The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am a fan of historical fiction and when I came across this book, I knew that it was something that would interest me. However, the time around the Salem witch trials are a dark time in the history of our country and I knew how things were going to end for Mercy. It is hard to imagine what those men and women went through during that time with the Salem witch trials and it is even harder to imagine that anyone could believe the tales that were being told to implicate those accused. The story connects the lives of 3 women. The first being Mercy who was accused of witchcraft and sentenced to die and Abigail an older woman who is an ancestor of Mercy's who has in her posession Mercy's diary and Lauren a young college student that Abigail hires to transcribe Mercy's diary. The diary has a profound impact on the lives of Abigail and Lauren and we see that we can learn alot about ourselves by studying the past. The underlying theme of this book is about how quick we can be to pass judgement on others and how hurtful that can be. It is also a story about mercy and forgiveness and as an added bonus it is a love story. I really enjoyed this book.
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Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Shape of Mercy
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Terrible Two's
It's been awhile since I've written about Ethan and I wanted to take a minute to document a little of his personal history. Ethan turned 2 on June 1. So here are a few things to remeber about Ethan at this stage of his life.
Ethan is a tornado of destruction. He keeps me busy each and every day cleaning up the various messes that he makes all over the house.
Every day, multiple times a day, he pulls all the cushions of my couches. He jumps on them and uses them to build forts.
He refuses to sit in the shopping cart.
He hates tags in his clothes. I have to hide them or cut them out. Today he called me in to the bathroom to show me a tag on the towel. Oh brother!
Ethan is talking a lot! He can say each of his brothers names "Erck", "Cam", "Autin" and he can even say his own name "E-in"
When he sees me in my workout clothes he says "esercise mom?"
Whenever he gets a boo boo, he comes to me for a kiss to make it better.
He used to say ck-truck for truck, but now he just says truck
He likes Erik to get him out of bed. When he sees him he says "Hi Erck, what are you doing here?"
He loves to paint "a paint mom?"
He calls robots "robot eyes" Not sure where that came from, but it's pretty funny.
He loves stickers. Sticker books are the only way that I can keep him still in church.
He can do all the actions to "Head, shoulders, knees and toes"
He loves to have a bath!
He loves the movie Cars and knows all the characters.
He continually pulls the keys off of Brett's laptop.
He is an artist and loves to draw on everything. (*see below)
He loves to draw with sidewalk chalk. Sometimes his artwork shows up on more places than just the sidewalk....the car, the house, the tile inside the house etc.
Ethan is a sweet, cuddly little boy who always gives lots of hugs and kisses. He is generally happy and full of energy. Even though he wears me out most days, I am so grateful for his curiosity and fun-loving attitude. I love you Ethan!
P.S. as a follow up, I was just finishing up this post and was going to get the boys into bed when I smelled and overwhelmingly strong scent of Febreeze air freshener coming from up the stairs. I got to the top and noticed that the carpet was slightly damp right where Ethan was sitting. HMMMMM. I asked the boys what happened and Cameron told me that Ethan was spraying the Febreeze and he took it away from him. OK!, so I took Ethan and washed his hands and got him ready for bed and dried the carpet as best I could, then we all gathered around for family prayer. Austin climbed in my lap and just as he started saying the prayer I kissed him on the head and low and behold he smelled like (you guessed it) Febreeze! After the prayer, I asked Austin why he smelled like Febreeze and he said "because Ethan squirted me 2 times!" Seriously?! So it was off to the tub for a quick bath before bed. But not before I put the can of Febreeze on the highest shelf way out of the reach of some very mischevious and curious little hands! I guess that's where it should have been all along!
My trumpeteer....
Erik has been practicing the trumpet and he sure is getting good at it! Take a peek... Also, notice his new glasses. Doesn't he look so handsome?! Great job Erik! I am very proud of you. Love, Mom :)
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Busy, busy, busy....
In a good way. We are 99% finished with our laundry room!
BEFORE:
AFTER:
All we have left to do in here is put up the chair rail on the beadboard and some touch up paint on the trim! Feels so good to check another project off of our never-ending to do list!
Before and after....
It feels so good to finish up some projects that we have been wanting to get to. A good friend of mine (hi Sandra) gave me this cute table awhile ago and I have had plans to re-finish it for quite some time now. This weekend was the perfect time for me to do just that. So here is the BEFORE:
and here is the AFTER:
Amazing what a little paint and elbow grease can do! Love it!
