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appreciation, blessings, books, friends, friendship, gratitude, hardback books, home, Jan Karon, laughing, lifestyle, looking for a town like Mitford, Mitford, Mitford books, moving, neighborhoods, people, positive attitude, reading, religion, rereading, small towns, spirituality, stress relief, thankful, thankfulness, The Mitford Series, These High Green Hills, to lift your spirits
My new favorite office, complete with fireplace and lattes!
If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.
—François Mauriac
Tonight I am thankful for the opportunity to meet new people; getting my squash and pumpkin roasted for tomorrow’s soup; finding my Jan Karon books.
The picture above was taken this afternoon at the coffee shop I’ve been working from. My commute is now four minutes. That’s right, four whole minutes from the coffee shop to home, compared to the 45-minute commute I used to have. I’ve been doing the happy dance and enjoying the extra time that has been added to my day! I am extremely grateful for this.
In going through boxes, I found my Jan Karon books today. She is the author of the Mitford Years novels. I have read every one of the nine books in this series at least three times, some even more. They are set in the small mountain town of Mitford, North Carolina, a town that is populated by the people that you and I know in our own communities. They are country people who laugh and love deeply. I think I fell in love with the stories originally, because of their Southern influence. Then as I read them, I just fell in love with the people and the story of the community that was being told.
As we began to look for places to live, a town like Mitford has always been what we were looking for. I think there really is a Mitford somewhere, we just haven’t looked in the right places yet. We’ve landed here, and while it is not a small community, I’m hopeful that we will meet some good friends and some characters to keep us entertained in the meantime.
I want to share with you a little passage out of These High Green Hills, from Chapter 3. Just as a preface, Uncle Billy loved to tell jokes and he loved to make up the jokes himself. He is a warm-hearted elderly man who is loved by everyone in Mitford. This is one of his jokes, complete with the dialect of the mountain folk:
Well, sir, this feller was sent off to Alaska to do ‘is work, and he was gone f’r a long time, don’t you know, and he got this letter from his wife, and he looked real worried an’ all. His buddy said, ‘What’s th’ matter, you got trouble at home?’ An’ he said, ‘Oh law, looks like we got a freak in th’ family. My wife says I won’t recognize little Billy when I get home, he’s growed another foot.’
I would love to hear about the books you have reread. I am so grateful that we have books and I really hope that the good old-fashioned hard back books never go away.
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