I wanna go there!!!

I love the author Nora Roberts. I adore her writing style, her characters and the pictures she makes in my head. I also love that she writes books in a series, which makes me happy.  Her newest series is the Inn Boonsboro series, which includes the books “The Next Always,” “The Last Boyfriend” and coming in November “The Perfect Hope.” These books are all set in Boonsboro, Maryland and involve the renovation and creation of Inn Boonsboro. Here’s what I love about this series: each suite in the inn is named after famous couples in literature who lived happily ever after. There’s a Nick and Nora suite, Titania and Oberon,  Marguerite and Percy, Jane and Rochester. My own personal favorites – Elizabeth and Darcy, Eve and Roarke (from her own JD Robb novels) and  Westley and Buttercup!!

Here is the coolest thing ever! You CAN really go to the Inn. Nora Roberts and her husband really bought an old inn, redid it and fixed it just like the Montgomery brothers did in the books!! Each suite is designed specially to match it’s couple. Each suite also has it’s own amenities designed specially for it’s couple. Is that not the coolest thing EVER?? I want to go there. The hardest decision would be. . . which room would I want to stay in??

 

You can check it out here: http://www.innboonsboro.com/

Just what I needed

For the last few days, the little inspirational devotion books I read  have been hitting me hard. They have addressed some needs in my life, they have picked at a few scabs where I am wounded and then smoothed a layer of Neosporin right over those sore spots and slapped a band aid on top! 

Last Thursday, two of my books referenced the same Scripture. Different books, different authors, different publishers.

Psalms 139:1-3 

O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

One of them went on to verse 6, but verse 4 seems to get me all the time:

For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

My mouth gets me in trouble quite frequently. . .

 

Today one devotion is titled “The New Normal.” It talks about one of the hardest things to get through in grieving some of life’s most difficult things is having to accept that what we have NOW, is the new NORMAL way of living for us.  My sister and I had almost this EXACT conversation the day we drove back from the Keys and our mom had just passed away. The whole world was going on just like always and our whole world was all of a sudden, off kilter. But Robyn (who is a hospice nurse and a gerontological nurse said “but this is going to be normal for us now.” Today would have been my parents 51st wedding anniversary – but we have a new normal now. 

Another one of my books says “I can brighten up the dullest of gray days. I can add sparkle to the routine of daily life.” Well, if you’ve looked outside where I live, it’s a pretty gray day. I don’t expect we’ll see the sun all day. But this unexpected school holiday is a chance to catch up on my laundry – one of the routines of daily life that I just HATE. I absolutely HATE laundry. Hate, hate, hate it!!! But, if I choose I can let God add sparkle to my gray day filled with laundry. 

My third little devotion is from my Women of Faith Infinite Grace book.  I just started re-reading this one and today my lesson was by Mary Graham and is called “Flooded with Grace.” it’s about a woman named Geraldine who used to live in New Orleans, but relocated to Texas after Hurricane Katrina.  Again, as I sit home from school today because of Tropical Storm Isaac, and listen to the rain fall, and remember concerns last night about rivers cresting,  I’m  overwhelmed  and feel a bit flooded myself. 

I know that God loves me. I know it in head as sure as I know my own name! But sometimes my heart forgets and needs a little more convincing.  I mean, why on earth does the One who can speak anything He wants to into existence even bother with me? But  then, something like this happens and I get it. If we were working today, I’d have stuck my 27 on my calendar and thought “Today would have been my parent’s anniversary” and then I’d have been so busy, it might never have crossed my mind again. But I’m not at school. I’m home – where I have much more time to think. And dwell. And brood.   So the One who loves me best gave me just what I needed – and He gave it to me through my books I’m reading. Does He know me or what??