My Reading Blog

This morning I received a text from Michelle giving me an idea for my slice.  She is reading a book about identities and the origin of our names.  So I took her up on it. Of course when our parents birthed children, they named them after family members or movies stars or just because they like the sound of the name. My Dad's name was Hartwell Paul Bernard Milling.  The Paul and Bernard were family names, but where did the name of Hartwell come from?  From the story that I remember, Dad was the 4th child born.  They had a farm hand and he/she decided that "Hartwell" sounded like the right name.  I have no idea the origin of it (I don't believe it's German, but who knows).  A coincidence, our neighbor had a brother named "Hartwell" - not a common name. My Mother's name was Darlene Wilhemena Schimpler Milling.  Again, the Wilhemena is a family name, but I'm not sure where Darlene came from, but I like to think she was named because she reminds...

My heart and prayers go out to all those who are experiencing the tragedy of natural disasters - the volcanic eruptions in Hawaii and Guatemala.  Tornados, flash floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and wild fires.  So many people displaced, villages and towns eradicated and disappeared under the flow of lava.  So many lives lost and families with no where to go. Guatemala is near and dear to my heart.  I have been there on five mission trips and plan to make another one in October.  It is such a beautiful country and the people are unbelievably gracious and caring.  They are hard workers and happy to work the land that they own.  The villages that were in the path of the lava were fertile because of the volcanic ash, but now are buried under all the lava flow.  There were no roads into these areas, there was no quick way out of the flow of lava. And yesterday, an earthquake shook this country. The government in Guatemala is very corrupt and ther...

I had figured out what I planned to slice about today and then I read  Michelle's Slice .  Apparently "great mother/daughter minds" think alike. The girls got out of school on the 30th and Momma had to work until the 4th, so we got to spend some quality time with "our girls".  We no more than got to their house and both girls said, "let's play school.  You and Grandpa will be the students."  They had been "gifted" some decorations from their teachers and had set up their playroom to become their school.  See Michelle's pics from her slice. M was the teacher for the day and we reviewed what we would be doing, who was assigned to which duty, and so on.  The first thing we started was language.  M drew her chart on the chalk board and proceeded to quiz us on different sounds.  Of course, while her back was turned to "her students", one of them started making faces - can you guess who?  Grandpa had P and me giggling and lau...