Lord, That I May See

It's the last week before school starts.  The summer sunlight is different, it gets dark earlier, and the cicadas are loud and insistent about the ending of summer.  I'm always sad to see the passing of summer's long, lazy days.  Being a reluctant homeschooler, I tend to dread the beginning the new year of schooling . . .   I AM grateful for this time with my children, and for my eager learners, but homeschooling is still hard for me even after 4 (official) years.  Maybe its the challenging effort to be all things to all people, and generally feeling, more than ordinary, too needed and spread thin, like butter over too much bread, as the saying goes. :)  Maybe its all the "refereeing" of all the people and their work, directing and re-directing all day long, or the fast-draining patience that I seem to have so little of. . .  Well, of course, I will be okay and this year will go well, I'm sure, in the end.  I just often have to have a little drea...

1.   This was the first Kate Morton book that I have read.  It was beautifully written and engrossing.  I read it on our trip to Florida and had finished all of it in the 5 days.  There was alot of tragedy in it that kept me wishing for something to turn out right for someone though!  However, I have checked out another of her books because of how absorbing it was -- I love a good page-turning book! 2.   I loved Lily Bart.  She was a character of such power and poignancy to me, with her great beauty and, ultimately, her strength alongside her real and understandable weaknesses.  The masterful writing of this book really surpassed all the more recently written books I've been reading this summer.  The ability Edith Wharton had to create with impact a social milieu and detail thoughts and feelings is unsurpassed by more recent, less skilled authors.  The final chapters moved me to tears, even though I knew the s...