It's Been A REALLY Long Time...

It's been a REALLY long time since I've posted anything on here, but I just finished a series that I wanted to tell you about.  If you enjoy Jannette Oke's Love Comes Softly Series, I would really recommend the three book spin off,  A Prairie Legacy Series.  They were all really great, but I absolutely LOVED the final book in the series, A Quiet Strength.  I loved Virginia is these stories.

My Thoughts On "Kisses from Katie"

Source:  Goodreads

From the back cover...

What would cause an eighteen-year-old senior class president and homecoming queen from Nashville, Tennessee, to disobey and disappoint her parents by forgoing college, break her little brother's heart, lose all but a handful of her friends (because they think she has gone off the deep end), and break up with the love of her life, all so she could move to Uganda, where she knew only one person and didn't even speak the language?  A passion to follow Jesus.  Katie Davis left over Christmas break of her senior year for a short mission trip to Uganda and her life was turned completely inside out.  She found herself so moved by the people of Uganda and the needs she saw that she knew her calling was to return and care for them.  Katie, a charismatic and articulate young woman, is in the process of adopting thirteen children in Uganda and has established a ministry, Amazima, that feeds and sends hundreds more to school while teaching them the Word of Jesus Christ.  Kisses from Katie invites readers on a journey of radical love down the red dirt roads of Uganda.  You'll laugh and cry with Katie as she follows Jesus into the impossible and finds joy and beauty beneath the dust.  Katie and her children delight in saying yes to the people God places in front of them and challenge readers to do the same, changing the world one person at a time.

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Katie is so honest and real that I could not help but be moved, yet she takes none of the credit.  She blindly and faithfully follows the will of  God for her life, and it makes me examine my own life.  Am I being the person God wants me to be?

To say that I enjoyed this book is an understatement.  To say that it has opened my eyes just doesn't cover it.   You would not think that a book filled with such horrors and sadness could be so inspirational, but it is.  It is because it is filled with faith, hope and redemption, and Christ's love flies off its pages!

I would recommend this book to anyone.  In fact I consider it a must read.  Thanks to Dee and Kristin for the book recommendation!!!

Love Comes Softly And More...

Source:  Goodreads

As I told you in my last post, I've decided to make 2013 a year of Christian reading.  That means I'll be reading my Bible, Christian non-fiction, and Christian fiction.

I started out with the Love Comes Softly series by Janette Oke.  My husband got me the series for Christmas, and I couldn't wait to get started on January 1st.  I had been planning to read this one for a long time having watched the first two movies a while ago.  I knew I'd enjoy it because I love the pioneer/prairie era and it's Christian themes were exactly the type of reading I'd been looking forward to in 2013.

Janette Oke
Source:  Goodreads

There are eight books in this series:

• Love Comes Softly
• Love's Enduring Promise
• Love's Long Journey
• Love's Abiding Joy
• Love's Unending Legacy
• Love's Unfolding Dream
• Love Takes Wing
• Love Finds a Home

This series is about the Davis family, firstly Marty and Clark whose love story I fell in love with myself.  The untimely death of Marty's first husband and the death of Clark's wife a few months earlier force the two to make an unthinkable decision...they will marry--become a partnership--in order to survive.  Marty needed a roof over her head and food to eat while Clark needed a mother for his small daughter Missie.  They never knew when they started their journey that theirs would turn into the love of a life time.  The rest of the books in the series follow this family and it's generations over the decades.  I fell in love with this family, their love for God, and their love for each other.  What an inspiring read!

I am so happy to have finally read these books!  They were everything I hoped they'd be.  I especially loved the first four in the series, the first and the third being my favorites of the entire series.

Source:  Goodreads

A Year of Christian Reading

I'm still here!

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything, and it's time to change that.  I thought I'd start out 2013 by letting you know about my reading plans for this year.  I've decided that in 2013 I will read only Christian Fiction/Nonfiction.  It is a genre that I'm ashamed to say I've read very little of, and I feel the need to fix that this year.

So to kick off my year of Christian reading, I decided to start with the Love Comes Softly Series by Janette Oke.  I'm on book number seven, Love Takes Wing.  My husband got me the series for Christmas and I have to say I have loved each book.  I plan to do a post about the entire series when I finish the last one.

I know the movies are very popular as well.  I've seen the first two and enjoyed them, so I plan to watch the rest when I can manage it.

I've set myself a reading goal of 50 books this year.  I usually set a goal of 100, but I never reach it.  This year I decided to set a goal that's attainable, and I'm off to a good start with 10 books so far for January.

I'm really looking forward to a year of reading, blogging, and following all the great blogs that I love!  Thanks to all of you who read mine!

My Thoughts On Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Source:  Goodreads

I'm happy to report (my daughter's even happier) that I have finally finished my first Harry Potter! I really enjoyed this book, and I absolutely love love the characters.  I can't wait to read the next one which my daughter has been kind enough to let me borrow!

My Thoughts On "Crossed" By Ally Condie

Source:  Goodreads

Crossed is the second book in the Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie.  It is the story of Cassia who has found a way to leave the controlling "Society" and all of it's rules and regulations behind in search of Ky; the boy she wasn't supposed to fall in love with but did anyway.  We follow Cassia as she leaves her family and her best friend and true Society Match, Xander behind and finds a way into the Outer Provinces where she believes Ky to be, and then as she runs to the Carving, a grouping of canyons that just might lead to Ky and the rebellion called The Rising that she is so eager to join.  Along the way she is forced to do things she never thought she could and make decisions she never thought she would.

I liked this one, but I have to admit that I didn't like it as much as Matched.  Matched was a real page turner for me.  I couldn't put it down.  With this one, I enjoyed it while I was reading but I would go a day and not ever pick it up.  It seemed to me there was a lot of the same thing happening over and over again throughout most of the book.  It did pick up toward the end though, and over all I really enjoyed it.  I love the characters in this book, so I will absolutely read the final book in the trilogy, Reached.  I think I've figured out what's going to happen!  It's due out in November, so I guess we'll see (:

I'd also like to say after much begging by my 9 year old daughter...I'm finally reading Harry Potter. I think I may be the only one left on the planet that hasn't!

"Like Water for Chocolate"...The Book And The Movie

A while ago I read Like Water for Chocolate.  I really liked it, but it's one of the strangest books I've ever read.  Last night I had the opportunity to watch a movie version of the book.  I liked it as well, but I found it just as strange as the book.

Source:  Goodreads

I found the movie version on Netflix.  It's in Spanish but subtitled.  If you've never read the book or watched the movie and are looking for something different, give both a try.