Nothing tastes better than morning coffee, and I love having mine in this little office nook, with the new TV playing nearby…
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On Thursday, I wrote a post called Coffee Morning: Hot Day Ahead, and I mused about how I’ve lived in these parts for almost 46 years.
I wanted to share another photo from back in those early days, but couldn’t find it anywhere! Which reminds me that I really need to better organize my online photos…by date, at least. I’m doing that now, but the older ones were missing those vital details, so despite searching through endless folders, I couldn’t find the one I wanted. What do you bet that I’ll find it now? LOL
Meanwhile, I went to the source of the photo: the album. I have a stack of old albums on a closet shelf. I found and scanned this picture…to spotlight the three boys, with the youngest one in his ORANGE backpack. We were spending the day in Roeding Park, where they have Storyland, the zoo, boat rides, etc. This photo was snapped in May 1972.
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I never go to that park anymore. It has run down a bit…although I did read that the zoo was undergoing some improvements.
Back then, we were living in one of the outer small towns, 70 miles from the city…and I hated that town! It was always surrounded by fog and tumbleweeds. It reminded me of that town in Texas, the setting for the movie The Last Picture Show, which, incidentally, was playing then in the dust-filled theater in that town.
I couldn’t wait to get out…and we actually did move from there a few months later. To the city with this park and a few other amenities I enjoyed.
A peek at the interior world back then….before we moved to the city. Posters and beads…and leopard print pillows.
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Avocado green was another favorite color back then…and note the stacking plastic bins. They were old Carnation containers for products. We got them from a dairy in Northern California before we moved. We also used them for the kids’ toys.
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Back to reality, the 21st Century. I’m still reading The Sunshine Sisters, having finished Good Me, Bad Me yesterday (click title for review).
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Earlier today I discovered an upcoming release from another favorite author: Diane Chamberlain. The Stolen Marriage is an emotionally captivating novel of secrets, betrayals, prejudice, and forgiveness. It showcases Diane Chamberlain at the top of her talent.
One mistake, one fateful night, and Tess DeMello’s life is changed forever. It is 1944. Pregnant, alone, and riddled with guilt, twenty-three-year-old Tess DeMello abruptly gives up her budding career as a nurse and ends her engagement to the love of her life, unable to live a lie. Instead, she turns to the baby’s father for help and agrees to marry him, moving to the small, rural town of Hickory, North Carolina. Tess’s new husband, Henry Kraft, is a secretive man who often stays out all night, hides money from his new wife, and shows her no affection. Tess quickly realizes she’s trapped in a strange and loveless marriage with no way out.
The people of Hickory love and respect Henry but see Tess as an outsider, treating her with suspicion and disdain. When one of the town’s golden girls dies in a terrible accident, everyone holds Tess responsible. But Henry keeps his secrets even closer now, though it seems that everyone knows something about him that Tess does not.
When a sudden polio epidemic strikes Hickory, the townspeople band together to build a polio hospital. Tess knows she is needed and defies Henry’s wishes to begin working at there. Through this work, she begins to find purpose and meaning. Yet at home, Henry’s actions grow more alarming by the day. As Tess works to save the lives of her patients, can she untangle the truth behind her husband’s mysterious behavior and find the love— and the life—she was meant to have?
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I love finding upcoming releases from old and new favorite authors. What have you discovered lately? What are you reading?
What moments in the past remind you of who you once were?
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Beginning: It was only when Markie saw her husband’s hands clasped around another woman’s breasts that she finally acknowledged their problems weren’t ones she could hide any longer. Except that wasn’t completely true. Though it shamed her to confess it, the truth was that if she had seen them—his hands, the breasts that weren’t her own—in the privacy of their bedroom or in some tawdry motel room she had burst in on, she might not have admitted it still.
