It is what it is

by

My Favorite Books

I love books. I escaped in books growing up, and they are a way for me to have moments to myself now.

Here are my favorite books that fall into the “can’t put down” category.

Modoc by Ralph Helfer

This is my favorite book.  It is based on a true story about the relationship between a man and an elephant. It’s based in the early 1900s, and spans over several decades and through several adventures. It talks about traveling, the circus, family, and everything in between. There is a sad and serious undertone, but it is a very touching story.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I love historical fiction, so there is no surprise this is one of my favorite books. Many of Steinbeck’s works are considered American classics, but this is the best in my opinion. This book is based around the Great Depression and what families endured during that time. This to me shows human nature at it’s core when people have power and when they are desperate or have nothing to lose but have everything to gain. I love this snippet from Goodreads “tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.“

North and South Trilogy by John Jakes

I can’t read just one of these. They are a packaged deal. I read these every summer in high school, and a couple times since. My favorite era in the Civil War, and this historical fiction takes that time and envelopes you with all the emotions. It is based on two families that are friends but are divided by the politics of war. Jakes does a good job connecting you to the characters and tells a fascinating story of defending their principles.

18816603

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

If you are not as enamored by elephants as I am, you may not find this one as fascinating as I did. I wrote my review here. This is one that I recommend to anyone who asks for a book recommendation now. It is brilliantly good!

The Shining by Stephen Kin

I hate scary movies, a deep “make me have nightmares” hate. But for some reason, I am enthralled by the actual novels. I remember reading this for the first time in high school way into the wee hours in the morning to find out what this little boy is seeing now. Stephen King has a reputation for suspense, and this is one of his most well-known stories. This story follows a little boy’s ability to see things in a haunted hotel when he and his parents (the hotel caretakers) get stuck there during a storm. Scary but riveting. To this day I have never watched the movie though because even though I know the plot, actually seeing it in film with make me pee my pants in fright.

scholastic-covers

Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

This series needs no introduction. While I may seem old to be so in love with these books, I was in 9th grade when I read the first book. The last one came out the year I graduated from college, so I felt like I connected with the characters as I was growing up myself, obviously with a little less magic and death threats. What I love about these is the stark imagination it takes to write these intricate stories, and the longevity of the enterprise is impressive. I love that these books got millions of kids (and adults) to read again long before the movies came to being. These are fantastically written, and I read them through every few years. They are comfort reads for me. They are so much fun!

310163_748550053101_474050855_n

Luckily, I have friends who are as obsessed as I am.

Apparently I love historical fiction and supernatural reads.

What are your favorite books?

by

May Goals

I love May. It is such a cheery time of the year. Plus it is my birthday month so that makes it even better!

Before I go into my May goals, let’s see how my April goals went.

  •  Fitness- get 15,000 steps a day. I am pretty proud of myself. I didn’t get 15000 every day, but I did improve my weekly totals each week. Last week, I got 121,524 steps. I had one or two days each week that I did not get to 15,000, however, my Saturdays and Sundays more than made up for it with 19 and 20 thousand steps. I even had one day with 22,000! So even though I didn’t get to 15,000 every day, I still call this a success. I doubt I will ever be on the work leaderboard though because there are people  getting 150,00-250,000 a week. I don’t have time for that.
  • House Tasks-
    • Hang up photos in our bedroom-It’s getting comical now. I think about it always after George is in bed, and we share a wall with him. And while he is not a light sleeper, I don’t want to tempt fate.
    • Clean up the craft room-Nope. We focused more on our yard then the inside of the house this month. So I would say it was still a productive month.
    • Take care of the brush in the back-We did this a little bit, but we spent more of our time on the rocks that are randomly half-buried all over our yard. We spent several days digging these things up, and we haven’t even come close to getting them all, We got most of the bigger patches that were causing Tom headaches when mowing cleared up though. We ended up using them to make beds around our trees in the front, which is making the yard look so much better!
  • Something with George-Play catch. We did play, or at least try it. He doesn’t get how to catch, but he does throw it.
  • Something with Tom-Go on a date. We actually went on TWO lunch dates. Tom came and met me at work, and we went downtown which was so nice to have a conversation over food without trying to feed George.
  • Something for me-schedule a massage. The schedule didn’t work out to do it this month, but I did schedule it! It is coming up here in a week, on my birthday!

May Goals

  •  Fitness-My goal is to get at least one day with 25,000 steps. I got one 22,000 day last month, so it is totally doable right?
  • House Tasks-
    • Hang up photos in our bedroom-I mean if I have this on here all year, eventually we will get it done right?
    • Get the basement visitor ready-This is a fairly large task. Unfortunately, the basement has become a dumping ground and the dog’s haven, so it is not exactly guest ready. That is where our third full bath is, but we have no guest bedroom. The living area down there can easily house guests with our large sectional couch, and there is enough space to put an air mattress down. We have several friends who are coming to visit this summer, so we need to get on sprucing up this space so someone other than Grace and Crosby can enjoy it.
    • Put in flower beds off our porch-We have this trench right off our porch that is ugly and hard to maintain. The dogs fall up and down it all the time because they are idiots when they see a cat or squirrel (or the wind blowing), so we want to put some safe stairs that they can run up instead of barreling into this dirt ledge. But we have to dig out a retaining wall and make the beds, so that is the hard part.
    • Dig up flowers to put in tree beds-We have these random surprise lilies literally every where in our back yard. They multiply like crazy, and I feel like we find a new patch every day (kind of like our rock problem). So we want to dig them up and put them around our trees in our front yard. We want to make it look like we actually try in our yard…
    • Tear down the creeper shed-I got some aggression out to get us started on this shed that has no purpose. We think it use to be an old dog pen. Now, it just houses some tarantulas, so it needs to go.

9809

  • Something with George-Have a play-date with one of my mom friends. We know several people that have kids close to George’s age. Granted he interacts with kids all the time at the sitter’s, but I think it will be good for me to also be able to interact with parents outside of work.
  • Something with Tom-Go to the restaurant in our little town. Yep the restaurant. Well there are other food establishments:  one is a diner, and the other is a bar.
  • Something for me-As narcissistic as it may seem, this is my birthday month, so I want to do a bunch of posts here on the blog about me-more specifically my favorite things. It’s my blog, and I do what I want. I have really been away from the blog, and I miss it so I think this will be a good way to share more about myself and is a good timing when this month is all about celebrating me as a mom and me being born. Is there anything you want to know what my favorites are?
by

Rachel McMillan’s Murder Mystery Prize Pack and Facebook Party

I did receive this book complimentary from Litfuse Publicity Group for my review. These thoughts are my own.

Here is a snippet from the author’s landing page and Facebook Party:

 Meet best friends and flatmates Merinda and Jem, who launch their own Sherlock Holmes-esque consulting detective business in 1910 Toronto in Rachel McMillan’s The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder. The deaths of young Irish women lead Merinda and Jem deeper into the mire of the city’s underbelly. Merinda could well be Toronto’s premiere consulting detective, and Jem may just find a way to put her bachelor girlhood behind her forever–if they can stay alive long enough to do so.

Rachel is celebrating the release of The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder with a Murder Mystery Prize Pack giveaway (details below) and an author chat party on April 28!

bggtm-400

One grand prize winner will receive:

Enter today by clicking the icon below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on 4/28. The winner will be announced at The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder Facebook party. RSVP for a chance to connect with Rachel and other readers, as well as for a chance to win other prizes!

bggtm-enterbanner

This was an interesting book. I am rating it a 3/5. There were parts that I liked such as the wit of Merinda and Jem. Based in 1910, you know a woman’s place was not solving murders and traipsing around in trousers. I found it hilarious to see these two women buck up against those traditional values of the time. Merinda was very quirky and lived on the edge, while Jem tried to keep her reasonable but also wanted to play detective to solve these murders. Their commentary alone was what kept me reading this.

What I didn’t like was that there were too many story lines and factors at play. For me it was hard to follow, and it didn’t seem to flow very well at first. There was a lot of bouncing around, and the character development was on the weaker side. It took me until midway through to feel like I knew what was going on.

The author did seem knowledgeable about the era, and it was a new twist on Sherlock Holmes mysteries. However, I feel like she was trying to hard to seem historically accurate, which is why I got lost in the details.

It’s not bad, but it wont be something I highly recommend as a read. This is a series, so maybe if you read more it would flow better for you. For me it was just ok.

by

Book Review-Sit Stay Love

I did receive this book complimentary from Litfuse Publicity Group for my review. These thoughts are my own.

A book about dogs, baseball, and romance? I mean really, how could I say no to this book?

This was a fun light read. It was very easy to get into, and I read it in a few days.

This story is about a professional baseball player who inherits an elderly dog after his mom passes away. He hires a dog sitter since he wants nothing to do with the animal (how dare he!). Tippy, the dog, is a comedic thread throughout the story. She brings the sitter and the baseball player together even though their worlds are miles apart. Here is a simpleton dog sitter trying to maneuver through this very public sports figure’s world.

The characters are highly relateable. The author touched on loss and how your past can negatively impact your present. Sometimes things happen to us that cause this dark cloud to remain over us if we let it. We see how these two characters come to rely on each other and Tippy to move to a better place. I thought how they spoke to each other was real and honest. I felt really connected to Gina, the dog sitter. Some of her thoughts could have been my own. She was a girl after my own heart. I laughed out loud a lot reading her perspective on things.

The only part that I didn’t like was how the author described their physical reactions to each other. Note it was nothing real in depth or highly sexual. I just thought it was slightly awkward how she would describe them as distant and having known each other for only hours/days, and then the next page he was stroking her face or hair. I felt that their physical intimacy was weird with the other context of how she wrote their personalities. It just didn’t seem to make sense all the time.

Other than that tidbit, this was a great little afternoon read that I thought was funny and a nice change of pace.

I rate it a 3/5 on my meter. Good but not great. If you love baseball and dogs, I would recommend it. I love that I read this right around opening day!

 

by

Pocket Prayers Books

I did receive these books complimentary from Litfuse Publicity Group for my review. These thoughts are my own.

pocket-prayers

I was really excited to be part of this review. I was able to connect with several people who I felt fit the bill for each books audience.

I also am someone who struggles with prayers and feeling like I am never on the right track. I also lose focus so quickly and having guidance like these books sounds great. I think things like this help me in my prayer life and give me ideas of how to strengthen my faith.

Before I gifted these off, I was able to spend some time with them. They are small books but full of impactful nuggets. Each prayer is associated with a bible passage, which makes for a great devotional as well. They seem very down to earth and highly relateable.

My dad used to listen to Max Lucado tapes in the car to prepare for Sunday school, so it was nice to see something of his again. I love his honesty, and he explains how he struggles with prayer at times such as staying awake. Yep, I’ve been there.

I would highly recommend these if you are like me and struggle with knowing where to start with prayers.

—Moms (written with daughter Andrea Lucado)

  • I gave this one to my friend, Amber. She and I work together, and is the only other mom in our office suite. We are constantly swapping baby stories and lifting each other up when a mom struggle happens. She just announced that she is expecting her second, so I was super excited to give this to her. I am also always in awe of her faith and dedication to it is refreshing to see and share as a friend.

—Grads (written with daughter Andrea Lucado)

  • My friend Sandra is about to graduate from seminary, and she is getting married the next day! So many changes for her. She is surrounded by faith conversations constantly with her schooling and job, and I know that her prayer game is pretty strong. Knowing Sandra though, she is always looking to hear other perspectives, and I hope that she enjoys this prayer book as she starts her new adventures.

—Dads (written with Mark Mynheir)

  • This one I gave to Tom. We have been working to incorporate prayer a lot more in our house because George is now at a stage where he is picking up things so quickly that we really want to instill in him to have this conversation with God. Tom was really excited when I gave it to him, and he keeps it in his work bag.

—Military Life (written with Mark Mynheir)

  • This one I gave to my friend Janelle. She is a military spouse, who just had a baby with in the last year, AND they just moved due to military orders. Dan and Janelle went to school with me, and I know that their faith is very important to them as well. I hope that they find these prayers helpful especially in this time of change due to military transitions. Oh and she  is a blogger too!

—Teachers (written with blogger Jennifer Hale)

  • This one was so obvious. My sister-in-law is a teacher. We talk all the time about our prayer life and our faith struggles. I knew this had to go to her, and I hope it helps with centering her around God even when she is surrounded by a room full of kindergartners.

—Friends (written with Betsy St. Amant)

  • My friend Leslie. This woman has a heart of gold and she makes friends with everyone. Her friendships are so important to her and developing those is one of her greatest skills. I am in awe of her ability to connect on such a real level with people so quickly. I was so excited to send her some snail mail with this book!

I love sending out mail and giving to others, so it was fun to be part of this review!

As I said, these are a great addition to any faith walk. Sometimes we all need a little guidance. These would make great gifts! They could easily fit into any bag to be on the move with you, but would also be perfect on a nightstand.

You can enter a giveaway for these books here.

How do you stay focused with prayer?