Family Expectations.  Internal desires.  Old friends.  Old flames.   Societal positioning.   What does God want?   What do I want?   What does family expect?   All these questions were posed throughout the reading of Irish Meadows by Susan Anne Mason.

I have not read a book by Ms. Mason before.  The storyline was intriguing but I found myself getting frustrated by the characters.

I wanted to shout at them.  LISTEN TO EACH OTHER!!!!!  

But they didn't.

They all had their own expectations and dreams and had a hard time really hearing what everyone else in the book was saying.

I have to admit though, I cheered internally when Colleen's heart was changed.  It was all "you go girl... you show who God has called you to be".  :)    Brianna and Gilbert though.. man they made me want to pull out my hair in frustration.

I suppose all that said, it shows I was engaged in the book.  :)

Was I thrilled though that life worked out well for Dad, Mom, the girls, the priest in training, GIlbert and all the rest?   Oh.. a resounding yes.  Was I delighted that the slimy guy was encouraged to crawl back into the hole he came out of?   Indeed.    Was I happy that people were encouraged to seek after the heart of God?   For sure.   Liked that aspect of prayer and thinking portrayed throughout.

Would I choose to read it again though?  Ah..no.   I don't need that frustration in my life for what I thought would be a light quick read.  :)

Product Details:
Received: Softcover book
Title: Irish Meadows
Series: Courage to Dream, book one
Author: Susan Anne Mason
Pages: 370
Publisher: Bethany House
Reviewed for: Nuts about Books

Reading.   To me and my hubby, it's an essential part of life.  It's helps to define who we are.   My boy is learning this joy of picking up a book and reading.     "Mom, is it okay if I read for a bit before I go to sleep?" was his question to me last night.     Made my heart smile it did.  

Books surround us.
Some of it is twaddle, some living books, some good fiction, some excellent non-fiction, books to suit any fancy, mood and moment.    Science fiction, mystery, good drama etc.  

It becomes a struggle to figure out what to read at times doesn't it?

My approach to books is simply this... if you like it, read it.  
If you like reading, then you read.   One book will lead to another.   Sometimes a book you read will convince you NOT to read that type of book again, and sometimes a book will inspire excitement and curiousity or just plain contentment at a book well read. 

My lad and I read copious amounts of books.

We have a book we read at breakfast, books to be read between lessons, and books to read at bed time.    Books are an integral part of our lives.

So what do we read?
Fiction: all sorts of fiction.   Garfield comics, Warrior cats, Dear Canada, mystery books, historical fiction, picture books, if it's a book and looks interesting, we check it out.    The worst that happens is we say "Meh, don't like it" and stop reading it.

Non-fiction: again, all sorts.   Most of the time we pick a book and read a two page spread a day, sometimes we like what we're learning so much that we go on rabbit trails learning more about it.   Worksheets and CD's and online learning can always wait for another day.... but that "I'm into this very much at this moment" can't always wait.  :)

Some of the books we are reading lately.  
Mrs Quack.  We are gradually working through this series.
Monks and Mystics: History written in story form.
1000 fantastic Science Facts: one page spread a day... space, travel and more.   LOTS of questions and lots of "Ok Google (fill in the blank)
Natural world: we actually just finished this and we learned tons about geography and various animals. 

One of the interesting things I've uncovered is that the more we read non-fiction and fiction books, the more questions my son has and the more he makes connections between things that I would have expected.    For instance in the warrior cat series when the cats had to deal with a solar eclipse.  Once the lad realized what was going on he was "talking" to the cats in the book telling them not to worry so much, that the sun would come back.

What sort of connections are you hoping to make for your children this year?
I know I'm interested to see where our reading will take us this year.  
Aren't you?

This post is part of a blog hop.

Here are a few others writing.
Erin @ For Him and My Family
Lori @ At Home: where life happens
Margaret @ Creative Madness Mama
Nicole @ Some Call It Natural
Crystal @ Crystal Starr
Bonnie @ Write Bonnie Rose
Shawna @ Tenacity Divine
Carol @ Home Sweet Life
Kelli @ Adventure Homeschool 
Jacquelin @ A Stable Beginning 
Leah Courtney @ As We Walk Along the Road

if you want to see more folks writing, check them out here.

Dee Henderson has written a very intriguing book.   Mystery plus the start to a  romance... I very much enjoyed this book.  :)   I am happy to review it for Nuts About Books.

What an intriguing book.
Imagine being kidnapped.
And held for over 10 years.
Imagine how hard it might be to integrate yourself back into a free society, to meet your family again, to wonder who caused you to be kidnapped in the first place.

And there you have the plot for the book "Taken".
Shannon contacts Matthew Dane for help.   Matthew who needed to help his daughter recover after HIS daughter was kidnapped.

Together they figure out family connections, bring down a kidnapping ring, and help bring closure to families seeking it.

It's a fascinating book.   It's not a hard read in terms of just reading it.   Took me a couple of days, but the characters are real, the pain is felt, the seeking to not cause oneself more pain is keenly felt.

If you like a good mystery...this book will bring characters to life and cause you to think of how complex people truly are.

Have to admit.... this would be an interesting book to see done in a movie.   I'd love to see how they'd picture it....

Product Details:
Received: Softcover book
Title: Taken
Author: Dee Henderson
Pages: 424
Publisher: Bethany House
Type: Adult Fiction

Today is the first day in a five day blog hop series on back to homeschool.   I hope that you take the time to read some of the marvellous posts a group of us are putting on.  :)  

This is the time of year when people start looking at children getting back into doing school.

Have to admit, it does start to pressure up to "DO MORE" but as someone who mostly homeschools year round (just changes up the focus a bit) I don't like having that external pressure being added.   So many expectations that everything is planned out, that all curriculum is paid for and purchased, that children have all their school supplies and all that "stuff".    I don't like that pressure and it can make me feel nutty in my head.

Thank goodness I have this fellow in my corner.

This fellow that I married some 13 years ago, father of our lad, strong introvert, stable, quiet fellow.    This fellow keeps me sane.

He knows me well enough to know when I'm getting nutty in my head and simply asks "what's up?".   Clarifying for me what's going on in my head when I might not the knowledge to figure out until he simply asks.

Then he simply walks me through what's going on so that I stop being nutty in my head about the external pressures that are going on.

So what kind of things get me going?
1. BUY THIS it's the best ______ ever!
2. Get this freebie...get it NOW.. get it today.  You'll regret it if you don't!
3. Use this planner!     Seriously.. it will solve all your problems.
4. Don't forget to add this to your new year..if you don't you won't have a well-rounded student.
5. Squeeze this event into your summer cause you won't have time once school starts!!!

and more... all the pressure to do this and that....can make a body feel like failure if they listen to it all...and sometimes it gets to me.

There are times when I wonder if I am the only one who gets this way.
I assume that I am not as God's word tells me that there is nothing new under the sun.  NOTHING.

My fellow helps get my head thinking and then I am to process what all is going on in my head and heart, able to talk to God about what is going on, and then (and only then) free to figure out if I truly do need something or if it's just the hype of everything getting to me.  

It helps too that I homeschool year round, we do maintain a lighter schedule in the summer, but we keep things going.   So I don't have to give into some of the pressure that I end up feeling. 

How do you work around the hype of back to school season?
Does it ever get to you at all?
If so, what tricks do YOU use to keep yourself sane?  

Here's a small group you might want to focus on today:
Marcy @ Ben and Me
Debra @ Footprints in the Butter
Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses
Amy @ Homeschool Encouragement
Missica @ The Open Window: An Autism Blog
Misty @ Year Round Homeschooling
Jennifer @ A Glimpse of Our Life
Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
Clarissa @ Counting Our Blessings
Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool
Monique @ Living Life and Learning.


The rest are here.

Did you know that i turn 50 tomorrow?   I DO!

Imagine me.. half a century old.   :)   

Vinod asked if I would do a giveaway for a math program that I reviewed a bit back and I said "Sure!   That'll work well to help me celebrate my birthday!".   :)  Anyways, wasn't that sweet of him???   :)   I thought it was.   So you have GOT to check this out.   Just perfect for the beginning of the school year.

He is offering Adaptive Placement Test w/ Individualized Lesson Plan, and here is my review on it.  

The adaptive placement test is an excellent tool to use to show you what your children know and if there are any gaps in their learning.  

How does it work?

1. Student takes a "mini test" for each major concept to identify current skill level.
2. Program then creates an "individualized" lesson plan which includes everything you need.
3. Student follows an "individualized" lesson plan and you see various reports that measure progress as student masters various skills and closes learning gaps.

So as you start your school year and you want to ensure that you are starting off on the right foot, A+ has given you a very handy tool for doing so.

Use the rafflecopter below to enter for your chance to win!

Ann H. Gabhart wrote an intriguing book called "The Innocent". 

In this book I was introduced to a group of people called "The Shakers" who formed a religious community close to where Carlyn Kearney lived.

Who is Carlyn you ask?
She's a lady who doesn't know if she's a widow lady or not.  Her hubby is gone missing and she's in dire straights, about to get kicked out of her house as she has no income.

What shall become of her?

Carlyn makes the difficult decision to move in with The Shakers.  A religious commune that will take in people who may wish to join their community.   

A man dies.
Is it Carlyn's fault?
The sheriff needs to investigate, which is easier said than done, as The Shakers aren't keen on outsiders in their community.

The Shakers profess to be a people of peace and harmony, Carlyn finds the transition to living with them difficult and not as peaceful as she thought it would be.   Three deaths will happen before the mystery is solved.

Can the kind sheriff figure it out before it's too late?

My thoughts?
1. The Shakers are a bit of an odd group.
2. The mystery intrigued.
3. I worried on the dog.
4. good to see romance blossom without it being all physical.

Should you read it?
Yes.
It's an easy, quick read.  A light mystery based romance.

Product Details:
Received: Trade paperback book
Title: The Innocent
Author: Ann H. Gabhart
Pages: 384
Publisher: Revell
Reviewed for: Nuts about Books

I have to admit, I wasn't sure what to think when I signed up to read and review this book "The Conversation" by Leight A Bortins from Classical Conversations.   I like the idea of a classical education, it makes sense to me, but it seems VERY daunting to me.   Teaching latin and doing translation and limiting yourself to the classics, seemed a bit of a hard sell to me, BUT after reading this book it doesn't seem so very daunting.  :)   Good thing that!  :)

It is obvious from the start of "The Conversation" that Leigh Bortins LOVES the classical method of schooling one's children.     In this book, the rhetoric stage of classical education is discussed, which is the level of teaching high school.   Ms. Bortins sees this as "Challenging your students with a classical education".   It's a challenge dominated by conversation.  :)

Ms. Bortins talks us through very practical ways of using the rhetoic stage and words to teach the classical way through the high school years.   Helping children, by having conversations, to truly learn and understand the material they are learning.

Three parts of the book:
Part One: High school at home (two chapters)
Part Two: The Rhetorical Arts (chapters three - twelve, plus epilogue).
In this section nine different areas are studied with different examples given on how to approach a conversation with your students in each discipline.   Those nine areas are: : reading, speech and debate, writing, science, math, government and economics, history, Latin and foreign languages, and fine arts.   Examples of study area and how to work through the five canons for each section.
Part Three: Appendices - four appendices games, devices, resources and responses.

As I read the book I pulled out a variety of quotes and ideas.

• I learned about the three stages: Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric
  
• "As students enter the rhetoric stage of education they are on their way to becoming leaders of men," p. 41
• The idea to have students rewrite their textbook in their own words to show their understanding of it.
• "With practice, we will learn to recognize whether or not a literary work helps us to train students to recognize and love truth and whether it helps them to gain wisdom about how to live well." p.57

For each area of study the different canons of rhetoric are discussed.

• Invention

• Arrangement
• Elocution
• Memory
• Delivery

I fully intend to hold on to this book.  My lad is not yet at the highschool stage, but the sheer amount of ideas presented in this book for inducing conversation with my lad in the variety of areas of studies just floored me.

Excellent book to read and gave me a great understanding of what classical education can look like for the high school student.  It's caused me to want to see if Leigh Bortins as written a book on the Dialectic stage as well.

Ms. Bortins writes in such an encouraging manner, helping and encouraging teaching parents to simply continue their journey, and engage in conversation with their children as they go through their high school years.   I felt very much encouraged in my journey as a homeschool parent... even if I don't follow all of the classical method.    I strongly encourage you to read it as well.  :)

Product Details:
Vendor Name: Classical Conversations
Product Names: The Conversation, by Leigh A. Bortins
Pages:254
Age: for adults
Price: Sale price $12.00
Received: A physical book

Social Media:

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/classicalconversations
Twitter: https://twitter.com/classicalconv
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/classicalconv/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/117616164250444350670/posts
Instagram: *not currently in use*
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ClassicalConv

Christine Hoover wrote an interesting book called "From Good to Grace".  I read this book for a review and was somewhat hesitant to get it, but I have to say this... I am very glad that I read the book... I AM.

From Good to Grace... subtitled "letting Go of the Goodness Gospel"   This is what the whole book is about.  Come with me as I tell you a bit more about this book with lots of questions, some answers and a new way to look at how to live out one's faith.  :)

Christine Hoover understands the goodness gospel.  She lived it for years.   Knowing everything she needed to do to look like she had her faith all together.  Then God threw her a curve ball... a son with special needs.   Suddenly life changed and God started to change her life and her focus.   She learned to see GOD more and the STUFF one does for God in a different light.
This whole book is based on the need to talk to God more and to listen to our thoughts and personal expectations of what it means to be a Christian less.    We need to LISTEN to God more than we listen to ourselves or our companions, mentors, leaders and such like.   Knowing God more helps us to live as God calls us to more easily with less expectation of meeting the needs of being a "GOOD" christian.    God doesn't want our goodness, he wants our faith.

From p. 33 "The most important and life-giving thing we can do as followers of Christ is to consider what God wants for us as presented in the gospel and to ask the right questions of the right Person. "

The book is divided into three parts
1. Good, Bye

• Obsessed with Goodness
• The most important things
• you can't go back again
  

2. From Good to Grace: Receiving

• Receiving his Love
• Receiving his help
• Receiving his freedom
  

3. From Good to Grace: Responding

• Love Shows
• Giving Grace
• We Hope

Throughout the book Ms. Hoover states what is most important.
Our knowledge of our sin, our knowledge of our deep need for God and what his son did dying on the cross.  Our need to believe in God and his action on our behalf.   THIS is what is important.

How we live out our faith is what is important in our conversation with God.   Pray more, talk less with others.   We need to ask of God "what does he want for me?"

We need to remember we can make ourselves grow spiritually... GOD is responsible for that.

I can't say i read every word in this book as i read quickly.... But there were whole sections where I slowed down my reading because it was like God was speaking to my very self.

On Page 44 I was challenged with this question: What if i lived as if the gospel were true every hour of every day?    How would that change things?

I was left wondering how do I teach my son to live by grace?    Then this sentence popped up "and by the way you can't do this.    Only the spirit of God can do this in you,  so ask him to do it."

I did question this statement.   "This is why we often find churches full of bitter people ...this is a sign of people who have never come to understand God's grace and love for them personally ...... cannot extend it to others"  p. 156.  I guess I don't like what seems like a blanket statement like this.    There can be all sorts of reasons for why we find hurting churches.   I honestly haven't met a lot of churches filled with bitter Christians.     So I just struggled with this section.    Do some churches (and some people) struggle with understanding the depth of God's grace upon our lives?   For sure!   I know this for myself!   It's hard to grasp and is I think, I continued journey.  

I loved her point about we must each live out our own faith and not compare it to others.    Jn 21:22.    His goal for us is unity not uniformity. The more we live within grace the more we show Christ.

Should you get the book?
I think so.  It's definitely worth a read and helps you think through the why of what you do and how you might be changed by God if you approach things differently.

Discussion questions at the end of the book help you think through the questions raised.  I would MUCH prefer those questions being posted at the end of each chapter rather than at the end of the book, but everyone has their own style and it doesn't detract from the material itself.  :)

Product Details:
Book: From Good to Grace: Letting Go of the Goodness Gospel
Author: Christine Hoover
Publisher: Baker Books
Pages: 217
Format: Non-fiction, Discussion questions at end of book
Reviewed for: Nuts about Books

Too many people now-a-days don't believe that the bible is true, in particular the historical aspects of the exodus.   How can it be true they ask.   Even Jewish scholars tend to think of the first part of the bible as being more of tradition than that of fact.

In this DVD, evidence is given to prove otherwise.

The movie starts out giving the reason for developing it.     People have gone from belief in the bible to treating it with skepticism and disbelief. 

I have to say I liked how they edited it, with all those maps at the beginning.   Well done that.

I found it poignant the reason it is so important to counter this skepticism.   Some people will very much falter in their faith if they understand that lack of physical evidence.  They might see it as God lying, or (as I would), experts not truly understanding the evidence in front of them, or the bible being wrong.  

He brought up the problems with conventional theory about who was the pharoah of the time, and posited there were other options, for how to think about the Israelites and the time of the Exodus.   Mentioning the difficulty in pinning down events to Egyptian chronology...when it is rather in flux as well.

I have to admit, the information presented was interesting.   It wasn't highly compelling to me though.     Many questions were raised for me and my hubby.  They made the point that the tomb would be from Joseph because of the coat of many colours...the question is... was his coat of many colours?   Was his coat colourful or was it just a coat of a rich man...one too long to useful for work (coming to the palm of the hand). 

People interviewed came from various parts of the world.  Looking at the various evidences.    They started from before the exodus through to the conquest of Canaan.   The variety in people interviewed was good.  

I thought it an interesting movie.  It provided some definitive options for proving the biblical account to be accurate with hard evidence.    I found it intriguing to watch them put the pieces together.

I will be hanging on to this movie to watch with my 10 year old when he's a bit older (teenish) as a way to help him develop his critical thinking skills.

This is your opportunity to apply to win a copy for yourself.  Open citizens of Canada and the United States only.  

To enter, leave a blog comment blog.    Name of the winner will be picked out of a hat by my lad.  :)   Leaving your email makes it easy to notify you.  :)

Contest closes August 7th, 2015

"Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.

 Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller / FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible to win. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.”

For the last few weeks it has been my privilege to review a book from Funtastic Unit Studies.  This book is called Science Unit Studies For Homeschoolers and Teachers.  This is a physical book with twenty chapters divided into ages 4-7 and ages 8-13.    Science broken down into easily understood language with experiments.     Isn't great when you can use Unit Studies to advance your children's learning?  :)

What can I say about Funtastic Unit Studies?   My son was most intrigued when the book came and immediately picked out the studies he wanted to focus on.   Atoms and Molecules, Insects, Plants and Simple Machines.   Did we get through them all?   Of course not!   We had vacation in the middle of that... with plans to work on plants and machines but life happens right?  We kept up our focus on insects and learned a few things about plants along the way.  :)

Atoms, Molecules and learning about the periodic table... My lad was fascinated by all these tiny atoms that make up other things.      He has some toys that are finger sized and they were jumping all over the periodic table finding different elements and talking about them.   Some of course wanted to own them all and it did break down into a major battle... but water (as H20) came in and wiped them all away.   :)   Instead of using marshmallows and toothpicks to make  the molecules we used a kit I picked up a LONG time ago and just played around with it.    It was fun and he learned much.  He also much enjoyed the sugar crystals we made... what can I say.. HUGE HIT.

Insects for Age 8-13 is different then the insects study for age 4-7 but both units work together well.  I have to admit, we didn't do any of the experiments from this unit study.   We just used the unit study as a jumping off point for learning more about insects in general.   On our camping trip we met some great naturalists who happily helped my boy learn more about dragonflies (how to tell a male from a female), how to differentiate between them and damselflies (similar classification but different species), the different species of biting flies (horse, deer, black etc), we learned what happens when the food chain goes out of whack (kill the wolves, deer population explodes, eating all the plants that a certain butterfly exist solely on, leading to the extirpation of that butterfly).   It was so interesting, and in some ways rather sad as that butterfly was quite pretty.  

Studying insects at a campground up north, easily lent itself to also studying plants.   One of the ways to find insects is to look on plants.  This led to us being able to find crab spiders hiding in flowers, caterpillars hiding on the undersides of leaves, seeing the dew on the top of the plants but not on the bottom, seeing how some plants have smooth leaves and others have fuzzy ones and even the fact that some plants are preferred by a wide variety of insects and others seem to have this "turn off" aspect to them.   We even discovered plants that EAT insects!   (blow my lad's mind that!).   I really liked the versatility of this science book.   Experiments provided, with explanation as to why, leaving me free to adapt the information to the environment that I was in.   So no need to do crafts and experiments as long as the information could be imparted in the real natural world that we found ourselves in.

So what do you get?
One book.   20 chapters. 10 to ages 4-7 and 10 for ages 8-13.
I focused on the 8-13 ages as my lad is 10.
Chapters include:

• Insects
• Microscopes and Invisible creatures
• Atoms and Molecules
• Matter
• Chemistry Fun
• Weather
• Force and Motion
• Simple Machines
• Light and Color
• Plants II

I can easily see us doing more of the chapters as our school year progresses.
Experiments are done using materials easily found at home like aluminum foil, cups, Styrofoam, marshmallows, milk cartons etc.  This list is found at the beginning of each chapter.

Each chapter is broken down into smaller segments easily enabling a person to go slowly or more quickly through the unit depending on how fast you process each section.   A unit can be done in as little as one week or as long as four weeks.

Lots of diagrams throughout the chapter help you find templates or to see how an experiment should be done.   You will find lots of fun things to do for teaching science contained within the pages of Science Unit Studies for Homeschoolers and Teachers.

Each chapter ends with a quiz so children (and parents) can see what was learned.  Answer pages are included at the end of the book.

Vendor Name:  Funtastic Unit Studies
Product Name:Science Unit Studies For Homeschoolers and Teachers
Ages: 4-13
Price: $16.95
Pages: 201

Check Funtastic Unit Studies yourself!
Here's a link to a page  that has two free pdf units from the book:
http://funtasticunitstudies.com/science-unit-studies-book/
 
And here's a link that has some other, unrelated, freebies:
http://funtasticunitstudies.com/lessons-and-activities/