Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 51

Getting Ready for Jane Austen January

Hey, can you come here for a minute? Yeah, lean in close. I have a secret to tell you that might shock you.

I’ve never – whoo-boy. Can’t believe I’m about to say this.

I’ve never read a Jane Austen book all the way through.

Wince.

I know! It’s a big-time reader sin – especially when you are a female.

I have the books on my shelves and intended to read Pride and Prejudice last year but never got there. Now I’m in the middle of A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens and Little Women by Alcott and I have two ARCs to read before February so I probably will not read a Jane Austen book in January.

I will, however, be watching movies based on Jane Austen books with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs during the month of January. If you want to join in, we are inviting you to do so and to add any blog posts you write about Jane or the movies to our linky. The link up will be at the top of my page starting next week.

(As an aside, our Comfy, Cozy Christmas link up is still live if you want to add any Christmas-themed or related posts there.)

Here is the list of movies we are watching for the month and I do want to note that for Pride and Prejudice both of us prefer the 1995 BBC mini-series but it is much longer than a movie so we opted for the 2005 movie with Kiera Knightly and what’s-his-face. Sorry, but I don’t acknowledge anyone other than Colin Firth as Mr. Mark Darcy. Even from the short bit I’ve read of the book, I know that he simply IS Mark Darcy.

Movies and the dates we will be writing about them:

Sense and Sensibility – 1995 (January 11th)

Pride and Prejudice -2005 (January 18th)

Emma – 1996 (January 25th)

Miss Austen Regrets (February 1)

For fun and to kick off the month I will be watching Persuasion on my own and rambling about it on January 4.

Note: You do NOT have to write about the movies on the same days we do. If you watch a movie and write about it on any day you can still post in the link up. Any post about Jane Austen, not just these movies, is also allowed. So, posts about the books are absolutely allowed too!

Have fun with it. Ramble about your love or even your disdain for Jane. Okay, maybe don’t express too much vitriol about Jane. Ha! Ha! We’re trying to keep this fairly positive and fun!

Saturday Evening Chat: Baking cookies, relaxing by the fire, and getting ready for Christmas

I am so glad you came for a visit. Come sit. Don’t mind the cat sitting on the top of my bookcase. She’s weird.

Here we are, two days before Christmas.

Would you like a cup of cocoa, tea, or coffee? How about some homemade chocolate chip cookies?

My parents, daughter, and son made them the other day.

Last we spoke I was dealing with Covid but then I suddenly wasn’t.

It was a short bout, thank God (literally). I couldn’t help worrying that it would be worse, though, since I’d had such a bad case in 2021.

None of us had very serious lingering issues from it, just a bit of congestion for a few days afterward. It was honestly such a quick illness it felt more like allergies. If it hadn’t been for the insane burning in my nose and eyes and the fever darted up so high and then down again, I would have suspected it was just allergies.

The rest of the week was spent doing schoolwork, baking cookies with my parents, watching Christmas movies, and procrastinating on housework.

The cookie baking was funny because there was a lot of debate among my parents and Little Miss on how to make the cookies.

“That’s too much sugar.”

“That’s what the recipe calls for.”

“But the flour into the egg mixture not the egg mixture into the flour.”

“Is that too much butter?”

“No, just use the spoon and put the dollops on. Don’t roll them into balls.”

In the end, they came out fine but were very small and very, very sweet. They were so sweet, I made myself sick after only three.

Today I need to finish some dishes and vacuum the floors in my living room, kitchen (don’t ask why it has carpet in there), and Little Miss’s room. Yes, I am procrastinating again, why do you ask?

Tomorrow we are going to visit my parents for Christmas Eve. We plan to have pizza and wings and watch a couple of movies (White Christmas and Elf).

We will be back there again on Monday for Christmas Day.

I plan to take a break from things like Instagram and Facebook this upcoming week and maybe even longer. It’s very much grating on my nerves. Threads, for example, is horribly annoying even though I deleted the app and do my best to ignore it. I really want Instagram to stop putting it in my feed to try to capture me with the drama everyone vomits on there.

I do very well ignoring it but once in a while a sentence catches my attention and I go over and look, but it’s almost always someone writing something extremely controversial and then writing afterward: “but I don’t want to debate this.”

You don’t want to debate this.

Ah. Okay. Then what was your point of putting it out there in public? You just wanted everyone to pat you on the back and praise you? You expected all love and no pushback on a site becoming known for its intolerance and vitriol?

I couldn’t even share one drop about anything about my faith without getting at least one or two nasty comments when I was on it very briefly. I left as fast as I could when I saw all the biting sarcasm, snarkiness, and just out and out rudeness.

I just don’t have time for all that hatred balled up in one place.

Lately being on social media has felt like a kid that’s had too much candy to me. You eat just enough to satisfy your desire to connect with people and then you eat a little more but as you continue to eat you feel sick and then sicker and then you’re throwing up and that’s finally when you decide you’ve had enough and you need some real food.

And by “you” I mean “me”, of course, because most of my readers have been smarter than me and have stayed clear of social media altogether. God bless you.

So today I am doing my best to spend as much time as I can off social media. T least a little.

I am posting here or there but not scrolling much and for most of today I’ll be watching old movies, a Christmas movie or two, and reading a book. I would be off social media completely if I didn’t need to promote my books a little.

The Husband is working today so I’m sad he’s not here to watch movies with us but he will be at my parents tomorrow and with us on Monday and most of the rest of the week.

We will not be having a white Christmas this year since all we have had is rain and gloom for the last several days and are set to have the same for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Our last semi-significant snow was on December 11 and Little Miss had a blast playing in it with Zooma The Wonder Dog.

Tonight as I finish this post, I am sitting by the fire and looking out at my neighbor’s beautiful Christmas lights.

I’m watching While You Were Sleeping and I was contemplating what to make for dinner but the kids have all decided they want something different and are going to make it themselves so I am on my own for dinner and that’s fine with me. As an aside – what is with While You Were Sleeping? It’s such a weird movie. Why have I now watched it three times? The woman should have told them the truth from the start. It’s just so weird and then they’re all fine with it at the end of the movie. Gah. It’s weird, people! Weird!

Anyhow, the lights are on the Christmas tree and I’m enjoying it while I can because The Husband starts taking it down the day after Christmas. I’m going to try to drag it out until at least January 1 this year. I’ll jump on his back and yell “Noooo! Leave it alone, you big bully!”

I don’t think I’ll really do that. I’ll just ask him to leave it up and  he’ll say, “Okay.”

I won’t be back for a Sunday Bookends post tomorrow so I will chat with you all again sometime next week. Bring your tea or I’ll make you whatever I have here.
How was your week last week?

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

Faithfully Thinking: Making Pockets of Jesus’ Peace this Christmas season

As many of us know, Jesus may not have actually been born on December 25, but instead, he was most likely born a couple months earlier. No matter the exact date, this is the time of year when we as Christians unite to celebrate his birth, to remember he came as God’s ambassador to us – as a way to bridge that gap between the divine and humanity.

Finding peace in the midst of the Christmas season can be a challenge to those who are planning parties, cooking for family gatherings, or trying to figure out what to buy for gifts.

We may not all be as busy during this time of year but almost all of us find our attention being pulled away from the focus of the real reason for the season.

The gift of Jesus is more important than any gift that can be left under our trees or in our stockings. Through him, we were given salvation – eternal life with God in heaven despite the sins we have committed. We have been shown grace, divine love, and supernatural forgiveness and restoration.

No piece of jewelry, new clothing, good food, or even good company can compare to that gift.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy the celebratory nature of the holidays, but while we enjoy our family time or holiday parties we can pause and reflect on the peace of Christ, which can help bring us our own peace. Jesus gives us peace beyond our understanding.

If we want to have peace during the holiday season, we may need to create moments that will facilitate it. Waiting for small spaces of calm won’t work when the world itself doesn’t wait.

We have to make those pockets of calm for ourselves or they might not happen.

I first wrote about pockets of peace and our need for them in a blog post earlier this year.

In that post, I mentioned that to create small spaces of peace for myself I had to do things like putting my phone down and getting off social media, shutting off the TV, keeping myself away from any news or information from the outside world, and not ruminating on all the tasks I need to be doing.

“They were little pockets of time in my day where I could regulate my thoughts and my soul, even if only slightly,” I wrote in the post. “It helped give my nerves and mind time to calm down, instead of continuing to race and raise my cortisol to dangerous levels. I even made a point to pull a blanket over my lap and make a cup of tea during those times, mentally envisioning myself in a type of comfort zone.”

The idea for Christmas pockets of peace is the same. If you do play music make it sacred Christmas music that will remind you of Jesus’ place in the season. If you read, make it something that will remind you of the birth of our savior. If you watch something, watch something that will also bring you back to the reason we celebrate in the first place.

One way to do this might be to find a devotional you can read during the weeks leading up to Christmas. I didn’t do that this year and I regret that but I hope to look for one on my You Vision app this week.

You could also watch a dramatic representation of the nativity story, such as the ones presented by the creators of The Chosen over the years. I’ll link to those at the end of the post.

However you choose to decompress from the busyness of the season, I encourage you to remember that your pockets of peace don’t have to be long to be impactful. Even five to ten minutes of listening to a calming song or reading an inspirational devotional can be enough to remind you what is really important this time of year.

Weekend Traffic Reboot for December 21

Welcome to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food For Hungry People and me.

This is a post where we open up a link to bloggers of all kinds to share a blog post they wrote recently or even a long time ago. All we ask is that the posts be family-friendly.

I am so sorry for posting this late (we try to get it live at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday) this week. It completely slipped my mind. It was a very busy day making cookies with my kids and parents.

I do not have a list of three favorites this week but I will make up for it next week.

Our most clicked post was:

Christmas Table Lunch Setting by Thrifting Wonderland

Feel free to link up here with a post from your previous week or from any past post from your blog.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enterhttps://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

Three light-hearted or sweet Christmas movie suggestions for you to watch this weekend

Here are three movies I am recommending you watch to keep yourself in the Christmas spirit this weekend.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered For Christmas

I watched this one a week before last and I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time I watched it two years ago. Now, is this movie a bit cheesy like most Hallmark movies? Yes, but it also has some of the most poignant, beautiful, and touching moments I’ve seen in a movie not produced by a Christian company. There are messages in this movie that so clearly point to Christ and redemption it is mind-blowing.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered was a show for a brief time on the Hallmark Channel and follows the lives of four people who work for the old letter office in the United States Postal Service. The characters in the show take a letter or package and try to reunite it with its owner, no matter how many years have passed since it was lost.

Sometimes the show is unbelievable and maybe a little silly but I fell in love with the characters so I continued to watch it when they made the show into TV movies instead. There are several (sorry, I didn’t stop to count before I wrote this) 90-minute movies featuring the characters and I believe I’ve watched all of them now.

I watched this on Peacock this year but you can also watch it through the Hallmark Channel on Amazon or the Hallmark Channel app, I believe, but don’t quote me on that.

Trading Christmas

I have watched this movie at least once every Christmas since finding it four years ago. It stars Tom Cavanaugh and Faith Ford and it has humor, sweet moments, romance, and it’s about a writer so you know it interested me.

It is a Hallmark movie (again) and (again) I know they have a reputation for being poorly written and cheesy but this, like Signed, Sealed, Delivered holds up pretty well and is worth the watch. Will there be a trope or two you roll your eyes at? Yeah, probably, but I think Tom Cavanaugh’s sarcasm and snarkiness will help heal those wounds.

The premise behind the movie is that Faith Ford was expecting her daughter to come home from college for Christmas but the daughter wants to go somewhere else with her boyfriend so Faith’s character has to decide what to do with herself. Her husband passed away six years ago but she’s always had her daughter home with her. Her friend (Gabriella Miller) tells her on the phone she should do something bold this year for Christmas and let her daughter grow up on her own. Faith takes this advice to heart and signs up for a Christmas trade with Tom Cavanaugh’s character. Faith lives in a little tiny and Tom lives in New York City so he comes to the tiny town to finish his novel and Faith goes to NYC to have a new experience. While there she meets Tom’s brother played by Gil Bellows and – well, no spoilers here but he is a perfect gentleman.

Tom on the other hand is not a perfect gentleman when Faith’s friend shows up at her house, thinking she will surprise Faith for Christmas (because Faith didn’t tell her about the trading houses thing).

I own this one but you can watch it on Amazon with a premium subscription, Apple TV for purchase, The Roku Channel, Vudu, and YouTube Premium. I also found it free on YouTube with captions in another language but I can’t vouch for it being the full movie.

One Special Night

This movie is for us oldies – it features two well-known actors – James Gardner and Julie Andrews – who are stranded together in a cabin in the woods. Yes, it is that old trope but it is a very subtle and sweet use of it and not a raunchy one. Julie’s character lost her husband a year earlier but is visiting the staff at the nursing home and James’ character is visiting his ill wife.

A storm is coming and Julie offers James a ride home. Her car crashes in the snow and they start walking and find an old cabin. They spend the night there and end up getting to know each other. There are a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings after that, including the complication of James’ wife still being alive. Lest you think this is a movie about cheating, it is not. It is all very tastefully addressed and the relationship between James and Julie remains a friendship throughout most of the movie.

I found this one a bit predictable but still sweet especially because the main actors were such legendary ones.

I watched this one on Amazon but I see it is now streaming for free on several streaming services including Peacock, The Roku Channel, Tubi, Pluto, Plex, Vudu, and Amazon with an Amazon Prime Video subscription.

Have you seen any of these movies? What did you think of them?

11 Christmas Movie Suggestions and Reviews For You

Last year Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I watched several Christmas movies and wrote about them. We had a two-month-long Christmas-themed celebration and it was lovely.

Today I thought I’d share with you a list of those posts so you can find some old favorites you haven’t seen in a while or maybe some new Christmas watches. I’m also going to add any Christmas movies I’ve written about in the last couple of weeks.

You can click on whichever title catches your attention and see what I said about them.

I don’t remember if I shared where you can find the movies in these posts but I can tell you that I watch most of my movies on either Amazon Video, Paramount, or Max, but sometimes I can also find them for free on Tubi or YouTube.

Holiday Inn

The Muppets Christmas Carol

White Christmas

A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

The Man Who Invented Christmas

It’s A Wonderful Life

Emett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas

Beyond Tomorrow

We’re No Angels

The Bells of St. Mary’s

Holiday Affair

Are any on this list that you have enjoyed or plan to watch? What others would you add?

This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas feature. If you would like to link up a blog post to our linky you can find out more about the feature HERE.

The Star

This is a post I wrote in 2017 about the star my dad puts at the top of the field next to his house.

He and my son set the star up yesterday but I missed the photos because I didn’t realize they’d already done it. I was sitting inside a warm house talking to my mom instead. Oops.

Here is the post from 2018 and some photos from 2017, 2019, and 2020.

They carried the star up the steep, snow-covered hill because the truck’s tires spun and sent the hunk of metal skittering sideways toward the old dirt road. In the end, they left the truck in the field and slid the star, made of wood and strands of Christmas lights off the roof. Their breath steamed patterns out in front of them as they walked and the sun, a misleading sign of the outside temperature, cast long shadows onto the untouched surface of the snow that fell the day before.

Ropes were looped and tied and hooked on a pulley, the ladder was climbed and the star was hoisted with a couple reminders from father-in-law to son-in-law to “be careful of the lights! You’re hitting the lights on the tree!” But finally it was high enough and nails were hammered in to hold it in place.

Dad built the star several years ago and put it at the edge of the woods, at the top of the field and where people driving by on Route 220, across the Valley could see it. It has become a beacon, you could say. A beacon of good will, or peace, or joy or whatever it represents for each person who sees it. It can mean a lot of things for a lot of people but for Dad it is a sign of hope and the real reason behind Christmas. After all – isn’t that what the birth of Jesus was all about? Bringing hope to a hurting, fallen world?

So on this little hill, in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, my dad hangs his homemade, 50-some pound star, and with it hangs a little bit of hope – hope for health, for peace, for love for all, hope for the broken, the weary, the shattered souls.  And it reminds us who is the hope of the world.

Isaiah 9:6-7

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

Sunday Bookends: Christmas movies, Christmas books, Christmas, Christmas, and more … yes, Christmas

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer , Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at  The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote yesterday that I tested positive for Covid on Friday. I must have been at the tail end of it because yesterday morning I woke up with my nose clear and able to taste and smell again. I pretty much felt like I hadn’t had anything at all. I had written yesterday’s blog post on Friday evening when I was at my worst – congested and swollen in my nose, no smell or taste, and this horrible burning up my nose and through my sinuses that kept coming in waves and making my eyes water so bad I couldn’t see.

I literally cried when I could taste peanut butter and smell my essential oils in the morning. I know it seems dramatic and if you don’t know my back story with Covid-induced smell and taste loss then it does seem that way.

My previous smell and taste loss lasted a couple of weeks or more and when it returned my smell and taste were distorted for months afterward.

You can read more about that on the blog by searching Covid in the search bar to the right, though I’d just skip it because it’s depressing. Ha! It’s depressing but also gets hopeful later and taught me about trusting God.

Today when I made myself some deli ham on lettuce with Italian dressing (I’m trying to cut bread all the way out for health reasons) and I could taste the Italian dressing I felt weepy. I really did.

Every time I can smell something or taste something I feel immediate gratitude.

While I didn’t like the fear that came with getting Covid again since my last bout sent me to the hospital for five days (hooked up to a very low dose of oxygen for a day and a half of those days), I do like the reminder God gave me with this that he got me through that first bout and he is going to get me through whatever struggles I am facing now.

Much like a rainbow is a reminder of God’s promise to never flood the earth again, being able to smell and taste is like a reminder to me that God hasn’t failed me and doesn’t intend to let me fall now.

This illness was like a short head cold but I was very concerned part of the time it would be longer, like Covid was for me and my family before. I remained calm most of the time with a few breakdowns of crying, but trying to remember the verses about Jesus giving us peace that passes all understanding.

Most of the time I felt very peaceful. I did not feel dragged out like I did when I’ve been sick in the past.

Still, I prayed to God on Friday and asked him to please give me a sign that I was going to be okay. I prayed again very, very early Saturday morning when I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I asked God to forgive me for me being annoyed because I had just been thankful for being able to smell and taste a few days before and now it was being taken away again. I asked God to forgive me for not being thankful that I was breathing okay.

At 6:45 a.m. I still couldn’t smell anything.

At 9:30 a.m. I could both smell and taste.

Little Miss and my fever were gone (mine had been gone even when I tested positive for Covid the day before) and we both felt almost like we’d never been sick in the first place.

Talk about an answer to prayer.

We are in quarantine another day and then I can finally see my parents in person for the first time in two weeks.

What I/we’ve been Reading

Because my eyes were watering a lot this week, I didn’t read as much as I wanted to. I did continue some of my Christmas Regency romance book, which is a collection of novellas in one book. I am in the second novella now.

I also read a little of Southern Snow by B.R. Goodwin. I hope to have at least Southern Snow finished this week, but I also hope to finish Christmas in Absaroka by Craig Johnson.

Since it is the week before Christmas, I will probably continue to read A Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems, which is a collection of Christmas stories by a variety of authors, including L.M. Montgomery, Louise May Alcott, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain as well.

Oh, and I will definitely be finishing up my audiobook of Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon which I have been listening to each night before bed. I mentioned before on here that I didn’t know if I liked the narrator but I absolutely love him as I continue to listen so I wanted to correct that. From what I understand he also narrates the other audiobooks of the Mitford series so I hope to collect them over time.

Little Miss and I are listening to The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever again.

What We watched/are Watching

Since we couldn’t leave the house last week, I watched more than I do other weeks.

I watched We’re Not Angels as a buddy watch with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, and blogged about it.

I also watched Going My Way, the prequel to The Bells of St. Mary’s. I’ll blog about it later this week but really enjoyed it. I might have liked The Bells of St. Mary’s better, though. I don’t know. They were both very good and watching them close together was a good idea.

I then watched the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol and while I am about done with watching any more movies based on this book, I loved this one. This is probably my favorite version so far.

My aunt used to look for this version every year and I didn’t know why until I watched it this week. I wish I had taken the time to watch it with her when she was still alive.

I will blog about it later this week but for now, I will say I loved the acting in the movie. I also loved how I really feel this movie gave us more time with each character and gave us a more well-rounded impression of them. That well-rounded impression connected me to the characters more than any other movie I’ve seen and maybe even more than the book itself, which made the emotional impact of what unfolded even more powerful for me.

I highly recommend this version if you’re going to watch a movie adaptation of this story.

Last night I watched a Christmas episode of All Creatures Great and Small (the latest version).

This week I plan to load myself up on Christmas movies including The Man Who Invented Christmas, The Man Who Came To Dinner, White Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and maybe Arthur Christmas.

I will also be watching Christmas-themed YouTube videos and a couple of Christmas specials from the creators of The Chosen.

What I’m Writing

This past week I shared a lot of Christmas-themed blog posts including:

Saturday Afternoon Chat: I can’t smell. I can’t taste. But I can feel the wind on my face. Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot for December 15 Comfy, Cozy Christmas: We’re No Angels Comfy, Cozy Christmas. Christmas memories: Our trips to North Carolina Comfy, Cozy Christmas: The Bells of St. Mary’s Our Yearly Christmas Tradition by Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 12 Christmas Gift Ideas for Teenage Girls

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to audiobooks such as Shepherd’s Abiding and The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever and also Christmas music about the reason for the season (at least in my family) – Jesus’ birth.

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: I can’t smell. I can’t taste. But I can feel the wind on my face.

Hello! Welcome to my Saturday Afternoon Chat.

Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?

Or a glass of juice?

No matter what we have, I won’t be able to taste it after I caught Covid again this week and have lost my smell and taste.

(Update: the rest of this post is still accurate but I scheduled it last night and forgot to change it before it went live – as of this morning I can taste and smell a lot better than I could. It is not 100 percent but it is so much better!

That’s right. I’m having an awesome week, one which started with me slipping in the snow and doing a type of split. My body is not built for splits.

I was okay, despite the fall, but my back was sore and spasming in pain off and on that day and night. Then the fever and chills hit – fever and chills The Husband had also had but we thought was a cold or the flu.

Yesterday morning a home test said I had the dreaded virus.

If you’ve been here a while, you know I had a pretty severe case of Covid in 2021 so catching Covid again definitely has me on edge.

This case feels way different than that one, but I still wonder if I will have similar issues with my oxygen this time around.

So far this is more like a head cold with a stuffy nose and a lot of nose and head pressure. My oxygen has also been fine but I won’t lie that I have had to fight a battle of my mind this week.

My mind has gone back time and time again since yesterday morning to two years ago when I was in the hospital, hooked up to oxygen and wondering what my future was going to hold or if I’d even have one.

Yesterday I found myself wondering – will it happen again? Will I think I’m doing okay, but suddenly I won’t be?

Not that I thought I was doing okay that first time around but I was still shocked when I was admitted because I thought I was breathing fine.

The blood gas said I was not doing fine at all it turns out.

So I spent the next five days in the hospital getting an antiviral through an IV even though my oxygen did come back up on only a small amount of oxygen.

(You can read more about all that here and here and here and here.)

By the time I tested yesterday I was already feeling a bit better. My fever had even started to go down on its own – without medicine. Still, I had no smell and taste and that’s how it was in 2021 so I tested.

I tried to stay calm this time – unlike in 2021 when I Googled anything and everything about Covid for ten days straight, didn’t take care of myself, and ended up in the hospital.

Yesterday I tried to remember the verse that my mom gave me earlier in the week about another issue:

Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I tried to remember this verse and most of the time I succeeded but there were moments it all fell apart and my imagination took off again.

It hit 53 here yesterday so I walked outside and breathed in some fresh air (like an author friend suggested) and I squished the grass between my toes even though it was still cold from the snow we’d had earlier in the week that hadn’t melted all the way yet.

I sat down on the porch and began to cry. I could see the sun shining around me and the still-green grass and my cat playing on the hill, but I couldn’t smell anything. Like anything. It’s like being in a vacuum or something – a smell less, lifeless vacuum. If you’ve never completely lost your taste and smell, trust me, it is awful. Eating is a struggle because there is no taste to anything (don’t ever eat hamburger with no smell or taste. Just … horrifying.). A huge chunk of life’s enjoyment is just ripped away from you and life seems very empty somehow, especially when you are someone who relaxes themselves through aroma therapy or the taste of sweet honey in your tea.

I sobbed for quite a long time on the porch, worrying about the future, mourning the loss of my taste and smell – yet again after just getting almost all of it back again.

Then I started to say to myself and to God – “So I have lost my sense of smell and taste but I can feel the warm sun on my face, the cool breeze on my skin, pet my dog’s soft fur (and not have to smell her weird dog smell she gets when she runs in the sun) and watch my young cat jump and play in the grass on a rare warm winter day.

I have lost something very important to me – something that can truly lead to deep depression but I am fever free. I am breathing. I am not weak and totally out of it like I was the first time I had this.

I have a lot to be grateful for despite it all.

As I write this I am also grateful I can breathe through my nose because it has been closed with snot for the last three days.

I am grateful I didn’t have more pain from the fall and that has not been a serious issue.

I’m grateful for my family being supportive, for my son immediately asking if I was okay when I told him I had Covid, for my daughter not being as sick as she was when we had it in 2021.

I am grateful for good movies I could watch and good books to read.

I am asking, though, that you would all pray that the upswing continues and that my son doesn’t get this bad enough to steal his sense of smell and taste. He and I were both hit hard with that in 2021 and the developed parasomia (altered smell and taste) for several months. He could barely eat and he already doesn’t eat well and is very skinny.

He still can’t eat peanut butter because it is absolutely disgusting to him. I eat peanut butter but it hasn’t tasted the same since 2021. I was just finally able to start eating onions and garlic in the last several months without them having what can only be described as “the Covid taste.” It’s like a mix of burnt rubber and smelly feet – not idea how else to explain it.

Little Miss says she feels like the smell loss will last less time this time around and I hope she is right.

Everyone hopes when the inflammation in my nose goes away that will get better.

I don’t know since I know this dreaded virus attacks the olfactory glands in a very odd way, slowly destroying them.

What I want most, though, is for this not to go in my lungs or into the lungs of anyone in my family.

I appreciate my blog readers so much – you don’t even know.

You lifted my spirits the last time I had this and your posts are lifting my spirts now as I read about all that all of you have going on.

Which reminds me – what is going on with all of you? Let me know in the comments – distract me from my worries for a few minutes.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot for December 15

Welcome to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food For Hungry People and me.

This is a post where we open up a link to bloggers of all kinds to share a blog post they wrote recently or even a long time ago. All we ask is that the posts be family-friendly.

Today I am battling a cold so my post will be short and sweet.

I hope you will link up at the link party at the end of this post with a favorite or recent blog post and take the time to comment and meet some new bloggers

The most clicked blog post this week was:

Real Food Blogger: Grain-Free Healthy Christmas Cookies

My Favorites for this week:

Serenity You: Our Christmas Eve Box.

A New Lens: C Is for Wonder

and

My Slices of Life: Throwback Tuesday. Busy Little Elves

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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