Is Spring Here Yet?

I have just not been into blogging lately. 

It's felt more like a chore. It's been something I've felt like I have to do, not something I want to do.

That's why there will be some changes coming soon. I will be talking more about that next week. 

Not only have I not been into my own blogging, but I haven't felt very into others' blogging either.

I feel like there's not very many good, quality posts out there anymore (my blog included). I'm getting tired of reading fluff. I'm also getting bad about reading blog posts and not commenting. I feel bad about this because I know how hard people work on their posts and I know how much I enjoy getting comments. I usually try to comment on everything I read, but lately I've only commented on about 10% of what I read. 

Anyway, enough of that blogging gibberish...

Friday I shared how I read the book 7: an experimental mutiny against excess this past month. In this book, Jen Hatmaker and her family participated in 7 months worth of "experiments" to fight against our culture's obsession with excess. Each month focused on a different area of our lives.

In the end, Jen never told how her family took these experiments and applied them to their everyday life because she didn't want people to just copy what her family felt called to. She said that each person had to decide how to fight the excess in their own life. I agree. This is a personal decision. 

Lee and I have discussed for most of our marriage how we want to fight excess. Having a lot of stuff isn't necessary and it only creates more self-centeredness. I haven't entirely decided how I want to apply some of the things I learned from this book in our lives. For me, I don't want to simply participate in an experiment. I want to change our lifestyles. 

The first thing I'm going to do over the next few days is clean out and organize each room and space in our apartment. I have done a "spring cleaning" of our stuff every year and this year will be no exception. Somehow we always manage to accumulate so much stuff that we don't need. I will keep you updated as I do this because not only will I be cleaning out, but I also plan on doing some MAJOR organization. 

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Lastly, I'd love you to meet two of my friends and they're going to share some springy things with you.

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This is Haylie and she blogs at Happenin' Haylie.

Hi! :) I'm Haylie. I'm a 21 year old Army wife that lives in Kansas. I love football, basketball, photography, fingernail polish and too many television shows. My blog is really not about anything specific. I blog about whatever I feel like at the time. Sometimes it's photography or photos I've taken, other times it's a link-up post from blogs I follow, or it might just be a rant or rave about something I saw/feel/like. 

During spring break of 2010, my best friend and I, along with her brother and cousin, all took a cross country drive from Oklahoma to California! It was so fun! We drove straight through and got there in a little less than 24 hours. When I got to California, I was amazed, it was unlike anything I'd ever seen. The ocean was breathtaking and so beautiful! I'd never been to an ocean until this trip and I've yet to see another one. We were in California for a week and we went to the beach, saw celebrity homes, ate at some amazing places, and took a million photos. It was an amazing trip that I'll never forget!

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Next is Pamela who blogs at Pamela's Heavenly Treats

Hi there, my name is Pamela the lovely lady behind Pamela's Heavenly Treats, I must first say that without God none of this would be possible.  I am a wife, mother of 6, homeschool teacher and I have a small Healthy Cupcake and Cookie business. Everything that I make is made with 100% Whole Wheat Flour and my secret ingredients.  I have a weekly dessert link party that runs from Saturday to Wednesday called Heavenly Treats Sunday!  I would love to have you.  I also have a Etsy shop where I sell my healthy mixes! Come on over and visit!
 

 Blog ~ Etsy   ~ Twitter  ~ Pinterest 

Spring is my favorite season, when the weather starts feeling nice, the birds start chirping, and the day stays light longer.  This is also the time where I start getting orders for colorful frosted cupcakes, and cookies!  

Echoes {Book Review}

Echoes by Robin Jones Gunn

 

Book Description:

In this dramatic contemporary romance by bestselling author Robin Jones Gunn, Lauren Phillips enters the wild, uncharted territory of the Internet on her home computer and "connects" with a man known only as "K.C." As she struggles to recover from a broken engagement, Lauren keeps busy by working full time and striving to finish her college degree. But her correspondence with K.C. quickly becomes the thing she loves most...and the source of dreams she cannot bear to relinquish. When the opportunity comes for them to meet after a year of corresponding, Lauren faces a tough choice: Is she willing to risk everything...including a broken heart? Readers will stay "on-line" to find out in this bestselling former Palisades release, now the third book in the new Glenbrooke series.

image and book description via Amazon

My Review:

     My attention was originally drawn to this book because I read several of Robin Jones Gunn's books when I was a young teenager. I was a big fan of the Christie Miller series so I was curious to see what I'd think of one of her adult books. I appreciate Christian authors who incorporate God into their stories. Unfortunately, though, I usually find these books cheesy overall (even though they're enjoyable), so I didn't have high expectations for this book to be honest. I wish Christian authors wouldn't always make things end "happily ever after." I also wish they'd include more on the true struggle it is to live as a Christian in a very unchristian world.

      Basically, this book is about a relationship developed online. It takes place when people were first getting computers in their home which was a fun walk down memory lane. It made me wonder how this story would have been different if Lauren and KC had Facebook accounts or what if one of them had been a catfish? It's so funny how our technology driven minds have a hard time remembering a time when we didn't have those things. Anyway, Christie starts a correspondence through email with KC. The two fall in love as they bare their soles to one another which is so easy to do with the anonymity of the internet. As bloggers, I know we understand this. I share things with other bloggers that I've never told anyone in real life (other than my husband). In the end, Lauren must decide if she's willing to risk the possibility of more heartbreak to meet KC.

      One of my biggest problems with romance novels in general is that they set unrealistic expectations for what men and falling in love should be like. The men are always perfect in every way: Christian, handsome, great body, romantic, articulate, good job, etc. This book is no exception to that. After reading this book, though, I did find Lauren's struggles to be relatable. I also loved a part of the book where Lauren comes the realization that she'd simply been going through the motions of her Christianity. She had let pain and hurt in her life keep her from growing in her relationship. This was something I could really identify with and I wish the author had expanded more on this part of the story.

       Overall, this was an easy and quick read. I enjoyed the story even though the plot was predictable in places. This story is actually the third in a series of eight. I researched a little to find out that the first two books focus on other characters who become important in the latter part of this book. It's one of those series about people who all know each other and each book focuses on a different character's story. It makes me want to read the all the stories in the Glenbrooke Series to know more about those other characters. I would especially like to know more about Jessica whose story is featured in Secrets. I've added all the Glenbrooke series books to my Goodreads "want to read" list. I would love another story about Lauren, though, to know what happens next.

I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

*I received this book for free through the Blog for Books program with WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group in exchange for honest reviews.*

February Book Reviews

It's a new month which means I'm reviewing the books I read the month before. I didn't read as many books this past month because I was reading nonfiction which can be a lot more difficult to get through. 

My goal for 2013 is to read 40 books with 10 of them being nonfiction and 5 being classics. 

So far, I've read 9 books. 7 of them are fiction. Sure 3 of the books I read were children's books I read to my class, but I read them so I'm counting them.

I have several books lined up to read next.

7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker

Book Description:

American life can be excessive, to say the least. That’s what Jen Hatmaker had to admit after taking in hurricane victims who commented on the extravagance of her family’s upper middle class home. She once considered herself unmotivated by the lure of prosperity, but upon being called “rich” by an undeniably poor child, evidence to the contrary mounted, and a social experiment turned spiritual was born. 7 is the true story of how Jen (along with her husband and her children to varying degrees) took seven months, identified seven areas of excess, and made seven simple choices to fight back against the modern-day diseases of greed, materialism, and overindulgence. Food. Clothes. Spending. Media. Possessions. Waste. Stress. They would spend thirty days on each topic, boiling it down to the number seven. Only eat seven foods, wear seven articles of clothing, and spend money in seven places. Eliminate use of seven media types, give away seven things each day for one month, adopt seven green habits, and observe “seven sacred pauses.” So, what’s the payoff from living a deeply reduced life? It’s the discovery of a greatly increased God—a call toward Christ-like simplicity and generosity that transcends social experiment to become a radically better existence.

image and description via Amazon

My Review:

This book is joining the likes of Radical and Kisses from Katie as books that have had a major impact in my life. I could write a whole series on this book. I probably will write more about it since one of my 2013 goals was to read the book and find a way to apply it to our life. When you enjoy a book so much, it's hard to put it into just a few words. Those of you reading this review (including myself) are so richly blessed. Even if you live paycheck to paycheck. Even if you don't have the best clothes, house, technology, etc. We are so much richer than a majority of the world. Yet I think it's crippling us. There are so many things that jumped out at me while reading this book and I look forward to sharing more in the coming months. I think this is a must read. Even if you are not a Christian, I believe you would appreciate this book. I will close my review with a great quote from the beginning of the book: "Excess has impaired perspective in America; we are the riches people on earth, praying to get richer. We're tangled in unmanageable debt while feeding the machine, because we feel entitled to more. What does it communicate when half the global population lives on less than $2 a day, and we can't manage a fulfilling life on twenty-five thousand times that amount? Fifty thousand times that amount? It says we have too much, and it is ruining us." -7: an experimental mutiny against excess pg. 3.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Book Description:

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak-- that we owe many of the great contributions to society. In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts–from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

image and description via Amazon

My Review:

This book is a much needed read for an introvert like myself. The world we live in is not designed for introverts. If you're quiet, you're called shy and told you need to speak up. This book says otherwise. I enjoyed the first half of the book the best. It talks about how and why our values have shifted. Our society used to value character and now it values personality. I also really enjoyed the parts of the book that talk about what research has shown about the biological differences between introverts and extroverts. We literally are "born this way." The last half of the book focuses some on how other cultures see introversion and extroversion. It also talks about how to foster relationships between people with different personality types. Some parts of the book were difficult to get through. There is a lot of research described and some of that wasn't as interesting. Overall, though, I'm glad I read this and just like with 7, I plan on posting more thoughts on this book and topic later.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

What have you been reading? Have you read either of these?