Little Okie Homestead

If you read my post about the children's books we read this week you know I had a crazy week of catch up from last weekend, working with Hubby and driving the 30 minutes to and from church twice a day to get Monkey to and from camp. It was busy! Even through all that and using my one child only time to get some much needed minimizing done in the boys room I was able to get through some reading. I'm glad that I was able to enjoy some down time reading too. Books I Read This Week The Brainy Bunch I have read part of this book before we made the move to OK because the idea really interested me. I'm not sure that my boys will start college at age 12 like this family but by mid-teens I could see them dual enrolled in some course at the local college. The beginning of the book was hard for me to get through. I like hearing about their story and how they got where they are in life but I really picked it up for more of how they accomplished it. I skimmed through ...

I really want to focus on reading much more than I currently do. I read here and there. I'm currently trying to read through the whole Bible and it's been pretty slow lately. It wasn't until I picked up The Selection about a week ago that I realized how much time I actually had to read. I became addicted to know what happened next in the series and I couldn't wait for the books to come in from the library. Thanks to my friend over at Building Our Story for posting a review on the series . To be honest I was desperate for a book and I didn't even read the whole review. I just put a hold request at the library and waited for it to come in. Books I Finished This Week The Elite and The One   It took me a while to get into the first book. I've read so many "in the future books" and Hubby loves watching shows based on "in the future" themes that I'm getting a bit bored with them. But the more time I spent reading it the more I g...

Francine Rivers has done it again! I picked up " The Atonement Child " from the library to have a fun book to read. Of course her books are the lighthearted variety but they are page turners for sure! I started reading the book when my hubby was working nights. I knew that I wouldn't be sleeping well so reading would be better than staying up all night watching TV. Well that was not the best choice. The book starts out with the main character being attacked at night and raped. Not a good thing to read when your home alone all night but I had to keep reading to know what happened to this lovely Christian girl. Her life gets turned upside down after the rape happens. She gets pregnant, her finance can't handle the fact that she is not "unclean" and the Christian school asks her to leave due to being pregnant. What is she to do? Everyone tells her if anyone has the right to an abortion it would be her, however, she is unsure. She doesn't feel it...

Have you ever looked at your life and wondered if it could do better than what it is? Have you ever wondered as a homemaker if that is all your life was going to be? Although I have never felt the latter I do wonder if cleaning house is all my life will consist of. I know that isn't true because I have one of the most rewarding jobs in the world. I know that nothing else can compare to my job in raising children to be wonderful, caring, adults that seek to do the best they can do in their lives. So even though I do know this,  there are times during the day when I'm cleaning the kitchen yet again or disciplining one of my boys for 5th time that day for the same thing, that I get discouraged and question what I'm doing. All I need is a little perspective! The Noticer by Andy Anderson has so many examples of gaining new perspective in many situations. It's a very uplifting book that also makes you think about your life. It has many great stories and many wonderful...

After reading  Words  I had a hard time getting into another book. It really seemed like there problems were meaningless after the things I read in Words. However, I kept looking and trying different books. Well, something in A Mile in My Flip-Flops by Melody Carlson caught my attention and I think it was because I could see that this could have been my path in life if my circumstances were different. Gretchen is thirty-something and stuck in life. She is stuck because she has a broken heart. She attempts to mourn her loss of her fiance (who left her a week before the wedding) by eating ice cream and watching HGTV.  So finally she comes up with a brilliant idea on how to change to her life. She will flip her own house! If she can do this she can make enough profit to get a house of her own so she can get out of her tiny apartment with her big lab puppy. What could possibly go wrong with that plan? Well, plenty! The house she picks is way ab...

I love reading. Lately I have been watching what I read because of the crazy emotions that pregnancy causes. However, I knew I wanted to read it and found it in the library and just grabbed it. It was a book that just after a few pages I couldn't put down even though I was really nervous about the emotions that it might cause because of it's content.  Words  by Ginny Yttrup is a book that everyone should read. Kaylee is a little girl that is living a life that no child should have to live. Her mother is addicted to drugs and abandoned her in a remote cabin with a very evil man. She doesn't speak anymore as she has no other way to deal with the situation and feelings she has. She has the dictionary that is her only connection to her mom she has. She collects words in her box in her mind to pass the time and to help keep distracted from all of her suffering. Then there is Sierra who is an artist. She has her own struggles that she deals with daily. She tries ...

Every week we head to the library and get new books to read at home. This past week I read Toy Boat by Randall de Seve and Loren Long almost every day and several times a day. Rex loved it! It is a really cute book about a boy who makes a boat that he loves and takes everywhere. One day a storm hits and his boat gets lost on the lake. There are a bunch of mean boats that don't want the little boat near them. Then a nice boat comes along the next morning and helps the boat get sailing in the wind right back home to the boy.  I think it's a really cute story. Not really to much of a moral or learning book but just a fun book to read over and over again. I think we will be getting this book from the library again soon and maybe even purchase it at some point in the future.

I have started off good so far this year. Finished the book Body Surfing  by Anita Shreve in about three days! Go me! The book was a easy read and kept my attention.  It's about a woman who has been married twice, once divorced and once widowed. She is trying to figure out where life is going to take her and spends the summer with the Edwards family on New Hampshire's cost.  She is a tutor for Julie, the 18 year old daughter who is preparing for the SAT's the following year. When her brothers, Jeff and Ben, come to the house things start to get interesting.  BOOK SYNOPSIS: At the age of twenty-nine, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to regain her footing, she has answered an ad to tutor the teenage daughter of a well-to-do couple as they spend a sultry summer in their oceanfront New Hampshire cottage.  But when the Edwardses' two grown sons, Ben and Jeff, arrive at the beach house, Sydney finds herself caught up ...

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen I would have to say is a must read. It shows how life was in the 1930's for the circus. It has a great romance story line without the trashy sex scenes of tradition romance novels. There are several sentences throughout the book that do explain some sex scenes but it really isn't bad and can be easily skipped over if it is found offensive. Jacob is the main character and time flips back and forth through each chapter. He starts out trying to remember if he is 90 or 93 years old and stuck in a nursing home then the next chapter he is 23 years and reliving his life. His love on the circus was the main start, Marlena, who performed with the horses and eventually with Rosie the elephant. The problem in this story is that Marlena is married to August, the circus animal trainer and main management. This love triangle has some exciting twists and turns that I will not reveal in this review. After I read the book I went and saw the movie and I loved it...