Saturday Salutes ~ and the Books I Read in November

I couldn’t believe how much color was still on the trees in the NC and TN mountains this week. Just beautiful!!

Christin tells us The Best Way to Love Your Husband.

If you’re planning family photos any time soon, check out these tips from Corina in What to Wear for Family Photos.

Susan shares 7 Important Things I’ve Learned About Parenting Over 46 Years.  Number seven is one that I often need to remember!

Kara has Holiday Gifts to Give Yourself Now That You’ll Thank Yourself for Later.

Tracy tells us How a Professional Organizer Approaches the Holidays.

So I read A LOT of books this month.  Yay for a weeklong vacation with plenty of time in the cabin!

Here were my three non-fiction reads.

Remember God by Annie F. Downs was a really good, quick read.  Annie is very vulnerable in this book as she shares some tender parts of her story.  It was an encouragement to me to continue to trust God whether or not my life is turning out as I thought it would.

From Mom to Me Again by Melissa Shultz was a memoir of this author’s first year as an empty-nester.  It was an interesting read, though I preferred last month’s “empty-nest” read.

Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life by Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Bush was another memoir on my list this month.  I enjoyed reading about some of the “behind-the-scenes” moments, especially related to 9/11, and also their memories of special times with their dad.

Here are the four fiction books I read this month.

I had high hopes for Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis by Patti Callahan due to lots of positive reviews I’d heard about the book.  Maybe my expectations were too high, but it just wasn’t quite what I was expecting.  Since this was a fiction book, it did inspire me to do some research into Joy Davidman and her relationship with C.S. Lewis.

I enjoyed the mystery in The View from Rainshadow Bay by Colleen Coble.  I’ll likely eventually read the next book in the series.

Farraday Road and Swope’s Ridge by Ace Collins are the first two books in his Lije Evans series.  I got a little lost with all the characters a few times, but overall it was an interesting mystery.  Know that the mystery is not resolved in the first book; it leaves you hanging, and wraps up a bit more neatly in the second one.  There’s a third book as well that I haven’t read yet.

Today is Christmas tree day!  We typically go to a home improvement store and pick out a 6-to-7-foot Fraser fir tree.  Hopefully I can get it decorated in the next couple of days.

Have a wonderful weekend!