It's also a book for anyone who has ever mismatched her shoes or trimmed her own bangs when a professional might have been a better choice or added too much soap to the washer and watched it overflow.(Not that KariAnne Wood has ever done any of these things.)A debut memoir from the beloved Thistlewood Farms blogger, So Close to Amazing is a collection of hilarious and heartfelt reflections on getting it almost right--and how, instead of giving up, we can choose to simply embrace our real selves right where we are. It's a story of transparency and honesty and recognizing that perfection is completely overemphasized and overrated. It's about grace and learning from mistakes and rejoicing in every victory, no matter how small. Because when you find joy in the "you" God created you to be, you'll discover the amazing that was there all along.Contains beautiful DIY project ideas anyone can do, whether you're Pinterest perfect or craft challenged! Homemade signs, centerpieces, recipe walls, and more!

    They are planning a wedding and have bought a new home. The last thing the two of them need right now is a new cat.But their recently purchased house seems to come complete with a stray orange feline--a cat with a vibrant personality and a talent for mousing. So Shawn soon finds himself with a regular companion. Little does he realize that this cat will shortly become more important to him than he can possibly imagine.As Shawn's personal life begins to shift in ways he never saw coming, Kitty remains a constant source of stability and comfort. Shawn gave Kitty a home, and now Kitty gives Shawn the love he needs to heal.A touching and inspiring story of heartfelt companionship, The Kitty offers an uplifting perspective on what it means to find true friendship in this world. Anyone who has ever shared a meaningful connection with a pet will fall head over heels in love with Kitty and Shawn.As Shawn discovers, sometimes we don't even realize we need to be rescued--until we are.

     Monsters do not lie under your bed. Monster do not live in closets. They go to church. They go to school. Some teach in schools. Some are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. My monster was the married mother who lived two doors down. She moved in as the housekeeper and later became my father’s wife. I was starved, beaten and held captive on our property, but after eight years of torture, I survived the monster. When a story, like mine, hits the news, most of us ask the same questions: Why? How? Why would a child, attending school, endure eight years of cruel torture and starvation, yet not run for help? Why did my twenty-one year old brother not move out earlier or call the police? Why didn’t the six of us gang up on her? To understand the answer to these and many other questions, you have to live the abusive lives we lived. You may ask what fuels a monster. Greed, jealousy and control are three big factors. According to recent NCANDS data the majority of the perpetrators, half a century later, are still women. So how could my father, not mutually engaged in the systematic sadistic torture of his children, allow it to happen on a regular basis? That answer is simple. Somewhere back in time, my father lost his spine.

    I am the one who came out on the other side of childhood; she is the one who searched for the door."In the tradition of The Glass Castle comes a debut memoir about a woman’s hopeful life despite the sad results of her mother’s choices. Moonlight on Linoleum is an affecting story of a girl who rose above her circumstances to become an early and faithful caretaker to her five siblings. It is about the power one finds in sisterhood to thrive in a difficult and ever-changing landscape as the girls bond in unconditional love despite constant upheaval and uncertainty. In these pages, Teresa Helwig crafts a moving portrait of a mother she loved completely even as she struggled to understand her. "Putting myself in Mama's shoes, which were most often white moccasins molded in the shape of her size seven-and-a-half foot, I see an eighteen-year-old girl with two children, one of them still a baby. . . . Her former husband is in Korea, drafted after their divorce; she has a sister who disappears from time to time, leaving yet another child in her care; she has no money, no high-school diploma, and a mother unhappy to have her home." Teresa and her sisters, who were added regularly throughout the 1950s and '60s, grew up with with their charismatic, troubled, and very young mother, Carola. Because of their stepfather’s roving job as in the oil fields, they moved frequently from town to town in the American West. The girls were often separated and left behind with relatives and never knew what their unstable mother would do next. Missing her mother became a habit for Teresa; one summer Carola dropped off her two daughters at her ex's family farm."If there were an idyllic summer of childhood, it was that summer on the Iowa farm. Yet, if I had to choose a time when I felt most forsaken by my mother, it was also that summer. Even back then, I was acutely aware of the paradox. On the outside, by day, I was like the morning glory vine twining around the back fence. Every day opened to a life I loved on the land. I reveled in and relished the absolute freedom and abandon of being turned loose in Eden.      "But then, each evening, after the sun set and the dinner dishes had been hand-washed and dried, I became like the moonflower vine climbing up the weathered boards on the side of the garage. The moonflower opens its large fragrant blooms at night; they shimmer like moonlight and sweeten the night air.     "I evolved a ritual at bedtime before crawling into my bed . . . I held Mama's Polaroid picture to my heart. I love you. Please come get us soon. I want to be with you more than I want to be anywhere else. These were my prayers, my blooms that opened to the night. Then I pursed my lips against the cool glass and kissed her smiling face goodnight."There were good times too: Carola made fudge for the girls during rainstorms, helped Teresa's cat deliver kittens, and taught her to play "You Are My Sunshine" on a toy piano. But when her husband was out working on the oil fields, Carola, who had married at fourteen, began to fill her time with men she met in the various towns her roving family moved to. She referred to her secret dating life as "going to Timbuktu," leaving Teresa in charge of her siblings. As Carola roamed and eventually developed crippling migraines, Teresa became a replacement mommy before her own childhood was fully in swing. Stress, guilt, and recurring nightmares marked her days and nights."In addition to the amphetamines [for weight loss], Mama was now taking barbiturates for her migraines. Her moods began to yo-yo. She became as hard to predict as the weather. When Daddy was out of town and Mama was in one of her fogs, I learned to fend for myself. And, being the oldest, I learned to fend for my sisters, too . . . It was around this time I came to realize a hard truth. Once your sisters begin looking up to you, as if you really could save them from being poisoned, as if you know a way out of a dark cave, there's no going back. You'll draw your last breath, trying to find that door to the Lost City of Enchantment, because you can't bear to let them down."Yet, even in the face of adversity, Teresa found beauty in the small moments: resting in the boughs of her favorite oak tree, savoring the freedom she found on her grandparents’ farm, and gleefully discovering the joys of dating and dancing. While Carola struggled for an exciting and satisfying life, Teresa faced adolescence and young adulthood, increasingly burdened by Carola's dysfunction. Finally, as the family splintered between colleges, homes, stepfathers, and their mother's disintegrating mental health, Teresa drove Carola to a mental hospital--where at last the mother of five found some peace and order.Upon leaving the hospital, sadly Carola continued in a downward spiral: more men, a drug addiction, a toddler son's death, and finally her own accidental overdose death in 1974. Though Carola's unhappy life meant Teresa's was marked by hardship and tragedy, Teresa found redemption in writing her mother's story and discovering empathy for the woman continually harmed by her own bad choices. The bonds of sisterhood helped sustain her, and today the girls are still close, still savoring the good in a childhood pocked with pain. Teresa, now a counselor and mother of a daughter, was able to conclude, after visiting her mom's grave and asking her blessing on the book, I believe joy and sorry rest together, the two sides of love. I have repeatedly uncovered places of joy inside my own heart tucked within the folds of sorrow.  With enormous skill and sensitivity, Teresa deftly explores the history she shared with Carola and the relentless love of a child for her mother.

    A year out of college, he had been biding his time as a tutor at a local high school in Sitka, Alaska, without any particular life plan. That evening, Coffin joined a ragtag boxing club. For the first time, he felt like he fit in.Coffin washed up in Alaska after a forty-day solo kayaking journey. Born to an American father and a Thai mother who had met during the Vietnam War, Coffin never felt particularly comfortable growing up in his rural Vermont town. Following his parents’ prickly divorce and a childhood spent drifting between his father’s new white family and his mother’s Thai roots, Coffin didn’t know who he was, much less what path his life should follow. His father’s notions about what it meant to be a man—formed by King Arthur legends and calcified in the military—did nothing to help. After college, he took to the road, working odd jobs and sleeping in his car before heading north.Despite feeling initially terrified, Coffin learns to fight. His coach, Victor “the Savage,” invites him to participate in the monthly Roughhouse Friday competition, where men contend for the title of best boxer in southeast Alaska. With every successive match, Coffin realizes that he isn’t just fighting for the championship belt; he is also learning to confront the anger he feels about a past he never knew how to make sense of.Deeply honest and vulnerable, Roughhouse Friday is a meditation on violence and abandonment, masculinity, and our inescapable longing for love. It suggests that sometimes the truth of what’s inside you comes only if you push yourself to the extreme.

    All his life Don had been too shy, too deeply pained to ask his father or grandparents to tell him the story of the lovely girl named Peggy Snyder--what delighted or troubled her, who her friends were, how she fell in love, what cut short her brief life.But then, nearing his fiftieth birthday and compelled by his father's failing health, Snyder embarked on a quest to find his mother. He traveled many times from his home in Maine down to his mother's small Pennsylvania town to trace her childhood and adolescence. He tracked down Peggy's high school friends, spent time with her teachers, probed the memories of the girls--now elderly women-- who had been her bridesmaids. Detail by detail, Don pieced together the harrowing story of Peggy's final year--her passionate love affair with her husband, the unexpected pregnancy, the sudden illness that consumed her, and the impossible choice she was forced to make.A heartbreaking, overwhelmingly beautiful book, Of Time and Memory is a story of remembering--and reclaiming--the fragile mystery of a beloved life.

    A young priest on the other side of the screen is shaken by what he learns. A former college athlete with an MBA from a prestigious university, Father Joe Russo is not your typical man of God. Nine years earlier, his own life took a tragic turn and he gave everything up, committing his life to the church. Now his peaceful existence is being tested, and he finds himself questioning the God he serves, the vows he made, and someone he left behind.In this gripping thriller, a priest and an FBI agent work to uncover secrets and expose hidden crimes, but when it seems they have it all figured out, everything they think they know will be questioned.

    When her Estate discovered this never-before-published memoir in the attic of her home, it was an astonishing find. Before I Go is the definitive story of her life, in the author’s own candid words.While Cookson had authored previous autobiographies, none have truly touched upon the tragedy and personal anguish she experienced until now. For the first time, she reveals the worst years of her life—her constant battles with illness and a series of devastating miscarriages, the damaging jealousy of her friend and her struggle to be taken seriously as a writer. But what shines through most is her strength in the face of adversity, her deep love for her husband, Tom, the solace she found in her art and her unmistakable character. Before I Go is an inspiring story of resilience and a must for any Cookson fan.

    In a last-ditch effort to sort something out, he rents a rickshaw, propelling him into a frantic sub-culture of criminals, misfits and lost souls. Rickshaw is a dangerous bedlam of close calls and near misses and its passengers are the drunken, beaten down and stranded. To work rickshaw, Irish must take a lesson in stamina and shift up through his emotional gears but no matter how hard he pedals, always hot on his heels, is his past. Hilarious, poignant and razor sharp, this debut novel captures the underbelly of London’s West End through a stunningly, gimlet eye and electrifying energy.

    But unlike other women their age, their conversations also turned to more serious issues, issues their “non-breast cancer” friends couldn’t have imagined or understood.Their breast cancer diagnoses came at very different phases of their young lives. Patti was 24, single, and forging her way in the corporate world. Jana was planning her wedding at age 27, and bravely walked down the aisle wearing a wig and breast prosthesis. Jennifer, also 27, was five months pregnant when she was diagnosed, and endured surgery and chemotherapy during the pregnancy. Kim found her lump at age 30 while planning her son’s second birthday party, and faced the issues of raising a toddler while she underwent treatment.Nordie’s at Noon shares the personal stories of each of these extraordinary women. A source of humor, strength, inspiration, and education, the book will speak to anyone who has ever been diagnosed with cancer or faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge. A celebration of friendship and of living life to the fullest, Nordie’s at Noon is also a book that will encourage women everywhere to be proactive with their health-and realize that no one is “too young” for breast cancer.

    It is NOT about Nazism, or Neo-Nazism, and definitely not about politics; it is the story of how the ebullience of youth can be corrupted and misinterpreted by propaganda and the media. Warning This story contains a lot of strong language, British slang and outspoken opinions that may be offensive to some; it is nevertheless the truth.

    When Mary, his therapist, suggests hypnosis as a way to help him understand why he doesn’t identify as a boy, Ben finds himself the unlikely conduit for a herring girl called Annie, who lived over a century earlier in the same fishing port.Under the spell of hypnosis, Annie comes alive through Ben, and with her the startling story of her life, and her mysterious death. As the events surrounding Annie’s final days start to emerge – her secret affair with young fisherman Sam; the violent jealousy of his rival Tom; the pregnancy fears of her best friend Flo; the abject paranoia of her brother Jimmy – both Ben and Mary find themselves embroiled in a puzzling saga from the past. And if – as psychoanalytic research suggests – souls tend to reincarnate in groups repeat­edly down the centuries, it could be that those close to Ben today were involved in the dramas of 1898, and a murderer could still be among them, waiting to strike again.Moving back and forth in time between 1898 and the present day, 'Herring Girl' is an extraordinarily ambitious novel which evokes a long-vanished world and reveals how the secrets of our past hidden lives are never too far away.

    Unfortunately they have no real resources, no good plans, and no idea what the hell they're doing. What they do have is an army of foul-mouthed monkeys who want them dead, a beautiful woman who wants some answers, a sex-crazed tribal chief, a caffeine-addicted demigod who wants to be worshipped, and a telepathic skull who just wants a little excitement. Through nonstop comedy and good old-fashioned adventure these guys are facing some long odds but do Ron and Willy give up? No they don't. They get down to business. Monkey Business.

     One woman’s courageous story. Tricia Barker was a depressed, agnostic college student at The University of Texas in Austin...until a profound near-death experience (NDE) during surgery revolutionizes her entire world. As she learns to walk again, Tricia lets go of painful wounds from childhood and integrates some of the aftereffects of her spiritual journey into her daily life. She returns to college with renewed vigor, intending to embark on a new path by becoming an English teacher. But after a year of teaching in the US, Tricia travels to South Korea, where she is the victim of a sexual assault. Now, she must use the wisdom she gained on the Other Side to heal herself; and later, guide countless junior high, high school, and college students to greater peace. Through teaching and mentoring others—many of whom are struggling with traumas of their own—Tricia decides to devote her life to bringing the “light” she experienced during her NDE to individuals who are seeking solace, inspiration, and overall well-being.

    As she grows older, and her make-believe worlds are not enough to protect her, she descends into drug addiction and eventual resignation. When this finally leads her to be physically beaten near the point of death, she is saved by a compassionate neighbor named Sam who gives Cinnamon the opportunity to reclaim her life. Now, working at Sam s vineyard in the beautiful Dry Creek Valley, Cinnamon Monday attempts to put her life in order, find the will to overcome past demons, and utilize her strengths to live a positive, successful life on her own terms.