Book Review! Raising Your Kids to Love the Lord

Faithful Families: Raising Your Kids To Love the Lord by Dave  Stone
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I Loved this book!  There is honestly not much in it that is new and earth shattering, but it is one of those books I think I will keep and reread regularly to make sure I'm on the right path in our parenting journey! The main points of the book are so simple with regards to raising your children to be faithful; things like be an example, prayer, reading and memorizing scripture, etc.  However, it was well written and an excellent reminder of our role in our children's lives as Christian parents.  The author reminds us of our great responsibility in raising our children and with examples from his own family life as well as other families discusses what we can do to fulfill that responsibility.  It is not a long book, but is a lifechanging book for me.  I love that he emphasizes the importance of the husband and wife's relationship as a role model for kids, and he includes an entire chapter each on the importance of the mother's role, and the father's role.  I had recently been looking for some Christian parenting books to get myself back on track with regards to discipline, and laughed and hit myself on the forehead (duh!) when he sums it up in one word: Consistency! While there is that small part on discipline, the majority of the book focuses as the title says, on raising our children to love God.  This book is definitely staying on the home screen of my Nook, and I may just have to buy stacks of them to add to baby shower gifts!  I will definitely be rereading and hopefully finding more by this author.

I recieved a copy of this book from the publisher for my honest review.


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Book Reviews: My Own Worst Enemy and The Messenger

My Own Worst Enemy: How to Stop Holding Yourself Back by Janet Davis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm really liking this book, My Own Worse Enemy.  Now to be honest, I don't really feel like this subject is something I struggle with. That said, I really enjoyed the book, the author's style of writing, and her perspective on the stories of women in the bible.  She intersperses her own journey with stories of other women she has worked with and stories of women in the bible within each chapter. That was my favorite part of the book,  reading her comments on each Biblical woman and her story. She brings out cultural bits that I'd never known or thought about.  Even if you don't struggle with holding yourself back, I would recommend it as a Bible study.

I recieved a copy of this book from the publisher for review.


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The Messenger by Siri Mitchell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

 This book was historical fiction set when the English were trying to keep control of the rebelling colonies in America. I enjoyed the book and would recommmend it as an easy fun read.  The main character Hannah is a Quaker, though she struggles with some of the beliefs and decisions. Her twin brother, who joined the rebels, is captured and the family refuses to visit or help him as that is the position taken by the Quaker church. She is unable to abide by this decision and with the help of another colonist, Jeremiah, gains access to visit him in exchange for carrying messages to the prisoners in hopes of helping them escape.  It was enjoyable and I appreciate reading books that help bring history alive as this one does.  While not overtly Christian, Hannah does struggle with her Quaker faith, and though Jeremiah doesn't profess Christianity, he shares some thoughts with her that show his spirituality.  There is no over-used romance in the story either, which I appreciated as well, as i don't really enjoy romance books. A fast worthwhile read.

I recieved a copy of this book from the publisher for my honest review.

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book review: Crazy Dangerous

Crazy Dangerous by Andrew Klavan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a fairly fast moving teen level book that I enjoyed as an adult. It follows teen Sam Hopkins' journey through several bad choices and there consequences which then lead him to save the girl and the day! The first part of the book seemed a bit unrealistic to me, as the "bad" gang at school quickly does an about face and, rather than beating him up, takes him into their group, shows him where they stash cars and teach him how to steal cars as well. There is some violence in this book, as he is beaten up several times and someone in the book is murdered. However it does use these situations as teaching moments to make good choices. It was a good read with a fairly surprising ending!


I recieved a copy of the book from the publisher in exchanger for my honest review. 


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Fabric Cash Envelope System Wallet

I was reminded recently I never got around to posting photos of my second attempt at a wallet for the cash envelope system...

 There are zipper pockets on both sides of the outside (I added 2 to mine, one on each side, one would probably be enough). It closes with a button and elastic.

Here you can kind of see how I constructed it. Both sides of the main piece (the part laying down on the couch) have 3 envelopes each for cash, and the piece I am holding in the picture has slots for credit cards on one side (last picture) and more envelopes on the other.  Those could easily be interchangeable (i.e. both sides for credit cards (though if you are truly a Dave Ramsey fan, you probalby don't want to carry them anyway... my husband and are I cheaters!), or both envelopes, depending on how many you want to have. My wallet currently has 6 on the main piece (so if this is enough for you and you don't want credit card slots, you could omit the center all together) and 3 on the inner piece with 8 credit card slots. 

As you can see, I goofed a bit on my measurements due to extra thickness with interfacing... so my inner piece is a smidgen wider than the outer piece, but I  plan to fix that on any others that I do... As for labeling the envelopes, I've planned to either use fabric glue, little rectangles of muslin and a fabric marker, or possibly printing out my categories on fabric transfer paper... haven't really gotten around to that part yet... 

Book Review and GIVEAWAY!!

Giveaway is over! the winner is 

Shannon! Thanks!


I'm so excited I get to do a little Giveaway on my teensy tiny blog! But first the review...




As One Devil to Another by Richard Platt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book was a nod to C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. It is written in that style, of a mentor demon to his nephew trainee who is on his first assignment. It is interesting as a fiction account, but even more so as a thought-provoking look at how Satan attempts to pull us from God! Many different areas are looked at, including our pride and ambition, television, internet, among others.  It definitely made me think about how these things (internet was especially convicting for me!) pull our focus from God and make it easier for the devil to do his work, as we lose our "real" connection with people in exchange for a false sense of community.  The only negative I have is that I just finished it up a few minutes ago and am confused about the ending; I feel like I need to go back and reread since I must have missed something... But I would definitely recommend this book!


I recieved a copy of this book from the publisher for my honest review.




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The publisher has graciously provided me with a free copy for someone! (well actually, a certificate for a free copy, redeemable, I believe, wherever this book is sold!) 

Just leave me a comment below telling me what your favorite book is to enter! (one entry per person, US addresses only).

Book Review: Your 100 Day Prayer

Keep an eye out Tuesday for another review and a GIVEAWAY!!!


Your 100 Day Prayer: The Transforming Power of Actively Waiting on God by John I. Snyder
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I haven't worked through the whole book yet, but have actually to start over and follow through ever day! But I have done enough i feel for a review. I really appreciate this book due to some circumstances in our family life, and the idea of deliberately focusing on an issue in prayer daily is exciting! I'm not sure that this book is quite what I expected but it is still a valuable tool I'm excited to put to use!  The book contains short devotionals of about a page each, and a prompt to prayer encouraging one to focus on an area or idea, such as dealing with the shock of the request one is praying for, or asking God to reveal what He is teaching through the circumstance.  I like that each devotional is short, allowing you to do it quickly in the morning and continue to pray and meditate on the idea through the day. It is short enough that it can be a supplement to an additional study without being overwhelming. There is a space for notes for each day as well. I'd recommend this book if there's a request (and who among us doesn't have something?!) that you need to truly focus on and bring to the Lord.

I recieved an e-copy of this book from the publisher for review.


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Recipe Organization

I have been (attempting to) follow along with the 52 Weeks of An Organized Home Challenge. I won't say I've done every challenge, but I have done most; the one I was most excited about was this one: Organize Recipes and Cookbooks. What I really like about this challenge is that every week, she send you an email with the challenge, and suggestions of different ways to complete it.  I had been planning to make up a recipe binder for all my paper recipes- I have magazine pullouts, recipe cards, cookbooks, ideas on the computer, Taste of Home magazines... so confusing when I know i have a recipe and can't remember where it is!  I'd always seen recipe binders and thought it was the best option.  But in the challenge, she included a section on digital organization and mentioned Evernote. 

I LOVE IT.  I'd heard of it before but for some reason had decided against using it (just in general, not even thinking of recipes). When she suggested it as an option, I went back and revisited. It is an amazing program and it is FREE!  


You can get an Evernote app for almost anything- I have it on my computer, Nook, and I-Pod Touch. So you can access it anywhere.  


The sidebar is where you can see your "notebooks"

As you can see, I'm not only using it for recipes, and haven't even begun to really use it as I hope to.  But you can see above that you can create sub-groups of notebooks, such as my "RECIPES" group above. Below I have all my categories.  And within each notebook, it looks like this.

On the far left, is the sidebar I have already shown you. The next row is all the Notes within the chosen Notebook. You can see I have chosen the "Main" notebook to show you.  So the second row has all the recipes I have collected so far within the Main category.  As you choose it, it shows up in the view box.  You can edit, add tags, comments etc.  This recipe was taken from the web using the Evernote clipper, which is amazing!  You can snip out any part of a webpage you want and put it in evernote! The program automatically records the URL in case you need to easily find it again.  This all is made even easier by the Evernote Clearly tool, which gives you a screen with just the article, no buttons, ads, etc. This makes for non-distracted reading, but also is a super easy way to clip just what you want from the page. The purple lettering above is  my note after making this for dinner!


Now to menu plan, I've begun to use the "recipes to try" notebook.  There are several super easy ways to change the notebook of an item; you can grab the item from the second row, where the notes are listed, and pull it to the notebook you want, or you can click on the upper right of the note and change it from a drop down menu. So I pull recipes I want to try into the notebook, and put them back as I'm finished.  

Recipes I have already typed out on the computer (I had been attempting to do nice recipe cards) can just be copied and pasted into a note. You can pull in pictures if you have them, add pdfs, links to other recipes and tons of other things I've not even discovered.  


I have been loving that I can pull things up on my ipod or nook (since we only have one computer, its nice to not need it for a recipe). And since our internet is spotty, it is amazing to have all these on the computer, but also backed up to Evernote's site. I don't have to worry about losing them if our computer crashes! And I've found on my ipod that if I connect to the internet and open a note, its then available there as I need it, internet or no!


Another amazing thing about Evernote is the search function. It can search within things you've typed, things you've clipped from the internet, pdfs, almost anything!  So if I have some avocados I need to use up, all I need to do is search for "avocado".

Obviously, I need some more avocado recipes, but get the picture?  I'm not even positive I need all the separate category notebooks with the search and also the tags (categories, like you can do with your pictures). But they are there for now...


According to the Evernote site and blog, people are using evernote to organize their entire lives.  Financial information, tax preparation, trip planning. Its amazing.  


My goal is to be able to get rid of all the paper recipes I have floating around.  I plan to scan in all my magazine pages (apparently there is a "scan to evernote" app for some printers that I haven't been able to set up yet that makes it so easy), copy and paste all my typed recipes, and clip ones I find on the internet.  For now, I've been using Pinterest for meal inspiration and ideas.

and moving them into Evernote as I use them, either from Pinterest, my computer, or a paper recipe.


I also created notes like this:

Here, I plan to write my favorite recipes from my cookbooks. I'm not quite ready to get rid of those yet, though the recipes from books I use less frequently may end up being scanned into evernote...


The possibilities are almost endless.I am so glad I discovered this and really excited about seeing the potential in organizing the rest of my life!  


UPDATE!!!
I remembered seeing something on the evernote blog about linking notes... I went searching (found it on the first try!) and ... AHA!  The perfect menu planning system. So ignore what I wrote above, this will save time and I won't have to put recipes "away"!

It might be hard to see... but I made myself a table with the days of the week.  See the letters on the left side?  That's the link to the recipe I'll use that day!  By right clicking on a recipe (on that middle bar with the pictures) and choosing "copy note link", you copy the URL and can then past it into your chart (control + v). I still will write them out on my notepad (I got a days of the week notepad in the dollar section at walmart that I've been using) for quick peeks at the menu when I'm not at my computer, but this way I'll have it here too! And it will be easier to find the recipes for each day.