An Open Book: April 2025 Reads

A new (and very rainy) month has arrived, so I'm linking up with An Open Book to chat about my recent reading adventures. I didn't read many books, but the ones I picked up were a fascinating mix of fiction and non-fiction. Let's dive in!

Life Offline

An e-mail about yet another online Lenten retreat caught my eye. 

Hosted by a well-known Catholic priest whose writing and speaking I enjoy, I knew it would be a good event. Not only that, but it was free!  The computer cursor hovered over the registration link as I thought about how incredible this opportunity was. Yet, before I clicked that button, I paused. The thought hit me, unbidden: I didn't actually want to participate in this online event. As great as it was, why would I carve out time to sit in front of a laptop when I was about to attend a daylong retreat with other people in my local area? 

We all know the value of in-person interactions.  As many of us experienced in 2020, we know, in the deepest part of our being, that watching someone on a screen, online, is not the same as being physically with that person. How many times have we participated in a video call with a loved one and desperately wished that we could reach through the screen and share a hug? 

We also know that internet technology provides amazing ways for us to connect with others. It provides a path for us to meet a variety of people and learn from them. It offers resources for enrichment and growth, especially if we live in an area with few of the resources that we desire. For example, if we live in a place where Catholics are few and retreats are unheard of--or if we are homebound--then an online retreat is a tremendous blessing. 

Being able to access countless resources and information online is a great gift, and I'm grateful for the ways in which the internet has helped me find tools to grow as a daughter of God, as a writer, and as a homemaker. From nalbinding tutorials to recipe websites to Church documents, the internet has aided my lifelong learning. 

However, it’s become so easy to live and pray and grow online that we struggle to live offline. 

An Open Book: March 2025 Reads

March somehow completely flew by, and it's hard to believe that Easter is almost here! I'm linking up with An Open Book to chat about the books that accompanied me last month. There was some great nonfiction about the Lenten season, as well as a fun mix of fiction books. Let's dive in!  

An Open Book: February 2025 Reads

It is finally March--and Lent! I'm linking up with An Open Book to chat about the books that took me through the wild month of February (what is it about that month???). I didn't read many books, but some of them were pretty big and I really enjoyed all of them. Let's dive in! 

An Open Book: January 2025 Reads

The new year is quickly slipping by and it has been pretty intense so far-so I'm doing some rapid-fire reviews from January's books (let's see how long my baby stays happy so I can type haha!). I think the coherent theme of January's books is "Books I'd Been Meaning to Read for A While."  I'm linking up with An Open Book; let's dive in! 

Life, Death, and the Year of Hope

When I first moved to Kansas, people told me: “If you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes, and it will change.” I’ve heard this same sentiment in Oklahoma, too. The weather is unpredictable and constantly in flux. It can be cold and snowy one day—to the extent that the public library system closes down—and just a few days later, we stand outside in t-shirts, watching snowmen melt in sixty-degree weather. 

The changeability of the weather makes me think of hope—because if you truly don’t like the weather you’re currently experiencing, it’ll change in a minute or two. The cold won’t last forever; it won’t even last long. The short month of February always seems to contain both an ice storm and a seventy-degree day or two. Overcast, drizzly days don’t come often, and I know that after a few days of grey skies, the fierce sunshine will be back in full force. It's like life with small children. It's like life in general. There's darkness and light, gloom and joy, all smashed together in a wild jumble. 

My children and I were in the living room at a local home for the dying recently; it seemed like a fairly normal weekday. Letter flashcards were strewn across the floor, one child worked through a math book, other children chatted with volunteers in the kitchen. I held my baby up to one resident as we enjoyed watching the baby’s smiles and coos. Everything was peaceful, all was serene.

All at once, everything shifted. One child got scared of a (very gentle) service dog that entered the building. Another child made a mess and needed assistance in cleaning it up. The peaceful air was suddenly tinged with frenzy as multiple children needed me at once. 

A nurse dashed up to me. “How can I help?”

I thrust the baby in her arms and turned to the other children. Soon, everyone was taken care of and all was peaceful once again. A different caregiver walked up, holding my baby. I thanked her and remarked that everything always seems to happen at once.

“When things get crazy, I usually don’t even have time to stress-text my husband,” I said, mentioning that things seem to quickly bounce back and forth between chaos and calm. Little did I know that within the next week, I would see this reality play out in a dramatic way. 

It was late in the evening the next day when I received the message:

A flight from Wichita crashed.

Wichita? 

2024 Reading & Writing Recap

Once again, it's that wonderful time of the year when people share their yearly reading lists. So, before we get too far in 2025, I want to take a moment to share some reading highlights from 2024. As usual, I don't pick the "best" or "favorite" book each month, but I want to highlight a notable one (and sometimes it is my favorite book from that month). Looking at my reading recap of books read in 2023, I'm struck by how much less fiction I am highlighting this time around. I guess I tend to read more fiction in some years than others? 

Anyways, moving on. I read 92 books in 2024, and they were a fun mix of fiction and non-fiction, books geared towards children and books aimed at adults. From werewolves to economics to mathematics to Amelia Peabody's adventures in Egypt (such good comfort reads!), I dove into a variety of fascinating topics. It was a really fun reading year. Here's one book highlight from each month, followed by a short writing recap :) 

An Open Book: December 2024 Reads

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas! It's time share my reading stack that closed out the year 2024. I didn't get many books finished in December--I started one slow-going book and, a fourth of the way through it, finally put it down--but the ones that I did finish were fantastic! It was a good reading month. I'm linking up with An Open Book; let's dive in! 

Sometime...next year

I was driving my kids across town to meet friends a few days ago, and we became stuck in a colossal traffic jam. It was midmorning—definitely not “rush hour traffic”—and I didn’t see any signs of a car accident. Yet, we were inching along the highway at a snail’s pace. I started to see signs stating, “road work ahead,” but we were still a couple miles away from the work zone. What was wrong?

 Finally, I saw it: the highway was changing from two lanes to one lane. Far ahead of us, I could see the “State Law: Merge Now” sign with an arrow designating the merge point. And between that sign and our position in traffic was a long line of cars, all crammed into the right lane—while the left lane lay blissfully empty. Everyone was merging extremely early. Eventually, only one car was in front of ours. I watched, amused, as that car sat with its right turn signal on; waiting and waiting for an opening so it could join the slow procession of cars in the right lane. Even though an empty lane stretched in front of this car, it sat and prepared to merge exactly where it was.

 I used to do that exact thing.

If I knew that I eventually needed to change lanes because they were merging, I would do it right now—even if it meant sitting in a traffic jam while cars soared through the near-empty lane next to me. I wanted to make sure that I was taking care of things immediately and that I wouldn’t get stuck later on. In my mind, merging very early made sense—and I brought this approach into the rest of my life, too. 

An Open Book: November 2024 Reads

I hope you all are having a peaceful Advent so far! With another month here, it's time to link up with An Open Book to share about my reading stack in November. It was a fun mix of comforting fiction and some fascinating nonfiction. Let's dive in! 

Postpartum: An invitation to rest

Last February at the online Catholic Writer’s Conference, I gave a talk about the importance of rest. One of the elements of rest that I discussed was “unproductive leisure" that does not prioritize productivity but instead focuses on resting and letting ourselves be rejuvenated in God. Unproductive leisure invites us to fully live in the present moment, to simply be.

As I spend day after day curled up on the couch with my newborn baby, my thoughts drift back to this concept. In our current American culture, this unproductive leisure can be difficult to pursue. Whether explicitly or implicitly, we often receive pressure to be productive and “get stuff done.” Yet, we are not robots with the sole purpose of creating products or performing certain functions; we are human beings, made in God’s image and likeness. When we rest and engage in unproductive leisure, we can remember our intrinsic worth and dignity. We also can remember that God invites us to rest in him.

Not only does this unproductive leisure benefit us, but it’s a witness to others; an encouragement that they, too, can rest. As much as I believe in the importance of rest, it can be hard to prioritize it at times. I’m grateful that some women I know have outright encouraged me to rest and really take it easy after having a baby. This precious postpartum time is an invitation into rest, and with each child that I birth, I plunge deeper into unproductive leisure.