Mother’s Day is this weekend. I’ve heard more than one mom asking for a nap, or a break, or just some time. If that’s you, I hope you can take a few moments this weekend for yourself. If you’re not the mom in your family, maybe make sure she can! Happy Mother’s Day to all the home-bound warriors out there.

Around the Web

Let Joy and Sadness Intermingle This Mother’s Day

Courtney Doctor wrestles with the joy and pain that a simple holiday on the calendar can create.

• Mother’s Day. Few holidays can rival it for emotional highs and lows. As a child, I loved Mother’s Day. It was the one day of the year my dad would “cook” breakfast with us (or run to McDonalds to buy pancakes). We would “surprise” my mother with breakfast in bed. One particularly memorable year, my brother and I gave my mom a Folgers coffee can full of worms … on the same tray as her McDonalds-pancakes-disguised-as-homemade-pancakes breakfast … in bed. She was ecstatic—the good kind of ecstatic. Really. My mom is a gardener extraordinaire and she wanted more worms to put in her garden. So we gave her worms. Mother’s Day became the day I was allowed to bring worms into my mom’s bedroom. I loved it.
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Lois Lenski

Megan at Redeemed Reader introduces the author of classics like Strawberry Girl.

• Lois Lenski was a prolific author who lived from the end of the 19th-century long into the 20th. She was a Midwesterner, daughter of R.C.H. Lenski (a Lutheran minister whose commentaries were regularly mentioned from the pulpit by my non-Lutheran pastor), and a Newbery-award winner whose line drawings enhanced all of her books.
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Big Thanks for Little Things

Trevin Wax finds space for gratitude among all the little things.

• Every now and then, I am overcome with gratitude for little things that bring a rush of happiness that far surpasses their cost.
  Since the outbreak of COVID-19, I’ve been on grocery duty. Every Saturday morning, armed with a face mask, an ink pen, and a list of items that has been growing all week, I risk my life to bring food to the family. (Well, it’s probably not that big a risk, but I confess the sense of adventure adds a bit of enjoyment to the routine.) So there I am, list in hand, perusing the produce section, and I see pineapples on sale, two for $5. They’re two shelves away from bananas that cost pennies, not dollars each. Across the aisle are delicious oranges. Later this summer, we’ll scoop out the luscious red insides of the watermelon.
  What extraordinary times we live in—with fruits from all across the world available to us at such affordable prices!
  When was the last time you sunk your teeth into a peach and felt like falling on your face in worship before the Giver of all good things? 
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Free Printable Summer Reading Bingo

Need to build a little structure into your summer reading plans? Try this bingo sheet on for size.

• Want a fun game to keep your kids reading throughout the summer? I’ve made a free FREE PRINTABLE READING BINGO to help motivate more reading.
  Because this summer is the weirdest of all times. We don’t know if libraries will be open. Kids are missing friends and school and books. They’re on screens way too much. And no one has enough books.
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Around the Warren

The End of the World

Melissa Kline writes about life at the end of the world.

• There is a dirt road on the western border of Missouri and Arkansas that winds for miles over an Ozark ridge until it eventually comes to nothing in an overgrown pasture beyond a tree painted purple. The mail lady calls the road, “The End of the World,” and the epithet is spot on. It is a lonely, isolated place where no one except for those who live there bothers to go. For two years my husband and I, with three small kids in tow, made our home in that remote place.
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Review: Rain For Roots new album, All Creatures

Ariana Evans reviews a new album from the awesome Rain for Roots!

• All Creatures is the fourth and latest album from Rain for Roots. Rain for Roots is a collective of talented musicians and songwriters who, in 2012, began creating music that takes the heart of the Gospel and makes it accessible for children and adults alike. 
  This album is 11 beautiful songs that come from the poetry of the Psalms. Every song, from reimagined hymns to the newly crafted, are strung like stars.
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Something to Do with Your Kids

Are you a fan of zentangles? Or, rather, are the young artists in your house? If so, we’ve got zentangle coloring pages for everyone, from the jellyfish-lovers, to the butterfly-lovers, to the chemistry-lovers!

Something to Watch

Andrew Cotter is a sports commentator in Britain, and, lacking sports to commentate, has taken up giving us play-by-plays of his dogs’ activities. They’re utterly delightful.

Thanks for reading. We’re on your side. 

-The Story Warren Team

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Carolyn Clare Givens

Carolyn Clare Givens is displaced Northerner exploring the foreign ways of the South. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with her two literary cats, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. She's the author of The King's Messenger and Rosefire and in her free time helps run Bandersnatch Books.

You can find her at carolyncgivens.com or on Facebook or Instagram at @carolyncgivens.

Latest posts by Carolyn Clare Givens (see all)

• The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 32 - September 30, 2023
• The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 31 - September 23, 2023
• The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 30 - September 16, 2023