A few book reviews…

Lately, I’ve read quite a few books, mainly due to my long trip this weekend. My dad drove, the kids were constrained, so I had many hours of good reading time. Ahhh….

The first book I read was, The House that Cleans Itself, by Mindy Starns Clark. You can click on the link to see a picture and such. I’m lazy like that. :)

Okay, this book sounded too good to be true. Of course, I wasn’t naive or anything. Nor did I call my husband and excitedly exclaim that I was reading a book about the house cleaning itself.

Nor did he say, “Boy, that would be a breakthrough.”

Anyway.

Pros: I really liked how the author firstly recommended that perfectionist cleaners (this is me…don’t want to do a job until I can clean from top to bottom. I’m getting past that. Slllooowwwllly) pick the one thing or room that really gets under their skin and keep it clean if nothing else gets done. For instance, if the bathroom being messy really makes me ill, I should focus on cleaning it from top to bottom and keeping it clean.

She recommends making a rough sketch or map of your home, dividing it into parts, giving each area a number based on which room is the messiest, etc. For example, the foyer is what people see most. She recommends giving that room #1 and starting there. I really liked the breaking down of the rooms and cleaning accordingly.

Cons: Overall, she recommends putting everything in your home in its own place. She recommends taking a black garbage bag, a white garbage bag, and boxes to each room, giving the rooms the overhaul, and purging, trashing, giving away…etc.

The cons to this for me would be, who has time to overhaul rooms? Hello? What ever happened to the house that cleans itself??

She does not homeschool and has two older daughters, so go figure. She only got her house in shape after her daughters were older.

So, I move on. Still searching for that perfect house cleaning book. The one for larger families, larger homeschooling families. Larger Homeschooling families with littles.

Oh, there isn’t one???

Overall, she had some great ideas, but it would take me weeks to get my house exactly as I want it and it would take my kids having to be away from me for long extended periods of time.

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The next book I read was Be Fruitful and Multiply.

Ahahahahahahahahahaha……..

Okay, that’s my review. The End.

Okay, okay, sorry.

The book was really thought provoking, all of the scriptures were there in black and white and it was really convicting.

Basically the author’s entire point could be summed up by saying that we our lives totally over to God for Him to have His will and way in, EXCEPT for allowing Him to give us as many gifts (babies) as HE wants us to have. That may be the only area in which Christians disallow God’s free will in their lives.

She reviews all the types of birth control and how each type is sinful (for lack of a better word) and the harmful side effects of each. She even talks about procedures like hysterectomies and how unnecessarily they are performed each day. Interesting stuff.

She also talks about how we can be fundamentally Pro Life but then absolutely gawk at someone who tells us they are pregnant with their sixth child. And how that that is totally not Pro life.

Get the book and read it. Tell me what you think. I would love to hear your comments.

My favorite quote in the book was, (in my own words) Christians would rather be willing to go on the mission field to a destitute land than to submit their fertility to God.

Gulp.

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I started on two Study Guides by Nancy Campbell, The Power of Motherhood and The Family Meal Table and I’m thoroughly enjoying them. The pictures of them are in a post a couple of scrolls down on my blog. We have started implementing Family devotions at the meal table and it was been wonderful for us. Maybe I can say more about these study guides as I finish them.

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The last book I perused through on our trip was the book, Craft Hope and it was a delightful book of crafts made to profit charities of those less fortunate. The photographs are lovely and the projects seem almost easy for even I! Maybe I’ll take some pictures from the book and share some of the projects at a later time.

For now, I have a certain 8 year old to finish up Language and History and then it’s piano lessons.

Please leave me a comment and let me know if you have read any of these books I reviewed.