Reading, Writing & Pondering

I don't know about you, but after being on social media, I have felt more discontent instead of content with my life--if I am honest with myself. I log in and I see EVERYONE else's perfect vacations, kids, houses, pets, etc. After a few minutes on Facebook, I assess my life as mediocre and boring. Kay Wills Wyma addresses our current culture of needing everyone to "like" our life photos/updates, our Pinterest perfect birthday parties, or our tweeted performance updates. In I'm Happy For You, Kay Wills Wyma offers encouragement and advice on how to live a more contented life in our world today. If you are tired of performing and feeling weighed down by the pressure to present the perfect life to the outside world, Kay encourages you to get escape the comparison trap and excessive competitiveness in our culture today. each chapter offers advice on looking at your life a bit differently to lesson the pressure on yourself. I, for one, found this book to be highly...

Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. The cover of Devotions from the Garden is simply beautiful and restful looking. I just want to walk into the garden pictured and have a seat on the swing, rest and look at the beauty and commune with God. The subtitle is "Finding Peace and Rest from Your Hurried Life." This book could help you do just that. Devotions from the Garden offers beautiful garden pictures to look at along with meditations on God's Word beginning with a Bible verse and ending with a prayer. This is not a dated book so the reader can start at the beginning or could start anywhere and read what you feel led to read among these 90 devotions. Readings draw parallels between life and gardening. Gentle relationships between the Christian life and various aspects of gardening offers a lovely reading for each day with both hopes and challenges being addressed. Just about any area of gardening is related to life. A few examples include: the root system, ...

68.8 % of adults are considered overweight or obese ADHD diagnosis has increased an average of 5 % per year from 2003 to 2011 Food allergies among children increased approximately 50% between 1997 and 2011 95 % of cancers are caused by diet and environment These are some big statistics quoted in Tox-Sick. by Suzanne Somers. Suzanne Somers has personally felt some of these statistics as she and her family members have dealt with ADHD, cancer, Lyme Disease, mold toxicity and more. These challenges in her own family led her to work with doctors to find best how to help overcome these illnesses. Tox-Sick shares her and her familly's journey to feeling good once again and also interviews with 6 prominent physicians to best learn the effects of toxins on our brain, our gut, our hormones, our heart and how to make our environment cleaner. Somers also shares information from the doctors on how to help yourself heal and feel better from the effects of our environment. This book...

Insights That Bring Life to Your Relationships is the subtitle to Ed Young's new book, Fifty shades of They. This description sums up well the 50 short chapters of insights contained in this book geared to help your relationships in all areas of your life. Who are the "They" in your life? Who are the people that form your friendships, business relationships and what kind of person are you married to or dating? According to Ed Young, you are only as great as your relationships. When you are surrounded by people who follow God's principles that are laid out in this book, your life is bound to be better all the way around. Ed Young also encourages you to reflect the insights shared in this book so that you also become the best person you can be in your relationships. I found these insights to be helpful. The chapters are short and easy to read. At the same time, there is some good meat in these little chapters. Each chapter's insights is based on Biblical p...

What Keeps You Up At Night by Pete Wilson offers a good glimpse into fear and faith. I often wish God would just offer a few words to clue me in on what is happening when I am blindsided by something in my life. For example, this week we learned we cannot close on the house we are buying because the owner does not have a clear title. The owner has dementia and the family is left to sort out if this is an error or what has happened. Frustrating for them and for us as we put our lives on hold and wait to see if we get this house or have to start house shopping all over again. We all have situations come up like this one that keep us up at night wondering about. According to Pete's new book, we  need to learn to lean into uncertainty and activate our faith. Pete says every single one of us struggle with fear at some point in our lives.In What Keeps You Up at Night , he shares how we can lean into Scripture and learn from it to keep our faith up in our own challenges. Wilson s...

 What is a Heart sister? According to Natalie, A heart sister is someone who isn't related "by blood but instead by the sisterly bond entwined between our hearts." Natalie Snapp addresses issues faced by women today as they make friendships in our modern world. She shares stories, information and advice about making a good heart sister friendship, forming good boundaries in friendships, friendships and internet etiquette, dealing with conflict in friendships, and what things a heart sister does and does not do to make a good relationship. This book is full of good information and real life stories that I think most women can relate to. I found it down-to-earth and easy to relate to. Each chapter also ends with questions to either ask yourself or to ask in a group.  I couldn't rush through reading this book as I move to a new town in 2 weeks and look to make new friendships. I hope to make a heart sister friend too. I think this book has given me ...

 Bread and Butter looks like a book that will become a "bread and butter" basic in my cookbook collection. As my son can not eat gluten and I am wheat intolerant, I found this book to be a sort of wish book of all the yummy food we haven't been able to eat but have been longing for. Erin McKenna is the founder of BabyCakes Bakery in New York City. She is also gluten sensitive and spent many years forced to"ignore the bread basket" at dinners at her favorite restaurant. Boy, do I relate to that! Honestly, I received this book in the mail and almost instantly started salivating. Practically every page is full of beautiful color pictures of the delicious gluten free goodies with recipes in this book. Recipes are included for basic breads, bagels, pizzas, tortillas, savory turnovers, crackers, sweet rolls, cookies and more. I honestly was amazed at the complete list of gluten free recipes in this book. I also like that McKenna included ideas on how to use what...