• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header left navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Reading Lists
  • Alaska
  • 17 Beats – 2019

Jennifer Searls

Window Thinking

Blog

November 14, 2021

Scritchy Snow

Alaska, Window Thinking

It was 4F degrees when the dog and I went out for a walk this morning at 8a, still an hour before the sunrise. Before stepping out the door, I pulled on layers of warmth – these Alaska years have taught us many variations according to conditions, and it always cracks us up that as …

Read moreScritchy Snow
November 11, 2021

Turn. Turn. Turn.

Alaska, beauty, Grief, Seasons, throughline, Window Thinking

Tomorrow is Ryan’s birthday which has become a marking point during our Alaska years – will we get our Anchorage winter snow pack started by his birthday? This year, it seems we have. (and right on schedule) Most afternoons lately I have been hanging out with our chickens – ever since a hawk swooped down …

Read moreTurn. Turn. Turn.
October 28, 2021

October Beats

17 beats, Alaska, beauty, Seasons, throughline

A mellow sun hangs low this afternoon and autumn is fading out. (I took this photo on the 18th, but I got distracted while looking for 17 beats. Thus, the delay in posting.)

Read moreOctober Beats
October 28, 2021

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt

Reading, storyastruth, Window Thinking

An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used.  (from Wikipedia) Realizing that I tend to like epistolary novels, I’ve been on the lookout for them and recently I found this clever book by Caroline Preston. Preston assembles real newspaper clippings, photos, and other period …

Read moreThe Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt
October 26, 2021

Heads Up For moose

Alaska, Seasons

On our routine walk the dog the other night, David and I stepped beneath some of my favorite neighborhood lights, through the gate, and onto the field at the school down the street. As soon as we were through the gate though, we realized something big was moving to our right. As our eyes adjusted …

Read moreHeads Up For moose
October 26, 2021

84, Charing Cross road

Reading

If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much. I have no idea why I have only just got around to reading this delightful book. I love bookstores and epistolary tales and this is a wonderful collection of letters sent back and forth across the …

Read more84, Charing Cross road
October 18, 2021

generosity in a string of lights

Alaska, Seasons, Window Thinking

The setting sun cast an irresistible glow through our windows tonight and it pulled me straight out the front door and down the street to the edge of town. The mountains were out. Sleeping Lady, covered in a blanket of snow. And beyond her, the magnificent Alaska Range. A little to the north, I could …

Read moregenerosity in a string of lights
October 17, 2021

Living on into the crossfade

Alaska, Seasons, throughline, Window Thinking

The greenhouse is cleaned out and the yard is pretty much put to bed. Our garbage service recently sent a note to say they’ll stop picking up the yard debris can at the end of the month and won’t start up again till May. That is six months from now.  The sun rises at 8:45 …

Read moreLiving on into the crossfade
October 7, 2021

October Afternoon in the backyard

Seasons

The sun showed up this afternoon and pushed some clouds apart. Patches of blue sky became backdrop for great flocks of geese flying south, loudly honking their goodbyes. Rays of sun have even managed to make it to my face still warm as I sit out in the backyard, drinking tea with an ever present …

Read moreOctober Afternoon in the backyard
September 1, 2021

On this Day

Alaska

September 1, 2012. The sky was flat grey as our moving caravan crossed the Canada/U.S. border and in just a few miles more, the rain began to fall. Welcome to Alaska. We’d left Oregon in 80 degree summer sunshine, but here we had driven deep into the heart of fall. Bright flecks of gold sparked …

Read moreOn this Day
May 31, 2021

Every Note Played – Lisa Genova

Reading

Richard’s entire body is a costume discarded, the party over….His limbs are petulant children, unreachable through begging, bribery, ultimatums, or sweet talk.He tries to imagine the war beneath his skin; the invaded countries of his neurons and muscles overwhelmed, decimated; the neutral territories of bone, ligament, and tendon rendered useless by the horrific destruction surrounding …

Read moreEvery Note Played – Lisa Genova
May 31, 2021

Brood – jackie polzin

Reading

A chicken knows only what it can see. A chicken’s life is full of magic. Lo and behold. A fictional story that read rather like a memoir, this short novel held so many wonderful, accurate descriptions of backyard chickens. And I loved it. Because…..backyard chickens!!! The author used caring for these feathered friends to serve …

Read moreBrood – jackie polzin
May 31, 2021

Ordinary Grace – William Kent Krueger

Grief, hope, Reading

When we feel abandoned, alone, and lost, what’s left to us? What do I have, what do you have, what do any of us have left except the overpowering temptation to rail against God and to blame him for the dark night into which he’s led us, to blame him for our misery, to blame …

Read moreOrdinary Grace – William Kent Krueger
May 25, 2021

Naranjas – puzzle

puzzles

I just ran across this picture I snapped right before I flew to Oregon and then forgot to post. Back when the view out my window was bare and brown with little dirty piles of snow littered around, I worked this puzzle and it was good!

Read moreNaranjas – puzzle
May 25, 2021

Love Anthony – Lisa Genova

puzzles

I’ve been on a Lisa Genova trail since I re-read Still Alice a couple months ago. I appreciate Genova’s ability to lean into her training and experience as as a neuroscientist and center a neurological condition within a compelling, insightful story. This was yet another easy to read, engaging story that I have come to …

Read moreLove Anthony – Lisa Genova
May 8, 2021

Beate Not The Poore Desk – Walter Wangerin

Reading

I wrote a short piece for the members of my congregation in the church newsletter. By accident I learned that the piece was being used in homiletic classes in my seminary in St. Louis. Well, if it was good enough for theologians, it should be good enough for a wider public. Therefore I reused the …

Read moreBeate Not The Poore Desk – Walter Wangerin
May 8, 2021

Summer Hummingbird – Puzzle

puzzles

One of my boys noticed when I tucked a few puzzles into my luggage while packing for my recent weekend trip to Portland and he asked if I was going to work on a puzzle with Pa (my dad) while I was there. “Not enough time,” I said, but I was planning on a puzzle …

Read moreSummer Hummingbird – Puzzle
April 28, 2021

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte – Puzzle

puzzles

I bought a couple new puzzles this month. My selection of this, the first, was no doubt inspired by the fact that I was reading Rebecca Stead’s Liar & Spy. I wasn’t sure how the pointillism would go in the puzzling, but it turned out to be a remarkably pleasant project.

Read moreA Sunday on La Grande Jatte – Puzzle
April 28, 2021

Seventeen Against the Dealer – Cynthia Voigt

Reading

All the long afternoon they sang, and talked, and ate, and Dicey didn’t think about her boats, the ones she was working on or the ones she was dreaming about, except once, when they came to the line in Momma’s old song that said “bring me a boat will carry two.” She could see that …

Read moreSeventeen Against the Dealer – Cynthia Voigt
April 20, 2021

Left Neglected – Lisa Genova

brain injury, Grief, Reading

Our brains are wired differently, and we have to figure out how to make them work. A car accident. A brain injury. And the hard work to recover a life. Or rather, the hard work to learn a new way of being in the world. Revisiting Still Alice started me on a Lisa Genova reading …

Read moreLeft Neglected – Lisa Genova
April 20, 2021

Inside the O’Briens – Lisa Genova

Reading

Every child of a parent with HD has a 50 percent chance of inheriting the mutated gene. The discovery of this mutation made genetic testing possible for anyone living at risk. The test definitively determines genetic status. A positive test result means the person has the mutation and will develop HD. To date, 90 percent …

Read moreInside the O’Briens – Lisa Genova
April 15, 2021

Still Alice – Lisa Genova

brain injury, Reading

Mom, what does it feel like? What does what feel like? Having Alzheimer’s. Can you feel that you have it right now?Well, I know I’m not confused or repeating myself right now, but just a few minutes ago, I couldn’t find ‘cream cheese,’ and I was having a hard time participating in the conversation with you and …

Read moreStill Alice – Lisa Genova
April 15, 2021

Sons from Afar – Cynthia Voigt

Reading

His father had been the kind of man who just – had these children and then disappeared, not even giving them his name, not even marrying Momma. This 6th book in the Tillerman series wasn’t my favorite, but Voigt does a marvelous job filling out the characters of Sammy and James as they go in …

Read moreSons from Afar – Cynthia Voigt
April 15, 2021

The Midnight Library – Matt Haig

Reading

Doing one thing differently is very often the same as doing everything differently. This was an interesting enough exploration of what if I had followed that trail through life instead of this one and I read to the end, but I got tired of being dropped into so many different, undeveloped scenarios as the main …

Read moreThe Midnight Library – Matt Haig
  • ← Previous
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 30
  • Next →

Sidebar

Send Me A Reminder!

Weekly, monthly.....whatever frequency it turns out to be, please send me emails to remind me to check here for new content. And I'll unsubscribe whenever I don't want that reminder anymore! 

Thank you!

You will receive a confirmation instruction in your email box. Please  respond to that in order to complete this sign up process!

.

Recent Posts

  • Green River Soda
  • Tomorrow x3
  • change the flavor change the season
  • tourist season
  • Sale Pending

©2012-2021 Jennifer Searls