The Secret War of Julia Child by Diana R. Chambers ~ Book Review

Julia McWilliams is 30 years old, single and at a bit of a cross roads in her life.  Born into an aristocratic Pasadena family, she earned at degree in history in college and now is determined to achieve something of worth.  Moving to Washington to take a job under General "Wild Bill" Donovan in the Offices of Strategic Services.  Highly ambitious she quickly moved up to Head of OSS Registry of Secret Files.  But she wanted more.  She wanted to go overseas and help somehow with the war effort.  But her 6 foot 2 height disqualified her from enlisting.   General Donovan, seeing her hard work,  rewarded her motivation and optimism by sending her to Ceylon to set up offices for their war effort there, where eventually she was assigned to India and China.  While there she met Paul Child, a very talented and dedicated map maker, but the two were very different and like oil and water.  Eventually they form a begrudging friendship as they are thrust into working together, sometimes in incredibly dangerous situations where they start to see the qualities that began a lifetime love.  "I was never a spy" Julia takes on the challenging tasks given to her with her trademark gusto and  with no idea of the impact her assignments will have or where these experiences would eventually land her.

This was a work of historical fiction centering around Julia's time with the OSS in India and Asia.  Though the author did extensive research there are many missing parts to Julia's story especially because she refused to admit she was a spy.  The author took many liberties to fill in the gaps and she freely admits to doing so.  With this in mind, some of the things told made me wonder how far an event or incident was pushed for story's sake or if it even happened at all.  A few of the parts dragged a bit and though the number of characters is large and at times confusing it was still an interesting story as I have never read of the history of British colonialism as it pertained to the war nor of the resistance against Japan in Asian countries.  It was an interesting speculation of what might of happened in the war to make Julia become the person we all eventually came to know as the person who brought French cooking to the home cook.

I rated it a 7.5/10 

Friday's Fave Five #865

Welcome to Friday's Fave Five.  Thank you for joining me in pausing our hectic weeks leading up to the holidays and looking for those blessings we are grateful for.  It has been a very busy week for me, so I'm thankful for this pause that helps me notice blessings in my life.  

~ Occ Boxes loaded and delivered to the drop off location ~  Sunday was collection Sunday at our church and we prayed over the shoebox gifts as a congregation.  Then we loaded them up for the next step in their journey into the hands of a child.  Tuesday I dropped them off at the main collection center in town where next week they will be loaded into a semi for their journey to the processing center in Calgary.  I love every step of the shoebox journey.

~ work Christmas party ~  last night was our agency's Christmas party.  We had a lovely turkey dinner and got to meet and interact with some of the approximately 70 educators that have family dayhomes that are licensed with our agency.  It was a fun evening and I'm grateful for all the work the admin ladies did it putting it together.

~ gift of beef ~ One of my dayhome families gifted us with a roast and some steaks from a cow they had butchered.  With the insane price of beef around here this was such a blessing!

~ Christmas shopping started ~ I've been dreading the holidays coming up, in fact the whole month of December.  Last year was when my Mom went into hospital at the beginning of December and passed a week before Christmas.  But I picked up gifts for the dayhome kids this week and a couple of others on my list.  I'm trying to keep it simple and not second guess myself this year like I usually do.  So I've got those and moving on.

~ a three year old's belly laughter ~ such joy it brings.  I love when one of the dayhome kids gets the belly laughs or something silly.  It's infectious.  You can't help but laugh along.

What have been your favorite blessings that you are thankful for this week?

The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain ~ Book Review

The summer before she goes off to college, Ellie Hockley has applied to volunteer helping register black voters, much to the great dismay of her parents.  Their plans for her are more along the lines of college and a good marriage to a certain local bank manager.  But that doesn't line up with Ellie's ideals.  It is 1965 and her heart is to fight for civil rights which puts her not only in danger, but has brought scandal to her family as working for the Scope project entails living with black families.  When she falls for a fellow volunteer, Ellie has no idea the wheels she has set in motion in her town.

In 2010, architects Kayla Carter and her husband have bought property in the town's new development and have started to build their dream home.  But when her husband dies in a freak fall at the construction site Kayla's world changes forever.  She now has a 3 year old daughter to raise by herself and a semi finished home on a property reputed to be haunted.  When she gets a strange visit from a woman at work warning her against moving in and vandals target the new home, Kayla doesn't know what her next steps should be.  And after meeting her strange neighbor, Ellie Hockley, Kayla doesn't know what to think.  Ellie is very distant and seems to be hiding secrets about the history of Kayla's property and what happened there.  

 Told in dual timelines, this story of a town's sordid and sad history brought out all the emotions.  The Scope Project is something I have never read about before so it was a learning experience for me to read about the brave college students and the trials they faced to get black voters registered.   The characters and what they went through broke my heart, made me mad and shocked me.  The author definitely takes on the horrible things that happened during that time of the civil rights movement without sugar coating it.  The involvement of kkk in spreading hate through a community and the uneasiness of pitting neighbor against neighbor never knowing who might be involved with such a vile group definitely brought tension.  The story definitely makes one think and reflect.  It was everything I love in a historical fiction.

I rated it a 10/10

Friday's Fave Five #864

Welcome to Friday's Fave Five.  It's that time in the week to slow ourselves down and pause to look for th blessings God has granted over the past week.  

~ successful move to w1ndows 11 ~ my computer has been trying to get me to upgrade to the newer version almost since the time I purchased it 3+ years ago.  I've avoided it right to the bitter end and then some.  I hate the learning curve that comes with technology stuff and it always stresses me out.  Well the due date of mid-October came and went and I still didn't upgrade.  But I finally decided I should.  Hubby backed up my whole computer just in case and we bit the bullet.  I'm happy to say it was a relatively easy transition and so far haven't found anything too hard to find or relearn.  

~ lunch with our friends/neighbors ~ Tuesday our neighbors, who are also friends, treated us to lunch at an all you can eat Sushi/Thai restaurant.  It was so much fun getting to visit with them and catch up.  It was also an adventure trying some new items we'd never ordered before that were favorites of theirs.  

~ night out with my sister ~ both of our birthdays are in December and this year we decided we no longer want to do gifts of stuff but we wanted to go out and do something together.  A Bee Gees tribute band was coming to town so we got ourselves some tickets.  We made a whole evening of it and went out to eat before hand.  It was so nice doing something like that with her.  We've never really done that kind of evening out with just us two before.  Dinner was full of laughs and relaxing, and the sold out show was fun too as all the Bee Gees music is so nostalgic for me.  

~ Turtles cheesecake ~ I think it was the very first flavor of cheesecake I ever had.  Of course, when out for dinner at the restaurant that originally had it on the menu before it cheesecake became super popular as a dessert,  I had to get a slice.  I haven't had it in many, many years and it was as yummy as I remembered.  It's not a dense heavy cheesecake but light and very creamy. Though it was sweeter than I remembered probably because I have cut sugar back a lot since my younger days.   

~ gorgeous blue sky ~ though it brought an insane wind (gusts up to 100km - about 60 mph!) hiding behind the chinook arch was a very picturesque blue sky making a nice picture.  

 

~ taking a moment ~ Tuesday was Remembrance Day where we take the time to pause and reflect on the sacrifices made by so many and honor the men and women who have served Canada and fought for freedom.  It is with a grateful heart that we take that 2 minutes of silence on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11 a.m. 

What were your favorite five blessings of the week?

Friday's Fave Five #863

Welcome to Friday's Fave Five.  It has been a crazy busy weekend and week so I am especially glad to be taking this intentional time to stop and refocus and take note of what were blessings in my week.  Please join in with us sharing five of our favorites.

~ OCC kickoff Sunday ~ a little later than usual this year but we finally had our kick off Sunday at church.  The announcement went well, I think, and now the fun begins filling up the shoebox gifts with special items.   It's always a favorite for me as I love supporting this project bringing joy and Jesus to kids around the world. 

~ supportive ladies group ~ as a Connect Leader volunteer with OCC I get the opportunity to apply for spots at the processing center before the general public does so this year I took a step of faith and asked for 12 spots on a Saturday.  I was approved.  My family will take up some of those spots but I put it out to my ladies study group and already 4 of them have committed to come.  I'm so excited to be able to introduce them to another step in the shoebox journey.

~ surprise lunch ~ my thoughtful hubby surprised me with a sushi lunch yesterday.  There is a little place in town that does a lovely tray for a reasonable price.  It's delicious, fresh made and the owner is a lovely lady who goes the extra mile.  A quiet sushi lunch in the kitchen with Hubby with the dayhome kids in the next room having their afternoon rest is a real blessing.  

~ fresh local honey ~ we ordered a fresh batch of local honey from our favorite honey farm this week.  There is nothing like a local honey.  

~ evening tea ~ with the nights cooling off a hot cup of tea in the evenings is making the comeback.  This week I've been enjoying a pineapple pear infusion tea.  So relaxing and warming while the wind has been howling outside.  

What have been your favorite blessings in the last week?

Friday's Fave Five #862

Welcome to the end of October and Friday's Fave Five.  It's been a busy, busy week for me so if I didn't make it to comment on your posts from last week, I will try to make it to them this weekend.  I have something almost every night and I am very much ready for the weekend.  But to kick start the weekend and a new month I'm pausing to take note of the blessings in my week and be grateful for them.  Please join in with us.

~ doc appointment in the big city ~ Friday I had an appointment with the big city specialist to see what he thinks about what's going on with my arm.  We left nice and early to be able to find the hospital and how to get to the labs.  Happily it was all very easy so we had some spare time to relax and have a coffee before the appointment.  Both the doctor and the tech were very nice.  The appointment went well and hopefully there will be some answers sooner than later.

~ delicious lunch ~ A few blocks from the hospital was a restaurant I had been to back in 2019 and I remembered it having delicious food so I took Hubby and my son there for lunch.  They liked the open kitchen concept of it and all of us thought our food was really good.  My son passes it on almost every shift with the ambulance as he takes people to the hospital but he had never tried it.  He was happy to have found another good restaurant to partake of.  This was my brisket grilled cheese which was really good but I have to say my favorite part of the meal was the beet salad we shared.  It was amazing.

 

~ shopping ~ what's a trip to a big city without partaking of some shopping.  We spent an hour or so, each of us in our store of choice.  It was a successful stop as I found Hubby his birthday present and myself a winter jacket, both for really great deals.  And Hubby also found what he was looking for in the store he stopped in.

~ good decision ~ We had originally planned to only stay overnight, but you know how it is, once you get there and start having fun you want to stay another night.  But on Saturday afternoon, while walking the dog and talking, both Hubby and I really felt we should just head out and go home.  Turns out it was the right decision as Sunday the wind came roaring in from the mountains with a vengeance. Don't get me wrong, we're used to wind in these parts but when it howls like that there are a couple spots on the highway between here and Calgary where it can get dangerous.  It has literally flipped semi trailers in those spots so it's always nerve wracking going through those areas on extremely windy days.  I'm glad we listened.  I'm very grateful for safe travels and never take it for granted.  And bonus the mountains were looking really lovely on the drive home with the Chinook arch above.  

~ expedited MRI ~ one of the things the doc in Calgary did was reorder one of my MRI's when he saw my appointment for it was not until next August.  He said sometimes if a specialist requisitions it,  it can be done within a couple of months instead of the year long wait that I was on.  It was a blessing to hear from the MRI imaging first thing Monday morning and my appointment was last night.  Though not a fun experience, I'm very grateful that at least one of the three is over and done with.  And depending on what this shows I might not need one of the other ones.  The less I have to do that again, the better!

~ bonus blessing ~ I don't even know what to call this blessing except to say it was a God thing.  The conversation that the lab tech and I had while he was doing the testing was truly God led.  I believe we were both in the right place at the right time.  Turns out he was also a Believer and though I can't share what the topics were that we discussed  I believe we both left that appointment encouraged and filled with faith and hope in our respective situations.  Love when God brings just the right people around at the right time.   

What were you grateful for this past week?

 

Friday's Fave Five #861

Well, this Friday just seemed to blow right in, literally.  It is so windy outside right now.  But if I let the weather rule my contentment I would be in great trouble, indeed, as wind is a way of life around here especially in spring and fall.  We just gotta go with the flow.  See what I did there?  LOL.  Anyway, gratitude for the blessings that God brings into our lives is what brings contentment.  The more we focus on those things to be grateful for rather than those things which upset or bring us down, the more fulfilled and serene we will feel.  So let's get to our favorite five blessings this week.  

~ helping hands ~ this week was the week to put out all the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes at church.  I shot out a group text to my ladies bible study that I would be at the church a half hour early to put the boxes together and would appreciate anyone willing and able to help. About a half dozen ladies showed up and as other people from other study groups were filtering in they stopped and lent a hand also.  We got it all done by the time the studies started.  So appreciative and thankful for willing hearts and hands that just jump in and help.  

~ heart to hearts ~  one of the ladies helping was the friend I went to Costa Rica with when we went on an OCC distribution in 2019.  We haven't had a chance to really sit and talk in a very long time.  We ended up sitting and talking, encouraging one another with God's grace.  We prayed for each other and over the boxes.  I'm so thankful for reconnection and hearts knit together.

~ outside time ~ there has been lots of outside time this week as the weather has been pretty awesome for October.  There has been some windy evenings and overnights but at our outside time with the dayhome kids it has been incredible.  We've had lots of sunshine and running and playgrounds and playing in the leaves, everything little bodies need to burn that massive amount of energy they all seem to have.  And it's been wonderful to sit out in the warmth of the sun.

~ more clean up ~ with the weather holding up I've been able to get more yard cleanup done.  I pulled and prepped everything in the front and I'm almost done the back.  While the kids are playing I can get a few things cleaned up here and there.  Hopefully I'll get it all done before we're hit with the bad weather.  Getting things knocked off the to do list is always a blessing as I'm a huge procrastinator by nature.

~ pumpkin spice caramels ~  came across these when I ran into the drugstore for some items.  And they are good!  I don't eat a lot of candy but a couple of these once in awhile are a nice fall treat.

What were your favorite blessings this week?