Gratitude Box and Letters To My Future Self

I don't blame you at all for being sick of hearing about graduation stuff, but I have just one more thing I want to share with you so please bear with me.

My sister, Carole is a fabulous gift giver!! She has an amazing knack for finding the wittiest, funniest, and most appropriate gifts for any occasion. Combine her skill with our family's long history of giving homemade, comical "Survival Kits"for every occasion from retirement to marriage, and you can imagine the ultimate "College Graduation Survival Kit" that Carole put together for Madeleine to open at her post-graduation family luncheon. It contained little gifts organized into categories with titles such as Wisdom, Values, Southern Personality, Family Ties, and more. Each category had a funny quote that explained the category and, well, it was just epic!!


But the reason I am sharing this with you is to tell you about two items that I thought were especially great gifts that you may be able to use in the future- the Gratitude Box and Letters To Future Myself.

Top of Box

Message on the inside lid.

I think this would make a great gift for several occasions. Carole found it a Francesca's. They have other styles.

I think this would be a fun gift for many ages and occasions.

This product is by Lea Redmond.  This little book contains sealable envelopes with varying themes for each letter such as...

and This is what I live for..., It was an extraordinary day..., I promise myself..., and A pep talk for the future me...

There are several other fun options. You can order these at Barnes & Noble as well as other places.

OK, no more graduation posts! I promise!! Next week we are going to talk about the Mobile Flower Show and enjoy some amazing floral designs like this one...

Love ya'll,

Shelli

Book Week: The Armor of God

Let's end our week of books  with something really special! 

The Armor of God is a seven week Bible study by Priscilla Shirer. It is based on Ephesians 6 in which Paul tells the Ephesians to arm themselves for life by putting on the armor of God.  

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God,so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvationand the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

www.lifeway.com says this:

All day, every day, an invisible war rages around you — unseen, unheard, yet felt throughout every aspect of your life. A devoted, devilish enemy seeks to wreak havoc on everything that matters to you: your heart, your mind, your marriage, your children, your relationships, your resilience, your dreams, your destiny. But his battle plan depends on catching you unaware and unarmed. If you're tired of being pushed around and caught with your guard down, this study is for you.

The Enemy always fails miserably when he meets a woman dressed for the occasion. The Armor of God, more than merely a biblical description of the believer's inventory, is an action plan for putting it on and developing a personalized strategy to secure victory. 

Author: Priscilla Shirer is a wife and mom first, but put a Bible in her hand and a message in her heart, and you'll see why thousands meet God in powerful, personal ways at her conferences. With a Master's Degree in biblical studies from Dallas Theological Seminary, Priscilla brings the depths of Scripture to life. Her Bible studies span such topics as Exodus, hearing the voice of God, and biblical characters like Jonah and Gideon. She has also written many books, including the New York Times bestseller The Resolution for Women She and her husband, Jerry, lead Going Beyond Ministries, through which they provide spiritual training, support, and resources to the body of Christ. They count it as their greatest privilege to serve every denomination and culture across the spectrum of the church.

The book comes with a DVD.  Be sure to get both if you are going to do this study on your own rather than with a group. I started this study with my Sunday School teacher and there are about twenty of us in the group.  She already has many more signed up for a repeat study in March.  My sister, Jamie, is doing the same study in Allen, TX. 

Uplifting and empowering, you would really enjoy this clear, concise study. It would be great to do with a group of friends.

Well, thus ends our week of books! I hope you find one to enjoy during the last cold weeks of winter.

Love ya'll, 

Shelli

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

 ~Anna Quindlen

I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go into the library and read a good book. 

~Groucho Marx

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.

~William Hazlitt

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. 

~Paul Sweeney

Book Week: The Last Time They Met

The other books we've talked about this week have all gotten great reviews. Today's book however sends people to either end of the spectrum with their reactions.  They either love it or they hate it. I obviously am on the love side.

From goodreads:


From the last time Linda and Thomas meet, at a charmless hotel in a distant city, to the moment, thirty-five years earlier, when a chance encounter on a rocky beach binds them fatefully together, this hypnotically compelling novel unfolds a tale of intense passion, drama, and suspense. The Last Time They Met is a singularly ambitious and accomplished work by one of today's most widely celebrated novelists.

I read The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve years ago and it can still run shivers up my spine. It is truly haunting! But know that I am not a particularly critical reader. The author's style rarely registers on my enjoyment meter. I am all about the story and I love this one!

Love ya'll,

Shelli

If there is a day to act on the Love in your soul it is today, it is this moment. 

~Mike Dolan

When love is not madness, it is not love. 

~Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Love is a sweet tyranny, because the lover endureth his torments willingly.

 ~Proverb

Book Week: A Long Way From Chicago

Oh my goodness!!! 

As I read this little book, I laughed out loud! 

A Long From Chicago by Richard Peck was recommended recently by a friend.  It is the charming tale of two children from Chicago whose parents force them to spend a week each summer with their grandmother who lives in a tiny little town in rural Illinois. Each chapter is one summer's tale starting in the year 1929.

Wikkipedia says,

A Long Way from Chicago is a "novel in stories" (or short story cycle) by Richard Peck. It was awarded the Newbery Honor in 1999. Peck's sequel to this book, A Year Down Yonder, won the Newbery Medal for children's literature in 2001.

Goodreads says,

Join Joey and his sister Mary Alice as they spend nine unforgettable summers with the worst influence imaginable--their grandmother!

You'll find this special little read in the teen section of your library.  Have fun!!!!!

Love ya'll, 

Shelli

Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you’re just a mother. 

The next you are all-wise and prehistoric. 

~Pam Brown

When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window.

 ~Ogden Nash

Grandma always made you feel she had been waiting to see just you all day

 and now the day was complete. 

~Marcy DeMaree

The simplest toy, one which even the youngest child can operate,

 is called a grandparent. 

~Sam Levenson

Book Week: Freedom From Emotional Eating

I need to lose twenty pounds. I've needed to lose twenty pounds for twenty years. I've tried twenty different ways to lose twenty pounds. I would pay twenty million dollars to lose these twenty pounds!!! :-( 

I needed help and I found it in this book whose complete title is Freedom From Emotional Eating: A Weight Loss Bible Study by Barb Raveling.

Amazon says this:

This 8-week Bible study contains 40 daily lessons that will help you 1) break free from the stronghold of emotional eating and 2) let go of those negative emotions that rob your joy. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthian 10:3-5 that the answer to tearing down a stronghold isn't self-control - it's truth. Freedom from Emotional Eating will help you take off the lies that make you overeat and put on the truth that will set you free from the control of food. 

I started this book around Thanksgiving when my regular Bible study group decided to take a break for the holiday season. Starting the day with Bible study had gotten to be a habit that I didn't want to let go, so I went searching for a study to work through on my own. Now that our computers track everything we ever search for on the Internet, my separate searches for "weight loss" and "Bible study" made this title pop up out of the blue!  What luck!! It is a wonderful study!

Of course, we all know that if you have a problem with emotional eating, there is an underlying cause(s) of that problem. Throughout the entire study, the author systematically leads you to the discovery of your personal underlying cause. You must understand the enemy to defeat it! :-)

 Here are the first three weeks of study in which the author helps you identify the stronghold food has in your life and how God's truths can help you break those bonds. She helps you realize that you have set food as an idol in your life, something you turn to for comfort rather than the turning to God's statutes.

Week 1: Truth (It is important to start by realizing that we have screwed up our thinking with all kinds of lies about food and why we eat. She teaches the habit of truth journaling and it is awesome!)
Week 2: Trials (Mrs. Raveling says, "God wants to bring good things out of the trials we go through, but when we use food to escape, we miss out on all He's trying to teach us.")
Week 3: Idolatry (She helps you identify your idols so that you can adjust your attitudes.)

I have to say that I was shocked when I identified my idols as peace, perfection, and control. These seemed like good traits to me, traits that would result in an ordered, productive life. But when your idols become "have-to-haves" they begin to control you! So when things weren't perfect, I would get stressed and eat! When my to-do list got out of my control, I stressed out and ate! When everything in my life wasn't peaceful, I ate! You really are your worst enemy.

The remaining weeks concentrate on...

Week 4: Worry
Week 5: Discouragement and Boredom
Week 6: Anger
Week 7: Stress and Anxiety
Week 8: Depression, Loneliness, and Celebration

The study is full of scripture and she encourages you to memorize verses to turn to in times of weakness.  I bought the book on my Kindle and did all of my note taking, scripture writing, and question answering in a plain spiral notebook, but you may want to buy the actual workbook.

So there you go!! Not a diet; a whole new outlook!  If you share these struggles, I think this book can make the difference.

And finally, if Paul will forgive me for this version of his words in Romans 12:2......

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world (Vogue magazine, cheeseburgers with fries, cleanses and smoothies, Facebook comparisons, 40 oz. sodas, Kardashians, fashion, to-do lists, fitting in, diets, botox, and fakeness), but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Bible study). Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing, and perfect will."

Love ya'll,

Shelli

I've been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I've lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.

 ~Erma Bombeck

I recently had my annual physical examination, which I get once every seven years, and when the nurse weighed me, I was shocked to discover how much stronger the Earth's gravitational pull has become since 1990.

 ~Dave Barry

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. 

Unless there are three other people. 

~Orson Welles

Book Week: The Pecan Man

Haven't we been lucky?!!!!  We have been gifted with a spell of spring weather right in the middle of winter! Unfortunately the long term weather forecast from the Farmer's Almanac says February will return us to cold, wet, typical winter weather. With that in mind,  I thought that we would talk about some good books to read during the remaining winter days.  Let's start with The Pecan Man by Cassie Dandridge Selleck.

Here is the synopsis from Amazon:



The Pecan Man is a work of Southern fiction by Florida native Cassie Dandridge Selleck. Its first chapter was the First Place winner of the 2006 CNW/FFWA Florida State Writing Competition in the Unpublished Novel category. 

In the summer of 1976, recently widowed and childless Ora Lee Beckworth hires a homeless old black man to mow her lawn. The neighborhood children call him the Pee-can Man; their mothers call them inside whenever he appears. When he is arrested for murder, only Ora knows the truth about the man she calls Eddie. But truth is a fickle thing, and a lie is self-perpetuating. Ora and her maid Blanche soon find themselves in a web of lies that send an innocent man to prison for the rest of his life. Twenty-five years later, Ora sets out to tell the truth about the Pecan Man. Listen as she begins her story:

"Blanche worked for me through birth and death, joy and sorrow and Lord knows we had a lot of sorrow in all the time we spent under this roof. Most people figured she was crazy to put up with me all those years, but Blanche and I had an understanding. It was a vow we made back in 1976. Neither of us spoke of it afterwards, but it hung between us like a spider web, fragile and easy to break, but danged hard to get shed of once the threads took hold."

This book has been touted as a cross between To Kill A Mocking Bird and The Help. It is a short book and an easy read, but the main reason I am recommending it is because it is a story that stays with you after you read the last page.  There are numerous glowing reviews on the web about The Pecan Man and I agree with each of them, but it is this one review that I found on Good Reads that sums up why I hope you'll read this book.

"Though this book was an interesting read and well-written, something irked me while reading it. I know the author did not set out for it to be offensive - she nearly says as much in the intro, but in some way it still is by romanticizing the relationship of a white woman and her African-American maid. Yes, the lady of the house was portrayed as very progressive, but I can't help but feel that the storyline was written for a white audience to read and pat themselves on the back for being "the good guys" during a still horrible time in the American South even though Jim Crow laws were officially over. I wonder how different the story would have been if someone would have given the pen to the housekeeper." 

In my favorite scene Ora is shopping with Blanche's oldest daughter. At first Ora seems like a true champion of the oppressed, but then she realizes how shallow her own comprehension of the situation really was.  Not often do you read a book capable of truly convicting you of your own blind spots. The Pecan Man is one of those books.

I think you will really enjoy this book. It would be perfect for a book club as it has much occasion for discussion and growth.  That's it - growth!!  The Pecan Man has the potential to help you grow in understanding another person's point of view and respect for other people's experiences, while also convicting you of our often feeble attempts to do what's "right".  

Love ya'll, 

Shelli

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.

 ~James Bryce

Free Little Libraries

Our friend, Cheryl Maxwell, invited us to her house for lunch on New Year's Day.  She has an New Year Open House and serves soup to neighbors and friends. Cheryl is such a fun person. You may remember her from last year's Master Gardener Fall Plant Sale.  She was the one who looked so chic and put together in that morning's sub-Arctic temperatures only to reveal that she still had her pajamas on underneath her clothes!

Besides getting to visit with Cheryl and her sweet husband, Richard, at the open house, I also wanted to check out her Free Little Library.

Isn't it adorable!!! Now Cheryl is creative, but she didn't dream this up on her own.  There is a whole Free Little Library movement.  You can look it up on line. Here's what Wiki had to say...

Little Free Library is a nonprofit organization that supports the worldwide movement to offer free books housed in small containers to members of the local community. The organization is based in Hudson, Wisconsin, US. Little Free Libraries are also referred to as community book exchanges, neighborhood book exchanges, book trading posts, pop-up libraries, and micro-libraries, ^[3] and have been likened to human bird feeders. ^[4]

I adore the human bird feeders analogy!!! Notice in the picture that Cheryl's library has a white label on it. When you start a little free library, you can register it and it gets its own number and everything. Isn't that deluxe!!

For more information go to http://littlefreelibrary.org/

                                                                                                       Love ya'll,
                                                                                                       Shelli

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

 ~Anna Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," New York Times, 7 August 1991

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.

 ~Charles W. Eliot

Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. 

~P.J. O'Rourke

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. ~Attributed to Groucho Marx