-1-

Yes, winter showed up in Ohio—it was in the twenties and teens on Tuesday this week, and Orchard House got its first snow. Since I didn’t have to go out in it, I didn’t mind it, and the snow looked beautiful with the Hawthorn tree outside my window—the red berries make a lovely contrast. So I enjoyed it.

And it’s also November. Snow in mid-November is fine in Ohio. When we get it in October, I get a little grumpy. But I’m OK with snow until about the first week of January and then it can go away. :-p (I really only like snow around the holidays.)

-2-

Advent is coming, and I want to show you the newest Take Up & Read Devotional—O Radiant Dawn, for Advent and Christmas….

We’re doing a special focus on the O Antiphons, and the book goes from Advent through New Year’s Day. It’s exquisitely gorgeous—our designer, Kristin Foss, has done wonderful things with this book. All of our books have great production values because of her, but this one really takes the cake.

We work really hard to make these beautiful and useful devotionals for you, and I hope you enjoy them. If you are a long-time fan and customer, thank you! If you’re new….come check us out!

You can get your copy here.

-III-

Being home from the Resort means that my sleeping schedule is still weird…..I’m staying up too late and sleeping in, so I’m all over the place. And the house is still sort of a mess, although I’m working on getting it back to baseline. Basically, being in the hospital demonstrates how true the concept of entropy is—that everything is working toward chaos all the time, ALL THE TIME!!!!!!

-IV-

What are you doing for Thanksgiving? We stay pretty low key; Christmas is our big family holiday. So it’ll just be my parents and I. My brother spends it with his wife’s family, and my sister and her husband are staying out in Colorado.

-V-

On Monday I’m going to one of OSU’s branch hospitals to have a HIDA scan done. Basically it’s a test that stresses my gallbladder and sees how it does, and also we can get a scan of what my gallbladder looks like. If there are issues, it’s coming out. If there are sort of issues, I think it’s staying in until it acts up again, and then it might come out? And if it looks fine, we’ll just watch it. Three options. By the end of the day Monday we’ll know which door we’re going through. I’m sort of on team take it out, but…not my call!

-VI-

Obviously, massive thanks to everyone who has pre ordered the book! If you haven’t, you can do so here. Pre-orders are so helpful, both in building buzz and in letting the publisher know how many copies to make for the first printing!

-VII-

I have Disney+, and I like it an awful lot. Having a the Disney movies at my fingertips? WINNER. And I’m also loving rewatching Boy Meets World, except that I had forgotten that the class in the show was my age—it debuted in the fall of 1993, when I was in sixth grade, so that’s how old the characters are. This was brought home in an episode where Mr. Feeny had them imagine their futures and threw a mock 20th class reunion….that took place in 2020.

As in, next year.