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Longing For Them Now

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

A poem by Sandra Conner

Bright flashes of blissful moments,
Fluttering pages of Christmas memories.
Drifting through my mind.
Pages of memories of childhood beam
With living, expectant Christmas dreams.
Longing for them now.

Remembering how each page was able to ignite
My imagination, which brought each one to life.

Oh happy, happy days!
Bright daydreams & wishes,
Make-believing magic,
Found within the pages –
The Christmas catalogs.

~ ~ ~


(Visit this link and get lost in the hundreds of pages of nostalgic Christmas catalogs that span a period of 6 decades.
http://www.wishbookweb.com/)

 

 

 

The END of the War — August 14, 1945

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Today is the anniversary of the Japanese surrender to the Allied Forces– August 14, 1945 — marking the actual, physical end of WWII. (The treaty was signed just 19 days later, on September 2).  For those who lived that never-to-be-forgotten moment of learning we had won the war,  and the world really did have a future — and for those who never had to experience it, but are truly thankful to those who made it possible — the video below is a “must see.”  By Richard Sullivan, this video shows his father’s real-life 16 mm film recording of several spontaneous V-J Day celebrations in Honolulu, Hawaii, minutes after the announcement that Japan had surrendered.  I suggest you watch it with a box of tissues.
(If, for some reason, you have trouble playing it from this blog page, click on the link connected to Richard’s name above and go directly to his site.)

That Old Christmas ‘Wish Book’

| Sandra Pavloff Conner
A couple days ago, I found myself feeling nostalgic in a “Christmasy” sort of way: I was wishing I could pick up some of the old Christmas catalogs that I used to lose myself in back in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. When I say “lose myself,” that’s exactly what I mean. My sister and I used to practically live for the day the Christmas catalogs arrived, and we could be found, from that day to Christmas, “living” in those pages — dreaming, wishing, and make-believing.

So I decided to search the Internet, and to my great joy came across this site.

(Link below). It offers the complete Christmas catalogs from several different companies for the 1930’s through the 1980’s. OH THE JOY!!! Not only did I delight in looking at all those pages of my favorite things — including fancy house shoes, matching pajamas for the whole family, toy trains, record players, and all kinds of sweet confections — but I actually discovered some things that had been a part of my life during those years. I found a set of coffee mugs that some good friends of ours had owned and used for years. I also found a multi-colored vest that I really had ordered from the catalog and worn for years. When I told my sister about the site, she started spending time there and discovered the page showing a doll and doll bed that Mom and Dad had ordered for her from that particular catalog.
Well, as you can imagine, I have been back several times, and will make many more visits before the big day gets here.

This site loads the entire catalog of each issue — hundreds of pages in thumbnail size which enlarge to full-page size when you click on them. I felt sure that some of the rest of you, when you were kids, must have felt that special thrill when the Christmas catalogs came out each year. So I’m sharing this link with you for old time’s sake.  Enjoy!

http://www.wishbookweb.com/

 

Well, I’ll Be Blogged!

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

by Sandra Conner

I think I have a lot to say —
Too much to finish in one day.
If I record a daily log,
I’ll have the skeleton of a total blog.

And if I flesh that skeleton out
And give it life, I have no doubt
Readers will gather round about
And greet each shining post with joyful shout.

I’ll shock the timid, cheer the sad,
Enrage the liberal and make him mad,
And all I write, be it good or bad,
To cyberspace my own two cents will add.



 

The Cycle

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

“To work, to try, to learn
Is not a simple thing.
My teacher, though, thinks learning
Comes on swift, effortless wings.

“I’m sure she never struggled
To get words to come out right.
Or understand their meanings;
Recognize them all on sight.

“She’s prejudiced against me;
Doesn’t like me above half;
Just wants to cause me trouble;
Wishes I weren’t in her class.”

“I know how Peter struggles.
I’ve heard him heave the sighs.
I’ve seen his eyes drift out to rest
On azure-colored skies.

“He thinks I’m hard and unfair
When his homework’s never done;
When I make him keep re-taking tests
Instead of having fun.

“He doesn’t know I struggled once –
Knew the failure and the shame.
Has no idea the reason I teach
Is to save him from the same.”

 

So You Want To Be A Writer, Huh???

| Sandra Pavloff Conner
So you want to be a writer, huh? Then DO IT!

Mystery author Agatha Christie once said, “The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” There’s a lot of wisdom in that statement.

You know, you don’t have to live a weird life — or even a particularly exciting life — to be a great author. In fact you can live a very ordinary, chicken-frying, auto-repairing, laundry-washing, diaper-changing kind of life and still write books that will lift people OUT OF the ordinary and into a place where imaginations rise to peak places, where new dreams are ignited, and where hope and faith bring victory into life’s struggles.

So pick up that pen, sit down to that computer keyboard, or start dictating into that recorder — whatever method works for you.  If you’re sure you WANT to write, START WRITING.  Your life will never be the same.



Weekly Photo Challenge: Dreaming

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

For this week’s challenge, I decided to share a few more photos from Rocky Ridge Refuge in Arkansas, U. S. A.  They do such wonderful work with all kinds of animals in trouble.  You can visit their website here: http://rockyridgerefuge.com.

I call this slideshow  “Community Dreaming”

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| Sandra Pavloff Conner

I was especially touched by this post from “Pure Glory.” I hope it blesses the visitors to “By the Book” as much as it did me.

Pure Glory's avatarPure Glory

by Apostle Gabriel Cross

Let go of the regrets and embrace all of what God has ordained for you. Leave the past in the past. Focus on the promises not the problems. Don’t waste your energy on the enemy, you’ve already won! Don’t dwell on what you don’t have, look at what you do have. Your memories are not your reality and your emotions are not paramount. Turn your worries into worship. Embrace the goodness of the Father, his mercy, and all that he desires for you. Yahweh desires to open his great treasure and do his good pleasure through you.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Movement

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Moving Forward and Clearing the Hurdles

You will see in this exceptional photo that the horse is literally flying over this double hurdle with a measurable amount of clearance. A particularly difficult feat, and a beautiful sight to behold. I was inspired to see in this photo the meeting of a challenge in a quote from a woman named Dorothea Brande. She said: “Act as if it were impossible to fail.”

The beautiful horse in this picture believed he could fly over this hurdle with room to spare.  That is the only reason he is doing it successfully.  I found that looking at this picture and dwelling on it encouraged me to challenge myself to do the same, and I’m passing on that challenge. Whatever it is in your life that you need to — or even want to — accomplish successfully, believe that you can do it.  See yourself doing it.  Throw your heart over the hurdles that look like they could hinder you.

A famous trapeze artist from two generations ago was training a new student who, one day, suddenly became filled with fear as he looked at the precarious perch where he had to perform.  He froze — couldn’t move a muscle — and began to gasp, “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!”  The long-time veteran put his arm around the young man and said, “Yes, son, you can do it, and I will tell you how: throw your heart over the bar, and your body will follow.”  The Word of God backs up that premise with the truth from Proverbs 23:7, which says of man, “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

The horse in this picture threw his heart over those bars.  He believed he could make that jump with plenty of room to spare.  So he did.  He simply acted on what he believed.  When you go through a difficult situation in your life and the hurdles seem so enormous that you feel you’ll never clear them – or when you find yourself facing the challenge of doing something that looks a little too big or too high for you – come back and take a long look at this photo.  Meditate on it; then obey Dorothea Brande’s wise words:  “Act as if it were impossible to fail.” Make one forward movement, and the rest of the moves will follow.

God’s Yearning to Heal You!

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

I originally wrote this article for the “Healing From Jesus” blog, but I feel the message is so vital for people who are in need of healing that I want to share it on my “By the Book” site as well.  For some reason, I could not get it to re-blog without making the picture huge, so I have simply shared this link to the original post:  God’s Yearning to Heal You!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fleeting Moment

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Okay, it’s a little too high off the ground to be considered “street photography,” but it’s definitely a “fleeting moment.”

(I borrowed this from craized.com.)

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

I told my readers once before that I thought I had fallen in love with this blog site. That was when I shared an earlier post by “The Dorset Rambler.” But this newest post deserves it’s own spot in the limelight. I think perhaps it’s one of the most delightful of all from the D.R. Hope it blesses you as much as it did me.

thedorsetrambler's avatarThe Dorset Rambler

Well, having scaled the heights of Snowdonia in my recent posts, we are back in beautiful Dorset today – and beautiful it was with some strange blue stuff above me and even a big round yellow thing ;)!  It was actually sunshine and blue skies which is something of a miracle this ‘summer’!!

I parked up in a north Dorset village right outside the church so before I even got walking I had a look round – village churches are always so interesting and this one was no exception.  The thing that caught my eye was a lovely circular window with stained glass depicting the verse ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven’.  It was unusual to see a circular window.

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Suffer the little children to come unto Me

Those who have been following my blog will know that I regularly…

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