What I've Been Reading...

            There are some books that are so well crafted, their word pictures and themes so carefully chosen and woven into the story that it’s difficult to write anything in review that would do them justice. The Wedding Dress by Rachel Hauck was that kind of story, the kind that left me speechless and unable to say anything about it other than “It was beautiful. Go read it.”

            For the sake of this review, I’ll try to find a way to explain the elements of the book were so stunning, but in case my words fall short, as I suspect they will, please know that it was beautiful. Go read it.

            The women in the novel are all from different walks of life, even different time periods. They’re united by a wedding dress—one that is always in style, and always fits its owner perfectly, no alterations required. As the story progresses, the woman who currently owns the gown seeks to track down its owners and in the process learns those women’s stories and comes to a more full understanding of love and marriage.

            Love is a major theme in the book. God’s love, people’s love, its all there. The faith elements are woven seamlessly into the story in a way that is natural and unforced. I enjoyed and would rank it as one of my favorite romance books of all time. It’s the kind of book that I’ll recommend to people over and over, and much like Francine Rivers created a modern-day Christian classic in Redeeming Love, Rachel Hauck has done so with The Wedding Dress.















I'm required to tell you that I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review (positive OR negative--depending on how I felt about the book). I loved it and would have told you if I didn't so opinions are certainly my own. ;)

Nap Time for Toddlers!

Ever trained a toddler to sleep in a big kid bed?

If you have kids, I'm hoping the answer is yes. Otherwise, I'm not sure where your kids are sleeping... ;)

I went into Little Man's room Thursday morning to find that he was one step from out of his crib entirely. I think he was just trying to decide if the drop to the floor was worth the freedom. So we went out and bought him a twin mattress.

Overall it's been going very well. I remember being scared as a kid, so I did sit with him till he was almost asleep the first few nights (I know, some of you are throwing things at me now) but I'm trying to be in there for a shorter and shorter time each night as he gets used to it. Overall bedtime seems to be going excellently. It's naptime we're having issues with. I'm thinking we're about 50/50 on that--probably because he KNOWS he's tired at bedtime, but doesn't always recognize that at naptime. And who can blame him. He's not even two.

This, I'm reminding myself, is why kids have parents. Or one of the reasons. We know what's best even though they sometimes don't. I think before I had kids I thought parents pretty much just babysat all day and "raised" their kids periodically. I'm learning now that the "raising" part happens all day. How do I react when he disobeys? What am I teaching him through every. single. event. that happens during the day? Have you ever really stopped to ponder how amazing toddler's brain capacities are? They're learning SO MUCH and I'm so thankful God has opened my eyes to see how much I'm teaching him during the day.

He's down for a nap now (haha, at least, I'm hoping so. He's pretty quiet so we'll see. If he's still quiet in fifteen minutes I'm going to take a nap too. Adults have no need for sleep training. We loooove sleep.) and I'm glad for the time it's giving me to refresh my perspective. I love my little guy and I know every day how much of a privalege it is that God gave him to us to raise. But I want to make sure I make the most of every opportunity for that, while balancing discipline with love and the understanding that he IS just a kid, and a very little one at that.

What are some things you've learned about parenting? It's true, don't you think, that it's the hardest and most rewarding jobs ever?

So I feel like the new blogger format is super svelte and really user friendly...unless you were used to the old one. Now I'm moderately confused but I'm predicting that in a day or two I'll recover, thanks for asking. =)

This is going to be a short post, and maybe more serious than my usual posts. Some things have happened in my circle of friends this week, basically people announcing decisions they've made about how they want to live and sometimes these decisions aren't Biblically based. I was thinking about how many people are actually excited for people when they sin, because it makes them 'happy'. And I've been thinking about this in the back of my mind for most of the week.

Yesterday my toddler and I went outside for some playtime. I'm pretty much frighteningly allergic (slight exaggeration, but only really slight) to everything green. Grass and trees are my worst allergies, and since we live in the woods (which I love) guess what we have lots of?

Yep. Grass and trees. But I am so off track. Annnnyway.

So we went outside and I pulled out the bottle of bubbles I have and blew some bubbles for him. It confuses him that he can't hold them so we can usually only play for a few minutes before he gets frustrated, BUT yesterday I learned something from watching him chase those streams of bubbles across the yard.

We are sometimes like toddlers.

Anytime we try to find happiness apart from Christ, outside of His will, we are like my adorable son chasing those bubbles. He has fun chasing them, but once he 'catches' them they pop. They're almost an illusion, because really, once they pop, it's like they were never there. It's the same with this so called 'happiness' that comes when we as Christians pursue something we know is wrong. Sure it looks fun and we may even have fun, but at the end is...nothing. Not the happiness we'd hoped for. Just us--confused, hurt, and wondering what it is we felt was so important to chase in the first place.

Lists

Some people read the newspaper every day. Personally, I find the newspaper utterly depressing, so I try to limit myself to once a week or so. Instead, I read people's blogs. This serves several purposes. First, if anything crazy important happens in the world and I'm managed to utterly isolate myself from society, I can find out about it from their page. Second, I love reading people's thoughts as they come out in really genuine ways. It's difficult to blog pretentiously. I mean, I suppose it could be done. But for the most part blogging comes out as a sneak peak into someone's brain and while I'm an introvert and don't always feel up to TALKING to people all the time, I'm pretty much always up for peaking inside someone's brain.

You know, that sounded less weird before I typed it.

Anyway, one of my favorite blogs is snowandmist.blogspot.com The woman who writes it is someone I went to college with and she's a teacher right now in Alaska, at the top of the world (are you hearing the Iceroad Truckers Announcer guy? "at the top of the world..." ahem. OKay. Moving on.). I love her thoughts on village life in Alaska, faith, and the frustrations of being a teacher. Not that being a teacher is ever frustrating.

Haha. Moving on again...

The post of hers I read today mentioned how much she loves making lists and I was nodding in agreement the whole time I read her thoughts on this. Making lists is awesome. I make them for several reasons.

1. Keep track of what I need to do.

2. Make myself feel better about what I've done. (This I call the retroactive list. I make a list of all the things I've done and then cross them all off like a retroactive to-do list. It's super satisfying.)

3. Figure out what's in my brain when it feels like mush.

4. Prioritize.

5. Brainstorm ideas for something.

It's interesting that I'm a list maker (in case you wanted a peak into my interesting brain here...) because I'm not that organized of a person. My desk at school is covered in several stacks of papers. I know what they all are, but I'm sure it looks like a nightmare to anyone who walks in the room. Even my seemingly organized file drawer is labeled with folders like "important info" that I can throw random stuff into without figuring out where else it could go.

How about you? Are you a list maker? An organizer?

I have no idea why it's so important that I express these list-making thoughts today. Maybe because I was in a rare organizational mood today? I cleaned my desk at home and hubby's desk too, and they look pretty good if I say so myself. However, there's now a huge pile of papers on the floor in my office nook that needs to be thrown in the trash. But we're out of trash bags because who can remember to buy those at the grocery store? So for now it sits on the floor. Do you think this counteracts the impressiveness of the fact that my desk has never looked better?

Hm. Something to ponder.

PS. Book reviews--several of them. Coming soon! Up next is Firethorn by Ronie Kendig. I read it months ago and no joke, it was so amazing I've been processing it this whole time because there's really no way words could convince you of how awesome this book is (oh the irony). So be excited. But I have to stop typing now or I'm going to steal my thunder.

Home Sweet Home

My family has a serious hereditary condition. I think it can all be traced back to some serious gypsy roots somewhere or another (did they even have Cherokee, Irish, or Scottish gypsies???). We LOVE to travel. All of us. Keep us in one place for too long and we start to get kind of...fidgety.

This time last year we were prepping for our HUGE trip to Alaska, which you can read about earlier on my blog if you missed it. Those of you who are waiting for the rest. Um...don't give up. One day. Maybe.

This year we're just prepping for summer. Which is so far a blank slate desperately (in my mind) needing travel plans.

I LOVE being home. I was that kid who didn't like to spend the night at other people's houses (sorry Rachael!) because I wanted to be at mine. But for some reason the older I get the more I'm starting to be high maintenance about this travel thing.

I think my solution is camping trips. Three. Four. I'm still planning and convincing hubby that we WANT to go anywhere this summer.

What do you do for fun in the summer if you don't work as much then? Who all likes to camp? What fun projects do you do at your house when you get time off work?

Off to eat some mint chocolate chip icecream. Which is completely unrelated to this topic. But in case you wondered...

March Madness

Ever have one of those days or weeks when someone asks how your day has been and you say "busy"? And then they ask what you were busy doing and for the life of you, you don't have a clue WHAT it was you were so busy doing, you just know you FELT busy?

Yeah, that was March.

But here I am, back in blogging world once again.

Today's been a nice, laid back Monday. Little Man and I spent some time outside and I had to teach him how fun it was to play in the sprinkler. It cracks me up how many things I remember loving from my childhood that he has to LEARN to like. Of course, I remember doing most of these fun things when I was at least five and he's not even two...but still.

I got a kick of out watching him. He's always good for a smile.

Other things that make me smile:

1. Easter

2. The rest of my family.

3. Good books.

4. Peach Icecream

5. Seeing my hubby come home with a flower that I suspect is for me...

On that note, I have to go. More later (haha, you don't believe me, do you?)

Boo For Colds!

Okay, so in retrospect the title of this post is super-negative and I don't really feel all that negative right now.

But I'm also too tired to change it.

I'm still working on my list of goals and how I'm going to accomplish them. Little Man and I made dairy free chocolate chip cookies Saturday, which was another goal, and they were DELICIOUS. Seriously. Hubby ate almost all of them, even after looking at them like they were inedible when he found out they were even remotely vegan-ish (haha, vegan chocolate, vegan 'butter'...but with eggs. So some animals were indeed harmed in the making of those cookies. Sorry PETA.)

The rest of my goals having kind of been put on hold while I try to make this cold go away. Does anyone besides me expect a cold to last for a maximum of...oh...12 hours? If I'm still sick the next day I feel like I'm NEVER going to have a nose that does not run (drama queen? whoooo?). The good news is I'm feeling much better today than I was yesterday, so I'm trying to think positively and hope that by tomorrow I'll be at least 92.5% better.

We shall see.

So rumor has it my part of the south is actually going to see some cold weather this weekend. I'm not sure how I'll handle actually having it feel like winter in February. You mean it isn't supposed to be 75 degrees out? I'm getting so confused...

So. What are your favorite winter activities? Those of you in the south (and everywhere, I guess--this is a crazy winter all over!), are you happy it's been so warm? Or do you feel cheated?

Goal Shapshot: Cooking for my Family

Yesterday I finally did it. I ventured into the organic section of the grocery store and bought my probably-pretty-allergic-to-milk toddler some foods I've been meaning to try with him (or re-try).

We bought:

*goats milk (he's not the biggest fan. He likes water and doesn't understand why that 'water' tastes funny. But it's good to confirm he doesn't have any kind of intolerance to that so I can bake with it now. If you can ever do that with goats milk...)

*sun butter (Basically peanut butter with sunflower seeds instead--since I have so many allergies we hear it's best to wait till he's 2 to give him peanut butter...and with the milk allergy issues, I'm not taking chances...unfortunately I couldn't get him to even put this in his mouth. Then again, I tried it on a banana and he's kinda so-so on bananas since they're slimy. Maybe in a cut up sandwich?)

*cheese. Mozzerella 'style' shreds, to be exactly. And yes, it disturbed me that it smelled funny, had a slightly gray tinge, and tasted so funky cold that I had to shove a spoonfull of Sun butter in to get rid of the taste.

BUT...BUT...BUT...BUT

Here's the exciting part. It turns out if you bake this 'cheese' it suddenly tastes yummy. And so for the first time last night, Little Man got to have pizza.

He giggled between bites.

It just made me SO happy to be able to give him a yummy 'kid' food that I haven't been able to give him. Thank you, vegans of the world, for inspiring companies to create foods that don't have dairy and making them taste good.

Last month, we discovered he loves vegan chocolate. (And seriously, with the kind I bought, you couldn't tell it wasn't the real thing. I promise.)

This month, pizza.

And I think because I've been wanting to make cookies with him for so long but never could find the dairy free butter (found it yesterday!) we might do that this weekend so he can have a chocolate chip cookie like a normal kid.

You have no idea how happy this makes me. We find out in June via allergy test if he for real has a milk allergy (still) or if he's one of the ones who outgrows it. Hopefully it will be gone by then. But just in case, it's so nice to know he'll still have yummy food and not be 'left out'.

Now off to figure out how to make a yummy dairy free cookie...

Goals, 2012, And What Happens When You Have Too Much Coffee

I blame it on the extra coffee.

No, if anything it should be blamed on my trip to Alaska last summer, the to-do lists I've made since then, and probably on Pinterest. But I'm sure the coffee contributed to this mood I'm in this morning. It's a goal setting mood.

When 2011 ended and 2012 began I had a few goals in mind for this year. I'm still articulating them (yes, its the end of January but setting goals constantly is good, right?) but this morning I've been even more challenged to write them down. That's going on my to-do list for the day. And since I'm on my forth (fifth?) mug of coffee and it's not even 10:30, I'm hoping I'll have the energy and brain power to think of some.

What's really on my mind this morning is that silly 'word of the year' thing everyone has become so obsessed with. 'Resolutions' are SO 1999 (or any other year besides this one--pick) and they have become something we joke about keeping until, oh, January 2nd or so and then convieniently forgetting. So instead when we look for a new start in the new year we call them 'goals' or a 'word of the year' and feel all trendy and cool.

Rant over.

Anyway, I'm not planning on giving my year a word. I think there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm more of a 'seat of the pants-er' at writing and at life and the idea of labeling 11 more months with a word that WILL/SHOULD describe them is foreign to me.

BUT when I was reading my Bible this morning (yep, that's a goal too) I was really struck by how all the goals I've been setting/praying about/thinking about can really be summed up by being intentional. I know I'm not the first one to notice that intentional living is important. Countless books have been written, sermons preached, and blogs posted on this topic, I'm sure. So don't worry, I know it's nothing new (but really, what is?)

But I really want to be more intentional. I've been intentionally being more active. I want to intentionally find things to do with my son that are fun and good learning opportunities. I want to be intentional about building an even better relationship with my hubby. I want to intentionally be a good friend/sister/daughter.

The thing I'm finally getting is that I LOVE to be vague. I'll set a goal (ahem, or make a resolution, let's be honest) to be more healthy, but never articulate what that means. It's like that saying that if you're aiming at nothing, you'll hit it. Well, in the same way, if you know what you're aiming at but only kindasorta, you'll only kindasorta hit it.

This may only be making sense to me, but I had to post it. Writing works things out in my brain, you know? How about you? Does writing untwist your tangled thoughts the way it does mine?

SO. Today I'm going to intentionally set some goals for myself. Not vague ones. But not super unrealistic ones like Im-going-to-be-a-size-two-by-next-week ones either. Intentional goals.

Wish me luck! How about you? Any goals/words/resolutions for 2012? How are you doing so far?