I did it again. Started another blog.
Educating Magpies: Life Without School is my new blog home for all things home schooling related. It’s still bare bones, but I have a few posts up – my most recent about bad attitudes and perfection – I hope you check it out if you are interested in following our home school journey.
Paper Bridges will continue to be my book blog for reviews, giveaways and commentary from a Christian reader’s perspective.
Thanks! See you here or over at Educating Magpies.
Home schooling.
House keeping.
Church commitments.
Blogging.
Email, Facebook, Twitter, Ning groups, LOST (yeah! it’s back.)
With all of these good (and maybe not so good) things to do and occupy our time, how do you find the time and energy to read?
Seriously! I want to know. Because I’m having a hard time keeping up.
I remember back to my lazy college days of when I had an abundance of free time to just ignore the outside world and do nothing but read to my heart’s content. O, the amount of pages I could fly through! Of course, back then I was without household to manage, sans children and husband. I had oodles of free-reading time.
Life was lazy from one wonderful book to the next. Now, not so much.
My to-be-read book pile gets larger. My heart wants to read more. Yet daily life. . . and I like reading blogs, Twitter, and my love for LOST.
So.
How do you fit it all in? All the books, yet still manage to life a balanced life?
Played the Book Game on Facebook the other day.
If you spend any amount of time goofing off in online circles, then you probably know how it goes. Grab the nearest book, no cheating going to dig out a title that you know will be good or make you look smarter, open to Page 56. Count down to Sentence No. 5.
Now the fun part: broadcast that sentence on your profile (Facebook, Twitter, where ever you normally express your thoughts.) Finish by laughing at all the random goofiness or wisdom coming from an author’s page. I imagine there has been a lot of stupid sentences shared due to the Book Game.
Normally I don’t share space on my computer desk with books. I have papers, pens, notebooks, newspapers, along with various clutter that makes me look like I’m a serious producer of quality content. I don’t read books at this desk, so no books to grab.
But while writing that blog post about Committed last week, a friend threw down a Book Game challenge, and – finally! – Committed snuggling in the mess on my desk.
Open book. Count down. Sentence No. 5.
Are you ready for what Ms. Gilbert has for us?
As Jesus taught: “If any man me to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:2).
Personally, I think Liz knows the Book Game and intentionally put that there, knowing someday it would be called upon to be written on many a Facebook profile or blog post. Wasn’t that nice of her?
Love it, love it.
***
The scripture verse is in the chapter on Marriage and History; Gilbert has a lot to say regarding the Church and marriage. Anyone else read it? Care to discuss? The comments are open for you.
From the Christian Post:
The publishing world sees very few books reach blockbuster status, but William Paul Young’s The Shack has now exceeded even that. The book, originally self-published by Young and two friends, has now sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated into over thirty languages. It is now one of the best-selling paperback books of all time, and its readers are enthusiastic.
Follow the link to read the rest of the article. To date, it’s the best I’ve seen regarding the church’s (unfortunate) fondness for Young’s book.
From Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed (A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage):
This entire book — every single page of it — has been an effort to search through the complex history of Western marriage until I could find some small place of comfort in there for myself. Such comfort is not necessarily always an easy thing to find.
And search she does.
I like this book. I don’t agree with everything she says, but like Eat, Pray, Love, her previous book, I take in the meat and spit out the bones. Fortunately, not much spitting here.
Here is what I enjoyed about Committed:
1. It’s a fast, interesting read on the history of marriage. I know a lot more about the history of marriage after reading Committed. I’m a big fan marriage, so that’s well done.
2. Seeing how other cultures view marriage. Gilbert is a good storyteller. And when one travels the world, one tends to pick up good stories. I’m still wondering what happened to that young monk in Cambodia.
3. More Felipe. If you enjoyed the story line of Elizabeth falling for Felipe in Eat, Pray, Love, you get to see what happens next to them in Committed. Hint: it has to do with homeland security.
4. A new thought regarding marriage. Gilbert calls marriage a revolutionary act. Never heard that one before. Read the book to find out what she’s talking about. Then come back here and we can talk about it.
and finally. . .
5. I like to laugh. See page 75, middle of the first paragraph. (They are going to SAVE marriage?!? What a hoot.)
By the way: when my Edmund spotted the book in the store, he wanted to know if it was about Lord of the Rings.
I have no idea why.
I haven’t participated in the “Nightstand” Mr. Linky at 5 Minutes for Books in quite awhile. Why? Honestly I have no idea. Probably something called Life. So I jump back into the fun with what I currently have in my reading pile (you know, that book stack tower that never seems to end due to library and bookstore trips, friends lending books, and books given as presents. Fun, fun.)
Without further delay: My Pile of Books
Miss Read: Village School by Dora Jessie Saint. I opened to Page One this morning. Too early to comment other than to say, I’ve heard lots of good things about Miss Read. No pressure, Miss Read, no pressure.
Problogger (Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income) by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett. Stop laughing. As a mere amateur blogger, I read this to learn more about the how-to’s of a well-kept blog.
Black by Ted Dekker. I don’t know if I will ever get into this book properly, as I’ve tried with the first chapter and, well. . . . we will see.
The Tipping Point (How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference) by Malcolm Gladwell. Thoroughly enjoying it. This was a Christmas present to Doc, and he didn’t think I would like it, but I knew I would – that’s one of the reasons I gave it to my husband. Sneaky, huh? This book is worthy of it’s own little post, and I’m not done reading, so you have to wait for more commentary here.
Lastly, I’m still poking my nose in Committed (A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage) by Elizabeth Gilbert, my current blogging inspiration, which also happens to be a whopping 55% off at Amazon. This won’t do, people! How the heck is Liz supposed to stay in New Jersey if her freshly-printed latest is too inexpensive. Don’t these publishers and retailers know the woman has to pay New Jersey property taxes, car insurance, blah, blah, etc., etc. Sheesh.
~Yo, Monica! Didn’t you borrow Committed from the library?
Um.
~That’s what I thought. Perhaps you should mention that you didn’t buy it either, you Library Rat.
Hey! That’s it for me this month.
Happy Reading!
