Yearly Archives: 2010

Wedding Anniversary And Conference

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We celebrated seven years of marriage today! We celebrated by pulling out our wedding video and watching it yesterday. Our son didn’t recognize a lot of the people in the video since, well, you know how it goes. Sometimes the only times you see some friends and family is at weddings and funerals. Some of the people are good friends of ours, too and these people are unfamiliar to our son! 🙁

Maybe we’ll show him the wedding video every year and make more of an effort to hook up with our friends and family members!

I’m heading out to ACFW within the next few days. I’m too tired to be excited. I’m sure the giddiness of being around all those great, wonderful people will kick in once I get there! There’s so much going on in my mind that my head feels cluttered!

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Strawberry Jam!

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I made jam for the first time recently and if you’re my friend on Facebook, you may already know about my adventures in jam making! Here’s the recipe I used, followed with a commentary about all that happened when I made this jam!

Strawberry Jam

8 cups of strawberries (about 4 pints), crushed
5 cups sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Mix all ingredients in Dutch oven. Heat to boiling over high heat, stirring frequently. Boil uncovered, stirring frequently, until translucent and jam is thick, about 25 minutes. Quickly skim off foam. Immediately pour jam into hot sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe rim of jars. Seal as directed on jars.

I got about 7 half pints of jam from this recipe. I didn’t crush the berries, I just sliced them. I made the mistake of using the JAM setting on my bread machine instead of using the dutch oven since I don’t have a dutch oven. The jam setting didn’t cook the mixture enough. When I poured it into the hot, sterilized jars, it was watery – like strawberry water. I went ahead and sealed the jars anyway, thinking it would thicken later. Several hours later, it was still watery. I figured that it didn’t cook long enough on the JAM setting on the bread machine, even though it went through the whole cycle for JAM on the bread machine. Feeling upset about all the wasted time and effort, I opened the sealed jars and poured the strawberry water into a big pot and cooked it until it thickened on the stove. I stirred frequently and it took about 25 minutes for it to thicken. I then re-sterilized the jars and poured the thicken jam into the jars and resealed them. I then placed the sealed jars into hot water so that they could re-seal.

I called my mom and she informed me that since I’d already sealed the strawberry water earlier, I couldn’t re-use the lids since the seal was now broken. By this time, it was nine o’clock at night and I wasn’t going out to buy new lids. I ended up leaving the jars out to cool, with the lids on and the next day I placed them into the refrigerator, just to be safe.

The day after Labor Day, once we’d returned from work, I opened a jar of jam and found that it had sealed! 🙂

I made some toast and we spread butter and jelly on the toast and IT WAS GOOD! Our five-year-old son stated: “Mmmm! Mommy, this is good!”

It was so delicious and we ate a whole jar within a couple of days! 🙂

Do any of you can regularly? I do have a question if you do? You know the lids for the jars? Are you supposed to sterilze both parts of the lids before you place them onto the filled jars? I’d think if you sterilized that middle part of the lid, the one with the seal, that it being in the boiling water would break the seal before you screwed it on the lid?

I plan on doing this again, but not anytime soon! I’ll probably do it in the spring or summer. I’ll probably make peach preserves next! Doesn’t that sound yummy!

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Love Finds You In Homestead Iowa

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Love Finds You In Homestead Iowa by Melanie Dobson
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Summerside Press (March 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1935416669

Times are hard in 1894. Desperate for work, former banker Jacob Hirsch rides the rails west from Chicago with his four-year-old daughter, Cassie. When a life-threatening illness strands the pair in Homestead, Iowa, the local Amana villagers welcome the father and daughter into their peaceful society. Liesel, a young Amana woman, nurses Cassie back to health, and the Homestead elders offer Jacob work. But Jacob’s growing interest in Liesel complicates his position in the Amanas. Will he fight to stay in the only place that feels like home, even if it means giving up the woman he loves? Or will Liesel leave her beloved community to face the outside world with Jacob and Cassie at her side?

I really enjoyed this book. I’d never heard of the Amanas until I read this novel. Jacob has fallen on hard times and he’s desperate to find a way to care for his ill daughter, Cassie. When he hops on a train and then randomly gets off at the Amanas, he finds someone who can help his daughter to heal from a dreadful disease. However, although Jacob’s physical health is in danger, his spiritual health is a bit weak, too. He finds himself smitten with Liesel, one of the Amana people. When the couple are quarantined together, they talk and Liesel discovers that she has deeper feelings for Jacob than she has for her fiancé (who happens to to be the baker in their community). However, Liesel can’t fall in love and be with an outsider, and try as hard as she can, she just can’t shake these deep feelings she’s developing for Jacob and his young daughter Cassie.

There was also a slightly suspenseful side story involving stolen money and Jacob’s old employer at the bank that I found intriguing.

I especially liked the fact that I learned a lot about the Amanas! They’re a Plain sect of people that no longer exist. They lived apart from the world and were pretty self-sufficient. They didn’t get paid for their labors. All of their work went back into the community and from what I understand, they would get ration coupons to purchase personal goods from the general store. Land, homes, buildings, etc. were all owned by the Society and there were only some personal items that each person might own. This way of life sounded a bit stifling, but I thought it was intriguing, too. I felt more comfortable reading about the Amanas than the Shakers. I found the Amanas sect was more Biblically based than the Shakers and I could actually imagine myself living among them for awhile…unlike the Shakers!

If you want to learn something new and you like intriguing, emotionally-charged stories, then this book is for you!

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Discovery Channel Gunman

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My sister works at the Discovery Channel in Silver Spring and I was worried, shocked, and horrified and I found out about an armed man, James Lee, had entered the building and had fired a few shots and took hostages. It also appeared that he was strapped with bombs. My sister called me quietly from her office, leaving me a voicemail stating that they were in lockdown. My heart was beating hard and I was sweating hard as I prayed and called people that I knew. I was relieved when she called me about ten minutes later and said that they’d exited the building.

I’m glad the whole situation is over. It was just a bit too close to home for me! 🙁

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Love Finds You In Miracle Kentucky By Andrea Boeshaar

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Love Finds You In Miracle Kentucky by Andrea Boeshaar

“Anything can happen when you live in Miracle…” After her life in Chicago falls apart, Meg Jorgenson arrives in the small town of Miracle, Kentucky, with plans to start over. She moves in with a grandmother she barely knows and takes a teaching position at the local elementary school. Meg soon garners the interest of Miracle’s eligible bachelors, but it’s eight-year-old Cammy Bayer who instantly wins her heart. Cammy has spent most of her young life in a wheelchair, but she firmly believes that God will miraculously allow her to walk again someday. Although Meg admires the girl’s optimism, she pities Cammy for believing something so impossible.

Vance Bayer has always made Cammy his first priority. Though delighted by the attention his daughter receives from her pretty new teacher, the shy widower is embarrassed by Cammy’s not-so-subtle attempts to play matchmaker.

Both Meg and Vance want the best for Cammy, but will they see eye-to-eye when it comes to an experimental surgery that might grant Cammy the use of her legs? Will they open their minds to the miracle of healing and their hearts to the miracle of love?

Love Finds You™ is a series of full-length romance novels that give readers a peek into the flavor of local life across the United States. The novels are uniquely named after actual American towns with quirky, interesting names that inspire romance and are just plain fun! This means that each fictional story draws on the compelling history or unique character of a real place.

Our fresh, original love stories will feature everything from romance kindled in small towns, to old loves lost and found on the high plains, to new loves discovered at exciting vacation getaways.

This book was a charming, romantic, feel-good read. The book had great characters that you’ll grow to love, and you’ll really fall for Cammy, the little girl who is wheelchair-bound due to an accident.

Widower Vance Bayer is still grieving over the loss of his wife due to a car accident. This accident has also left his daughter bound to a wheelchair. Caring for his crippled daughter and working full time takes a toll on Vance, and Cammy’s new third-grade teacher creates an interesting twist to his busy days.

Meg Jorgenson runs away from Chicago, wanting to leave an emotionally-destructive relationship and to seek greener pastures in the small, quaint town of Miracle Kentucky. When she arrives, she finds herself getting to know her grandmother, who she’s never gotten to spend much time with over the years since her parents’ bitter divorce. Meg also finds herself getting to know the townspeople. She’s not used to staying in one place and forming personal relationships with others, however, in Miracle, she finds her life taking a turn for the better, both romantically and spiritually.

This book was a good, enjoyable read and I highly recommend it. I enjoyed and savored every page, and I’m sure you’ll probably enjoy it too.

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Intervention by Terri Blackstock

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Intervention by Terri Blackstock
Barbara Covington has one more chance to save her daughter from a devastating addiction, by staging an intervention. But when eighteen-year-old Emily disappears on the way to drug treatment—and her interventionist is found dead at the airport—Barbara enters her darkest nightmare of all.

Barbara and her son set out to find Emily before Detective Kent Harlan arrests her for a crime he is sure she committed. Fearing for Emily’s life, Barbara maintains her daughter’s innocence. But does she really know her anymore? Meanwhile, Kent has questions of his own. His gut tells him that this is a case of an addict killing for drugs, but as he gets to know Barbara, he begins to hope he’s wrong about Emily.

The panic level rises as the mysteries intensify: Did Emily’s obsession with drugs lead her to commit murder—or is she another victim of a cold-blooded killer?

This book is an awesome example of motherly love. Barbara is still grieving over the loss of her husband from a couple of years ago. Her spouse’s death has caused her daughter, Emily, to “act out” and get addicted to drugs. Emily’s behavior has gotten so bad that Barbara finds that she has to stage an intervention to save her child. The interventionist arrives and Emily freaks out, not wanting to hear the letters that her mother and her brother have written about her irratic and destructive behavior. However, once Emily arrives via plane, with the interventionist at the airport where the drug recovery center is located, minutes later, the interventionist is found dead and Emily is missing.

In spite of Emily’s reputation being harmed since the press identifies her as the apparant killer, Barbara knows better. She knows her daughter would never kill, in spite of her recent drug addictions and strange behavior. Barbara is determined to find her daughter, her gut telling her that her child is still alive. Her fourteen year old son Lance also helps with trying to find his sister, not believing his sibling is capable of murder.

This book takes a strange twist as we learn about a detective’s lack of faith in God, and about a demented doctor’s quest to get revenge against the drug recovery facility that “killed” his daughter.

As with Blackstock’s books, this was a suspenseful read that you won’t want to put down – a real page turner.

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Rooms By James Rubart

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Rooms by James Rubart

On a rainy spring day in Seattle, young software tycoon Micah Taylor receives a cryptic, twenty-five-year-old letter from a great uncle he never knew. It claims a home awaits him on the Oregon coast that will turn his world inside out. Suspecting a prank, Micah arrives at Cannon Beach to discover a stunning brand new nine-thousand square foot house. And after meeting Sarah Sabin at a nearby ice cream shop, he has two reasons to visit the beach every weekend.

When bizarre things start happening in the rooms of the home, Micah suspects they have some connection to his enigmatic new friend, Rick, the town mechanic. But Rick will only say the house is spiritual. This unnerves Micah because his faith slipped away like the tide years ago, and he wants to keep it that way. But as he slowly discovers, the home isn’t just spiritual, it’s a physical manifestation of his soul, which God uses to heal Micah’s darkest wounds and lead him into an astonishing new destiny.

I got this book as a free Kindle download awhile ago. I don’t own a regular Kindle. I have the free Kindle for PC. Hopefully, I’ll own a Kindle by Christmas! 🙂

I found this book somewhat appealing since I’m a big fan of The Twilight Zone. This show was on before I was born and I watch reruns on New Year’s and Fourth of July almost every year.

Rooms reminded me of one long Twilight Zone episode. The book was somewhat intriguing and I wanted to see if Micah and Sarah ended up together at the end and I also wanted to see the outcome of Micah’s faith journey. This book has a great inspirational message that I believe most readers of Christian fiction would love.

Micah is shocked when rooms start appearing in the house he’s inherited from his crazy Uncle Archie. He goes to bed and wakes up and sees a room that was NOT in the house the day before! Although I thought the concept was interesting, during the first half of the book, I felt the situation was somewhat repetitious as Micah found room after room after room…the same situation over and over again. Also, when Micah talks to the mysterious voice (his own voice/alter ego), I felt it was a little bit repetitious too, hearing Micah talk and reason with himself.

Also, when the book talked about the parallel universe, it kind of reminded me of another sci-fi type book entitled Eli. I read Eli several years ago and I recall the book dealt with a parallel universe.

I was kind of puzzled about why Rooms was compared to Dekker’s and Peretti’s book House. Rooms was intriguing, the way the Twilight Zone is intriguing because you’re dealing with supernatural/unexplainable elements, but I didn’t find the book scary at all.

I wanted to see what happened in the book, but I found the writing to be corny. I felt the dialogue was somewhat clichéd and some of the situations that were supposed to be serious felt somewhat contrived to me. Also, I noticed the author used dated references like: Popeye, Foghorn Leghorn, and Candid Camera for example. I’m not sure younger readers would get the gist of what the author was talking about with the dated references.

This book does show you that you can’t rely on riches and wealth, only your faith in God, the one and only true God, to save you.

I think the story would’ve been more powerful if Micah ran a company that was distasteful to a lot of Christians, like, a porn company or an illegal company. I think the message would have come through better if Micah ran a company like that, and then learned that his ways were distasteful to the Lord? I think it was hard for me to grasp that Micah gave up his software company for God…almost making the reader feel that the author is pointing out that riches are distasteful to God, even if they are legal, like Micah’s software company.

This book was outside my regular genre of pleasure reading (romance, women’s fiction, regular suspense) but overall, Rooms was an interesting story and you’ll want to know what happens at the end.

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Back To School!

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We’re getting ready to send our child to school this Monday. It’ll be his first day of kindergarten and we’ve been buying uniforms and supplies. We’re still not done with all of our purchases. If you recall, on this blog post, we grappled with sending our son to public or private school. We decided to send him to a private Christian school. I tried to talk to the public school about the curriculum and to the new kindergarten teacher….but all I got was the runaround! 🙁

I was already having trouble with the public school and our son wasn’t even enrolled yet! I couldn’t imagine what would happen once he was a student – I was already frustrated enough! 🙁

So far, I’m pleased that this school has answered my questions and has shown me their curriculum. I was satisfied with what my son would be learning during his first year of school. His first day is this Monday, August 23.

I have some books that I need to review for this blog. I’ll be doing that soon.

~Cecelia Dowdy~