Book Review~ Before We Were Yours

I liked this book immensely, but it was emotionally draining on me.  I’m glad to have read it, though, and I recommend it to you.

Before We Were Yours~ by Lisa Wingate

This is a riveting historical fiction book based on true events. The Tennessee Children’s Home Society, run by Georgia Tann, a wicked, greedy, heartless lesbian, who came from an upper class family. Her father was a judge. The book tells the stories of Rill and her siblings, who were basically kidnapped by the local crooked police, and taken to the orphanage to live until Miss Tann could sell them, and the story of Avery Stafford, a woman whose grandmother had some mysterious ties to the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. The book goes back and forth between Rill’s life and Avery’s quest for answers.

Chapter 1 takes place in the present day in Aiken, South Carolina. This chapter is told from Avery Stafford’s perspective. Then, in other chapters, you read about Rill, and how she and her siblings were wrenched from their home on a shantyboat in the river, and placed at the mercy of the orphanage’s cruel director and employees. Both viewpoints were well written, and intensely interesting, although I wish Lisa Wingate had focused more on the orphan’s lives than on Avery the single unmarried female lawyer who had doubts about her fiancee.

The heart wrenching sexual abuse and physical neglect that occurred all the time in the children’s home society was sordid and reprehensible. How the children survived,the ones who did, was difficult for me to understand, but I’m glad many children did. I found out, from OTHER sources, not this book, that infants were left to die, starved to death, or worse. My heart was so sad and also I was infuriated that this happened, and STILL happens, as you can tell if you watch the news on tv. Not in orphanages in the USA, but in other situations.

The other thing that bothered me was the amount of corruption and lack of conscience in judges, police, and the employees of Ms. Tann. Georgia had many accomplices:  Politicians, legislators, judges, attorneys, doctors, nurses, and social workers who scouted child victims.  She operated for 26 years.
I admit I stayed up past midnight one night, to get as far along in the book as I could, it evoked so much interest and concern in me. (Obviously, by the fact that over 5 thousand others have written reviews about “Before We Were Yours”, I wasn’t the only one who got a lot out of this historical fiction book) The book has raised a lot of questions in me, and I’ve been finding out as much as I can concerning child trafficker Georgia Tann, and the plight of the babies and children who were taken from their families under false pretenses, threats, and downright breaking of the law.
This story makes me wonder about orphanages in general, but more about the outrageous disgraceful sin of child trafficking.

A woman, Denny Glad, used to help people in Tennessee and who had been at the facility run by Georgia Tann, find their birth parents. Sadly, she has died:
http://www.dailybastardette.com/denny-glad-another-light-goes-out/

There’s quite a bit more information about this travesty, and if you’re interested, here are a few links to get you going on your own search.

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-08-20/news/vw-882_1_unsolved-mysteries

http://www.175moments.com/moments/georgia-tann-investigated-black-market-baby-selling-network.php?r=2
http://www.nchgs.org/html/a_story_of_stolen_babies.html
https://www.joancrawfordbest.com/articlememphis95.htm

The subject of Georgia Tann also appears in an episode of Investigation Discovery’s series Deadly Women titled “Above the Law” that aired September 13, 2013 and also appeared on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2965638/

The subject of Georgia Tann is the focus of the nonfiction book, The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, The Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption, by Barbara Bisantz Raymond.

Disney’s Newest Demented, Evil Movie!

a theme in the book, A Wrinkle in Time: the problem of evil:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil
(hollywood/satanic theme to make God look bad or like He doesn’t exist)

People in the movie:  oprah, Mindy kahling, Reese witherspoon, zach galifanakis, chris pine, levi miller, etc.

Family of the protagonist: Charles Wallace Murray: brother who can read minds

Meg:  13 year old daughter and sister, a troublesome misfit ,  main character

Sandy and Dennis:  twins

Calvin O Keefe:  another misfit, although he is a BMOC
tesseract is mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract SIMPLY PUT:  In math, a tesseract has Eucledian space, and Eucledian space (named after Euclid of Alexandria) can be modeled using Cartesian coordinates. What is Cartesian? Well, it is related to Descartes,and his ideas, or a Cartesian can be a follower of Descartes.
WHO was Descartes? A Catholic philosopher who made a connection between geometry and algebra, AND, he believed himself a devout Catholic. He believed that what separates humans from animals is that animals don’t have minds. He believed that animals therefore do not experience pain, but are simply mechanical beings that elicit a response. This belief allowed him to comfortably perform vivisections (i.e. the dissection of animals while they are still alive). Descartes tortured a dog to death. His followers nailed poor animals up on boards by their four paws to vivisect them and see the circulation of the blood, which was a great subject of conversation.

Parts of this summary are from Wikipedia.  To see their summary, go to : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wrinkle_in_Time

<<<<MY COMMENTS are interspersed in this summary.  PLEASE NOTE THAT>>>>>>
The 3 women, mrs. who, mrs. which, and mrs.whatsis, who live in a haunted house. : Mrs Which’s physical appearance is not set; she appears as a shimmering light most of the time. However, she does once take on the appearance of a traditional witch, complete with black hat and broom Mrs Which (witch) is portrayed as being the wisest, with vast knowledge.

The man with the red eyes possesses people. Demon possession.
Centaurs are in the movie: centaurs rape women. That’s what they are known for.

3 beings in the movie, Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which turn out to be supernatural beings who, besides being centaurs, end up  transporting (astral projection) Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O’Keefe through the universe by means of tesseract, a fifth-dimensional phenomenon explained as being similar to folding the fabric of space and time. Their first stop is the planet Uriel, a Utopian world filled with Centaur-like beings who live in a state of light and love. Mrs Whatsit herself shows that she, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which are all these centaur-like creatures in disguise as humans. The children are then taken elsewhere to visit a woman who is a medium (the “Happy Medium”) with a crystal ball. The children then travel to the dark planet of Camazotz,….they discover a red-eyed man with telepathic abilities who can cast a hypnotic spell over their minds. Then they go to planet Ixchel.

(which, when unscrambled, makes the word helix. In Geometry:a helix is
a curve on a conical or cylindrical surface that would become a straight line if the surface were unrolled into a plane.)

By the way, the Ms. W’s ask the children to name figures on earth who fight the darkness, and they name Jesus, and then they name Buddha, and other philosophers and artists.

Blasphemy!  Such irreverence.
(A Wrinkle in Time is on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 at number 23. Reasons given include the book’s references to witches and crystal balls, the claim that it “challenges religious beliefs”, and the listing of Jesus “with the names of great artists, philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders”)

Charles Wallace is left on the evil planet, and…. Meg eventually overcomes her anger at her father for leaving Charles Wallace on Camazotz,….. but she later rescues her brother herself, because the 3 supernatural “female beings” give her the power of love, and actually quote from the bible! Deception, using all this witchcraft and intertwine it with the bible, is nothing short of blasphemy! This is how that happens in the book: The trio of Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which  charge Meg with rescuing Charles Wallace from IT, because only Meg has a strong enough bond with him. Their father had last seen Charles Wallace when he was a baby and Calvin had only just met him. They each give her a gift. Mrs Whatsit gives Meg her love. Mrs Who quotes to Meg a passage from the Bible about God choosing the foolish of the world to confound the wise, and the weak to defeat the strong (1st Corinthians 1:27-29). Mrs Which tells Meg that she has one thing that IT does not have. Upon arriving at the building where IT is housed, Charles Wallace is still there under IT’s influence. Meg realizes that the one thing she has that IT does not is love.

So, here we go again with the ecumenicism and love everybody, and don’t be politically incorrect, and don’t judge anyone, and don’t say there’s only one way to Heaven, to God. The word LOVE, nowadays, has been twisted so badly that people don’t even know what Godly love, TRUE love,is. The church of Oprah has struck again.

Madeline L’engle was an Episcopalian: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/article/madeleine-lengle-writer-and-episcopalian-dies-88
Seneca: catholic, and comitted suicide, and was a stoic.

Visiting Dad’s Grave

This morning my husband drove me to the military cemetery to visit dad’s grave again.  The grounds are about 25 miles from home, so the drive is pretty long.  It was a pretty day, blue skies, mild temperatures, and the memorial park  had a few visitors besides us.

We drove past the committal shelters and the lakes with the fountains spraying up, making little mists and tiny rainbows.  Then we parked near the Columbarium that stored my dad’s cremated remains in a brass urn, stored in a marble niche.  I had a bouquet of orange daisies, because he liked the color orange.  My dear husband dug a little spot in the gravel next to dad’s niche with the white marble plaque that sealed it shut.

We stayed a while, and a lot of thoughts and memories came up to surface, but it was all ok this time.  I remembered the birthday parties my parents gave me, and then I recalled the birthday cake I brought dad on his last birthday.  It was vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, his favorite, and there were orange and yellow decorations and drizzles on it.

It’s hard to grasp the fact that after a person is dead, there’s no talking to them again, not on this side of life.  You must say the things you need to say to them while they are still lucid, when they’re alive.  Even if you despised your parents, you must at least try to be friends with them in their later years.  People change, the closer they get to dying.  My dad was friendly, and talkative, and a good listener.  I’m glad he was so intelligent, too, because I knew he understood what I was talking about, and we had good conversations up until a week before he died.

It’s sad to watch a person decline.  In the last week or 2 of his life, he almost completely stopped eating, and I think I was the last family member to give him a drink of water after he had been transported to the Hospice room.  His eyes didn’t open the last day I saw him, but he was still there.  He was so thin, and his skin was like paper, so thin, no fat underneath, just about.  His room was very comfortable, quiet, but the tv was on, and tuned to a channel that played very sad music, so I turned it off.  I brought him some orchids, and set them in front of him, in case he opened his eyes.

The next day, I went to sign in at hospice, to see dad again, and that’s when I was told he had died overnight.   I just slumped down, and started crying, right there in the lobby near the nurse’s desk.  I looked up, and there were the orchids, just sitting on the ledge of the nurse’s desk.  I cried, and grabbed them, and just felt so at a loss, so upset that he wasn’t there today.  I wasn’t going to be able to go to his room ever again.  I wanted to see the empty room, but they wouldn’t let me.  My brothers showed up, and we all went to a private library-type room to talk about what next.

So, that’s some of the memories that came up today.  Please, to anyone reading this, if your parents are still alive, PLEASE GO AND TALK TO THEM.  I’d love to be able to have just a few more hours with dad, but that time is past, never to be regained.  There is a vast separation between this world and eternity.  You can not bridge it, no matter what people say.

You can’t talk to dead family members. You will really be talking to demons who pose as them.

12.  Luke 16:25-26 “But Abraham said to him, [25] But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
[26] And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Deut. 16:[10] There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
[11] Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
[12] For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

 

Better News

Praise Jesus, the Great Physician!  My younger daughter is doing better, and her liver disease seems to be in remission.

I know she’s happier, and so is all of the rest of the family.   It’s so hard to have one of your children, no matter how old they are, to have a serious illness, but praise be to God, He is keeping her alive and well.  I hope and pray she continues to care for herself.

Please, if you know anyone who drinks and does hard drugs, beg them to stop.  The terrible things this lifestyle does to body and soul is heartbreaking.  I hope she is born again before anything more serious happens.  I hope so, I pray for her each night. And her sister.

 

 

 

 

Learning to Weave on a Loom

I’ve never woven before, nor used this kind of tabletop loom, but today was LEARNING DAY.

After watching hours of instructional videos, rewinding the tutorials, and pausing while I did the step in person, I’ve learned the very basic parts of the skill of weaving.  Here are some photos of my first attempts.  Think of me as someone who has learned their alphabet, but has no idea how to read words yet.    🙂

The heddle is in the up position,

which is the first thing to do.  Put the shuttle through: 

Then put it in the down position, which kind of criss-crosses the yarn:  and put the shuttle through again, and then “beat” the threads down, which is using the rigid heddle to scrunch them up to make a woven cloth.  Granted, my “cloth” is a mess right now, but remember, I only know the alphabet, not the words.  All that will come later.  Rather like learning a foreign language.

Here’s the yarn wound around the back bar, using strips of cardboard to keep the strands

separated.  God willing, more weaving for me,  tomorrow.  God please give me skill in weaving!

Exodus 35:35 |

View whole chapter | See verse in context Them hath he filled with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work.

 

Early Spring Gardening

Today I planted some Echinacea seeds from Ferry Morse, in a 70 pellet Jiffy Seed Starter tray I got from Lowe’s.  The tray is super easy to use, just pour water in the empty spaces on each side, and let the pellets plump up.  Then, you might need to tear back some of the netting, to plant each seed, but after that, set the tray outdoors for sun, and keep the pellets watered.

These seeds should sprout in about 10-12 days.  Hoping.

I’m hoping to get all of these plants into the ground this week, and get the garden weeded and mulched.  Here in the South it’s spring, and pollen time, and time to plant your gardens.  Flowers for the garden:

Athena Sun Euryops

Archangel Angelonia

Silky Deep Red Milkweed

Belleza Dark Pink Gaura

Pentas

Dianthus and Dusty Miller

 

 

Assembling my Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom

After shopping, browsing, reading, and watching videos about tabletop looms, I finally decided on getting an Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom, and I found a great deal on Etsy.  The sellers I found on Etsy are from Mielke’s Fiber Arts:

https://www.etsy.com/search?q=mielke%20fiber%20arts&ref=auto1&as_prefix=mielke%20f

I think they do just about everything fiber related!!  Weaving, yarn, roving, wool, felting, naalbinding, braiding, dyeing, spinning, knitting, lacemaking, hackles, heddles, rugmaking,  and more!

https://www.facebook.com/MielkesFiberArts/

Amy is soooo nice and friendly, and very helpful. THANKS SO MUCH AMY!

My Ashford Rigid Heddle 32 inch tabletop loom arrived yesterday, unassembled, and, when I pulled the parts out of the box, here’s how it looked Everything nicely wrapped and secure:  

Next,I laid all the pieces and parts out, and went through the checklist, making sure my dear husband would have all he needed.  I gathered a couple of tools from the tool drawer:  a hammer, and Phillips head screwdriver.

Everything on the checklist was there, and as you might have noticed,  one of my dogs was keeping me company.

SO!  I bought the Ashford Heddle Loom from Mielke’s Fiber Arts store in Wisconsin:  https://www.mielkesfiberarts.com/

Now for your visual tutorial. Here’s how hubby so graciously put it together, taking time off from his day off.  (You can use these photos to help you get your loom together, along with their instructions, if you’d like)

Here’s where you may download instructions:assembly instructions for rigid heddle loom – ashford handicrafts

https://www.ashford.co.nz/rigid-heddle-loom/product/download/file_id-1028

 Step one:  attach the reed support blocks to the sides: Step two:  Tap the clicker pins into the holes on the right loom side:

Step three: Attach the “pawls” so the clicker pin fits into it:

Next, attach the front and back rails to the left side with the screws they provide:

Step 5, place the cogs onto the ends of the rollers, and secure with washers and screws provided:

Step six, slap the handles HARD, onto the holes in the cogs.  I mean it, you really have to hit that hard, to get it

to fit snugly onto the pegs:

Next, connect the warp sticks to the roller with the warp stick ties.  I did one of these, and it was difficult, until I covered my fingers with cloth, to be able to push the arrow head through the small holes in the ties and the roller.

Put the rigid heddle reed into the rest position of the reed support blocks, and play around with changing it’s positions: Down at Rest

Finally, assemble the warping peg and clamps: Clamps and the warping peg.

Of course, see if it clamps onto your table: Yup!  It does.  🙂

Now, read the booklet that they also include in the shipping box, which is titled:

Learn to Weave on the Rigid Heddle:

Then, go here and watch Ashford’s excellent tutorials.  If you need to get the video to slow down, remember to click the “settings” button on the video’s lower right-hand screen, and click 0.5, or 0.75.  It helps to see what she’s doing in slow motion, if you’re a COMPLETE BEGINNER like I am!!

www.ashford.co.nz   Go to their website and watch other tutorials if you need to, just look under tutorials.

Here is a great video by Ashford about how to weave.  I’ve watched it 2x already.

Happy Weaving!  I hope you enjoyed this post, and that it either inspired you to try weaving, or it helped you assemble YOUR rigid heddle loom.  Please let me know!

Don’t forget to say hi to Amy at Mielke’s Fiber Arts!

Georgia Tann ~ Pedophile, Kidnapper, and Liar

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/tennessee-tears-george-john-curtis/1008041663/2678205892041?st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_New+Marketplace+Shopping+Books_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP164949&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7PzE7I2k2QIVkR2BCh0IuQv9EAQYBCABEgLfi_D_BwE

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/what-ever-happened-to-baby-james-don-w-boehner/1119075462/2679025769056?st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_New+Marketplace+Shopping+Books_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP164949&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7PzE7I2k2QIVkR2BCh0IuQv9EAQYAyABEgKDAPD_BwE

 

Fingerless Mitts and Books

I have another yarn project in the works, this is a pair of fingerless mitts I’m knitting for a neighbor.  It’s an easy pattern if you can already knit in the round with double-pointed needles.   The yarn for the mitts is Red Heart Collage, color is 2250 Rose Dust.  The pattern is Maine Morning Mitts, by Clara Parkes, and it’s a free download.

Here you can see one mitt finished except for the thumb, and the other one is about halfway through.

I’m also reading some of the stories in the book, “Sincerely Yours”.  Four authors, all Christian fiction or Christian historical fiction. 

I didn’t like the story by Amanda Cabot, or the one by Laurie Alice Eakes.  Moonlight Promise was pretty boring and predictable, too many references to warm, soft lips and tight muscles for my preferences.  One Little Word was also a yawner, I didn’t finish it.  Too much of sparkling eyes and heat rushing through their veins, yadda yadda yadda. I know I already like Jane Kirkpatrick’s writings, and Ann Shorey, so I’ll start one of those novellas, and then return this to the public library.   I love using the public library, it has saved me a lot of money on books.

Starting the 2nd Pom Pom Blanket

After winding hundreds of feet of yarn, and then stringing it on my wooden loom, it’s ready to be tied off and then cut.  I’m hoping this time I’ll tie each cross area faster, but no promises!  I’m using various shades of blue, on the bottom layers and the top, and in between, various shades of pink and lavender, with some white. 

The acrylic yarns are RED HEART SUPER SAVER and CARON SIMPLY SOFT yarns, and one roll of BERNAT POP yarn.  Color is “Snow Queen”. Let’s hope this blanket is fluffier!