New Year, New Things

🎉 Happy New Year! 🎊

I hope that you have been enjoying the New Year so far! 😀 Mine has certainly been… interesting. 😅

Along with this new year, I have few new things to talk about.

First, I plan to change my theme soon for a refreshing new look. (My plan was for this to happen on New Years Day and then me getting sick derailed it… 😅 This is also the reason for the lack of posts since Christmas. Sorry, guys, I hope to get back on track soon. I’m much better but the congestion and coughing came after I thought I was better and uuugggghhhh. 😝) So consider this is a warning: if you see wonky things happening such as themes changing, things randomly disappearing, widgets moving from place to place – sorry for any confusion that may result from that. (Because of some cold medicine I took, I slept from 2AM until 6PM the next day for two days in a row; and now my body doesn’t understand when to sleep. Therefore, these changes will most likely happen in the middle of the night or very early morning in the days to come. Hopefully, not many people will notice the craziness that will ensue as I figure out how to set everything up… 😅)
Anyway, I plan to switch from the Booklite theme to the Hemingway Rewritten theme. Maybe. The main reason for the change is that I really like the sidebar menu and the Booklite theme doesn’t allow one. So I know that it will be a theme with a sidebar. And a header. I really like my header. 😊

Second, in the meantime, I went ahead and messed with the fonts and added new widgets at the bottom of the page now (if you are viewing in the reader, click here and scroll to view) – a new tag cloud widget and a Goodreads widget! I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had a Goodreads account, and I finally figured out how to put it on my blog so that you all can see what I’m reading. I must warn you, they span many genres. I don’t stick to one kind. 😄 So you’ll see Christian fiction and nonfiction, Mysteries, Young Adult, and Children’s books. I know, I’m in my mid-twenties I should have outgrown Children’s books already, right? Nope, not for me. 😄 I’ve always loved these and I love writing for this genre too.

Third, I’m reading My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers (looks like you can get it daily free here: https://utmost.org/ if you want to read it too) and Streams in the Desert by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman this year, which I haven’t tried to do before – reading a yearly devotional, that is. I’ve read a month-long devotional once, but not a year-long one. And two devotionals at once, I know, what am I thinking? Haha. Read one in the morning and one at night. We’ll see if I succeed in keeping up with it. So far so good. 🙂 But this is only January 2nd and I’m spending a lot of time in bed because of this cold which means extra time to read… so that doesn’t mean much. 😂

Fourth, I want to thank my parents (who got the same cold… from me… I’m so sorry both of you, that is one Christmas present I never wanted to give you 😅 😅 😅) for being so patient with me while I’ve been sick. I want to give a shout-out to my mom. Like I said above, she got the same cold I did, and even though she did, she fed my cats when I couldn’t go outside because the cold air made my cough so much worse, and I appreciate it so much. And I’m sure that they do too. (I can’t wait until I can start feeding them myself again though – I miss spending time with and cuddling my furry babies! <3) I mean, take a look at some of them. (Pictured below: Catalina, Simone, Rabbit, Jay, Firecracker, Radar, Belle, and Dottie.)

Rabbit

😍❤😍❤😍❤😍❤😍❤😍

OKAY, OKAY. Maybe I won’t go outside and cuddle the last one. Philip the Opposum isn’t that cuddly. But he also isn’t camera shy if you give him food… 😂

Well, I managed to get completely sidetracked and off-topic as soon as I mentioned cats. Typical… 😂 Anyway, I’ll be back soon with a new theme (I hope) and a new poem that I’ve been working on! Have a great Tuesday! ❤

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Book Review: Christmas After All

People are losing jobs. Businesses are closing down. Willie Fae, a cousin from Texas, lost both of her parents and had to move to Indianapolis to live with Minnie’s family. (Minnie likes having a girl her own age around, though.) Her family is having to eat au gratin (which is French for “with cheese” and basically meant that they added potatoes and cheese to everything to make the food stretch farther) for dinner most nights. According to Minnie and Ozzie’s (Minnie’s brother) “vomitometric scale,” or “vomitron” for short, most au gratin dinners rate high, such as the cauliflower au gratin, which rated a solid 8 of 10 on the vomitous scale.

Times are hard. She knows, she has been to the shantytown (which they named Curtisville after the vice president of the time) before and seen people living in little shacks built out of old tires and scraps, burning whatever they can find in large tin barrels to keep warm. She knows that Christmas this year will be different, but she doesn’t know how different. Will they even be able to have a Christmas?

★★★★

(Now that I am on Goodreads, I will be sharing the number of stars that I give each book – soon I will try to connect my Goodreads account to my WordPress account and you’ll be able to see what I’m reading! 😉 In the meantime, if you want to see what I’m reading, here is a link to my Goodreads account: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/74692007-penelope-payne)

Without revealing too many spoilers, and keeping in mind that this is a children’s book: I was a bit surprised that the topic of suicide came up. Perhaps I haven’t read enough children’s books written in the 2000’s, but I’m not sure how I felt about this; I guess I expect a G rating in a children’s book. However, the reaction that Minnie had to it was believable, it was portrayed in the right light, and it was realistic to how it really was back then.

Speaking of how it was back then… I so enjoyed how there was a section at the end of the book that told about the things mentioned in the book, such as the radio programs, movie stars of the era, recipes for foods that they ate in the book (that were not on the vomitron scale!), and photos from back then. It added depth to the story, and I love it when books are educational. It was a really great read for Christmas. 🙂

This was my third Dear America book. The other two were So Far From Home (The Diary of an Irish Mill Girl) and Voyage On The Great Titanic. I plan to get a review up for So Far From Home after I reread it because it has been years since I read it. But I remember enjoying it.)