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.

Resources, a recipe, and a weekend trip!

Don’t you just love it when you receive a mailbox full of goodies?

I really love reading the Above Rubies magazine (if you don’t get it, subscribe for free, here) and wanted to send a small donation since their magazine is free and so helpful to me. I was sent this pack (for my $50) and I can’t wait to dive into it:

Three thick Bible study manuals: The Power of Motherhood, The Family Meal Table and Hospitality, and Gate-Keepers of the Home. Also, I received Nancy’s book, Be Fruitful and Multiply (oh boy…). :)

Now I have something to take with me on my long trip! (details below)

We also have started receiving this magazine, giving to us for Christmas by our very close friends:

I can’t wait to get my hands flipping through the pages! This was the perfect magazine for us!

While I’m sharing resources, I picked up this book the other day at the library and it has some awesome photography in it. This is my style of decorating:

Here are some delicious photographs:

And finally, my favorite:

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Healthy Vegetable Soup (you can make good soup without meat and bouillon cubes!)

1 bag of frozen tomatoes (or 1 quart canned)

1 can of tomato paste (6 oz?)

A couple quarts of water (sorry, I didn’t measure)

1 bag of frozen mixed veggies (green beans, corn, carrots, peas)

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 handful fresh cilantro chopped

2 tbs olive oil

1 small bag of frozen okra (I put tons of okra up this past summer)

1 tbs Mrs. Dash seasoning blend (the one with the yellow top)

Onion powder (a tp or so)

Sea Salt to taste

Simmer for 45 minutes or so, until veggies are tender. Make sure you have enough sea salt to make it tasty!

The cilantro and the seasonings really make this soup yummy. This is my own recipe, thus the inexact proportions.

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I will not be blogging until Tuesday because I am going for a visit with my parents to see my brother and his family! :) He lives in the neatest town in MO (near the Amish) and I have only visited with him once (sooo far away). I am taking my two girls and my dear husband will be keeping the boys. They are all geared up for some men stuff with daddy. :)

I trust that you have a wonderful weekend filled with God’s love and family togetherness.

May this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus.

God Bless!

Tried and Proven Healthy Recipes

Pumpkin Spelt Bread

For years now, my husband and I have had a love/hate relationship with eating healthy. About 10 years ago, we truly learned about health and that it means, surprisingly, nothing about drinking Diet Coke and eating Low Fat Pringles. Really! Too bad.

Since then, we’ve tried to incorporate a pretty decent healthy eating lifestyle, but have had times of complacency with our healthy eating habits and (oh the horror) downright backsliding on our exercising. Now, mind you, I have never got to the place where I had brought in the liquid candy (soft drinks) or processed food (that excludes leftover Halloween candy, right?), but I seemed to have upped our butter/sugar (albeit raw sugar, but still….) intake and ousted the raw veggie/whole wheat intake.

My dear man of my dreams ordered us the book, Disease-Proof Your Child by Dr. Joel Fuhrman and upon reading the first 2 chapters, I wanted to shove everything currently in my cabinets into the trash can and also wanted to hide my head in shame at what I had been allowing my children to eat (hot dogs, anyone?). So, while I urge you to read this book (especially if your kids aren’t eating very healthy), I warn you that it may make you feel very, very guilty. :?/

I have two children of the four that would probably be considered obese (especially one) and I’m so sorry for that. It seems that when I try to watch their diet, there is always some eating out taking place—eating at church, eating at grandparents, etc.—other places where hot dogs are all the rage or chips are ever present among us. So, that being said, it is ultimately I and my husband who are responsible for their health. We have to get radical about what we are eating, even if it means eating differently in other places besides our home.

I have enjoyed eating this week. I have enjoyed making healthy meals for my family and feeling good about what I am serving them. We have enjoyed fruit smoothies for breakfast, srambled eggs (there is life w/o butter) with spinach, spelt biscuits, Summertime Tilapia (just say no to red meat), Chicken Salad made with Vegenaise (healthy ‘mayonnaise’!), carrot sticks (discovered that my 3 year old loves carrot sticks), spinach leaves (my kids have been asking for some ‘leaves’ to eat), and Pumpkin Spelt Bread with almond butter. All of the highlighted recipes were tried this week and were found to be delicious (and the ‘mayo’ is really, really tasty).

I look forward to updating you on our health progress and pray to not fall back in my quest for disease-proofing my children. Kids really don’t get sick by accident. Which you probably already knew that. I hope you will read the book!

Evan, enjoying the leftovers of the pumpkin spelt bread batter

It’s nighty-night here at our house. Church is tomorrow and lots of frantic details that entails. :) Hope you’re having a lovely Pre-Fall night.

God Bless!

PS One of my Blog Followers, Kirsteen, has a few wheat and dairy-free recipes on her blog. I look forward to trying some of these out. Check her out. :)

Book Reviews..

I didn't really make any handwritten resolutions, but I do have a few goals in the back of my head. One of those being to read a book each month. If you will notice my Reading List on my sidebar, you will find 12 books--one for each month. Most of my list involves books that hopefully will help me become a better wife and mother. There are a couple theological type books and one or two fiction books as well. I hope to be able to write a review on each as I finish it so you can see if it may be something that you would like to read.

For this month, I read Homeschooling with A Meek and Quiet Spirit by Teri Maxwell from Titus2 ministries. I definitely could use some meek and quietness not only in the Homeschooling dept., but just in general.

If I could rate this book based on 5 stars, I would give it 3. The reasons being: First of all, there are several books out there (that I've read) that seem to say the exact thing that was covered in this book. Things that need saying, but I guess I was looking for something new, or something old, presented in a new way. Secondly, the book barely focuses on Homeschooling. Maybe one or two chapters really get into Homeschooling, but even then there aren't many examples or what to do when...you know? Maybe the title just wasn't appropriate? Would I recommend this book, YES! However if you are just looking for a book on how to be a better wife/mother, then I would suggest Passionate Housewives Desperate for God by Jeannie Chancey/Stacy McDonald or Created to be His Helpmeet by Debi Pearl. If you are looking for help with being a better Homeschooling mother, this book would help, but it's not totally dedicated to Homeschooling.

As a side Review, I would like to review Pioneer Woman's Cookbook, that I received for Christmas. I love her site, especially her photography and her wonderful humor. Her cookbook was a must-have for me and I even got it for my SIL, Amy, for Christmas. I loved browsing through its pages and reading excerpts of this 'Accidental Country Girl'. The book automatically received 5 stars from me. Very colorful, humourous, just like her blog. However, as I started to make some of the recipes for my family, I decided that maybe it was all in the photography. First of all, be ready to dish out lotsa grocery money when making her dishes. She uses whole pounds of cheese, whole sticks of butter, etc... Surely, recipes with these ingredients would be TDF, right? So far, I've made the Tomato Soup...WAY too sweet and I didn't even use the amt of sugar SHE uses! It was like drinking a tomato juiced with added sugar out of the can. I have made the Shrimp Pasta a la Betsy or something like that, and it was pretty good. The Chicken Pot Pie was good, but had too much thyme in it for my taste. It tasted more like dressing. Last night, I made the country fried steak which was just okay and the gravy, which was okay, used 2 or 3 cups of milk, and I made the macaroni and cheese which was sorta blah and used a pound of cheese and another cup of milk. I have made a couple more items, but I think I will mostly be enjoying this cookbook for the photography and the um, last page. If you have the book, you know what's on the last page. :) Oh yes, and the cinnamon rolls! :) So, 3 out of 5 stars from me. I think her best recipes are on her website. http://www.thpioneerwoman.com/.

As for me, my kiddos are not finding my reviews helpful, in fact, they are finding them a hindrance to my getting them their breakfast!