Drops of Inspira

Hello! Last year, I mentioned that I was considering moving to another platform in the new year, and after some consideration, I've decided to move this blog over to Substack. Probably within the next few weeks. I don't know what will happen to my Blogger account. From what I've read it will transfer everything over so hopefully all the old posts will still be able to read, but in any case, this blog here on Blogger should still be around. I just won't be posting here. I assume it will take me a few weeks to work out the kinks of Substack, but hopefully I will be back online by the end of March if not sooner.  So, what does that mean in the meantime? After today, I'm going into radio silence as I work on transferring things over and working out the details.  Hopefully, when all is finished, I can post over here that everything is ready, and those of you who follow this blog can just pop on over there and things can continue like normal.  Thank you for bearing with m...

 Hello, Admittedly, this post is a bit of a vent for me as well as a lament. I had an experience my local library this week that made me very sad and feel lost in a place that was always familiar to me. Goes to show what happens when you leave for a few years. When you come back, you come back to new terrain. Things just don't stay the same. I've written about my old library before. When I was little, it was in an old one-room schoolhouse, and I loved that place. I spent hours there with my mom and siblings pouring over books and taking home mountains of them to read.  The thing about that library was that it was familiar. Back then, the books seldom changed. You could always count on finding old favorites in the exact place they were before. Inter-library loan wasn't as functionable as it is today. But I liked that.  Furthermore, the library was full of informational books and classics. I knew exactly where to go to find books on dolphins, otters, whales or underwater ar...

  Hello! I wanted to bring this to everyone's attention last week, but things were a bit chaotic at my house so I'm talking about it now.  When people think about February, they normally think of Valentines' Day . My entire time growing up, that's all I knew. When February came around, the world went crazy with pink and red hearts, chocolate, teddy bears and people in love.  As a kid, somehow I got a hold of old-fashioned valentines cards and would give them to my parents and siblings, writing in them with red crayon. Scandalous, I know. How dare I ruin those beautiful cards with my childish scrawls? As I got older, I watched those around me fall in love, get married, or break up. Meanwhile, I stayed single and made heart sugar cookies for me and my family.  It wasn't until about five or so years ago that I discovered that the same month that houses Valentines' Day , is also International Friendship Month . Which is pretty awesome. I mean, a whole month that cel...

 Hello! It's been raining in my corner of the world. A lot. Normally, the small mountain town where I live gets rain only a few times a year. In the past week, the weather has been saying that we've had as much rain as we normally have in three months. And the storm is not done yet. Next week, we get more rain. All week long. Right now, it's crisp and very cold. Thirty-five degrees with an actual feel of twenty-nine degrees.  Despite the cold, and the wet, it's actually very beautiful. There's something to be said about rain-washed peaks, fog and crows in the early morning. The buildings' colors stand out in stark contrast to their bleak surroundings, looking for all the world like a water-color painting.  As the rain was coming down, I paid special attention to the way the drops hit puddles, popping and splashing in cheerful, chuckling laughter the way only raindrops could laugh.  Water rushed down the street, catching bits of oil from parked cars that gave it ...

  Hello!                   I just read this book this month and wanted to give you my honest review:   This book rose and fell like a gentle swell into the nooks and crannies of my heart.     It started slow and built until it crashed into my heart and lit it on fire.     This is the second book by Amanda Dykes that I have read. I don't know how she does it, but her books always leave me overwhelmed and lit from within. Found and held. It's like someone looked me in the eye and said, "I see you. You are not alone." Readers, what was the last book that you read that made you feel this way? Furthermore, why do you read? What makes you pick up a book and stick with it? Until next time... Julia Garcia / Arysta Henry

 Friday night was not a good one. I spectacularly blew it. I had the biggest meltdown in the history of this month. In this year.  Now, the meltdown was stupid. I will admit that. The house was a wreck, but that doesn't justify a meltdown. During the meltdown, I reached out to a few friends via text and asked for prayer. Besides praying for me, one of them coached me through some breathing exercises and told me to step outside and just breathe. Everything within me wanted to say that it wouldn't work, but I grabbed a plate of food and marched myself outside and sat down at our picnic table and ate. Sometime during the stillness, I looked up and saw this moon. It was stunning. Wreathed in rainbows and clouds, it lit up the night sky. And as I gazed at the moon, everything else subsided and I was able to breathe. I could hear the rumbling of a few cars passing. Frogs began to sing somewhere in the forest and the neighbor's dog barked a few times. The stillness and the relativ...