: The Farmers’ Sons Chapter 1

So, I have restarted The Farmers Sons (name subject to change). I mean trashed the other chapters and started all over. I have not, however, trashed the prologue. Not yet anyhow. I will most likely try to figure out how to add it to later to the story, but probably will not have Jason be a volunteer fire fighter. He won’t have time for that with trying to run the farm with his family, while Robert is recovering.

The previous draft was steering the story in a direction far away from how I imagined Jason and Ellie’s story going and it also needed tighter writing. This next draft will still include some of the elements of the previous versions.

For anyone who is new here, I share a chapter from the (almost) first draft of a novel I am working on each Friday. The chapter will most likely have typos, grammatical errors, missing comas, and even plot holes and it’s not the final version of the novel that I release at a later date.

I share the stories and publish the novels for fun so feel free to comment. The first book in this series is also available for sale on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords and various other sites. You can find more info about that HERE.

The sun cut across the barren field, slicing it in half, leaving one side to the darkness, the other to the light. A similar scene played out inside Jason Tanner. A metaphorical sun worked hard to push back the darkness, leaving him split in the middle, one part dark, one part light; one part hope, the other part hopeless.

Bitter coffee burned at the edges of his exhaustion but did nothing to clear the fog in his mind. How many days had it been? Nine? Maybe ten since he’d slept more than five hours a night, waking before dawn, stumbling to his pickup, driving to the barn, fingers numb from cold, watching his breath puff misty white around him.

This morning was no different, other than he’d actually remembered to brew himself a pot of coffee. He had poured half into his thermos and left the other half for Alex. They’d both need a few more pots to get through this week, this day even.

Alex stepped next to him on the farmhouse front porch, mug in hand. “This coffee is awful.”

Jason winced, not from the insult but in agreement as the sludge slid down his throat. “The worse it is, the more it will wake us up.”

Alex sipped coffee from his mug, scowling at Jason over the edge. “Is that like ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?’”

If there was any consolation to where Jason found himself it was that he wasn’t alone in the weariness that had seeped into his marrow in the last five months.

He looked at it in the eyes of each of them — his sister, his best friend, his mother, his uncle, and most of all his father, sitting helpless in a chair on the porch each morning, his eyes completing tasks his body couldn’t, not yet anyway.

He tightened the lid to the thermos, jerked his head behind him toward the kitchen. “Fill the other thermos and let’s get going. The cows don’t care how tired we are.”

Alex grunted. “I’m not sure I want to drink anymore of this. Maybe I can use it to clean the rust off that old tractor behind the barn instead.”

They climbed into separate pickups, pulling up to the barn, one behind the other. Molly stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, waiting for one of them more than the other. She looked through Jason and he had a feeling she wouldn’t have even noticed if he hadn’t been there.

Alex’s arms slid around her waist and pulled her close, a sight Jason still wasn’t comfortable with. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to his little sister and his best friend dating each other, but he’d been too tired since his father’s accident to let it bother him much more than sending a shudder of disgust through him from time to time.

“Save that for later.” His tone denoted a touch of teasing, spun together with genuine aggravation. “We’re behind schedule.”

They locked eyes, small smiles playing at the corners of their lips. It was obvious they were ignoring him. He’d have to start the milking without them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alex pull Molly closer and lower his mouth to hers. Revulsion tinged with jealousy swirled in his stomach. Revulsion over Alex kissing his little sister right there, outside the barn door where Jason had to see it; jealousy because he wished he was holding Ellie the same way. He didn’t know if she’d ever let him hold her that way again.

Several agonizing moments of listening to smooches and laughter later, Alex playfully bumped him in the arm on his way to gather the feed. “It’s never too late for a sweet kiss from your sister, buddy.”

His teasing did nothing to make Jason feel less uncomfortable. “Dude, seriously. Stop that. I don’t even want to know.”

There were moments he regretted convincing Alex to move up to the farm, like right now, bogged down with thoughts of Alex kissing Molly. Most days, though, Alex was like family, as much as a brother as he was a best friend.

His dad’s voice came from behind him. “Are we ready for the big release?”

He’d never get used to seeing his dad leaning on that cane and hoped soon he wouldn’t need it.

“Yep. Just finished up.”

It was an annual tradition for the family to release the cows into the pasture from the barn where they’d been sheltered from the cold weather of winter. It was also a tradition for them to do it together. Jason wasn’t surprised his dad didn’t plan to miss it, making his way to the barn with Jason’s mom beside him.  

Robert Tanner tipped his head toward his daughter. “Molly, do the honors.”

The cows were already standing at the gate, anxiously sniffing the cool spring air. They surged forward within seconds after Molly pulled back the gate and stepped aside.

She affectionally patted a couple on their rumps as they passed. “Get on out there, girls.”

Jason propped his arms across the top bar of the fence, watching the young heifers kicking up their legs, bumping into each other, mouths open, stretched into almost human looking smiles. It was his favorite time of year, letting them loose from their six months inside the barns, six months of being protected from wind and rain, cold and snow.

Robert leaned on the cane with both hands. “Now, that’s a sight I like to see.”

Jason nodded in silent agreement. “It was always Grandpa’s favorite time of year too, other than harvesting the sweet corn.”

Robert laughed softly. “Yeah, he did like his sweet corn.”

Annie Tanner propped a hand on her husband’s shoulder, watching the cows spread out across the hillside. “More like addicted to it.”

Jason pulled his eyes from the joyful scene in the pasture, leaning back against the fence, gesturing at his dad’s leg. “So, two weeks and that cast will be all the way off, huh, old man?”

Robert cocked an eyebrow, folding his arms across his chest. “What’s with you and Alex calling me old man? You both know I could kick your rear ends across this pasture even with a broken leg.”

A broken leg? More like a shattered leg when a tractor had tipped on it four months ago.

“We rarely have survivors when a tractor falls on a farmer.”

The words from the doctor had been chilling but accurate. Eerily accurate. Somehow Robert Tanner survived what so many other farmers hadn’t, thanks to the stump of an old maple tree left from when Ned Tanner cut it down five years before. Jason was grateful time had gotten away from them and they had never got around to pulling the stump from the ground.

Besides the shattered femur, Robert had also had a cracked pelvis, a puncture wound to his back, a collapsed lung, and internal bleeding. It was the bleeding that had led to a minor stroke during surgery and a six-week coma. The cracked pelvis was proving the most difficult to heal physically. Robert’s loss of independence had been the hardest to heal emotionally.

Jason grinned at his dad. “Looking forward to you pulling your weight around here again.” The smile broadened. “Old man.”

Robert lifted a hand from the cane and playfully punched his son in a muscular bicep. “Go clean those stalls out, little boy. Do it right or this old man will show you a thing or two about what it means to be a real man.”

Jason laughed and tapped his dad gently on the shoulder as he walked by.

You’ve already shown me what it means to be a real man, he wanted to say, but didn’t. He didn’t have time for sentimental pauses in his day. There was too much work to do, too many stalls to clean out, too many hours to spend distracting himself from the hole Ellie had carved in his heart two days earlier outside the church.

***

The sight of her standing outside the sanctuary talking to her friend Lucy had taken his breath away. She’d cut her hair short. Gone were the dark, straight strands that had fallen down her back in a long braid since he had known her. Her hair was still straight but hit just below her ears now. curved along the smooth, delicate line of her jaw..

He ached to reach out, trace that line with his fingertips, slide his hand behind her head and kiss away the distance between them.

The open laughter she’d been sharing with Lucy a few seconds earlier faded the moment her eyes met his. She looked away immediately, but in that brief moment he’d watched her face transform from cautious joy to closed down indifference.

He should have taken it as a sign to continue into the sanctuary and leave her alone. Unfortunately, he’d never been good at listening to others, or to his own intuition.

He slid his eyes from her to Lucy, now standing in awkward silence, her head tipped toward the floor. “Good morning, Lucy. Having a nice weekend?”

Lucy glanced up, flashed a tight smile. “Yes. I am. You?”

“It’s been okay.”

What was he going to say? It’s been torture, miserable, like being stranded in the middle of a raging sea during a storm without a lifeboat? It was true, but it wasn’t exactly the pre-church banter most people engaged in. Not to mention it was none of Lucy’s business how his weekend had really been. He had a feeling she was part of the problem, part of the reason Ellie had been ignoring his calls.

Lucy’s hazel eyes darted to Ellie, then back to Jason. She let out a quick, quiet breath, chasing it with, “Well, I’m going to go find a seat, so . . . yeah.” She leaned her head close to Ellie, her hand on her forearm, as if they were sharing a secret. It was futile. Jason still heard her, her whisper echoing in the now empty lobby. “You going to be okay?”

Ellie nodded, flashed a quick, obviously tense smile. “I’ll meet you inside.”

Lucy nodded back, looked at Jason, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She looked away, turning her attention to Frank Troutman standing in the entryway with the bulletins. Frank smiled, handed Lucy a bulletin, and she cast one more look at Ellie over her shoulder before going inside.

Ellie bent her ankle back and forth, looked past him out into the parking lot, both hands hugging her Bible to her chest like a shield against him.

“I miss you.”

The words flew out of him before he even realized he was saying them out loud.

Something flashed in her eyes.

An emotion he couldn’t read.

He couldn’t read her. At all. He wasn’t used to that, to her closing herself off to him.

Her hands hugged the Bible closer against her.

“I miss you too.”

The words were what he’d wanted to hear, but not in the monotone, emotionless way she said it. Her voice was detached, a thousand miles away from meaning anything. Her gaze moved from side to side, focusing anywhere but on him.

She’d never talked to him in that tone, at least not before the afternoon she’d overheard him talking to Alex.

The memory of that moment had sent a chill straight through him. He felt the same heaviness as that day, the same all-consuming desire to pull her close; to tell her again how sorry he was, how wrong he was to wait so long to tell her the truth.

“The service is about to start.” Her voice silenced his internal dialogue. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

He grabbed on to her words. “When will we talk? I’ve been trying to talk to you for almost four months.”

A muscle in her jaw jumped. Her eyes met his, darkened emotion smoldering there. “I said I needed time, Jason.”

“I know what you said but — “

“We need a break, Jason, okay?”

“We’ve been taking a break.”

“I need a break. A long break.”

He could hear the strain in her voice, the struggle to keep her tone low and even. The doors to the sanctuary closed as the worship team started the music. She gestured curtly toward the glass doors leading outside and darted past him, shoving the front doors open. He followed, taking a step back when she swiveled to face him, eyes flashing. There was no mistaking her emotion now.

It was pure rage.

Let her be angry. 

He wanted answers, and he wasn’t waiting anymore to get them.

“How long of a break? A few days? A couple of weeks? Months? Permanently?”

She raised her hand, palm out, against the assault of questions, peppering at her like bullets out of a howitzer.

“I don’t know. Stop asking me.” Each word snapped out of her like sharped-edge glass cutting at his skin.

 She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out again. Her expression had softened when she met his gaze again.

“I don’t know who I am anymore, Jason. Who I ever was, really. I built my identity around you, around us, for so long and now . . .”

The wall was up again. Her tone flat as she lowered her gaze to the asphalt of the parking lot. “You’re not who I thought I was. Nothing feels the same. I don’t feel the same. I need to see what life is like without you for a while, decide if —”

He didn’t even try to hide his anger. “Decide what? Is this like college again? When you wanted a break? Whatever that meant.”

“I didn’t want a break. You wanted the break, Jason.”

Her recollection skills were clearly lacking. He scoffed, pointed his finger at her accusingly. “No. You said we should take a break and figure out if we were supposed to be together. That if we missed each other, that would tell us what we needed to know. I didn’t want a break, Ellie. You did. You were the one who couldn’t make up you mind. And now you can’t again. Apparently, I’m the only one of us that doesn’t have to ask if we’re meant to be together. I know we’re supposed to be together.”

Her cheeks flushed. “I only suggested the break, Jason.” She folded her arms tight across her chest. “You were the one who seemed thrilled with the idea. Obviously you didn’t miss me that much or you wouldn’t have — ”

“No.” The rumbling timbre of his protest echoed across the parking lot. “No way. That is not fair. I told you what happened. I told you how I thought you didn’t want me. How lonely and messed up I was in college. I told you how upset I was after that night, how I — .”

Her words spilled over his, drowning them out. She tossed her arms to the side. “You told me all that seven years after the fact. Seven years, Jason. I mean, if you hid that from me, what else did you hide from me? What else are you hiding from me now?”

Jason shook his head, hands on hips, looked at the black surface under his feet to calm the storm raging inside him. An ant climbed toward a crack in the asphalt, running along an uneven line of tar. He focused on it, on the freedom it had, and for a split second considered stomping the life out of it to keep it from having the freedom he couldn’t. He lifted his eyes back to hers, releasing the ant from his judgment, killing his own peace with what he said next.

“There’s nothing else, Ellie, but if you don’t feel you can trust me then fine.” His voice trembled under the effort to rein in the rage. “Take your break or whatever it is you’re calling it. Throw away everything we’ve had together for the last ten years. Walk away. If that’s what you want, do it.”

A breeze caught her hair, whipped a few strands across her face. She didn’t push them away. “Jason, don’t be a jerk. How did you think I was going to take all this? Finding out the man I thought saved himself for me was sleeping around in college behind my back?”

He tossed his arms up, slammed them down against his legs. “I wasn’t doing anything behind your back. You’d broke up with me. And I wasn’t sleeping around!” His voice thundered. He took two steps toward her and held up a shaking finger a few inches from her face. “It was one mistake. One stupid mistake. I told you that.”

She met his rage, gaze for gaze, harsh words for harsh words, slapping his hand away from her. “If it was so stupid, why didn’t you tell me when we started dating again? Why did you wait?”

He stepped back, laughed darkly. “What like how you told me about going out with my cousin? Oh wait. You didn’t tell me about that. I found that out from Brad.”

He didn’t miss the fleeting flash of surprise in her eyes before a facade of calm concealed it. She regarded him with a well-practiced poker face, saying nothing.

He didn’t back down. “Yeah. That’s right. You had secrets too, so maybe I should be worried about what you’re not telling me.”

She suddenly gulped back a sob, tears filling her eyes. When she stepped back from him she raised her arm in front of her face, as if to protect herself, as if he’d physically slapped her. In one quick move she pivoted, her back to him, walking swiftly across the parking lot toward her car. He chased after her, reached out, grasped her around her upper arm.

The growl in her voice when she wrenched free stunned him. “Don’t touch me.”

She sucked in a ragged breath, swiped the back of her hand across her tear soaked face, and worked at the key in the door of her car, her entire body trembling.

Panic curled up into his throat, threatening to choke the air out of him. His head felt like a hot-air balloon and the earth intangible around him. “Ellie, we can work this out. Don’t do this.”

She wouldn’t look at him. The lock clicked open, and she slid the key out, flung the door open. Her grief-stricken expression as she looked at him from the driver’s seat dissolved his anger into desolation.

“I don’t think we can, Jason. I really don’t. It’s like I don’t even know you, like everything you are, that we were, was a lie.”

The slam of the door reverberated in his ears long after she closed the door and sped away. He didn’t know how long he stood there, his mind numb from a conversation that had reeled out control.

When he turned toward the church, he saw Molly ashen faced, arms hugged around her as if to protect her from the truth she’d overheard, the truth of who her older brother really was.

Educationally Speaking: Homeschooling Updates

For those who might be new to my blog, I started homeschooling my children a couple of years ago, so our homeschooling journey is unrelated to the reason others are homeschooling these days. That isn’t to say our experience is more valid than others, this is simply an explanation of our homeschooling journey.

My situation may be unique to some homeschooling parent since I am teaching a Kindergartner and eighth grader, but I also know many parents teaching ages from preschool up to 12th depending on how many children they have. So, really, it’s not that unique, I suppose, but it is a challenge for me at times.

What is interesting about teaching these two age groups is that we can overlap some of our lessons, especially for the Kindergartner who can often learn from her brother’s science and history lessons, as long as the history isn’t about wars or genocide, which is obviously a little too heavy for her young brain.

What we learned last month or are doing this month. The Boy:

History

We are continuing to use Notgrass History’s From Adam to Us for history.

This past month we mainly focused on Rome and its rulers, including Julius Caesar. I’m sure I studied Julius Caesar at some point during high school or college, but I don’t remember a lot about it (I’ve mentioned before that my schools seemed to only discuss the landing of the Mayflower, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War and then start back over at the beginning of the next school year and review those same topics again. I swear we never even learned about the World Wars or Korea or Vietnam.). It was very interesting to me to learn how Julius Caesar came to power and that he was a general before he was declared “dictator for life” by the Roman Senate.

I found an interesting video on Caesar and this part of history, but my son spent the time watching it criticizing how they portrayed Roman weaponry and battles (not bloody enough for him apparently).

In February we also learned about Alexander the Great, the Great Wall of China and Judas Maccabeus.

I have started creating my own quizzes for The Boy’s history lessons, which is fun for me because I am able to read over the chapters and learn along with him. Notgrass may offer quizzes for this unit, but I didn’t see one so creating my own allows me to make the quiz as difficult or easy as I like. Plus it means I am reading the chapters along with him and learning more myself.

English

The Boy and I finished reading  Lord of The Flies for English and we used a supplemental curriculum I ordered off of Christianbook to focus on vocabulary and specific plot points and literary analysis. The curriculum was ordered from Christanbook, but it is not strictly Christian curriculum, for anyone who is curious. It provides quizzes for every two chapters and an exam for when the book is finished.

The Boy did not enjoy discussing the symbolism of the book. He said something along the lines of it being a depressing book and he didn’t want to analyze all the reasons why. I’m summarizing his complaints, so I may not have quoted him accurately (in case he one day reads this and says, “I never said that!!!” Which he often does when I repeat things he has said.)

I plan to take a week break and focus on some Mark Twain short stories or excerpts, and then move on to To Kill A Mockingbird for April and May. I had considered reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn but I think The Boy might appreciate a break from the challenging language for the rest of the school year since we read Silas Marner in the beginning of the school year. One of the most fun aspects of homeschooling has been able to read classic books I either read in school or wanted to and books that public schools are trying to ban because many have lost the critical thinking needed to understand we can learn from books even if they have words or ideas in them we don’t agree with.

The Boy is also completing assignments from Wordly Wise for English, which focuses on vocabulary. We started grammar lessons from Saxon again this week. Don’t get me started on Grammar. I know that some grammar obsessed people are thinking, “we won’t because your grammar is atrocious”, but good grief some is the terms that are in this grammar book are insane and I have never heard of them and could not identify them in a sentence to save my life. Apparently I never needed to know all that for my 14-years writing as a reporter or my 43 years of life. I am convinced that grammar teachers teach children grammar so those children can become future grammar teachers and they just repeat the cycle over and over. People don’t even use half that stuff as adults and could care less what an adaptive phrase is. Oops. I guess I got myself started on grammar. (Also, do note that I  understand the importance of grammar. I also understand the importance of not over doing it and going so in depth your brain explodes.)

Math

For Math he is continuing CTC Math and we have discovered additional testing and worksheets that I hadn’t noticed before. He is not appreciative of this latest development because it means more work for him. One issue with this online program is that if he misses one question it brings his grade down and if he misses two he can end up with an “F”. He can make these mistakes by hitting a number by accident. So far, doing the test again doesn’t seem to improve the grade but I am going to contact the site administrators and see if there is a glitch with that.

Economics

We are using Notgrass’ Exploring Economics for Economics and they include history and some Bible along with all the economic terms and history and analyzing. So far it is one of my son’s favorite subjects.

It isn’t his favorite subject this week because I am making him study five units for a unit exam at the end of the week. He is used to me allowing open book tests but I told him we are going to try studying the old fashioned way and doing tests that way too. He is not a fan of the old fashioned way.

Little Miss (Kindergarten)

History

Little Miss has her own history lessons about the time around The Revolutionary War and early American history. We use old episodes of Liberty Kids from YouTube to supplement her lessons. I do not have a specific history curriculum for her this year, but will next year. She also watches some of the videos we watch for her brother’s history lessons, if they are not too violent, or she listens along with Notgrass.

Science: We are doing a unit on deserts for the next couple of weeks and will be doing separate little lessons on some of the animals of the desert. This is a plan I am putting together on my own, but will include some reading, math, coloring, comprehension, and simply learning about the different kinds of deserts (colder and warmer ones).

English:

Little Miss is working her way through language arts curriculum from The Good and The Beautiful. I would say English is the most difficult for her in many ways because she seems to forget her letters and how to sound out words one day and remember it all again the next. I don’t know if it is she really doesn’t remember how to do it all or if she is just showing her stubborn streak (which she totally gets from her father’s side of the family) and pretending she doesn’t remember how to do any of it. Either way, it makes me want to scream some days so teaching her is also teaching me patience. Every day. All week long.

Math

Math is Little Miss’s thing. She loves it. She does not, however, always love doing it the way she is asked to do it. We are currently working with a curriculum from The Good and the Beautiful which utilizes manipulatives so the child can use some hands on activities to solidify not only numbers and how to count, but also how to recognize patterns and follow directions. The other day I asked her to use the wooden blocks the curriculum came with to build a stack of blocks the same way it was built in the photo. She did it differently and when I corrected her she flopped her hands at her side, flounced a small amount, and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling.

“Well, that’s not how I do it,” she huffed.

I told her it wasn’t about how she does it this time. The assignment was to follow the directions. She responded with another eye roll and arm flop so I finally completed the build for her and told her why it was right and hers had been wrong.

“That way is boooring,” she informed me.

A lot of what we do is “boooring” to her right now so I have skipped ahead in math to give her more of a challenge. That will only work if she does it the way she is asked to, but then again, letting her change things up can help her as well, as long as she comes up with the right answer.

The other day I skipped ahead to look for challenges and we stumbled on “odds and evens.” I asked her to wait to do the activity until I could figure out the right way to explain odd and evens to her. She barely listened when I did explain, interrupted me and started completing the activity on her own so apparently she didn’t even need me to explain what it meant. Her brain moves quit fast when it comes to mathematical concepts, which means she is absolutely nothing like her mother and a lot like her father, which is not a bad thing.

Science

Little Miss and The Boy both use The Good and the Beautiful’s Energy Unit. I teach them at the same time twice a week and we may increase that to three times a week for the remainder of our school year.

Art

We do art whenever and wherever but I try to encourage the youngest, at least, to do some form of art through painting, drawing, or crafts throughout the week.

This week I set up a meeting with our homeschool evaluator for the end of our school year. In our state we file an intent to homeschool letter with the school district we live in at the beginning of the school year. We also file an affidavit attesting to what we will teach our children throughout the year. Our state recently lowered the compulsory age for children to attend school to six, when it was previously eight. I think I have that last age correct.

Anyhow, because Little Miss turned 6-years old after the Sept. 1 deadline we did not have to file an intent to homeschool for her this year. Technically I didn’t even have to teach her this year because I don’t have to file an evaluation for her at the end of the school year (prior to July 1). Regardless I taught her last year and I am again teaching her this year. Last year we focused on preschool and kindergarten and this year we are focusing on kindergarten and branching into first grade.

I do have to file an evaluation for The Boy and he also has to take a standardized test, which he can do on the computer. I know the children are anxious for the school year to be over, but, alas, they still have about three months left so they will have to hang in there. Luckily our weather is warming up so at least they can do some of their work outside on the porch or even scrap part of that work for a couple of field trips.

Sunday Bookends: Her last Name Is Really Raisin? And Let’s See How Reading Non-Fiction Goes

Welcome to my weekly post where I recap my week by writing about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing, and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.

What I’m Reading

Non-fiction has been the theme this week, to a point. I can only take small doses of non-fiction anymore and if I get too much by my two to three minutes of news viewing a day, then I don’t open the non-fiction books I have on my Kindle or in my hands. Speaking of Kindle, I’ll be buying a lot more of my non-fiction books as hardcopies in case Amazon decides they want to delete my books from my Kindle or cloud. A monopoly book company isn’t going to tell me what I can and can not read, thank you very much.

So, anyhow, in non-fiction, I started Jordan Peterson’s new book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life this week. It was released Tuesday.

I wouldn’t call myself a Peterson follower, but his intellect and ideas intrigue me. He’s not a Christian writer, though he references the Bible often, so I wouldn’t base my life strictly on all that he says. Still, he has some good points.

This book presents some challenges for the intellectual giant who faced some serious health issues with his wife and himself in 2019 and almost all of 2020. During a time when his daughter needed surgery outside of his country of Canada and his wife faced cancer, Peterson was already starting to suffer from the effects of an autoimmune issue he developed in 2017 from food and benzodiazepine his doctor prescribed to help with anxiety from the autoimmune condition. He’d also continued the benzodiazepine to help with the stress he was under from becoming a public figure when he stood up against a Canadian law aiming to force people to call people by the pronoun they said they wanted to be called by. Peterson felt personal freedoms were being stripped from people by laws being passed to say they had to refer to people by whatever pronoun they wanted. Students and others tried to get him fired and bam — his notoriety was off and running.

The side effects of the drugs, coupled with the rest of the stress Peterson was under caused his body, essentially, to fall apart and also threatened a mind that even his critics have called brilliant. Only in the last few months has Peterson been able to get back to writing, speaking, and presenting his ideas (which are not all political and not as extreme as some of his critics would like you to believe), mainly through finishing this book (the sequel to 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos) and starting a podcast. He has been unable to return to teaching or to treating patients. He was a clinical psychologist before all his health issues hit and while being a professor at the University of Toronto.

The second non-fiction book I am reading is by Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator who I sometimes enjoy and who sometimes grates on me, depending on what topic he is rambling about.

Ben’s book, How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps, was written last year and focuses on the idea that the ability to hold civil disagreements, especially when it comes to politics, is disintegrating and that many want that disintegration to happen so that we never have actual discussions about what we disagree with, we simply pick sides, stand on our sides, and scream at each other. While we are screaming at each other we also try to “cancel” each other and tell anyone who doesn’t follow politics what they can and can not read, see, listen to, watch, or talk about. In other words, the world is out of control and Ben doesn’t like that and believes the rest of us shouldn’t either.

The book’s main point is that many of us have preconceived notions about each other based on politics and that’s not a good thing.

I’ll be reading more of the book this week to see what all Ben has to say.

I also hope to start a book by Steven Furtick that I’ve had in my Kindle for a while and didn’t realize it: Seven Mile Miracle.

I will, however, need to break up my non-fiction reading with some fiction so I am continuing Death Without Company by Craig Johnson and also started a light romance by Tari Farris called You Belong With Me.

Little Miss and I finished Stormy: Misty’s Foal this past week and started Sea Star by the same author (Marguerite Henry).

I also finished Lord of the Flies, which I was reading with The Boy for his English. He will probably finish it next week. His progress is broken up by me asking him to do various questions and chapter quizzes in the middle of his reading assignments.

I rambled about my feelings about the book and how different it was for me to read it as an adult than a 10th grader, last week on the blog.

 What I’m Watching

I was unnecessarily excited when I saw The Mallorca Files Season 2 pop up on Britbox last week. The excitement I felt either shows how sad my life is or how necessary it is for me to have something to drown out my depression. Actually, it demonstrates both. Either way, it turns out my husband must also have a sad life and the need to drown out depression because he was also excited and we watched two episodes of the six-episode series in one night. They usually offer more episodes, but filming was cut short because of You Know What.

I also continued to watch Agatha Raisin, a series about a woman in public relations who becomes an amateur detective in the small town she lives in. There was a movie before the series, which I discovered this week and now helps me understand why the first episode of the series simply seemed to start in the middle and not explain what other cases Agatha had helped the town and their bumbling police department with.

The show is okay but mainly features an annoying, pushy woman with no filter, wearing an annoying hair cut that resembles what some historians say Cleopatra wore, nosing around town, pushing her way into people’s business, and accusing everyone in the town of murder until she accidentally stumbles on the actual criminal.

My son and I joked that when new people move into town and Agatha accuses them of murder the rest of the people in town laugh. Then they assure the newcomer, “Oh, that’s Agatha. Don’t worry. You’re not a part of the town until she accuses you of murder.”

Despite our making fun of the show, I will most likely continue to watch it to give my brain a break from actually having to think too much. I finally paid attention to the beginning credits of the show and saw right before I published this that the show is based on a series of books with the same character, and in some instances by the same name of the episodes, by M.C. Beaton. I glanced at the beginning of one on Amazon and plan to buy one in the future.

On Sunday of last week, I took a DVD of Mr. Blandings Build a House, a movie from 1948 with Cary Grant and Myrna Lloyd. Even The Boy laughed at it. It is a very funny movie for anyone who is looking for a laugh these days. It ages well because what Mr. and Mrs. Blandings go through to build a new house is spot on with what still happens today. The social commentary from the oldest daughter about the world is also hilarious because, again, it sounds so much like conversations many of us are having today.

I was surprised by the daughters talking back to their parents and jokingly asked my parents, who would have been 4 when this movie came out if they ever talked to their parents that way. I knew, the answer already, of course, but my mom’s wide eyes and head tilt, as if to say, “Are you serious right now?” was totally hilarious. Less hilarious was the fact my grandfather was abusive, which I was reminded of when my mom said, “Am I alive right now?” That obviously meant that if she had ever spoken to her father the way those children did, he would have whipped her into Sunday.

My dad never answered, but I am pretty sure his father would have smacked him pretty good if he had spoken back to him, based on the stories I heard about him. He was not, however, abusive like my other grandfather. A quick clarification: my maternal grandfather was abusive, but he later knew admitted he was wrong and did offer an apology to my grandmother, mother, and aunts before he passed from cancer in the late 1980s.

What I’m Listening To

This week I have been listening to a lot of Christian worship or Christian contemporary, including Cory Asbury and Danny Gokey. I also listened to some Brandon Lake, Needtobreathe and threw in some The Dead South just be eclectic and weird.

What’s Been Occurring

I love the weekly post idea that Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, stole from Bella at Over the Tea Cups.

 Erin writes about her week as if we are all sitting around having a cup of tea (I’ll take herbal, please, Erin. I have a caffeine allergy, sadly. Don’t be afraid to slide a cookie over to me too.). 

I may adopt this idea as well and post it on Saturdays, but for now, I’ll keep my ramblings about my week to one post. I mean, how many posts about my boring life do you need to read a week? Well, a couple I suppose since I only write about my boring life on my blog. Ha!

Anyhow, on the subject of boring, our week was boring. We did school work, I went to the store once, we picked up some Subway, and I messed around with figuring out book promotion and reading up on improving my writing skills for fiction (and everything else). I publish my books for fun but if it brought in a little money on the side to support our family, that would be helpful. My husband says I will get better with each book I write. I hope he is correct on that front.

What I’ve Been Writing

Writing about book promotion is a good way to move into what I have been writing lately. I’ve already mentioned a couple of times on the blog that I published The Farmer’s Daughter last week. I don’t like to keep mentioning it because this blog isn’t about advertising or marketing. I do know some of you followed it, however, so I will mention that the final version of it is on sale on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Apple iBooks, Scribd, and Kobo.

If you have read the book and liked it, please feel free to leave a review on whatever source you read it from. Reviews help indie authors immensely.

I have been posting excerpts of The Farmers’ Sons on Fridays and this week I posted on Friday and another excerpt on Saturday.

Earlier in the week I:

 reviewed Sweeter by Jere Steele;

wrote about how God can fill in the gaps between our creativity and how it can benefit others;

wrote a parallel between how our world has gone mad and Lord of the Flies. 

So that is my week in review. How about you? Reading any good books? Watching anything good? Do anything exciting? Let me know in the comments.

Special Saturday Fiction: The Farmers’ Sons Chapter 3 Part 2

I somehow skipped part 2 of Chapter 2 when sharing excerpts from my latest work in progress so I posted that part yesterday. Today I am posting the second part of Chapter 3.

For anyone new here, I post a piece of fiction or a serial story I am working on each Friday. The excerpt is a work in progress and will go through various drafts and rewrites before I publish it anywhere in the future.

To catch up with the rest of the story click HERE or find the link at the top of the page. You will also find a link to The Farmer’s Daughter under the “books for sale” tab. Or at least I hope you will because at the time of writing this, I was working on updating my blog header. On the page for The Farmer’s Daughter, you can read an excerpt and find out where to purchase a copy of the full novel.

6 a.m.

His dad had given him the morning off, telling him Troy would fill in for him, but Jason hadn’t been able to sleep. His mind was still racing over his “proposal” to Ellie. Which hadn’t been a proposal, but she thought it was a proposal so  . . . yeah. It was a proposal. And he was glad. He wanted to marry her, start a family with her, but they needed to start that life together off on the right foot and right now it was standing square on the wrong one.

He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but visions of what might happen when he talked to Ellie swirled in his mind. He pushed those images away by trying to focus on his to-do list for the day but then his mind spun off into a hundred what-ifs about the future of the farm.

At 6:30, he gave up on sleep and headed to the gym in Spencer. After a 30-minute workout it was on to the local Agway in Spencer. He needed some new fencing for the chicken pen and his mom had also asked for some for her garden to keep the deer away from her lettuce and green beans. He’d grab some breakfast at Denny’s Diner on the way back and try to take his mind off on trying to figure out the right time to talk to Ellie.

He nodded at Daniel Stanton on his way out of the Agway. “Mornin’.”

“Hey, Jason. You’re in town early.”

“Yeah, had the morning off from the barn.”

“Troy filling in?”

“Yeah. Hopefully it will still be standing when I get back.”

Daniel laughed, pulling his green John Deere cap further down on his head. “Let’s hope so. Troy is a bit spacy at times. Hey, how’s Alex holding up this morning?”

Jason shrugged, reaching for the fencing from one of the employees, a teenager, probably about 16, but everyone was looking younger and younger to Jason these days. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen him yet today. Why?”

Daniel laughed. “Nothing. Just had his hands full last night when he left Marty’s.”

Jason cocked an eyebrow. “Hands full?”

“Yeah. With Jessie Landry.”

Jason cleared his throat as he lifted the fencing into his truck. “Oh. I don’t know.” He grinned, trying to hide how uncomfortable he was with the idea of Alex bringing someone like Jessie Landry back to their place. “I’ll have to ask him later when I see him.”

Daniel nudged Jason in the arm with his elbow. “He’s probably still trying to recover. She’s a firecracker. See you tomorrow at the gym?”

Jason loaded the last of the fencing. “Unless something more important comes up.”

Like if I have to slap some sense into Alex instead, he thought, slamming the tailgate closed.

When he pulled the truck into the driveway an hour later, after a stop the diner and his parents to drop off the fencing, Alex’s red and black pickup was still parked in front of the house.

Not a good sign.

In fact, it might be a sign he was back to his old ways.

The door to the old farmhouse needed to be painted. It creaked open.

It needs to be oiled too.

Jason didn’t close it quietly. It slammed hard behind him and he took the old wooden stairs beyond the living room two at a time.

He pounded on the bedroom door across from the bathroom with his fist “Alex! Yo! You gettin’ up today?”

A groggy groan emanated from behind the door.

“I’ve already been to the barn and back,” Jason said. “And the gym. And the hardware store. And Denny’s.”

Silence.

“Hello?”

He heard a thud and then . . . more silence.

Then finally, “Yeah. Comin’. Just . . .” Another groan. “I’ll be right down.”

Yep. Alex is definitely back to his old ways.

That meant late nights at the bar, strange women calling his cellphone, and hangovers in the barn that Jason tried to distract his dad from.

Jason made sure to slam cupboard doors and clank a spoon loudly into a bowl downstairs.

Footsteps on the stairs moved slow but steady until Alex slumped into a chair at the table.

Jason tried to remind himself what Alex did with his life wasn’t his business. Still, he hated to see him turn back to a path that had left him vulnerable to be hurt and hurt others. Plus, Jason’s family was personally invested in Alex now, not only as an employee but essentially another member of the family.

 “Cereal?”

Alex nodded. “Sure.”

Jason pushed the cereal toward him and reached for milk in the refrigerator.

“You go out last night?”

Alex poured milk on his cereal without looking up. “Yeah.”

“Daniel Stanton said you left the bar last night with Jessie Landry hanging all over you.”

Alex scowled at his bowl, still not looking up. “If Daniel Stanton already told you I was at the bar, then why did you ask if I went out?”

Jason shrugged, folding his arms across his chest. “So, you ended up back up here?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t see her this morning when I got up. Is she still asleep?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. I – sent her home. Or rather, she left. In a bit of a huff, really.”

“So, you didn’t sleep with her?”

Alex shook his head, shoving a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

Jason leaned back, reaching for his coffee cup on the counter and sipping from it. He winced. It was cold, which wasn’t surprising since it was four hours old. “Really? Well, that’s new. What happened?”

Alex glared, milk dripping down his chin. He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth.

“What does that mean, Jase? You act like I’m some man-whore or something. It’s not like I’m bedding girls every night.”

Jason laughed and shook his head. “Not every night, no.”

“Actually, if you’ll remember, I haven’t brought a girl back here in almost two years. Maybe even longer.”

Jason rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin. He probably shouldn’t push the issue any further, but with the way Alex had been acting around Molly, he needed to know if Alex was looking at her as another conquest.

“So, you’re not bringing them back to our place, maybe you’re — ”

“I’m not,” Alex snapped, shoving the last of the cereal into his mouth and gulping the remaining milk down.

“Okay. Okay.” Jason leaned back against the counter, crossed one leg over another. “Don’t be so touchy.”

The chair tipped back as Alex pushed himself back from the table and stood abruptly.

“I’m not the jerk you act like I am, Jason.” His jaw was tight. He turned and walked back toward the stairs. “I’m going to get a shower.

He knew he pushed Alex too far, but he also knew Alex had changed for the better over the last few years and he didn’t want to see all his hard work go down the drain. Alex had told him more than once over the years that he wanted to be a better man. He wanted to drink less and work harder and that’s what he’d been doing up until last night.

Jason rolled his eyes and shook his head, pouring the coffee down the drain. What was he even doing? Considering his own past history of lying he had no right to act like Alex’s moral guide.  He’d never developed the drinking the problem Alex had and he definitely hadn’t gone out with as many women as Alex, but he still wasn’t any better than Alex simply because he attended church and Alex didn’t.

He’d tried hard the last few years to forget that period of time in college, especially that one night, to redeem himself, and create a better version of himself by attending church, leading Bible studies, taking care of his family. The Bible said he didn’t need to work for his forgiveness, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he did.

It should matter more to him what God thought, but there was no denying that to him nothing mattered if Ellie didn’t forgive him for what he’d done.

What Ellie would think of him when she found out? Would she understand that Lauren Phillips had meant nothing to him? That his time with Lauren had been a distraction from his hurt, his loneliness, his confusion over why Ellie had wanted a break in their relationship?

He was going to have to find out soon what Ellie thought because he wanted that all on the table before they announced their engagement. There was a good chance when Ellie heard it all she would decide she didn’t want to be engaged anymore anyhow.