A Fun Book Review Involving Dinosaurs

When it was time for me to pick a new book to review, I was perusing my choices, and this book caught my eye immediately... I decided that I needed an easy, hands-on book for my next book, just to get a break from heavy reading. While I don't consider myself an artist in any way, shape, or form, I always think it is fun to try. Which is why I ended up choosing the book "Draw-a-saurus: Everything you need to know to draw your favorite dinosaurs" by James Silvani.

 To start out, the cover is very bring and intriguing, with a few pictures of brightly colored dinosaurs among the title itself. Inside, the pages are also very colorful, and it even has  comic strips/pictures in the introduction as well as throughout the book to keep the tone light and fun. The author starts the book with teaching the basics, so a person of any skill level is able to pick this book up and draw dinosaurs (even people like me, with NO drawing ability!)

I would recommend this book to someone who is looking for a fun time. As you can see from my attempts, following written instructions and looking at the very helpful pictures of each step, even someone like me can become a dinosaur artist :) 

To learn more about the artist or to check the book out for yourself, click here.

I received this book for free from bloggingforbooks.org

Be The Messenger, Live Like the Message

Be The Message: Taking Your Faith Beyond Words to A Life of Action, is written by a pastor, Kerry Shook, and his wife Chris. It is a book written from feelings of not doing enough. The authors "felt a gap between what they were saying and the needs of people around them", so they decided to start living out the Word, instead of just preaching it. The book is written in four sections:

Transforming: Your Words into a Life Message,
Discovering: Your Unique Life Message,
Understanding: The Message That Confounds the World, and
Taking: Your Life Message to the World Around You.


While I believe that this book is well-written and is full of good advice to motivate Christians to get out and actually live like Jesus did, I do not agree with some of what the pastor says. The biggest statement that I question is one of the basic building blocks of the book, which is why I even address it: "Jesus is the Word. The Word is the Gospel. Christ, the Word, lives in you, Translation. You are the gospel...Friend, you are I are the gospel." While I understand where the author is trying to get across, what he is saying is not that we are the gospel. To continue translating it the way that he does, he would end up saying we are Jesus. 

This is simply incorrect. I believe that we are to be messengers of the message, who is the Word, who is Christ Jesus, but no human will ever be perfect, like Christ. The message us messengers should send to the world is that OF Jesus, for He died on the cross and rose again for our sins, for us to tell the world of all He did for us, and continues to do.

I reiterate that much of the advice on how to get out and live like Christ in this book is very helpful and encouraging. I cannot, however, agree with the authors' main base for this book, which is that we are the message. We are simply the Messengers. 

For more information about the book, visit http://bethemessage.org.

I received this book for free from bloggingforbooks.com.

Through the Eyes of Farm Animals

I grew up in the city until I was twelve, and then moved to the country, where my grandfather has a crop farm, but no animals. I was always curious about cows and other animals, but never really had the opportunity until
 high school to learn more about them. that time came when I decided to learn how to milk cows to help out a 
family friend who was having shoulder surgery. He could get the cows into the milking barn for me, but couldn't
 do the actual milking. Now, I was never an animal 'whisperer' like the author of "My Gentle Barn", Ellie Laks, but
 I did and do care for animals, and do not agree with animal abuse. Things I saw after working there for a while
 were astounding to me. Why would someone hit a cow with a crowbar to make him stand still? Why would you 
slap them or use horrible, obviously painful contraptions to make them do what you wanted them to do?
 I couldn't handle it, and I cam to find that if I gently put my hand on the cow's rear to let her know I was a friend,
 she would be at ease. I didn't have to hit her.


I had no idea what to do about the abuse I saw, so I just did what I could to comfort while I was there.
 Ellie Laks, on the other hand, went a step further, and created a sanctuary for animals that have been 
abused and mistreated. She tells her story in her book, "My Gentle Barn", and tells it very well, grabbing 
your attention from the first page with her own personal testimony to the animals' testimonies throughout 
the entire book.

I was truly touched by the sharing of her story, and by the gentleness she has with these beautiful creatures.
 Not only was it a wonderful and inspiring read, it was very informative and eye opening about the meat and 
dairy industries. 

You don't have to be an animal lover to enjoy this book, but I can guarantee it will get you second guessing 
how animals on your plate were treated (My family is a meat eating family, and I can definitely say that it has 
me thinking a bit more about it!)

Thank you, Ellie and Jay, for you continued work, and for NOT giving up on your passions!! 

I received this book for free from Blogging For Books, and I am so glad I did --
 go out and buy it to support The Gentle Barn!

You can also learn more about what the Gentle Barn is all about here. Donate, support an animal, sign up for the newsletter, and follow them on Facebook and Twitter!

ATTN: Crafters Everywhere...

With not working right now, I have had more time to not only stay on top of the cleaning in our home, but also find little ways to make it feel more like home, and not just an apartment. It has been a lot of fun getting creative and finding cheap, small ways to transform our living space into something that fits our family. One of the things I generally have a hard time with is meal planning... I am not a big fan of cooking anyway, but when I have to do it last minute, I am especially bad at coming up with a good recipe :) So I recruited some help from my book blog, and found a great book that gave me the idea of creating this simple, cute menu planner:

The great thing about this was that I had almost everything I needed in my home, and it cost me about $4 to make (I could have easily found a frame for less than that, at a garage sale or something, but I was impatient...) 

The book is called Petit Collage, and Lorena Siminovich does a stupendous job of coming up with cute, creative ideas and also making them easy to follow. The book is full of pictures that give the reader a clear idea of what the project will/should look like, and the back of the book has pages of templates for the projects! While books like this can easily turn an enthusiastic beginning crafter into a discouraged one, Petit Collage will make crafters of all skill levels feel prepared to start creating :)

To learn more about the author, who also writes children's books, click here.

This book was given to me free from the Blogging For Books program.

The Search for Not-So-Greasy Alternatives

As some people may know, I have recently had a run with some health issues, one being gastritis, or inflammation of the stomach lining. This issue can be caused by many things, some of those being stress, greasy foods, excessive vomiting, or even certain medications. The thing that doctors usually tell you to do first to try and control it (beside heartburn medicine) is to eat the world's most bland, boring diet. 

While I wasn't too excited about this, I definitely didn't want to go through another bout of inflammation, seeing as how it felt like I was having an hour-long contraction... So I decided to go with the bland diet. In my search, I found that I was able to choose and review "The Blender Girl", a recipe book by Tess Masters with 100 gluten-free, vegan recipes inside. I was excited when I got the book, and set to work perusing the recipes right away. I was a bit disappointed in what I found; while the recipes sounded good, many of the ingredients involved were foreign to me. And the ones I did recognize were a bit pricey! 

The recipes I did make were pretty tasty, and fit the bill when it came to my bland die -- Tess Masters did a good job at making 'boring' food delicious, and it was a good feeling knowing that I was feeding my body healthy options instead of sugar and dyes. The recipes are easy to follow, and I also enjoyed the amount of pictures in the book -- that always helps in choosing a recipe to make!
For more information on this book and the author, click here.

I received this book for free from Blogging For Books for this review.

Taking a Minute to Reflect - And an update of sorts on why I've been in the ER so much.

Among the busyness of life, it is easy to start forgetting about God and doing our own thing. It is easy and more comfortable to do what we know, because we ultimately think that we know best. The good news is that on those days when I have absolutely no idea who I really am or how I really work, that God always knows, and is just waiting for me to remember that.

These past few months have been some long ones, for sure. I have experienced more health issues in the last 4 months than I have in my life combined, and have been to the doctor too many times to count. Sitting in the ER last night at 3AM waiting for the doctors to figure out what was wrong with me, I realized that I am so blessed to have a God that already knew what it was. He already knew what was going on inside me, even as I sat there trying not to make mountains out of molehills, and trying to figure out what organs do what things inside of me (I never was one for anatomy.) God already knew that it wasn't life threatening, but seemed to know that the life I was living needed to have some changes made so that I could be here longer to watch my kids grow and then grow old and travel with my wonderful husband that He has given to me.

I guess this was the push that I needed  in order to take my own health seriously. While not a serious diagnosis, the ER has taught me that it is time to get real about being healthy. Of course, both things that put me in the ER could be due to stress, but I know that to ensure that it doesn't keep happening, I need to shape up and get real. I am a little nervous, but I know that like I said above, I can do this with God's help. With Him and the support of my family and friends, some serious life changes are going to be made -- I am very excited about growing old with my husband and holding grandkids and great grandkids :)

Looking at Our Marriage Differently, For Once.

If you are married, or engaged, or dating someone that might be the one and secretly reading all the marriage books that you can lay your hands on... this post is for you.

I've never been one for reading all of those marriage books, even though I have read some, and I think that they hold a lot of good information. But after a while, books telling you what to fix about your marriage become  tedious and boring, and I lose interest about a quarter of the way through. 

Not with this book.

When picking a book to review, I saw "the surprising secrets of highly happy marriages" by Shaunti Feldhahn and just kept scrolling down the page. When I didn't see another book that interested me, I decided to click on it and see what it was all about. It intrigued me, I must admit, when the back of the book talked about highly happy couples 'going to bed mad, keeping score, and not telling it like it is". 

In this very unique and well written book, Feldhahn takes the boring, mundane marriage book and turns it into into something new and exciting... And all she did was focus on the positive things that couples were doing instead of focusing on the negative things that we are doing! AMAZING! 

While reading this book, I didn't feel like I was a failure at marriage, but while reading stories of what has worked for other couples, it inspired me to try harder at my marriage, and to try new things. 

Bottom line: read this book. If you are single, dating, engaged, or have been married for 25 years. Read it!

Change in Heart

Being thrown into the working world once again has proved challenging and rewarding for this working Mama. I've already had lots of ups and downs, and the reality that both Josh and I have to be working in order to pay the bills can sometimes be overwhelming, especially on the most difficult days at work. But even through the miry clay, I know and trust that I'm not in charge. Christ has a plan for my life, and even if I can't see it, I'd much rather let Him be in charge of it.

For starters, I've tried to take charge before, to no avail. Take in my current job at Green Acres, for example. I got sucked in to a negative vibe somehow, and because I started thinking about what was best for myself, I started forgetting about who was really in charge. My whole focus was turned away from caring for my residents and my co-workers, and was instead turned toward all the difficult and 'bad' things about my job situation.

Thankfully, on a certain day, my boss called me out on it, and I heard her. Through all the negative that seemed to be surrounding me, something stuck with what she said. So I tried to pull myself up out of the mire. And then came my 3 month evaluation.

I was so nervous to go into that little office with my boss, where I was going to tell her exactly how I felt about the whole work place, and all the things I thought that she could do better. Well, thankfully, God put a stop to that, and I went in with a humble heart, telling her of the way my attitude had been so horrible lately. While I didn't 'fail' my evaluation, I left the office with a new understanding for my boss, and the Boss, Christ the King. I was humbled, to tears, and had my eyes opened again to see others the way Christ sees them.

Since then, I have once again found the joy in my job, even though it can still be hard. The crazy thing? A lot of the things that I whined and complained about still happen. But I don't let them consume me. It is a classic example of how our hearts can harden when we focus on the negative, but just as easily, our hearts can become soft and warm when we focus on the positive.

While I feel like all Josh and I do is work these days, I am thankful for the work that God has given me to do, and I pray that with a new heart and a new attitude, I can make the most out of the days I have at Green Acres. Having a negative attitude at work as well as being surrounded by it didn't just effect me at work -- it affected my family, my self esteem, the residents, and pretty much anyone that was around me. A good attitude is infectious, and I want to infect people. Let's be the light, instead of be the light hindrance.

Devotions

To start out, I will tell you that I am not the biggest fan of debotionals... I usually end up doing a day or two, or maybe a week if I'm lucky, and then forget about it. I find a lot of them - especially the ones aimed toward women -- rely too much on emotions and how the Bible can relate to them when they are feeling a certain way. While I do enjoy finding verses that make me feel better when I am emotional, I like to read the Bible to know the Bible, and to understand the history and the meaning behind it, in context.

This particular devotional is called "Knowing God By Name, A Girlfriends in God Adventure". At first glance, I wanted nothing to do with it. But as I read the description, I realized that the authors, Sharon Jaynes, Gwen Smith, and Mary Southerland were on to something intriguing. The devotions are a very good mix of history and fact mixed with relevance and relation. Each day talks about a name given to God in the Bible. It tells what it means and where it comes from, and also how it relates to our lives today.

if you want a good mix of fact and relation, I would suggest this devotional. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about all the names of God in the Bible and what they meant.