Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Book List 2016

Happy 2017! I hope you are having a fantastic start to the new year!

Today I'm sharing the list of books that I read in 2016.
  1. Winter Garden (Jan)
  2. The Girl who chased the moon (Jan)
  3. On Mystic Lake
  4. The Royal We
  5. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (Feb-April)
  6. The Cuckoo's Calling (Feb)
  7. Brooklyn (Feb)
  8. The Blue Castle (March)
  9. His Other Wife (March)
  10. The Middle Place (March)
  11. Journey to the heart of darkness (March)
  12. Glitter and Glue (April)
  13. The Practice of the Presence of God (April)
  14. Tell No One (April)
  15. Blacklisted from the PTA (April)
  16. Unoffendable (April-May)
  17. The Language of Flowers (May)
  18. Find Her (May)
  19. Fan girl (May)
  20. Breaking Busy (May)
  21. The Name of God is Mercy (May)
  22. All the Light We Cannot See
  23. Flirting with Forty
  24. Mrs. Perfect (June)
  25. Top Secret Twenty One (June)
  26. Tricky Twenty Two (June)
  27. The Good Woman (July)
  28. The Good Daughter (July)
  29. The Good Wife (July)
  30. The Racketeer (July)
  31. Montana Sky (July)
  32. Dance upon the air (July)
  33. The Invention of Wings (July-August)
  34. Calling Me Home (August) read in two days!!!!
  35. The Mommy Group (August)
  36. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
  37. The Night Circus (August)
  38. Where'd you go, Bernadette (September)
  39. American Housewife (September)
  40. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (September)
  41. Gone for Good (September)
  42. The Last Time I Saw You (September)
  43. IBD Self-Management (September)
  44. Columbine (September)
  45. Garden Spells (October)
  46. The Royals (October)
  47. An Epidemic of Absence (October)
  48. Adnan's Story (November)
  49. Silkworm (December)

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

the weekly-ish recap {January 16-27}

Besides our snow day, I haven't been here to update in a couple of weeks.
Life has just been plugging along!
Since I have been feeling well, I've felt like catching up on things that I didn't keep up with all of last year.
Two Saturdays ago, B Boy had a birthday party to go to at the place where he had his birthday party- Gamer's Only. He loves that place!
Girlie and I made a grocery/household trip to Walmart while he was partying.
We have had a tough relationship the last year and I have been focusing on that a lot lately.
She has a strong personality (which I love) but it can be problematic at times.
Teaching children about heart and character issues is probably the hardest part of parenting to me, especially since I feel like I'm an ongoing work as well.
Speaking of which, I started a new Bible study on Sunday afternoons. 
This study could not have come at a better time.
It has been SO good so far.
After church that weekend, C Girl and I took a meal to a family who just had twin baby girls! C is enamored with these sweet babies!
I snapped this of a sunrise recently. It was so beautiful and a reminder of how much beauty we are surrounded by when we look for it.
Friday night, C Girl went to a sleepover. We let B Boy watch a movie in the playroom and Tim & I had an "at home" date and watched a movie and talked. It was so nice!
Saturday night, we finished our marathon of watching Star Wars movies!
Sunday was church and I made these turkeys take a photo with me before church!
We watched football that afternoon and we also had Sunday evening church activities. When we got home, we watched the 2nd NFL playoff game of the day and learned that the Broncos and Panthers will face off against each other in the Super Bowl. 
We are thrilled to get to see these two teams play.
Monday afternoon, our stray cat friend came in and took a long nap and even stayed while we left to take C to piano lessons! I love when she just makes herself at home!
I caught up on Downton Abbey on Monday. I'm SO sad that this is the last season. I love this show so much! My favorite quote from Sunday's episode: Lady Violet, "I haven't been down to the kitchen in 20 years!" Isabel, "Do you have your passport?!"

I love this picture on Tim's school Instagram. I'm glad they think he is a "hip principal!"
 I just started reading "The Royal We" and "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality." I have heard incredible things about EHS. I cannot wait to finish this book!
 While I was doing Tuesday folders at school yesterday, I had this flyer to put in the folders. It is starting to feel really real that my 4th grader will soon be finishing her elementary school career. I'm not ready to have a middle schooler!
I have been fighting off a little cold this week. I still have PTSD from the great ear infection of last year. I will not let that happen again!
I'm heading to a hair appointment later this morning. I'm looking forward to that.
I wish that I was going to get to hear Serial tomorrow. I'm kinda sad that they have went to a bi-weekly schedule. My other podcasts are on a little hiatus right now too so I don't have as much to listen to lately.
I guess I will start priming a bookshelf for B Boy's room tomorrow. We are revamping his organizational system and the bookshelf will house completed Lego projects! He's excited for that!

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Book List 2015

These are the books I read in 2015. I think 37 (two books are 3/4 finished so I counted them) books is a pretty decent number. I love to keep track of what books I have read for some reason. I even did this as a kid! 

I will be posting this week about the end of 2015 and start of 2016. I've been too busy enjoying the rest of our break to worry about blogging right now! 

Do you keep a log of books you read?
  1. The Bible in a year
  2. Every Bitter thing is Sweet
  3. Feathers from my nest
  4. Restless: because you were made for more
  5. Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail
  6. Whistling past the graveyard
  7. The Best Yes
  8. A little salty to cut the sweet
  9. The Maze Runner
  10. Home is where my people are
  11. The Scorch Trials
  12. Still Alice
  13. The Antelope in the Living Room
  14. The Death Cure
  15. Love Does
  16. The Kill Order
  17. A Young Woman's Walk with God
  18. Far From the Madding Crowd
  19. The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
  20. Killing Jesus
  21. Big Little Lies
  22. Serena
  23. Killing Lincoln
  24. Go Set a Watchman
  25. To kill a mockingbird
  26. Fight Back with Joy
  27. For the love
  28. Redeeming Love
  29. Fly Away
  30. The Nightengale
  31. The Fringe Hours
  32. The Girl on the Train
  33. Midnight in the garden of good and evil
  34. Gray Mountain
  35. Comfort and Joy
  36. The Rogue Lawyer
  37. The Uninvited Guests

Monday, March 16, 2015

a weekly update

I am coming to you today from the most beautiful day of the year to date!
It is sunny and 70 degrees. I'm outside working because I have people cleaning my house!!! (Thank you, Tim!)
I had a great follow up appointment with my GI doctor about my Crohn's this morning and do not have to go back for 6 months!
It is a good day.
Thank you to everyone who left a comment on my previous post. 
It has been a tough winter for me, for sure.
I know my health will get better and I'll regain my energy. 
For now, I'm going to enjoy that today is a good day.

Last Tuesday, I met with my Christian mentor. She is a lovely lady who goes to our church and I serve on the BPTO with! We had a great lunch and wonderful conversation. I am so looking forward to our times together!
 C Girl had an ortho appointment on Wednesday. Afterwards, we hopped into Hobby Lobby which just so happens to be pretty close to her dentist! We also ate at Popeyes for the first time ever. We are fans!
 It has been very rainy and dreary lately. B Boy has "officially" started soccer and baseball, but we have not had one soccer practice yet and only one baseball practice. We have missed 5 soccer practices!!! We are supposed to have one on Thursday evening, but yet again, it looks like rain is in the forecast!

On Thursday, I had a BPTO meeting. I love serving on the district PTO board- I feel like I am always in the loop!
We had our normal piano lesson on Thursday and I got to catch up with my friend, Amber whose son has lessons at the same time!

On Friday, I did our weekly grocery run and had to get ready for a Sunday school fellowship that night. It was called "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." We knew the home we were going to, but we didn't know who else would be there! The hosts also did not know who their guests would be! We had a lot of fun visiting with the Murray and Bates families!
 C Girl had her GA Journey night at church that night! They had a lot of fun! Next year, she gets to stay the night!!!
 photo from my friend, Ginger
 This boy is already almost finished with the 5th Harry Potter book!!! He loves this series so much!

The Hogs have been playing some GOOD basketball this year. We are No. 21 in the country and we were the 2 seed in the SEC tournament. We ended up losing to Kentucky (the No. 1 team in the nation), but we are a 5 seed in the NCAA tournament!!!!
I need to fill out my bracket ASAP! The kids and Tim are all excited to fill their's out too! We all compete and whoever has the best bracket gets to choose a place to eat or go have fun!

C Girl played with a neighbor friend who is also in her class on Saturday. She ended up staying the night and they had the best time! We took B Boy to his favorite restaurant and just relaxed the rest of the evening.
Yesterday was also a gorgeous day. We had church, a makeup piano lesson, the Hog game, and then we sat outside and enjoyed the sun. Tim grilled burgers and it made me look forward to spring and summer so much!

Monday, March 9, 2015

Happy March!

Happy March!
Well, I sure have missed being here lately. I only posted 4 times last month! That is one of the smallest number of posts in a month since back in 2009 when I started blogging and thought you should only post when something monumental happened, lol. 

These last 2 weeks have been terrible. I'm just now getting to where I feel human again. I still do not feel great, but I know I'm getting there. 

I'm not going to lie, though. This has been very hard on me. I always seem to have a very rough time during the late winter months. When you mix sickness with snow days on end, it's just tough. I have felt like a terrible wife and mother. I haven't felt well, so I haven't cooked, cleaned, or wanted to do anything fun with the kids. I know that I can't help that, but it doesn't stop me from feeling guilty. I can't remember a time when I was ever down for this long. I have had periods of health issues, but I always seem to still be able to function through most of it. This time, I have been just completely worthless. It's amazing that your ear can cause so much havoc.

I just feel like I have been home-bound for too long! I'm longing for sunshine and warmth in a way that I can't even explain!
 I think we all are dreaming of spring time!
 I'm so thankful that we can watch our church services on LiveStream when we have to miss.
 This was leftover snow from February that had not melted last week. So dreary!
Last Tuesday, I saved up my energy to be able to go to my hair appointment. A girl needs her hair done even when she feels bad! I think it was the first time I put on makeup in over a week at that point.
Last Wednesday, we got another winter storm. It started with this layer of sleet.
 And then, huge puffs of snow began falling.
 At one point, it looked like a blizzard outside!
Alas, this caused us to be out of school on Wednesday and Thursday last week.
 C Girl and I did some coloring though! I find it so relaxing!

We did get out of the house on Thursday afternoon to take me to a follow up appointment about my ear. The doctor said that in all, this infection will be a 3 week ordeal. I am at a little over 2 weeks now, so hopefully this week will be a huge improvement. I went to see him on Monday last week as well. At that appointment, he had to drain my ear. If you are not sure what that means, he had to basically cut a hole in my eardrum that had ruptured. It had healed and fluid was bulging behind it. It was extremely painful until he was able to drain it. It is still draining now, thankfully. I will be so ready when all of this is behind me!
 On Friday, I went to lunch with some friends at the Wooden Spoon in Gentry. We mainly go for the dessert. That my friends, is a yummy bread pudding swimming in a bath of butter sauce. Oh, it was so good! It was so nice to get out of the house and visit with friends, but it exhausted me. I spent the rest of the day/evening laying on the couch. I cannot believe how tired my body gets!
 Saturday morning, we headed to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. It has been a long time since we have went out for breakfast. We love us some CB pancakes!
 B Boy had his first baseball practice that afternoon! He was actually supposed to have soccer practice as well, but it was cancelled. It was the 3rd soccer practice that has been cancelled due to the weather. We haven't had 1 practice yet! Hopefully, we will on Thursday evening. It is going to be a busy spring with both of these sports going on!
The baseball fields were still wet, so they had practice at a batting cage. Tim said that B Boy did pretty well!
The Razorbacks played LSU at Bud Walton Saturday afternoon. The Hogs are No. 18 in the country and are going to be in the NCAA tournament this year. I cannot wait! Sadly, we lost at the buzzer for this game. They have played so many games down to the wire this year. It's exciting, but very stressful!
This boy is COMPLETELY obsessed with the Harry Potter series. He just finished the 4th book this morning. He is constantly telling me about what he is reading and pretending to be Harry Potter. It's so fun! I remember reading these books and how much I loved them!

So, it's Monday. 
C Girl has the PARCC test this week. They only test until 10 am everyday, but I know that it's not fun to have to go to school and take a standardized test.
This girl of ours is something else.
I'm always so proud of her. She is super independent, smart, and tries new things, which is something I used to think would never happen.
On the flip side, she is super independent and wants everything to be done/go her way. 
It can be very tough dealing with that. I know she is on her way to becoming a "tween," and to be honest, I'm not real excited about that. 
I can already see things in her attitude that she is picking up from other girls. I know it is completely normal, but it means that things are different now.
I'm trying to learn how to teach/discipline her without doing it constantly. I don't want her to feel like that is all I do. I know that she needs lots of my love and support right now. 
That is so easy to say, but way harder to implement when you are dealing with attitude.
Pray for us!

I am trying to catch up on things around here, but I can only do so much before I am tired. I know it will all get done eventually, but I hate not being able to do everything that I normally do. I also hate sounding like such a complainer!

So, happy March! it is the month of spring! Flowers, sun, and warmth!

Friday, January 9, 2015

Friday randoms

TGIF!

I'm so glad it is the weekend!

I was able to have my weekly catch up with a sweet friend yesterday during piano lessons. Her son has lessons during the same time.

Yesterday evening, some ladies in our Sunday school class met up at the home of Susan Goss. Susan is a wonderful, beautiful and extremely funny woman who goes to our church. She is also a faith based counselor. Over the past year, we have had a few "sessions" with her. She has tremendous knowledge and shares so much good stuff with us.
Last night, we discussed prayer.
Somehow, the words came out of my mouth about one of my deepest shames in my life- 
I have never prayed out loud around other people in my entire life.
She gave so much Godly advice and I feel such peace about where all of this is leading me.
I'm thankful for friends who do not judge when you confess/share. Although, my friend Kacy almost killed me on the drive over! Just kidding! She will get it!
Susan is also the childhood friend of someone that a lot of people might know:
This morning, my friend Berkli came over for coffee and our weekly "catch up." We usually walk weekly, but it is way too cold for me right now! It's fun to sit in our robes with coffee and just chat!

I ran some errands today. One of those errands was to pick up a Redbox movie for tonight. We got a digital gift card for Christmas. The way you use it is to register online, pick your location, pick your movie, and then take the credit card on file with you when you go pick it up. I *thought* I had picked a certain location, but apparently I wasn't thinking that there were two Neighborhood Markets on this specific street. You would think that wouldn't be too big of a deal, but it was 30 minutes round trip out of my way. I will definitely be more careful with that process in the future!

A friend posted this recipe for a homemade chai latte recently and I made one today. It is so delicious and easy to make! I halved the recipe to make one serving, used a vanilla chai tea bag, steeped the tea instead of using a coffee pot, and used 1 tsp. of vanilla extract in place of the vanilla creamer.

Tonight, we are going to have dinner at home and watch Rio 2!

I went to the library today to get some good old fashioned fiction. I also got the sound recording for the book, Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail. It is our January book club book. We are going to dinner and to see the movie next weekend.
I haven't listed to an audio book in years and I'm kind of looking forward to it!

Monday, January 5, 2015

Book list 2014

I read some really great books in 2014. I can't believe I read 53 books! That is close to the cannonball read I did in 2009/2010! I've already gotten a good start on my reading for this year! I can't wait to see if I can surpass 2014!
  1. Take-down Twenty
  2. Shepherding a child's heart
  3. Happy, happy, happy
  4. Something borrowed
  5. Something blue
  6. Unglued
  7. Allegiant
  8. Gone Girl
  9. Chasing God
  10. Follow Me Bible study
  11. The Husband's secret
  12. Kate, The future queen
  13. The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester
  14. The Aviator's Wife
  15. Sparkly Green Earrings
  16. Sycamore Row
  17. Magic Tree House- Abe Lincoln at last!
  18. The Longest Ride
  19. The Storyteller
  20. Bring me a unicorn
  21. Fifty Shades of Grey
  22. Fifty Shades Darker
  23. Fifty Shades Freed
  24. Twenties Girl
  25. Firefly Lane
  26. Bossy Pants
  27. Confessions of a Shopaholic
  28. Hold Tight by Harlen Coben
  29. Labor Day
  30. Dead Reckoning
  31. Deadlocked
  32. Deal Breaker
  33. Dead Ever After
  34. Back Spin
  35. Anna and the French kiss
  36. A hundred summers
  37. Breaking Free
  38. Eleanor & Park
  39. The statistical probability of love at first sight
  40. Ingo
  41. Just One Day
  42. Lost Lake
  43. Just One Year
  44. Game of Thrones
  45. Notes from a blue bike
  46. What Alice Forgot
  47. Kitchen Confidential
  48. Mary Poppin's opens the door
  49. The One and Only
  50. Seinlanguage
  51. Christmas Jars
  52. Baby Proof
  53. Digital SLR Settings and Shortcuts for Dummies

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

'Tis the season

Well, it is definitely December! The amount of things to do hit me full force on Monday.

B Boy fell on his arm last week and he kept complaining of pain, so we took him to the doctor Monday. She ordered an Xray and thankfully, it was not broken!
I spent 4 hours on Monday driving to/from and waiting/being at either the doctor or the dentist with the kids.

I also had an injury misfortune.
While Tim was outside putting lights out front, I was inside putting our Santa collection on top of our kitchen cabinets. I was putting a Merry Christmas sign up as well.  It fell over and a domino effect of Santas falling happened. One rather large Santa fell four feet from the top of the cabinet down to my foot on the counter. It was so much pain. It is still swollen and extremely tender.

This week has been busy making cookies for a teacher lunch at school, helping a friend out by watching her son for a couple of hours, finishing putting Christmas decor out, cleaning the house really good, and beginning my Christmas shopping finally.
I was completely exhausted last night after going full force for 13 hours.

Today, I'm going to work on getting my Christmas cards ready to go out. 

I have book club, Sunday school Christmas party, mailing letters to Santa, and visiting Santa with the kids still to do this week!
 The lights on the Bentonville square as we were heading back into town Thursday night.
We always get our Christmas stuff down and begin putting the tree up and decorating on the day after Thanksgiving.
The Hogs also played Missouri that afternoon, so we had an extended break during that time.
The Hogs lost and that was sad, but they have played so well this year!
C Girl was SO into the decorating this year. Waaay more than ever. She even wanted to string the lights on the tree. She loves being in charge, lol.
Tim loves this setup.
Let me tell you, decorating with older kids is way different than with littles. 
My two had such big opinions and they wanted to decorate the entire tree themselves. 
We let them. What are ya gonna do?
p.s. I did go back and rearrange stuff on the tree yesterday!
 We sure were missing our Koonta girl.
Icing and elevating my foot injury.
 She found the Bible at the dentist's office and kept reading me passages of scripture :-)
 We started our advent book and our book advent on Monday.
B Boy has been reading the scripture passages every night. I love it!
p.s. I have been wrapping book advent books every day because I am so behind on everything. Usually, I have all 25 wrapped and ready to go!
Tim's handiwork in our front area. We are still going to get a few more things to add and line the driveway and sidewalk with lights eventually.
We went to the Rogers Christmas parade on Monday evening since we will be out of town on the day our town has its parade.
This was the only time we had to do our advent readings, so Tim and B Boy read to us in the van before the parade!
 It has been years since the kids have been to a night Christmas parade. 
The one in Bentonville is always during the day. 
They were super excited!!! They loved every bit of it. 
They were waving and dancing the entire time!
It was absolutely freezing though! It was 25 degrees and we couldn't feel our toes by the time the parade was over.