Another Man's Treasure

We have talked for months about having a garage sale. Every time we have started to plan a weekend we have had some sort of conflict with either work, church, or RAIN.

I just needed a push. Something to motivate me.

Then...

Our middle school pastor came and told me that we will be having our first Disciple NOW weekend in January. SO awesome. We are going to be a host home. More than likely we will have a house full of boys since Little Guys has already requested that we not host girls because they are "Icky!".

Next came the BEST motivator of all. My BFF called from Atlanta and had the gall to ask how I felt about her and the kids coming for a week in December. How do I feel about it?     This kind of sums it up...

My BFF could care less what my house looks like.     When she lived next door to me we saw each other's house in every imaginable state.     We would just push the pile of clothes to the middle of the couch and sit and talk over the top.    ha!

But, with the holidays coming up and this being pretty much the last possible weekend to have a garage sale, I had received my motivation.

I started with the boys' rooms yesterday and you literally can't see my dining room now.     Games, toys, books, shoes, educational materials....   oh my heavens.  

We still have to go through my closet, the hobby shop and the attic.    It almost scares me to think about how much stuff there is in there.

So... if you are wanting to do a little garage shopping THIS SATURDAY let me know.    I'll email you my information!

Fit To Be Tied

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
Fit to Be Tied
Zondervan (November 1, 2009)
by
Robin Lee Hatcher


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Robin Lee Hatcher discovered her vocation as a novelist after many years of reading everything she could put her hands on, including the backs of cereal boxes and ketchup bottles. The winner of the Christy Award for Excellence in Christian Fiction (Whispers from Yesterday), the RITA Award for Best Inspirational Romance (Patterns of Love and The Shepherd's Voice), two RT Career Achievement Awards (Americana Romance and Inspirational Fiction), and the RWA Lifetime Achievement Award, Robin is the author of over 50 novels, including Catching Katie, named one of the Best Books of 2004 by the Library Journal.

Robin enjoys being with her family, spending time in the beautiful Idaho outdoors, reading books that make her cry, and watching romantic movies. She is passionate about the theater, and several nights every summer, she can be found at the outdoor amphitheater of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, enjoying Shakespeare under the stars. She makes her home outside of Boise, sharing it with Poppet the high-maintenance Papillon



ABOUT THE BOOK

Cleo Arlington dresses like a cowboy, is fearless and fun-loving, and can ride, rope, and wrangle a horse as well as any man. In 1916, however, those talents aren’t what most young women aspire to. But Cleo isn’t most women. Twenty-nine years old and single, Cleo loves life on her father’s Idaho ranch. Still, she hopes someday to marry and have children.

Enter Sherwood Statham, an English aristocrat whose father has sentenced him to a year of work in America to “straighten him out.” Sherwood, who expected a desk job at a posh spa, isn’t happy to be stuck on an Idaho ranch. And he has no idea how to handle Cleo, who’s been challenged with transforming this uptight playboy into a down-home cowboy, because he has never encountered a woman succeeding in a “man’s world.”

Just about everything either of them says or does leaves the other, well, fit to be tied. Cleo Arlington knows everything about horses but nothing about men. And though Cleo believes God’s plan for her includes a husband, it couldn’t possibly be Sherwood Statham. Could it?

Their bumpy trot into romance is frustrating, exhilarating, and ultimately heartwarming.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Fit to Be Tied , go HERE.

Watch the book video Trailer:

Miss You Like Crazy

My sweet friend Bob is celebrating his first Sunday in heaven today. I am so jealous of him. After a long and adventurous life, Bob just met Jesus peacefully in his sleep this past Wednesday.

I met Bob when I was working at the Madison Herald. We were both freelance writers. We loved talking about what we would be writing about the next week. For him, it was effortless. For me, not so much.

Bob was an accomplished journalist. He had worked for quite a few newspapers around Mississippi as both a reporter and photographer. I discovered that he had quite the love for his Mississippi State bulldogs which came with serving as the director of pr at MSU for 20 years.

We could talk and talk and talk. But mostly I loved to listen. He served in the Navy during WWII and was stationed in the Philipines. He didn't talk about that a lot. He would rather tell me about growing up in small town Mississippi. Oh, goodness, I would laugh until I couldn't breathe listening to his stories.

On my nightstand is the autographed copy of his book, "Kudzu, Homebrew and Dinner on the Ground," that Bob sent me last spring as a surprise. We had been talking and I had cried because something he told me made me cry.

Bob's diagnosis with cancer hit all of us as his friends more than him it seemed. He faced it the way he faced everything else he had in his 82 years of life. With laughter and determination and grit. He found it all so amusing that he even wrote a book about it called, "Hot Flashes, Swollen Ankles and Sore Breasts - And I'm a Man".

Today we will all gather for the visitation service and tomorrow will be his funeral. I have a feeling there will be a lot of story telling going today. Bob wouldn't have it any other way.

Good bye my sweet friend. I miss you like crazy.

Linky Love: Audio Books

When Big Guy was little he wanted me to read to him every night. We had been reading every night since he had been born. It was my favorite time of the day. When he got to be about two years ago he started crying when it was time for me to read the last book because he knew it meant I was going to be leaving soon. He would try to beg me to stay and sleep with him for just a little while. I began to pray for a solution to the problem. Soon I believe the Lord gave me the idea to start a new routine that included an audiobook.

One afternoon while Big Guy was napping, I recorded two of his favorite books on tape for him. That night at bedtime I read him his regular two books and when it got time for his third book I told him that he was going to get to have two more books. I also told him that I was going to read them to him in a special way. And I gave him his books and his two books. I turned on his tape and he heard my voice say, "Hey, Todd!" The tape told him when to turn the pages and when to change books. It also told him when the books were over that his water cup was on his nightstand and when he was finished he could either turn off the light or just go to sleep with it on. I told him to leave me an extra kiss on the pillow -- always has been one of our routines -- and sleep tight. That night started not only a new bedtime routine but a love of audio books.

He would listen to the same couple of books for about a week and then I would record new ones. About a week ago he found a set of those tapes in his closet and he said, "Mom, I listened to those and they made me cry. I am keeping those forever."

Audio Books for Free

Free Classic Audiobooks
(Pilgrim's Progress, Treasure Island, White Fang...
we've used lots of great ones from here!)

Internet Archive
These are OLD archives: Dragnet, CBS Mystery Theater, etc...
Oldies, but some real goodies!

Learn Out Loud
Called a one stop destination for audio and video learning.
This directory features free audio books, lectures, speeches, sermons, interviews, and many other great free audio and video resources.

Open Culture
This guy searches the web for the best cultural and educational media.
We have used The Red Bad of Courage, Robinson Crusoe, and
Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!"

Project Gutenberg

Watch For Opportunities

Since the boys were little we have tried to instill in them how to be gentlemen.     Hubs is such a gentleman that it is easy for the boys to watch him and know exactly what that means.     

One of our regular statements is:   Look for ways to be gentlemen.

So you can imagine my happiness yesterday as we were on an outing to the Manship House.      Demonstrations were being held all over the grounds from local craftsmen demonstrating the art of blacksmithing, weaving fabric, weaving baskets, wood carving, old paint techniques, and period home pieces.     

We were standing with a local school group watching the blacksmith forge a piece of iron when out of the corner of my eye I saw Big Guy slip away from the group.    He walked out of the parking lot and down the sidewalk.   I saw him meet one of the local teachers who was struggling to carry a large box.    He asked her if he could carry it for her.     At first she seemed shocked but then said yes.      I watched them as they walked across the parking lot and through the Manship grounds to where the staff had set up for school kids to have a picnic lunch.      When he was finished he came back to the group and stood as if nothing had happened.

On the way home I told him how proud I was of him for being such a gentleman.    When he looked over he had a smile on his face that looked just like my hubs and said, "Just saw an opportunity."

The Secret of Indigo Moon

The Secret of Indigo Moon
by G.P. Taylor
This book was provided for review by:
Tyndale Publisher

Book Description
From best-selling author G.P. Taylor comes the highly anticipated second installment of The Dopple Ganger Chronicles, a series that combines art and traditional text to help “reluctant readers” discover the wonder of books.
Erik Morissey Ganger, famed explorer and detective (well, in his dreams), and his mischief-making sidekicks, twins Sadie and Saskia Dopple, didn’t go looking for a secret tunnel beneath the school. They never intended to make the acquaintance of a shifty private eye with a nose for trouble. It wasn’t part of the plan to come face to face with an old enemy, one with an agenda of his own that could destroy them all. And unraveling the “secret of indigo moon” was the farthest thing from their minds.
At Isambard Dunstan’s School for Wayward Children, these things just seem to happen.
In The Secret of Indigo Moon, confirmed troublemakers Erik, Sadie, and Saskia plunge headlong into a new and perilous mystery, one that challenges everything they thought they knew about their lives, themselves, and whom it’s safe to trust.

Book Review
The graphic genre is very popular right now. When this book arrived in my mailbox, both of my boys said, "Ooh! Whose book is that?" Opening the pages of this book pulls you into "Lemony Snicket" types of illustrations which a lot of kids will immediately find visually appealing, but somehow put my guard on edge.

However, when I read books I read it as a "Mom". I want my boys to be entertained, but I also want to know what seeds are being planted in their minds as well. When a book is labeled for sale in the Christian bookstore, I want it to meet certain standards. As far as sex or inappropriate language, you don't have to worry. There isn't any of that.

But, it definitely has some creepy moments which some younger children might find a little too scary. To be safe, it is always best to read books before letting your children read them.

My biggest problem with this book is the ending. While I won't give it away, I will simply say that the first Scripture verse that came to mind when reading it was this: 'Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.' John 14:6

The Cook-Off

Saturday morning, Little Guy got up early and pulled out all his special ingredients.      He started by browning some chicken in butter and garlic.

Next he began opening some cans of ingredients.

He poured in his spices, some veggies and other things which make his white bean chicken chili special and set it to cook for the day.

Saturday night we gathered his crock pot and went to our church's Fall Festival.     Little Guy's eyes were not detered by the games, costumes or candy.     He was headed straight for the Soup/Gumbo/Chili Cook-Off Tables.       

We got him set up and waiting for the judges.    How cute is he in his denim apron and chef's hat?

After the judges tasted, the festival goers got to eat.      It took exactly 20 minutes for Little Guy to empty his crock pot.     People were begging for his recipe.

Finally, they announced the winners.     When they announced the chili winner it wasn't Little Guy, but it was a friend so we all cheered.     Little Guy was about to go run off to the cake walk to try to win a cake when Pastor Buddy said, "And this year's Overall Chili/Gumbo/Soup Festival Winner is Little Guy!"    

We all cheered, high fived and hugged...

then we went and got in the cake walk line!

To see Little Guy's Winning Recipe

Click Here

Guest Blogging

I was very surprised to be contacted by The Homeschool Post to ask if they could feature me as a guest blogger for November 1st. They had read one of my prior posts and asked if they could use it to assist their other homeschool bloggers. I appreciate the honor!

My Guest Post

Even if you read this the first time I wrote it,

praying for your child is something we all need to do every day!