Reading, Writing & Pondering

The HCSB Illustrator's Notetaking Bible is geared for Teens and is geared for teens. . .but I like it too. I especially like the beautiful gray, silver, gold and white cover. This beautiful Bible has over 600 illustrations to trace and color along with blank wide margin areas to create your own Bible art pictures, take notes, or doodle draw. It is a place where I believe tweens and teens can read the Bible and dig into it in their own way. Along with the illustrations, there are study helps in the HCSB Notetaking Bible for Teens that include: God's Plan of Salvation, a daily reading plan, a section on How to Share Your Faith, a glossary and maps. My teenage son found those all to be helpful. The print is nice and dark although not real big. I found it easy enough to read. I would not want the Bible much heavier to carry around, especially to make ease of use for this age group. My teenage son liked it well enough. For him, it was okay but he is not a big drawer. (He re

Do your family meals feel rushed and stale? Do you have a fear of cooking for guests at your house? Come to the Family Table by Ted and Amy Cunningham, inspired by the slow food movement, offers ideas for providing your family with mealtimes that they will long remember for creating special memories. It also offers encouragement and advice to offer guests friendly hospitality that doesn't have to be perfect to be fun for all. Come to the Family Table is divided into two sections: The Family Table Is For Us and The Family Table is For Others. Each of the five chapters within these two sections offers advice on how to enhance your mealtimes with the people you are with, a Cunningham family recipe, an idea for a relational game you can play, and a Christian devotional/prayer to go with the meal. I enjoyed Come to the Family Table so much that I could have read it in one sitting if my schedule had allowed for the luxury. I found the writing to be easy to read and relate to. R

My son and I both have food allergies/intolerances. I have learned to make quite a few different dishes that we all like that accommodate our allergies but I know we can always use more recipes. Pure Delicious by Heather Christo offers more than 150 allergen-free recipes without gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, or cane sugar. The first five chapters of Pure Delicious shares Christo's family's story of testing, discovering and working with their food allergies/intolerances. She shares their process and how much better they all felt after they made dietary changes. My son and I went through a similar process with testing and elimination diets. I especially like that she shares how to build a community of support here and how to support the kids in eating for their best health. Christo also offers tips for eating out and ordering in various kinds of restaurants. The recipe section of Pure Delicious is divided into categories: soups and chilis. sal

Retirement is a stage of life most of us dream about through the years. We save up and think about doing all of our favorite things with lots of "free" time. In The Second Half by Lauraine Snelling Mona and Kenneth Sorenson are in their retirement years. . .dreaming about traveling and spending time doing all of their favorite things. Kenneth is only days away from retirement when the book begins. Meanwhile, Mona is working at and dreaming of managing her own part-time event business while traveling with Kenneth to dreamed-of places on the side. Then suddenly their life changes. Mona and Ken's son, Steig, who is in the special forces with the army receives a call for deployment. Since his wife walked out on him and his children awhile back, he asks his parents to assume guardianship while he is gone on the mission. From that point on, Mona and Ken have a new set of adventures. In The Second Half , Mona and Ken learn how to deal with the curves that life has thrown