Reshaping It All Book Giveaway

I can't believe how rarely I am making it over to this space to write posts. Hopefully I will find the time and motivation to write more over here soon. Anyway, a few weeks ago I became aware of this book, written by Candace Cameron Bure (of Full House fame for those of you who are old enough, also the sister of Kirk Cameron) and Darlene Schacht. At the time I read a review of the book our MOPS group was going to have a speaker about fitness and health. On a whim I decided to email Darlene to ask if she would send me a copy to give away at our MOPS meeting. Being the gracious and generous woman she is, she sent me THREE copies: one for MOPS, one to keep and one to give away on this blog.

I read my copy cover to cover in one day. There is a lot of good stuff in this book. What I loved most about it was its focus on the need for spiritual as well as physical fitness. There are many Scripture references in this book which I found to be helpful and thought-provoking. There is also a lot of practical advice and encouragement for living a healthier life. I have already implemented some of the suggestions in this book and have seen results. I have dropped a few pounds already and have started exercising again after a three-month hiatus. Candace and Darlene truly gave me the encouragement and motivation I needed to get back into a healthy lifestyle. Some of the great advice tips I've used so far include: being mindful of how much I am eating (I tend to eat extra servings of food I really love), being mindful of when and why I am eating (I also had gotten into a habit of snacking after my boys were in bed which was adding a lot of calories to my overall consumption each day), and drinking more water. I am a diet soda fiend, so I am still working on this one.

Candace has included several of her favorite healthy recipes in the book. The first week after I read the book I tried (and liked) several of these recipes.

All in all, I whole-heartedly recommend this book. I do not have a lot of weight to lose (hopefully another 5 pounds.....), but I still found it very useful. I am planning to give my "keep" copy to our local library so others can enjoy it.

If you would like to win your very own copy of this book, leave a comment on this post telling what you struggle with most when it comes to either physical or spiritual fitness. I'll keep the giveaway open until Friday, February 11th. Then I'll choose a winner randomly from the comments.

The cutest book ever!

On Saturday I was killing some time while my oldest son was at a birthday party. I went to a Pottery Barn Kids store at a nearby mall. I was instantly drawn to their children's books and ended up purchasing Spoon by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. This is the most adorable story I've read in quite a while. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I think this will be my new standard birthday gift for children. I just looked up the Amazon link to include in this post and was a bit disgruntled with myself for not waiting to buy this on Amazon once I got home. I paid $16 for it at PBK (no surprise there) and the hardcover version is on sale at Amazon for $6.40 which is a great deal. Now head over there immediately and order yourself a few copies. You will NOT regret it. This is a super story with a great message for everyone. LOVE IT!

I'm really not scared of mice & My first blog interview

I feel like a horrible mother. Today after preschool my little boy and I were getting ready to leave the classroom and I glanced over and saw a live mouse on the tile floor near the kitchen of my classroom. I knew we had a mouse because Michelle, my assistant, had also seen it. However, without thinking about what I was doing I SHRIEKED very loudly when I saw it. I'm really not scared of mice. They just startle me when they appear so unexpectedly and move so quickly. You know what I mean? Anyway............simultaneous to my shriek my little guy started bawling in a more terrified manner than I've ever heard him cry and he BOLTED through the door of the classroom, down the hallway, past my assistant and her son, out the doors to the outside and when I finally caught up to him he was in the parking lot standing beside our van sobbing. With much prodding (and dragging) I convinced him to return with me to the classroom where I had left all my belongings, all the while trying to convince him that Mommy didn't scream because she was scared of the mouse. Rather, I screamed because I was SURPRISED by the mouse. I assured him that mice can't hurt us, etc. Well, he talked about little else all night so I'm sure I've instilled an irrational phobia of mice in him, completely unintentionally. When relaying the story to DH he asked me why I had screamed. I told him that I think it is perhaps part of my female genetic make-up and that it just happened without me even knowing it was going to happen. And that's true. Because I am NOT scared of mice. I just don't like to be startled by them.

In other news, I'm excited to announce that Shannon from Letters, Numbers and Books Oh My! has interviewed me over at her blog about my Random Acts of Reading project. CLICK HERE to read the interview. I was really excited that she wanted to interview me. It's my first (published) blog interview. There is another one in the works that I'm excited to tell you about when it goes online. That's all I'm saying for now though.

the skin of knowing

I recently checked out the book The Shack by William Young from my public library. A good friend of mine whom I highly respect and who is an avid reader had raved about it so I was curious. I am not writing this post as a review of the book. To be honest, I didn't finish reading it. Not because I hated it...........I just got a little bored. Please don't let that deter you from reading it, however. It is a very intriguing and thought-provoking book from a spiritual standpoint. I may check it out again just to reread certain parts.


There is one phrase from the book that has just stuck in my mind and that's what I wanted to write about. I can't get the words out of my head. "Love is the skin of knowing." To give you the context of this, the main character has the occasion to meet up with God and these words are among many of those spoken by the God character (who is actually represented in the book by three "characters" to illustrate the Holy Trinity). God was trying to get the main character to realize that as our relationships with one another grow and deepen we inevitably come to know much more about each other. And despite some of the pain and anguish that "knowing" brings our love grows to contain it. I'm probably doing an awful job of explaining this. I think what really hits home with me about this idea is that there are so many times in my life when I've lamented the fact that I am at my worst in the relationships that mean the most to me. I actually had several conversations about that this week with some other women. We talked about how sometimes, especially in a marital relationship, the two partners tend to bring out the worst in each other. Marriage is difficult. I remember hearing that when I was newly married. At the time I thought it was just difficult for other people. I couldn't imagine it ever being difficult for ME. Sixteen years and two children later I am the first to admit..............it's difficult. Living in close proximity with someone else brings with it many disappointments and unmet expectations on both sides. The more you know about someone the more you find out things about them that are possibly surprising, embarrassing, upsetting, or disappointing. Of course marriage brings joys and blessings too. As I think about my relationships and especially my marriage I realize that my love has expanded to encompass the knowing. When I am frustrated and discouraged about my marriage I am going to try to remember that love is the skin of knowing. I am blessed to be loved by a God who already knows everything about me........who anticipates and expects my failures and loves me in spite of them. It is because of this divine love that my love for others can continue to grow............despite the sometimes painful knowing.

New Chinaberry catalog

I just received the latest Chinaberry catalog in the mail today. If you are not aware of this company, I highly encourage you to click here to order a catalog. They carry a wonderful selection of children's books for all ages. I pretty much read the catalog cover to cover. The catalog is a treat in and of itself. They have really delightful, personal descriptions and reviews for every one of the products they carry. I LOVE LOVE LOVE children's books and am always amazed at the wonderful variety they have. I am heading off to curl up in bed with the catalog right now.

Girls Only Weekend

This weekend I met my friend, Beth, for a girls only weekend to celebrate my recent 40th birthday. Beth and I joke that we are soul sisters. We are both elementary education teachers, both love sewing, rubber stamping cards, scrapbooking, reading good books, and the list goes on. We met in grad school at the University of Iowa. She is one of my very best friends and I don't get to see her enough. So it was GREAT to get together. We met at an Archiver's store to pick up supplies since we planned to scrapbook into the wee hours.





After shopping a bit, we ate lunch at P.F. Chang's. Neither of us had eaten there before but we both had heard great things about it. We were not disappointed. We tried the famous lettuce wraps since I'd heard about them from another friend. They are AMAZING!! I can't wait to get back there and try them again. Below is a photo of one of my lettuce wraps before I wrapped it. SOOOOooooooo good!





After lunch we checked into Embassy Suites and set things up for a late night of scrapbooking. I got a lot done and was very happy about that. I hadn't scrapbooked for almost a year and it was really good to get back to it. We worked for a while then partook of the complimentary happy hour that Embassy Suites provides. Then we scrapbooked some more before taking the hotel shuttle downtown for dinner. We ate at a really great Italian restaurant and dined on wine, Mojitos (Beth had the Mojito and I had the wine), pizza with fresh basil and mozzarella, and a really amazing chocolate cake with raspberry sauce for dessert. Then we headed back to the hotel for more scrapbooking. The next day we enjoyed the complimentary breakfast before heading out for a little shopping before we parted ways.


Beth gave me the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett for a birthday gift. I have already started it and love it. I love it when people give me books as gifts because I love to read but rarely buy fiction books for myself. And I love to go to the library but our local small town library doesn't always have the best selection and I don't get there very often to look for myself.






So there's my weekend in a nutshell. Thanks, Beth, for helping me celebrate the big 4-0 in a really fun and great way. Oh.........I also bought a new tote bag to haul my stuff back and forth to school. I'll take a photo of it and add it later.

Windfall at the bookstore

Today I went to Parables bookstore to find some books to help my oldest son with some questions he's been having about God and faith. I wanted to share with you the ones I purchased because I think they are really awesome. I am taking the time to provide Amazon links for each book. However, I want to let you know that I TRIED to post Parables links to the items to support purchasing from your local Christian bookstore. However, for some reason, the search button on the Parables website was not able to locate any of the titles. Weird, huh? I know all these titles are available there because I just bought them there. Anyway, the images below are courtesy of Amazon and I've linked to Amazon.

If I Could Ask God Anything by Kathryn Slattery is the main book I bought to help my 7 1/2 year old. This is such an awesome book. I really think it's a must have for all Christian parents of elementary aged children as well as any Sunday School teachers of that age group. It seriously has hundreds of questions that children might ask and has very concise but appropriate answers, all linked to Scripture. I love this book. My son immediately read the page titled, "If God is invisible, how can I know He is real?" And afterwards, he truly seemed to be comforted and to have a better understanding of this complex issue.

A Picture of God 3 in 1 by Joanne Marxhausen was one I bought because it really clearly and concretely explains the Trinity. The saleslady who was helping me said this book has been around for years (copyright 1973), but I had never seen it. My son also read this one right away in the van on the way home from school. He liked it a lot. (PS: If you want to borrow this for Sunday School, Monica, let me know!!)

The Story of the Resurrection Eggs: Benjamin's Box by Melody Carlson is something I picked up for Easter along with the set of Resurrection Eggs pictured below. I think the combination of the book and the eggs will be a nice Easter tradition to start this year.

For Easter gifts for the boys I also picked up a copy of Gotta Have God: Devotions for Boys for each of them. I got the 6-9 year old version for my 7 year old and the 2-5 year old version for my 3 year old. One thing I really liked about these devotion books was that you can start them at any time of year. Most of the other devotion books I looked at were set up on a January-December schedule. Knowing our family life and realizing honestly that we probably won't do a page a day, I liked the flexibility of this series. I also like that there are little activity pages with each devotion/story. In the younger version, there are pictures and your little one circles or colors pictures to indicate their thoughts and answers. In the older version, there is more writing required.

Some women have a thing for purses or shoes; my thing is books. I guess a good way to look at it is they never go out of style or end up not fitting! :0)

Serendipity

Today my mom stopped by to pick up my oldest son to take him to a playdate at her house. When she arrived, I was in the midst of the cleaning/de-cluttering frenzy I wrote about in the previous post. Therefore, when she informed me that she had brought me a "few things", I was not in the frame of mind to warmly welcome anyTHING else into my home. I think I even said something like, "It better not be any more CRAP to clutter up my house." Sorry, Mom! (I'm sure you're used to me by now.) Anyway, she told me that the "things" included a quilt that my aunt gave her to give me. A quilt that my OWN grandma made!! (Sidenote: I only got to know one of my grandmas, my father's mother. My mother's mother died a month before I was born. It's one of my life's regrets that I did not ever get to meet her.) I LOVED the grandma that I knew. I have so many memories of her, even though she died before I reached high school. Anyway, I was quickly remorseful when I realized that my mom had unexpectedly brought me such a treasure. I own another quilt she made for me and gave me when she was alive. It is one of my most prized posessions. It was on my childhood bed for many years and is now on a quilt rack in my bedroom. My dad made the quilt rack, so it's special too. Below is a photo of the quilt. It is so pretty, and is hand-quilted by my grandma. I am not sure whether it is hand-pieced or machine-pieced. I'll have to ask my aunt or my mom.



The reason I titled this post "Serendipity" is because it was very serendipitous that this quilt arrived when it did. (NOTE: I just looked up the meaning of serendipity to make sure I'm using it correctly in this context. Webster's defines it as: "the faculty of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for." Definitely the case here.) I have just finished reading another Elm Creek Quilt novel by Jennifer Chiaverini. The one I read is pictured below and is called Circle of Quilters. I love these novels. They are easy to read, well-written, and have a lot of quilt info thrown in. After I read the book, I was thinking that I would enjoy making a quilt. I've made a few quilts before, but not since I had children. My mom has gotten into quilting in her retirement and does them completely by hand, the piecing and everything. I'd like to make one totally by hand. I may just make a wall-hanging; we'll see. The arrival of this new and treasured quilt gives me the motivation I need to try a quilt of my own in the new year. So look for some posts about that sometime in 2009.

If you are a quilter reading this post, I'd love to have you write me a comment. I am wondering what would be a good pattern to try for my first hand-pieced quilt. Let me know if you have any ideas.