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The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes Winner

Catherine Gillespie@A Spirited Mind — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:00:29 +0000

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway for The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes. The winner, chosen randomly, is Erika!

If you didn’t win, you can purchase the book on Amazon, or find it at your library. Requesting that your library get copies of books is a great way to support authors and is helpful to the rest of your community too.

Giveaway Winner – To Be Sung Underwater

Catherine Gillespie@A Spirited Mind — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:14:45 +0000

The winner of the giveaway for To Be Sung Underwater is:

WENDY!

Wendy is a long-time reader of A Spirited Mind and writes a blog too, Of Books and Boys. Wendy, send me your address and I’ll send it along to the publisher.

If you’d like to read the book, don’t forget that you can ask your library to get a copy, or find one on Amazon. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how good authors need our support – if you can’t afford to buy every book you read, do consider asking your librarian to buy one for your library.

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway!

The Five Ways We Grieve Giveaway Winner

Catherine Gillespie@A Spirited Mind — Mon, 09 May 2011 18:23:52 +0000

I apologize for not getting this posted over the weekend, but the winner of The Five Ways We Grieve giveaway (chosen by the random number generator at random.org) is:

Stacie from Motherhood on a Dime

If you’d like to read the book too, you can get it on Amazon or check to see if your library has a copy. Once you’ve read it, be sure to let me know what you think!

Interesting Links

Catherine Gillespie@A Spirited Mind — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 09:00:22 +0000

It has been about four months since I’ve done a link post, so here are a random hodge-podge of posts that I bookmarked on various topics since then. Have a great weekend!

Quotes and Things to Think About

“The older we get, the more … you realize there’s a whole range of things you will never do, of things and people you will never be. As life becomes more and more limiting, there is something wonderful about being able to get inside the skin of people unlike yourself.” – Lee Smith (via Christina Baker Kline)
“Stress is a choice. Do you buy that? Some people have a hard time with the idea. …Yes, bad things happen: The economy sours, our business struggles, the stock market tumbles, jobs are lost, people around us don’t follow through, deadlines are missed, projects fail, good people leave. Life is full of these. But still, stress is a choice because whatever the ‘trigger event,’ we always choose our own response. We choose to react angrily. We choose to stuff our emotions and keep quiet. We choose to worry. …Stress is a choice.” (via Simple Mom)
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.” – G.K. Chesterton (via GirlTalk)
“God does the same thing with you, over and over again. He meets you in one of the difficult hallways of your life, kneels down before you in love, and asks you to trust his loving and wise rule, even though you don’t have a clue what he is doing.” (Paul Tripp, via Desiring God)
Whatever he uses to crush our self-sufficiency and self-righteousness is good for us. The tools he uses may be different for you. The path is worn and the process is painful no matter the means. But take heart. (An excellent post from Life in Grace)
“Every single thing that happens to us expresses God’s love to us, and comes to us for the furthering of God’s purpose for us. Thus, so far as we are concerned, God is love to us–holy, omnipotent love–at every moment and in every event of every day’s life. Even when we cannot see the why and the wherefore of God’s dealings, we know that there is love in and behind them, and so we can rejoice always, even when, humanly speaking, things are going wrong. We know that the true story of our life, when known, will prove to be, as the hymn says, “mercy from first to last” — and we are content.” – J.I.Packer (via GirlTalk)

Parenting

An unusual way to think about family size: rather than basing the whole decision on the baby’s sleepless nights, consider what kind of family you want when you’re 50, 70, 90… (via The Wall Street Journal)
Helping little girls sort out their emotions so they can control them – excellent post from Femina.
“Success as a mother doesn’t begin with hard work or sound principles or consistent discipline (although those are all vital components!). It begins with God: His character, His faithfulness, His promises, His sovereignty. And as our understanding of these truths increases, so will our faith for mothering. But if our practices (no matter how useful) aren’t motivated by faith, they will be fruitless.” (via GirlTalk)
Thoughts on talking to your girls (via Femina)
Great reference for teaching character (thanks Vicky!)

Creating

Unbelievably adorable baby shower cookies (A Little Loveliness)
An heirloom take on the basic pillowcase dress (A Little Loveliness)
I love MacGyver cooking: here’s how to make a pizza crust out of zucchini!

If you’re looking for something to read

Here is my round-up of great kids books for autumn and Thanksgiving (maybe too soon for Thanksgiving, but never too soon for The Ox Cart Man!
The latest books I’ve read and reviewed for adults

Becoming a Writer and Committed to Memory – Week in Books #39

Catherine Gillespie@A Spirited Mind — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 09:00:44 +0000

Although she wrote this book of advice on writing nearly 80 years ago, Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer is excellent encouragement and good medicine if you’re engaged in or contemplating writing in any fashion. Unlike many books of writing craft, this one deals primarily with intangibles that afflict beginning writers, and since I’m struggling with many of them myself I found it helpful. Most of all, I appreciated Brande’s perspective that one should not let frustrations like writer’s block or wondering if you’re any good get in the way of a desire to write, and that rather than being paralyzed by doubt and slain by your inner critic, you can find ways around common missteps and around common pitfalls. I’d recommend this book if you’re the type of person who enjoys reading about writing.

Because I’m always on the lookout for good pieces of poetry and whatnot for the kids to memorize, I picked up Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize. After reading through it, I was left wondering what makes these poems the best to memorize? I did find a few that I think would be good to know, but was surprised at those omitted from the list. The selections seemed heavily focused on American poetry and that of one era, rather than a good collection of the poetry and prose that are most often quoted or alluded to in other literature, or that which has been most often learned in the past. Because my own education was sadly lacking in this type of memorization, I often wish I had a list of things the average educated person should know by heart. If any readers are aware of such a list or a book that has a more rigorous criteria for selection than this one, please let me know!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Water for Elephants

Catherine Gillespie@A Spirited Mind — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 09:00:32 +0000

I finally got around to reading Water for Elephants after long thinking it had an interesting title.

The book is difficult to characterize. On one hand, the author did a lot of research into circuses and the gritty details of circus life. Many of the incidents recorded in the story actually happened in real life. I found those parts interesting.

On the other hand, in between the interesting circus stories are a lot of gritty details that seemed gratuitously graphic, and at times I found the love story a little thin and difficult to get into.

I do think the author was bold to use a male main character. I have to imagine that is difficult. I also thought her decision to use a frame of the main character as an old man was interesting. Actually I liked the character as an old man much better than the character as a young man – the old man seemed more original.

In sum, this book is all right, if you can get past the thin and gratuitous parts and just focus on the old man and the circus. It’s a fast read, and not taxing, so maybe it would be good if you’re hunting a light read with some unique historical details.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Giveaway Winner!

Catherine Gillespie@A Spirited Mind — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 09:00:51 +0000

Thank you to everyone who entered the 1001 Healthy Baby Answers giveaway this week. The winner, selected via the random number generator at www.random.org, is Alison S. Alison, check your email to get your copy of the book.

Have a great weekend!

Meet the Sponsors

Catherine Gillespie@A Spirited Mind — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:00:56 +0000

It’s been a while since I highlighted the blog sponsors whose buttons appear in the sidebar. I accept ads from businesses and groups that impress me and seem like a good fit for my readers, with great products and good deals. Without further ado, here are the current sponsors so you can learn more about them and visit their sites:

I hadn’t heard of faithbooking before until I got in touch with Donna from Scrapbook your Christian Faith. Her website and e-book will walk you through how to document your faith heritage so that your children and future generations can know your story. I think this sounds like a really neat thing to do, and like something that would make a great gift for other members of your family whose faith stories you might not know.

Adorable Blessings is a great childrens clothing boutique where you can buy unique outfits for girls and boys, as well as bib and burp cloth sets and crayon rolls. The shop has some new fall clothes in stock so be sure to check it out if it’s been a while since you looked!

Every week Hope is the Word, a great blog about teaching and reading to small children, hosts Read-Aloud Thursday. This is your chance to link up reviews of childrens books and check out what other parents are reading. This blog is a great resource!

Babies Online offers lots of free things parents can sign up for, ranging from free subscriptions to parenting magazines to coupons for diapers and baby food, to discounts at other retailers. I have clicked over several times and found different items on offer, so it might be worth checking out more than once. I think it’s worth it for the high value diaper coupons alone, but I also turn the free magazines in to the used book store when I’m through with them, and use the proceeds to buy more books. If you’re near a good used book store, you might consider a few free subscriptions for that purpose too.

If you’re expecting, you can get a personalized weekly pregnancy newsletter with all the information about your baby’s gestational development that week, what you can expect, tips on how to handle common problems and have a healthy pregnancy, as well as other stuff like help picking your baby’s name and whatnot. When I was pregnant with Hannah, Jack, and Sarah I enjoyed getting weekly updates so I can keep track of what’s going on with the baby.

I presume you’re familiar with Amazon, right? When you click through one of the links in my book reviews or on the ad in my sidebar you can make your usual Amazon purchases, but I get a tiny (0-4% usually) referral fee at no additional cost to you. Plus Amazon doesn’t send me a notification about what you bought, so I won’t judge you if you’re buying neon green patent leather bootsneon green patent leather boots or something. Even if I know you in real life I won’t judge you for the patent leather boots, though I will not ask to borrow them. You go ahead and rock those boots, girl. And thank you to the readers who make purchases through my affiliate links, I really appreciate it!

I’ve waxed eloquent before about the various and sundry reasons you should join and use Swagbucks. If you’re new here, Swagbucks is a search engine that pays you to search the web. It’s just like google or ask or any of the other search engines, except instead of pocketing the revenue they make from selling ads and clicks like the other companies do, Swagbucks passes some of that bounty on to you. You can redeem the Swagbucks you earn for all sorts of prizes or even cash to your paypal account, but I still think the best deal is the Amazon gift cards. Even if you do just one search a day, you will make enough Swagbucks to get a $5 Amazon gift card in a month. It’s a great program.

As always, thanks for reading A Spirited Mind and for visiting these sponsors!

Book Review: Created To Be His Help Meet

Scarce

Catherine Gillespie@A Spirited Mind — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:30:43 +0000

Sorry for the paucity of posts lately, but things have been really busy around here lately. I’m sure you know how that goes. I am taking a break from some other projects for a while starting next week, so regular … Continue reading → Related posts:

The Namesake, Week in Books #27c

Catherine Gillespie@A Spirited Mind — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 01:56:46 +0000

If you can believe it, here is yet another book that will make the top reads for 2010 list. Jhumpa Lahiri’s incredible novel The Namesake is full of exquisite descriptions of the lives of Indian immigrants and their children. The book is gorgeously written, so much so that I really want to stop everything and read every single one of her books right now.

The premise of the novel surrounds the baby boy born to Bengali parents in Boston. His grandmother back in India was supposed to send a letter giving his name, but the letter was lost and the parents can’t leave the hospital without naming the child. They give him a nickname, Gogol, based on the father’s love of literature and the fact that he feels that reading Gogol saved his life once. The parents are confused by American rules, Gogol grows to hate his name and wants to be more “normal,” casting about for traction in America, never quite fitting in no matter what name he goes by. Through it all, this is a story of family, of identity (there it is again, my favorite literary theme), of discovering what is truly important. All wonderfully, beautifully told. I loved this book, and recommend it highly.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. You can find more information on my disclosure policy in the sidebar link at right.