Of course... even when I'm not reading...

I'm reading. I always read the newspaper, The Houston Chronicle. How I still miss the long-gone Houston Post. Oh, how I miss the Chronicle from the time when it was a real newspaper instead of a mournful shadow of itself.

The mail periodically brings, well, periodicals: The Economist, Reader's Digest, National Geographic, Consumer Reports, Texas Highways, Texas Parks and Wildlife, a plethora of home decorating mags, and the public relations publications of Adubon Society, Houston Zoo, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Nature Conservancy and para-church pubs.

The latest addition to this list is our Christmas gift from our god-daughter, Holly: Mental Floss where knowledge junkies get their fix, an entertaining, kooky, fun, and thoroughly delightful read which David and I both enjoy and highly recommend:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/

And, of course, I seldom miss my daily devotions.

"Of course," just as my great grandmother, Mama Calahan, said to my sister and me, "Of course, I know you girls completed your morning devotions long ago, but Mrs. M_ and I enjoyed a late start to our morning and hoped you wouldn't mind joining us for ours. It's so nice to have good, young voices to read and sing for us."

Of course, neither of us had given a single thought to ever doing any morning devotions although I think we have often done so since. For me morning devotions are now an "of course" just as they were for my great grandmother. This year my devotional readings are coming from two sources:

1. Jowett, John Henry: My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year. New York Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1924. Project Gutenberg. Kindle. Each day's reading is a short commentary on a scripture reference which I'm incongruously reading in the Amplified Bible, the Lockman Foundation's Kindle edition.
2. For a number of years now, my daily Bible readings have been taken from a lectoinary. This year I'm using the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops with readings from the New American Bible. I'm posting a link to today's reading. http://www.usccb.org/nab/today.shtml

Now, that LadyBird is happily jumping up on Cathey's kitchen counters and that Rice Owls Baseball's hiatus was followed by an out-of-town series before returning to Reckling Park and that most of my post-funeral correspondence has been attended to... I had time for a Fiction Binge:

Braeme, Charolotte M.: Dora Thorne. Project Gutenberg. Kindle. Braeme's (1836-1884) last name is correctly spelled "Brame" but often spelled variously including "Braem" and her pseudonym for U.S. published books is Bertha C. Clay. She was the author of Grandma Wieland's "now that's a story" Married in Name Only. Grandma's other book for which I'm still searching was titled, Wed and Parted. I read Dora Thorne because it is the best known book of an author associated with Miss Toosey's Mission as part of evelynwhitakerlibrary.org. I recently had an email from her great great great niece. FICTION ROMANCE 19th Century

Whyte-Melville, G. J.: Kate Coventry. An autobiography. T. Nelson and Sons, 1909. Project Gutenberg. Kindle. I read this book about a year ago but somehow never noted it in my journal so this is a second reading. An amusing story and an excellent depiction of "the new woman." There is a good deal on horsemanship (or horsewomanship) and fox and stag hunting. FICTION ROMANCE 19th Century HORSE HUNTING WOMEN'S FRIENDSHIPS COUSINS FAMILY NOTE CALAHAN WIELAND