Migraines

Knock down
Head pounding
Sluggish response

Leave me alone!!

Green pills
Wait on relief

Tomorrow better?

Cast a Road / Color the Sidewalk

 Back cover:

A course-changing event in one's life can happen in minutes. Or it can form slowly, a primitive webbing splaying into fingers of discontent, a minuscule trail hardening into the sinewed spine of resentment. So it was with the mill workers as the heat-soaked days of summer marched on.

City girl Jessie, orphaned at sixteen, struggles to adjust to life with her barely known aunt and uncle in the tiny town of Bradleyville, Kentucky. Eight years later (1968), she plans on leaving—to follow in her revered mother's footsteps of serving the homeless. But the peaceful town she's come to love is about to be tragically shattered. Threats of a labor strike rumble through the streets, and Jessie's new love and her uncle are swept into the maelstrom. Caught between the pacifist teachings of her mother and these two men, Jessie desperately tries to deny that Bradleyville is rolling toward violence and destruction.

Back cover:

As a chalk-fingered child, I had worn my craving for Mama's love on my sleeve. But as I grew, that craving became cloaked in excuses and denial until slowly it sank beneath my skin to lie unheeded but vital, like the sinews of my framework. By the time I was a teenager, I thought the gap between Mama and me could not be wider.

And then Danny came along. . . .

A splendidly colored sidewalk. Six-year-old Celia presented the gift to her mother with pride—and received only anger in return. Why couldn't Mama love her? Years later, when once-in-a-lifetime love found Celia, her mother opposed it. The crushing losses that followed drove Celia, guilt-ridden and grieving, from her Bradleyville home.

Now thirty-five, she must return to nurse her father after a stroke. But the deepest need for healing lies in the rift between mother and daughter. God can perform such a miracle. But first Celia and Mama must let go of the past—before it destroys them both.

These two books got me into trouble I had such a hard time putting them down!  In Cast a Road Before Me I like that the author points out we are allowed to fight - we don't always need to roll over for our convictions.  I liked the concepts of honoring our parents that the author points out in Color the Sidewalk For Me, even when there have been huge misunderstandings.

Double Blind

Book Description: Desperate people make desperate choices.

Twenty-nine-year-old Lisa Newberry can barely make it through the day. Suddenly widowed and a survivor of a near-fatal attack, she is wracked with grief and despair. Then she hears of a medical trial for a tiny brain chip that emits electrical pulses to heal severe depression. At rope’s end, Lisa offers herself as a candidate. 

When she receives her letter of acceptance for the trial, Lisa is at first hopeful. But—brain surgery. Can she really go through with that? What if she receives only the placebo?

What if something far worse goes wrong?

Written in the relentless style for which Brandilyn Collins is known, Double Blind is a psychological thriller with mind-bending twists. Lisa faces choices that drive her to the brink, and one wrong move could cost the lives of many.

Like all of Brandilyn Collins books, I had a hard time putting the novel down!

I thought she raised some good questions, old questions, but good ones: even if we have the technology - should we use it?  If we do use it - what are the repercussions?

Not Welcome Here

A year and two months after Tropical Storm Irene drenched Vermont with rain, we now are staring down the barrel of Hurricane Sandy.

With any luck, all the predictions will be proven wrong in a good way. We won't get the insane amounts of winds and wind speeds.  We won't get lots and lots of rain.

Not to gripe too bad, but we're a landlocked state for crying out loud!!  We're not supposed to get hurricanes and tropical storms up here.  And no one is ready for another massive storm.  Not the people who lost houses last year.  Not the thousands of volunteers who helped and lent aid.  Not the contractors, consultants and state people who put the roads and bridges back together.

So pass us by Sandy.  We all ready put up with your sister Irene.