Book Review - "Girl Talk"

This book. Love it! Jen Hatmaker is one of my new favorite authors. She is a strong Christian woman who is funny, real, and open. It is so refreshing! In early Spring, a lady from my church (and fellow southerner!) asked about interest in a ladies Bible Study over the summer. Me and several of the girls from our church small group showed interest, as well as about 30 other ladies! Dana organized the study and hosts all of us on either Wednesdays or Fridays. God has truly gifted Dana in hosting and leading. 

Wednesday group!

 As soon as I opened this book and read the first few pages, I knew it was just what I needed. "Girl Talk!" is about women and their friendships. As women, we are relationally driven (duh). Jen explains why God built us this way, why community is so important, and how to foster healthy relationships with your girl friends.

We are about 3 weeks into the study and I have loved every week so far. Each of the 5 chapters is broken into 5 days. Jen asks the reader to spend at least 15 minutes per 5 days on the devotional and studying God's Word. The chapters include content such as God's purpose in friendships, being truthful to yourself and God, kinds of friends, gossip, and friendship builders. Each page I read, I find myself saying, "Yeesss!."

One of the things that has stuck out the most to me, is the need to be real. Dana and I share this experience, but in the south there is this underlying culture of "making it pretty." If that's not enough, social media makes it worse! We don't live in a perfect world people. Lets.be.real. Real problems, real friendships, and real life. Like I said, it is refreshing! Which bring me to this piece in the book - there is no place for fake.

"He would prefer an honest mess over a pretty lie every day of the week." I'm a Christian and I'm a mess. See what I mean?? Yeeessss! So now, I'm taking this mess and working on building strong, Christian friendships. Do I have girl friends? Yes, yes I do. and I love them all. I/we are taking these friendships and making them even better. I love my girls and God has blessed us with such an amazing group of people to do life with. I think every woman can benefit from this book! It's a must read.

Favorites ~ Pregnancy Books

I am definitely a book nerd. As soon as we found out we were pregnant, Barnes and Noble was one of the first places that I wanted to go. I wanted a pregnancy book that would tell me all about the changes my body was going through as well as give me some insight into what our Lil' Bit was doing and how he was growing. Here's a list of my favorite pregnancy/baby books so far.

1. Mayo Clinic: Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy ~ Everything you need to know about being pregnant, week by week updates, month by month updates for mom, pregnancy decisions, and a 40 week calendar.

2. You Having a Baby ~ This is by far one of my favorite books. A must read in my opinion! This book was so easy to read, was very informative, and had some great information.

3. Birthing From Within ~ Having a natural birth with no medication? Read this book. Your body was made for a natural birth. All of the encouragement that you need!

4. On Becoming Baby Wise ~ I'm about half way through this book and loving it. I had several people recommend this book to us to help get our baby sleeping through the night by 2 months! We shall see how we like the tips once little man gets here!

5. Organized Life with Baby ~ Do you know me? Hello type A personality. I like to be organized. This book is full of helpful hints and tips.

6. Breastfeeding Made Simple ~ This book was recommended to me by several friends. It's on my list to read next! Since I'm planning on exclusively breastfeeding, I am hoping that having more knowledge about breastfeeding will help me out!

7 Habits

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen R. Covey.

Have you heard of this book? or this lifestyle? If not...you need to. I had never heard of it until we moved to CF. My school district has trained all of it's teachers and implemented the "kid" version of the 7 Habits in most of the schools. We are still in the implementation process of all of our schools. My school last year practiced the 7 Habits and my school this year has gone to full implementation of the 7 Habits - The Leader In Me - Program. I cannot say enough good things about it. It. is. amazing!!

I was able to go to a 2 day training in October for the 7 Habits of Highly Effective people- paid. My school gave me a sub for two days and sent me to this amazing training. This class toured the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People so that we could understand it on a personal level. If we understood it's foundation as a lifestyle, then we could teach it and model it to our students. Now some of these things, I already did in my own life. But this training opened up my eyes to so much more! Seriously, it's really beneficial! Brad actually read the book a year ago, so he knew exactly what I was talking about. If you want some great professional development and personal reading...this is what you should read!

I have been incredibly impressed with this program. We are teaching our kiddos to be Leaders. We are teaching our kids to be responsible for themselves. We are teaching our students how to be effective citizens. It is an amazing program. Here are the 7 Habits that we are teaching...kids!! AND they get it. They really own these concepts and use them!

The Leader in Me ~ 7 Habits of Healthy Kids

• Be Proactive. ~ I am a responsible person. I choose my actions, attitudes, and moods. I do the right thing even when no one is looking.
• Begin with the End in Mind: ~ I plan ahead and set goals. I do things that have meaning and make a difference. I look for ways to be a good citizen.
• Put First Things First: ~ I spend my time on things that are most important. I set priorities, make a schedule, and follow my plan. 
• Think Win-Win: ~ I balance courage for getting what I want with consideration for what others want.When conflicts arise, I look for third alternatives.
• Seek First to Understand, Then be Understood: ~ I listen to other people’s ideas and feelings. I try to see things from their viewpoints.
• Synergize: ~ I value other people’s strengths and learn from them. I get along well with others, even people who are different than me.
• Sharpen the Saw: ~ I take care of my body by eating right, exercising and getting sleep. I spend time with family and friends. 

 

iHeartFaces December Photo Challenge: Day 3

Today is Day 3 of the #iHeartFaces December Photo Challenge. Today's Photo: What You're Reading.

So...here's what I'm reading...

I absolutely LOVE historical fiction. This isn't technically fiction. It's the story of Abigail Adams, but it tells about how influential she really was...in so many more ways than we knew!

Books, Books, Books...

Anyone who knows either Brad or I, knows how much we both love to read! Both of us keep a book with us at almost all times.  Brad got me a Kindle for Christmas - which I LOVE- and it stays in my purse, always! A typical night for us ends by reading in bed before we got to sleep. Both of us observed our parents love of reading growing up and both us us feel very strongly about passing that love for reading down to our kids someday also. I think it's safe to call us both "book nerds."

Reason for this post - I recently have decided to set a Reading Goal. 100 books in one year. This really doesn't seem that hard, but I figure it's somewhere to start. After setting my goal, I had to decide what would be on my "book list." Since I love so many different kinds of books, but tend to favor fiction, I decided to do a little bit of "book list research."

I found a website called goodreads.com. When you sign up, you are asked to rate books that you have read throughout many genres. After doing this, the website provides a reading list based on books similar to the ones you previously rated. The website recommended well over 100 books in the 15 genres that I selected. That my friends, is how I got my start on my book list. I want to read a variety of books throughout all 15 genres. I decided to start from the top of the genre list and work my way down by picking one book from each genre as I go and then starting back at the top! I'll keep a list of the books I have read, along with dates started and finished, and rate them as I go.

I think I'll write a post every time I read 10 books. That way I can write about the books I've read and keep myself up-to date. I'm not particularly picky about which 100 books I read in each genre, so if anyone has any suggestions...let me know!! I'm also right in the middle of a 12 book series, so I'm going to finish that before I start my year countdown. My first 10 book post will tell when my "100 books in one year" actually started.

Here are some of the websites I browsed while trying to find a book list!

• GoodReads
• What Should I Read in 2012 (also from GoodReads)
• USA Today "Top Sellers"
• Oprah's Book Club (I downloaded this PDF for future use!)

Keep Calm and Read a Book.