love to paint

Last week I read a book that I enjoyed.  I began reading the book cautiously, but with curiosity.  The author's unique life experience intrigued me and I wanted to hear what God had taught her and what conclusions she arrived at along the way. The book is a surprisingly popular book.  It has unexpectedly gained national recognition because of three interviews with the author on Family Life Today in September and there are over three hundred reviews of the book on Amazon with only five reviews giving the book under 3 stars (and one of them isn't a real review because the review doesn't agree with the rating).  That says something about the book. The book is The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey Into Christian Faith by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield.  The book has been talked about by John Piper, Family Life Today, World Magazine, and many other Christian media sources.  I'm sure it's all over the blog rolls, actually. ...

Sometimes I watch a movie that leaves me feeling...  well, I don't really...  just weird!  Someone asked me this weekend about the movie Silver Linings Playbook.  The person thought I might have seen it.  I hadn't.  I knew the basic plot of the movie and I felt like it could go either way--I could either really like it or really hate it.  There were some details of the story that you know going into it that made me a little uncomfortable about the characters. So, I watched it today.  Granted, I did fast forward some clips.  But, I watched most of it.  At the end, I didn't feel better than I did before I watched it.  I felt puzzled.  I am still trying to figure out the message in the movie and what the author and director believe. Here's my thought.  The movie seems to say that we just have to take people as they are.  Our world tells us this constantly.  I am who I am.  Love me the way I want to be loved...

I've known many women who read all of the books in a series.  Karen Kingsbury is known for writing book series with five to eight books in them.  Series typically drive me crazy because they leave me hanging at the end of the book and I have to wait for the next one.  That happened to me with the Cedar Keys novels.  The books were released so far apart that I couldn't remember what had happened in the other books and who was who.  It was quite frustrating for me.   When Jen Turano began her series of books that began with A Change of Fortune , I wondered how the series would go.  The first one was a funny melodrama and I had high hopes that this would be a fun, lighthearted series to read.  The first book turned out, in my opinion to be the best one of the series.  The others seemed to all follow the same kind of formula revolving around the same families (which I did like), which seemed to be entirely (entirely!) predictable.  I misse...

I've been in the car lately and that means that I've been doing a lot of reading.  I finished up another book on my Kindle last night.  I had looked forward to this book because of a book I'd read in the past-- June Bug .  It was Chris Fabry's first published book and I enjoyed it.  I didn't enjoy the next two books that he published quite as much as the first, but I still saw him as a good writer--worth reading. A new book by Fabry came out in August-- Every Waking Moment .  It isn't a romance or historical fiction novel.  It's plain, old realistic fiction. There's a touch of the supernatural to it, but I'd still call it realistic fiction. The story centers on Treha and her gift with older folks beset by dementia and alzheimers.  I found myself drawn into the story as it began and slowly meandered along its way.  At the beginning of the story, Miriam Howard is being forced to retire.  Ms. Howard has been a protector of the elderly in he...

Yesterday, I called a good friend of mine to discuss a quandary I was puzzling over.  I finished reading Carry On, Mr. Bowditch recently because Autumn and I are discussing it for her literature right now.  I was inspired by Nathaniel Bowditch's life as I read.  He was independent, creative, determined, a seeker of knowledge, hopeful, and didn't give up.   But, my ideas of this man began to change a little when I assigned Autumn a worksheet for historical fiction.  Her assignment was to identify five factual statements from the book and five statements that were fiction.  I realized that she needed another biography of Nathaniel Bowditch to compare to Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.  I found two different biographies online.  They began to paint a different picture for me.  One was that this man was a Unitarian.  Here is a quote from one site " When asked about his religious beliefs he answered, "Of what importance are my opinions to anyone? ...

I hate delete!  I just had to get that off my chest.  I just spent a half hour sorting out my emotions and then my finger accidentally hit the delete button.  Crummy!   So, here's the jist of it.   I read Becoming Myself by Stasi Eldredge.  I thought I could read it and it would not affect me.   I was wrong. A week and a half later, I was struggling to find contentment in the place God has put me in my job--as a mom, homeschool teacher, and wife.  The tears hovered behind my eyes continuously.   I was wrong.  I knew that what Ms. Eldgredge's book went against what I have felt God convict me of--that I need to be content with his plan for my life and not my own.  Still, my heart was unsettled. Many believe that you can read books you disagree with and they won't affect you if you know the truth and are strong. I thought I was strong. I was wrong.   I'm climbing back up, humbly.  I'm working to forget the ...

Recently, I had the chance to read several ebooks while we were on vacation.  I wrote several years ago on this blog about how I was dragging my feet when it came to reading on a Kindle. I am old school!  I love printed paper books.  But, last year we purchased a basic kindle for $30 (with coupons) for my husband.  Then, we decided a few months later to purchase a basic kindle without the ads, which costs $20 more (current price $89) because it was going to be for our kids to use.  This is also the kindle that I use and I'm so glad we paid the extra $20.  It was definitely worth it not to see the ads for adult books that usually come up on Kindle's screensaver.   I have discovered that there are books that are perfect for reading on a kindle and others that are not.  Books that are more challenging to read, like Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, or books that I need to flip back and forth in are not ebook friendly for me.  But, light, easy to rea...