Book Reviews

I have three books I want to recommend. The first is called, The American Patriot's Almanac by William J. Bennett and John T.E. Cribb. It has daily readings on America. Each day of the year they tell what things have happened on that day over the years. They will highlight one event with a short article, then have a listing of days and more events at the bottom of the page. Such as, January 9, in 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, it was a pamphlet that caused the colonies to long for independence. Other things that happened on that day: in 1788 Connecticut became the 5th state, in 1861 the Union merchant ship Star of the West is fired on in Charleston harbor as it attempts to resupply Fort Sumter, it was the first shots fired of the Civil War. My husband reads it to us at the beginning of our dinner meal. It is a lot of fun to see what has happened over the years each day.

Second, I want to recommend Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig Ph.D. I had heard it talked about for about 3 or 4 years and finally decided to pick it up when some friends of mine shared a recipe from it. I am so glad that I got it. It is so much more than a cook book. It tells you what your nutritional needs are and shows a lot of the misinformation that we are fed from nutritionists and the medical community as a whole. My eyes have been opened a lot. Did you know this about homogenization: "This is the process whereby the fat particles of cream are strained through tiny pores under great pressure. The resulting fat particles are so small that they stay in suspension rather than rise to the top of the milk. This makes the fat and choesterol more susceptible to rancidity and oxidation, and some research indicates that homogenized fats may contribute to heart disease."
The third book I am recommending, is brand new. It is called, For You They Signed by Marilyn Boyer. This is a book that tells the stories about all the signers of the Declaration of Independence. It can be used as a curriculum or just read through. How many of us even know who signed it, let alone their stories. Did you know that the day they signed the Declaration of Independence that they started that day with prayer and that they declared a fast for the whole continent? Did you know that the signers, started on the right hand side of the page and signed by state beginning with New Hampshire? These and a lot of other questions will be answered as you read this very important part of history. I look forward to reading this with my daughters.

Good Old Cowboy (Time for a good laugh)

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Editor's note: Do you need something to smile about? Every day, WND selects the best joke offered up by readers and contributors to its Laughlines forum and brings it to you as the WND Joke of the Day. Here is today's offering:

A cowboy named Bud was watching his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Idaho when suddenly a brand-new BMW advances out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location, which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds he gets an e-mail on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored.

He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with e-mail on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, gets a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on, amused, as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks for a second and says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a congressman for the U.S. government," says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?" "No guessing," said the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows … this is a herd of sheep.

"Now give me back my dog."

A Real Surprise

"for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." I Samuel 16:7b

Susan Boyle on Britain Got Talent
Uploaded by dwarthy

Ready for a new week

I am back from an awesome Easter weekend. God truly blessed us, as we gathered yesterday with our home church. We shared a meal together, had a great time of fellowship and worship, and shared communion together. We were missing one family, but we still had 22 children and 8 adults present. I am thankful for the wonderful family that hosted us, it was truly a blessing.

Now it is time to start a new week. I wonder what God has in store for us this week....?

Closing Off for The Weekend

I just want to say, have a great weekend. I pray that everyone will be celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, this weekend. I will be back on Monday sometime.

Veggies are Growing

After only 10 days, almost all of our tomatoes and green onions are growing in their peat pots in our den. They are sitting on their warming pad and under their grow light. The tomato plants are almost three inches tall. You can almost see them grow, they are growing so fast. I don't know how much longer we will be able to leave them in this growing tray. We purchased some large pots to put them in once they are ready to go outside, but we will be needing to make a temporary change into a smaller pot before they will be hardy enough to go outside.

Today we are in the upper 60's to lower 70's, but this is not the norm for this time of year here, so I know it will be at least 4-6 weeks before we will be able to put our tomatoes outside. The soil is in the 30's at night, but into the 70's during the day. The green onions will be able to go out as soon as they are about 3 inches tall, but not until we are closer to the last average frost for here, which is closer to Mother's Day. In a week or two, we will plant some more seeds inside so they will be ready to go outside by the first of June. We are so excited for our garden this year. We are much more prepared than we have ever been.

(sorry we don't have any photos, we don't have a camera anymore and I am not sure when we will be getting one.)

We Are Seeing Green already!!

The girls were so excited this morning. When they got up they went and checked on our seeds and discovered that there were two kinds of onions coming up already and one of the tomato plants. Tonight the tomato plant already has two leaves on it and more "green" is popping up in the other pots. It is truly a miracle that we are watching unfold, as these little seeds become plants which will bear vegetables and fruit that we will use to nourish our family. I am so thankful that God has blessed us this way.

Starting with Seeds

We planted some seeds this past weekend. We planted two types of tomatoes and two types of onions. They are on their warming mat and under their growing lamp. We can't wait to see the first little bits of green. Right now the cover over them is covered with "dew" so we can't see inside. I know it is too early, but I will peek every day to see how they are doing.

A New Resolution for ME

I saw on another blog their decision to unplug today. I just saw it today and so didn't know to plan to unplug. But after thinking about it for awhile, I have decided to make my weekends computer free. So starting tonight I am planning on keeping the computer off from Friday night until Monday morning. No more blogging, FaceBook, emails, or surfing the web. I want to use this time to focus on my family and my God. I will use it to spend more uninterrupted time with my family and spend more time reading God's Word, praying, and memorizing His Word. I would encourage all of my blogging friends to do the same thing. Computers are great tools, but we must not let them become instruments of the devil by taking us away from our families and God. If anyone notices me on during a weekend, please send me a note and ask me what in the world I am doing taking time away from my family and God. I would appreciate the accountability.

Gardening Time Again!!!

Last years garden, something to look forward to this year.

Well, it is that time of year again. Our seeds arrived about six weeks ago. We have separated them according to when they should go in the ground. This year, we purchased a heating mat and grow light, so we can give some of our plants a head start inside. This weekend, we will begin planting those seeds that need that head start. We also picked up a soil thermometer so we can keep tabs on the temperature of the soil. Our soil is waaaaaay too cold right now, it is about 40 degrees in the mornings. We are talking about making another raised bed and adding some pots for our tomatoes, potatoes and herbs this year. We are so excited about getting our garden in and watching those beautiful little seeds become green leaves, then grow blossoms and have vegetables to enjoy when they are completed. It truly is a miracle that we can put a little seed in the ground and out comes healthy vegetables. God has truly blessed us with this ability.
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