Did You Know? ~ Ads for 1908 Ice Box, Recliner, and Earrings

I found these ads in the 1908 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue. I thought our readers might enjoy looking at them.

An Ice Box

I've always wondered what an ice box looked like. Pretty nifty! (Click on the picture to see close up.)

Recliner

  I had no idea there were recliners in the early 1900s. I think my legs would get tired resting on this one with that space between the chair and the foot rest. (Click on the picture to see close up.)

Earrings

 I love gold hoops and these look very similar to what we can buy today, but the prices--wow! What a difference! (Click on the picture to see close up.)

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The Love Story that Finds Us All by Author Emily Wierenga

I was in Africa a couple of months ago on a bloggers’ trip, in a place called Widow’s Village in rural Rwanda. This village is government-funded, and provides housing for widows and children of the genocide. 

The women are older now, but their faces bear the scars of the horrendous losses they’ve suffered. Many of them have been raped, and have watched their husbands and children be killed. Some have lost nine of eleven children. Others are now taking care of their daughters’ children because their daughters have gone mad and run away.

I was there one day when my team leader asked if any of the women wanted to tell their story. And surprisingly, they did. They wanted to tell their story. 

Because no matter how hard it is, our story is one thing we’ll always have. God gives us our stories, not to define us, but to illuminate his presence on earth. 

Our stories do not define us. They explain us, yes, but they do not define us. God’s love for us defines us, and our stories pave the way to that love. 

At one point one of the widows, Margaret—whose breath smelled slightly of vodka—sat down heavily in the dirt as her sister shared about the genocide and the losses she’d encountered. I sat down with Margaret, there in Africa’s red dirt, and put my arm around her. A child in my lap and Rwanda all around me.

Life is hard. 

Sometimes I say to God, “Look at your people—look at how Earth has done them in.”

But then Margaret whispered, “God is so good.”

I leaned in and she said it again. “God, he’s so good. He gives me everything I need. Praise him.”

This is a woman who’s lost everything. Her children, her husband, her home. She’s witnessed evil face-on. Yet she still believes in goodness. 

Our stories do not define us. They are gifts to us, to show how God steps from heaven to earth on our behalf. To show how our Creator interacts with his creation. Our job is not to control the story, but to read it, and wait for the Savior. To wait for him to come and pull us out of the climax—to pull us out of the evil—and to set the lonely in families. 

And this setting the lonely in families is what takes place in my debut novel, A Promise in Pieces. Clara Wilson is a preacher’s daughter who finds it hard to reconcile the faith her daddy preaches Sunday morning with the war happening across the ocean. She slips out one night, through the window of her bedroom, and runs away with a friend to serve as a nurse in Normandy, France, where she comes face to face with evil, and meets a dying soldier who breathes life back into her fractured faith. 

And it’s a letter this soldier gives her, to take home to his soon-to-be-widowed wife, which leads Clara to the family she’s always longed for—while restoring the one she already has. 

We all are like children, longing to belong, and I relate to Clara. I too am a preacher’s daughter who traveled the globe searching for the faith my father preached. Trying to find God in the corners of the earth, and then my Mum got sick. And I found God where I least expected, at the bedside of my dying mom. 

And when Clara finally arrives back home, a baby quilt from the soldier’s wife in her hands, she too is broken by her mother’s illness and spends her days as a midwife and her nights caring for her parents. The quilt wrapped around the shoulders of young and old and the pieces of Clara’s life being woven together like patchwork cloth. 

In the end, love finds us all. It finds Clara through a kind carpenter, a war veteran who gardens and carves a cradle for Clara’s adopted child. It found me through a farm boy who gave me roots and at the same time, wings.

It finds all of us through our stories which lead us to a God who never leaves or forsakes us—who leans close to us as we sit on the red dirt, in the middle of our suffering, and says, “Come home, child. Come home.”

Emily T. Wierenga is an award-winning journalist, commissioned artist and columnist, as well as the author of four books including A Promise in Pieces, releasing April 15 with Abingdon Press. She lives in Alberta, Canada with her husband and two sons. For more info, please visit www.emilywierenga.com. Find her on Twitter or Facebook.

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YA Fantasy Book Review ~ Uncovering Cobbogoth

About the Book

Norah Lukens needs to uncover the truth about the fabled lost city of Cobbogoth. After her archaeologist uncle’s murder, Norah is asked to translate his old research journal for evidence and discovers that his murder was a cover-up for something far more sinister.

When she turns to neighbor and only friend James Riley for help, she realizes that not only is their bitter-sweet past haunting her every step, but James is keeping dangerous secrets. Can Norah discover what they are before it's too late to share her own?

Readers old and young will love this YA Fantasy Romance set in Boston, MA, but full of mythical beings, magic, and lost secrets.

Amber's Review

Full of mystery, danger, and romance, Uncovering Cobbogoth is undeniably intriguing and imaginative. A lot of thought had to go into creating the Cobbogothian mythology and the connections between it and the story's heroine, Norah, and I applaud Clark for her creativity! The book contains many twists and tender moments.

There's definitely a "first book in a series" feel to this, as there are a lot of flashback scenes, back story, and explanations which often keep the pace reined in. I did enjoy learning more about James through the flashbacks - it's just that there are a lot of them. And I confess that some of the magical/mythical elements remained out of my complete grasp. The history is a little complex, and the Cobbogoth setting is rather different. But I appreciated the uniqueness of the imagery and the surprising ways plot elements fit together!

References to gods and goddesses, intense images (involving murder victims, etc.), and demon "possession" are a part of the story, but there are also themes of love and sacrifice. Clark has set up a very interesting supernatural YA fantasy series with Uncovering Cobbogoth, one that is sure to garner plenty of fans. 

*With thanks to Cedar Fort for providing me with a PDF copy of the book in exchange for my honest opinion.*

Book Trailer



Extras

• You can read other reviews, spotlights, etc. during the Cedar Fort blog tour, which lasts through the whole month of May: Uncovering Cobbogoth Blog Tour

• You can connect with the author on her awesome website!

• You can purchase the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble!

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Winners!!

Good morning, BB fans! Thanks to everyone who participated in our "puzzling" Friday giveaway! Keep all those facebook and Twitter notifications, coming!

This week's winner is: 

Susan Johnson (susanmsj at msn dot com) - All My Belongings by Cynthia Ruchti.

Congratulations, Susan! Thank you all so much for stopping by The Borrowed Book.

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Sunday Devotional: Psalm 3

So much trouble, everywhere.

Persecution is rampant, all over the world. Our own culture has never been so hostile to believers, although I would argue that human nature has never changed, and secular society has always been worldly.

On a personal level, nearly everyone I know is going through difficulty. Some situations go beyond, to crushing.

A wife who watches her husband growing weaker, sicker, possibly losing a years’-long battle with cancer.

Parents hearing the diagnosis that their child’s illness is untreatable.

A father and husband in the prime of life, killed in a freak accident, leaving behind wife and children.

We may not be in such deep crisis ourselves, but often enough, opposition hammers us from all sides. Maybe we simply feel overwhelmed and inadequate to deal with a deluge of small things which would be easy enough to deal with if they came alone.

Maybe it's the slow grind of despair, the death of hopes and dreams.

Whether our adversary wears a human face or no face at all, how can we bear it?

In times like these, the Psalms draw me. I’ve been fond of telling my children, Proverbs may be the book that teaches us how to live, but the Psalms teach us how to worship. How to pray. How to relate to God, intimately.

Psalm 3 (NKJV)

Lord, how they have increased who trouble me!
Many are they who rise up against me.
² Many are they who say of me,
“There is no help for him in God.”

How often do we feel condemned, either by those around us or the voices inside our own heads? You’ll never make it out of this one. Things will never change. You’re just hopeless.

³ But You, O Lord, are a shield for me,
My glory and the One who lifts up my head.

It’s God Himself who reaches down in the middle of those situations, and tips our chin up so we can look beyond the situation ... to look at Him.

⁴ I cried to the Lord with my voice,
And He heard me from His holy hill.

⁵ I lay down and slept;
I awoke, for the Lord sustained me.

Sometimes it isn’t just about getting up and going on. Sometimes it’s all we can do to take the next breath, to just face another day.

⁶ I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people
Who have set themselves against me all around.

⁷ Arise, O Lord;
Save me, O my God!
For You have struck all my enemies on the cheekbone;
You have broken the teeth of the ungodly.

God hears us, oh yes ... and answers.

⁸ Salvation belongs to the Lord.
Your blessing is upon Your people.

Thank You, Lord, that You do save us!

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Weekly Drawing ~ Ruchti

It's Fun Friday at The Borrowed Book!

To enter:

Leave the time it took you to complete the puzzles in the comments section as well as your email address for notifying you if you've won. Winners will be drawn from ALL of the times, so the person with the fastest time may not be the actual winner, but by leaving your time, you double your chances.

Want another entry? Tweet your puzzle time and mention The Borrowed Book, get another entry. RETWEET our Tweet, get two entries!

Post your puzzle time on BB's Facebook wall and...you guessed it...get another entry!

Post it on your OWN Facebook wall and you could get as many as FIVE entries.

It's all a way to spread the word about the great giveaways on BB. So c'mon! Help us spread the word, and have a little fun at the same time. Enter all weekend long! Winners will be announced Sunday night at midnight.

This week's puzzle feature is brought to you by Cynthia Ruchti and her newest release, All My Belongings.

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The Call of the Sea, by Cynthia Ruchti

 I’m a California girl. No one would guess as much from my Midwestern pale skin and a body that hasn’t seen a swimsuit or short-shorts since the Carter administration. No, Eisenhower. Or the fact that I’ve never eaten at an In ‘n’ Out. But I was born in California. I lived there all of eight days. That’s right. I lived in my birthplace no longer than a traditional vacation.

My birth certificate says California, though. Somewhere buried deep inside me is a surfer girl.

When my dad left to serve in the Korean War two days after my footprints were inked onto the birth certificate, my mom and I made plans—granted, she did most of the planning—to fly to Wisconsin to live with her parents, my grandparents, until his return. 

Maybe this pull the ocean has over me is because I didn’t get to dip my toes in the Pacific before we left California and a residual longing has lingered like a migrating bird’s instinct. Maybe it’s from a lifetime of harsh winters in the northwoods. Maybe it’s something indefinable, as it is for Becca Morrow in All My Belongings, a symbolism of a deeper heart longing that has nothing to do with the sea.

Gulf of Mexico

Every family vacation or business trip that plants me close to “big water” makes me feel as if I’m coming home. I’ve seen the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Okeechobee, and the Pacific Ocean near Seattle, Alaska, Monterey, and San Diego. I’m still watching for the opportunity to truly return “home” to Oceanside someday. What’s the point? To reconnect with a moment in time. In All My Belongings, Becca is moved by her employer Isaac’s attempt at the poetic when he says, “These waves sound like the womb of my beginnings.” <insert picture of big waves here>

I’ve ordered notecards with watercolor impressions of the unique Oceanside Pier for thankyou notes. It’s almost like being there. 

The vicarious fulfillment of decades-long longings is part of the writer’s joy. I can’t live near Oceanside right now, but my character can. I can’t see palm trees outside my windows, but she can dance in their bizarre shadows. I can’t stand on damp sand and feel a flirt of seafoam tickle my ankles, but she does.

In the course of writing radio drama for 33 years, I had the privilege of living vicariously through thousands of characters’ situations. I refurbished an aging Victorian mansion…on paper. And managed a flower shop, a bakery, a quaint café, a travel agency…on paper. Through my characters, I’ve run marathons and designed clothing and lived in a New York loft apartment and mothered hundreds of children.

I’ve traveled far beyond the confines of my 12 foot by 12 foot office, to places I can’t now afford—in time or money—but that intrigue me. I’ve walked through experiences that thrilled my imagination and others that made me grateful it was only imagination.

The depth of identification with my characters means I hold my breath when they do. I cringe at their diagnoses. I weep with relief when the answers arrive on the page. Many novelists would report the same. We “miss” our characters and their adventures or misadventures when the book is sent to the publisher after the final galleys or a new book releases and attention is diverted from the previous story with which we’ve lived for years, at times.

Becca in All My Belongings was only one of the characters who offered me a vicarious look at a lifestyle and challenges unlike my own, yet like my own. I felt Aurelia’s confusion and her soul’s begging for someone to understand who she remained on the inside when her body failed her. I ached with Isaac’s loss. My stomach churned with what Geneva knew but kept tucked away. I felt the warmth from the lamppost-like outdoor heaters when Becca and Isaac dined at the outdoor restaurant in LaJolla. And I chilled when she faced the accusations against her.

Have I returned to Oceanside since my birth? Yes. Vicariously. Through my characters. Having seen it through Becca’s eyes, I’m sure it will seem beautifully familiar—even the scent of the sea in the air and the shadows of the palms—when I visit in person. Someday soon?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cynthia Ruchti tells stories of Hope-that-glows-in-the-dark through her novels and novellas,

nonfiction projects and speaking events. All My Belongings is her eighth release (including three non-fiction books). Ruchti has also written articles for numerous magazines and industry publications and currently serves as Professional Relations Liaison for American Christian Fiction Writers. Ruchti lives in Wisconsin where she spends her days diving into words, worship and wonder.

Learn more about Cynthia Ruchti and her books at www.cynthiaruchti.com. Readers can also become a fan on Facebook (cynthiaruchtireaderpage) or follow her on Twitter (@cynthiaruchti). 



Don't forget to come by tomorrow, when you can enter to win a free copy of All My Belongings!

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