Treasures Of The Heart...



Today as I carefully packed this fifty-year-old Christmas card away with all the other decorations, I smiled, and was reminded of how our personalities are shaped in so many ways and by so many things as we grow. On the inside, it says, "Merry Christmas to Mother and Daddy Love, Kathy."

I don't remember making it, but what I do remember is having a coloring book at my grandmother's house when I was about six. I remember asking my uncle if he wanted to color a picture in my book. I watched him as he outlined and colored each item on the page. I clearly remember thinking how beautiful his picture was and how I needed to outline if I wanted mine to be beautiful. To this day I outline every picture I color. I think that simple experience may have shaped me, may have caused me to be more careful, more meticulous, wanting my efforts to be just right, or maybe it had nothing to do with anything at all.

I found the card while cleaning out my parents home after both of them had passed away. It reminded me of how, we as mother's save so many little things our kids make for us. We save ornaments that we hang on the tree year after year, construction paper paintings, letters they've written to us... We save these things never knowing what will become of them when we're gone.

A lot of things have to be thrown out. You can't keep it all, but every now and then something comes along in the form of a treasure. You know it's a treasure because it speaks to your heart. This is one of those treasures. The heart kind. The kind that reminds us to remember.

It reminds me of that little seven-year-old girl who must have been outlining and trying to make her picture as beautiful as she could. It reminds me of time spent at my grandmother's house and of the mother who lovingly put it away, only to have it resurface 50 years later. I'm glad she did. I framed it and hung it behind the Christmas tree.

Today I carefully packed this fifty-year-old Christmas card away with all the other decorations. I wrapped it in cotton batting, the kind that sparkles with glitter, and when it resurfaces again next year I'll smile, and I'll be reminded, and I'll remember.

I hope your January has started out to be the beginning of a great new year.



Distant Hours...

 

“Happiness in life is not a given, it must be seized.”

 

Distant Hours  



A long lost letter arrives in the post and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Milderhurst Castle, a great but moldering old house, where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted 50 years before as a 13 year old child during WWII. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since her fiance jilted her in 1941.
Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in ‘the distant hours’ of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it. ~Goodreads.

Author: Kate Morton

Published: 2010

Purchased: Amazon.com

 

REVIEW

 

I have read more than one of Kate Morton's books and enjoyed them all, some more than others. Kate Morton is a very accomplished writer. The way she tells her stories in flashbacks always makes me excited to get from now to then. Distant hours with it's castle, moat, and mysterious characters make it a hauntingly, gothic-like novel. The Blythe sisters each had their own story to tell and it kept me guessing and trying to solve the mystery. I did feel that it was a little too wordy and therefore could have been shorter and could have moved a bit faster in places, but it was definitely worth the read. I give it  four stars.  I can't wait to read her newest novel, The Lake House. I highly recommend any of Kate Morton's books.

 

Happy Reading!!!