My Book Is in A Giveaway!

Just a heads up that today is the last day to enter the giveaway of my
book over at www.perryelisabeth.blogspot.com. I'm so excited to offer you
this opportunity to get one free! : )

Blue Perfection

Today, I'm praising God for thirty-three pounds of blue perfection. I get
to process blueberries and snack on them as I go! : ) You can't imagine
how many 'hearts' I put on the freezer bag labels.

Renewed

Before we moved to the Northwest, someone who had been here before told us, "You see more shades of green than you ever knew existed." He was right. I am so thankful that I can look out our dining room windows on a lush, awakened world. For some strange reason I always expect the scene I am looking at to be like a flat picture; but instead I am pleased to find the 3d essence of the pine trees, and somehow I feel as if it is more real than it actually is. Sounds weird, I know, but I'm thankful for it and so many other things besides.

I'm thankful for...

• The family of God. Last Sunday, we gathered together for a church picnic and the crowd of forty people was drawn together closer than ever.
• The hilarious, insightful, and memorable devotional one of the men from our church led. It involved inflating balloons. One of my best friends and I were sitting near him when he popped one. You can imagine our reactions. 'Nuf said. : )
• The fact that my mocha brownie mess-up wasn't so much of a mess-up, but instead it just became mocha cake.
• Our window air-conditioners. They have done such an amazing job that we hardly noticed when the temperature hit 100 degrees one day.
• Ripening apples! They are so red that it is delightful to look at them.
• The e-book our oldest sister gifted us with. It's Firmament: In His Image by J. Grace Pennington. It's her best book yet, and sooo interesting!
• Stories. I'm officially working on one right now, but the others are begging me to give them some more thought. (Mara, here I come!)
• Bananas and chocolate chips. (Get the recipe from my post last November called "Banana?")
• The power of prayer. What was lost has now been found!
• My brother's latest board game creation—the settling game! We read about Settlers of Catan and decided to make our own version (at least for now). : ) It truly is a lot of fun. He won with about 10,000 more people than I had.
• Our terrific thunderstorm!!!! It was probably the third one we've had in six years and the best so far! It was so close that we could hear the crackle and pop in the thunder and watch the lightning split the sky! Brings back fond memories of Southwest electrical storms. : )
• The other great thing about the storm was the rain! We've needed it so badly, and now everything is greatly renewed.
• The big picnic this Saturday! There are lots of people I am looking forward to seeing including my pen-pal whom I've only seen two times in the last year. : )
• Music! Lord willing our family will be singing a song at the picnic. So fun!
• Deviled eggs. Imagine our delight and surprise over a double-yolk deviled egg! My youngest sister was cooking with me, and she was pretty cute rolling eggs to peel them.
• The animated short Burn.E. Uh, yeah, it isn't high literature, but now every time I hear "The Ode to Joy" I hum it just like he does. : )
• A clean house for the Axis and Allies party and weekend visitors.
• Giving my littlest sister a lesson in military time. My watch battery is about five years old so it's stuck in that mode plus it's running eight minutes late. She's still managing to keep track of the time though and looking forward to the coming of our guests! : )
• Old sheet music. I was organizing all the music inside our piano bench, and it struck me how blessed we are to have 3 years worth of chorale music. : )
• Letters and emails to answer! It's been so much fun to get to know these special people.
• The way that the bright red pencil I am using matches my bright red, picnic themed stationery.
• God giving me a clear philosophy of beauty at 10 o'clock at night.
• Family music practice. : )
• The funny thing that happens if you compare my relatives to movie stars/characters. Audrey Hepburn and Captain America are the parents of Charlie Brown and Russell (from Up). My brother is Gregory Peck and my older sister is Keisha Castle-Hughes (from The Nativity Story). Wow, that's fun! Maybe I'm Dori (from Finding Nemo). : )
• God, Who has loved us just as we are; but is not content to leave us that way. Instead He is renewing us day by day and conforming us to the image of His Son.

"I've Got A Golden Ticket!"

You gotta love it when you are breaking up baking chocolate, and you
offer some to your little sister with the warning that it tastes awful.
She agrees to try and suddenly becomes very quiet. "Doesn't it taste
horrible?" "Yeah, I'm gonna drink some water now." Now she is carrying
around the silver foil wrapping from the chocolate and singing, "I've got
a golden ticket!" I think she has recovered and discovered the virtues of
sugar added to chocolate. : )

Summertime

Summertime is full upon us, and it seems like every day holds a new adventure. Whether it is visiting the adorable county fair, playing the new game my brother invented, or just chatting with visiting relatives, I'm enjoying it quite a bit and I thought I would share with you some of the best things about it.

I'm thankful for...

• Letters to read and write!
• Free ebooks!!! I recently enjoyed The Sparrow Found a House.
• www.noblenovels.weebly.com They've taught me lessons in writing and deadlines. : ) (My latest story "This Is Home" should be posted today.)
• "Resurrecting" an old character I had invented around eight years ago. Enter Gabriel Smith the pony express rider!
• The fact that my latest food experiments have actually turned out! I was never able to do that when I was younger.
• The Pioneer Woman and The Joy of Cooking cookbooks that tell me exactly how to hardboil an egg or make lemon zest.
• That cool lemon smell on my fingers that I got to smell all the rest of that day and some of the next. : )
• The way those lemon bars tasted. Heavenly. It was so amazing that, even though it was time to go grocery shopping, we had exactly the right amount of lemon for them. : )
• The chance to do two sets of neighbors chores. Betsy Bea thinks of it as a petting zoo and talks to all the animals. "Hey, duck! Watcha' doing with all these chickens? Are you friends or something?" "Canon, Canon." (Said in a cooing voice while she feeds the baby goat little bits of hay. In the next moment, she was giggling because he was lipping her fingers.) : )
• All the surplus organic eggs and raw milk people have been giving us.
• A baby sister who taught me to play her own version of hopscotch on the kitchen tile.
• People having relatives visiting them which means BABIES AT CHURCH!
• Haying opportunities for my gigantic-ly tall little brother. (And Aimee did some too, I might add.) ; )
• Lunch and wi-fi at an adorable local café on the way to the county fair. What could be better than a bagel sandwich?
• The cool decorative lamp posts at the café. We took lots of pictures near them and there were many references to Lucy in Narnia. : )
• My gigantic-ly tall little brother who took most of the pictures. He did an awesome job taking them and since he is taller than us there was none of that dwarf effect.
• Those nice purple smiley faces that show we got to go to the fair even two days afterwards! : )
• My dad who promised my baby sister a Ferris wheel ride and helped her stay calm as the wheel went 'round and 'round.
• My baby sister who bravely rode the Ferris wheel, laughing nervously and excitedly and waving to us each time she came around. : )
• The animal barn. I had never been to one at a fair before, so this was a new experience.
• Getting to stroll around with my family, my friend, and her pygmy goat Fatso. : )
• All the cute baby animals.
• The beef judging (where my friend's brother showed a steer). It was so interesting! The judge was very knowledgeable, so if anyone asks—yes, I did science that day. : )
• That deathly yummy carnival food. 'Nuff said.
• Grocery shopping when Costco was about to close. : )
• Dad asking what we wanted to eat in the drive-through and my sister saying, "I'll take a cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake with ketchup." We laughed over that new ice cream flavor for a little while. : )
• Doing chores at midnight with flashlights. I'm not one of the main chore-doers so I was in the van while this all happened. : )
• Two window air-conditioners and several fans!
• A clean house the next day, even though we had to clean it to get it that way.
• A set-up foosball table! Through the efforts of Mom, my gigantic-ly tall little brother, Yours Truly, and some random little sisters it is now standing in the school/game room. : ) Dad even brought home balls from town for it!
• "Babysitting" my younger sisters and building a blanket tent for us to play games, color pictures, and hang out in before bedtime.
• My middle-sized sister who was my right hand in tent building. Fortunately, all the blankets were still accessible since we had used them at camp.
• Sorting through pennies with my gigantic-ly tall little brother. He's super into coin collecting right now, and I'm actually finding it quite fascinating. : ) (Now I can explain what it means when there is no mint mark. Cool, huh?)
• Relatives visiting! Those nephews are too cute to be true!
• My brother-in-law, my sister, and my gigantic-ly tall little brother (time to invent an acronym!) playing foosball really, really hard!
• The older nephew splashing with my little sisters in the baby pool. : )

So we've been having lots of joyful times together, and I can't wait to see what God has in store next! : )

 

 

P.S.- I'm also super grateful for Mom who edits all of my writing and makes sure I don't sound too goofy. : )

Better Than Our Dreams

I thought this quote was worth sharing especially since it applies to all areas of life. : )

 

"Some people warn girls against making an idol out of marriage. We can certainly make idols of anything--but we girls don't so much make an idol out of marriage as we do out of our own expectations, our own way, our own desires. Marriage is not the problem, and an emphasis on marriage is not the problem. The problem is when we don't view the life that God has given us as being better than our dreams--because we don't see God's mind as being better than ours. How much you love God's handiwork in your life--trials, challenges, and all--is an indication of how much you love God. And we don't mean how warm and spiritual you feel when you're singing praise and worship songs; we mean how much you love and delight in Who He actually is and what He actually does. As R.J. Rushdoony says, 'Reality reflects the mind of God, not man.' God is revealing Who He is in the circumstances He creates for us, in the way He crafts us, in the families He places us in. If you really love God, you will love what He does in your life."

~from It's (Not That) Complicated by Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin

(ch. 13 "Not Another Chapter on Contentment", pg. 231) 

Book Review: Unbroken

"Difficulties arise at Triple Creek Ranch when Orlena, Norman Mavrich’s spoiled, pampered younger sister comes to live with her brother and his wife. The move is much against Orlena’s wishes, and she doesn’t hesitate to let everyone know it. Time and again Mr. and Mrs. Mavrich are driven to their knees to find strength to face another day. Join the young ranch boss, Norman Mavrich, his sweet wife, Jenelle, and the rest of the members of Triple Creek Ranch as they strive to be examples of Christ to the unbroken newcomer."

This is the other book I picked up at the OCEANetwork Homeschool Convention's Homeschooled Authors table. I do judge books by their covers, and this book owned a well-done and quite appealing one. I was also really excited by the rumor that this was a non-violent western (which are so hard to find!); so I decided to bring it home with me, and I haven’t regretted my decision one bit!

The Setting:

This story was set on a ranch in the Midwest. I loved all the mentions of the cattle and the beautiful horses, and its description of ranch life seemed both realistic and interesting to me. : ) The illustrations are just fabulous and really bring to life the world of cowboys and prairies.

The Storyline:

The storyline was really great! I loved watching the journey of the Mavrichs and of their younger sister as well. The plot is cleverly twisted throughout the book, and one would have never guessed how the climax was being set up with an encounter extremely early on in the story! Lessons in controlling a temper and loving difficult people, as well as a clear Gospel presentation, were integrated into the book.

The Characters:

The characters were delightful, at least the ones that were supposed to be. : ) I very much enjoyed Mr. and Mrs. Mavrich, and their relationship was a beautiful reminder of how wonderful marriage can be under Christ’s headship. Mrs. Mavrich was sooo sweet, and Mr. Mavrich was awesome in his own way! : ) I also enjoyed Mrs. O’Conner and their cast and (more importantly) crew of considerate ranch hands including Hardrich, St. John, and Hearter. Orlena was definitely not the protagonist, but she was very real and at some points one could almost understand (definitely not agree with) her.

The Concerns:

Parents should have caution in considering this book for younger readers because of some things that Orlena says in her arguments with her brother. Also, although the marriage relationship between two of the main characters is very sweet and godly, some parents may not want younger readers to read this yet because there is a lot of married kissing throughout the book. : )

I found this book so fabulous! The marriage relationship was sweet, the characters and setting felt very real, the lessons were wonderful, and the story was one of loving difficult people and leaning on God! A must read. : ) I'm looking forward to reading the second and third books in the series!