Softly & Tenderly

 Jade lives in Tennesse in a small town dominated by her in-laws, under presseure from her lawyerhusband to get pregnant. But she keeps having miscarriges. Then she finds out her in-laws' marrige is a wreck under the surface. Her husband is addicted to perscription pain-killers. Jade mother, who has come to stay with her, is dying of Leukemia. It sounds like she's living a Southern soap opra. But at least her husband is faithful.

Or is he? Turns out he has a son who is younger than their marrige. Not only that, but the child's mother is dead. Her husband wants custody of his son, age 18 months. Full of conflicting emotions, Jade takes off to Iowa with her mother and mother-in-law. Her mother just wants to die in the old homstead Iowa. Now there's nothing preventing Jade from taking her there. But in Iowa a temptation for her- her first love, who still pines her. They hang out and play midnight football. Jade knows she is not suspposed to be with her first husband but she breaks the rules anyway. Later on, she goes home and tells her husband the truth. He is uset with her but still forgives her. He decides that Jade should help parent his son. Jade says she would not keep any secrets from her husband and he sys the same thing. So Jade and her husband parent the child and they live a better healthier relationship.
-----------------------------------------

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The Way Home

This was an alright movie, but I didn't find the acting super, super good.  As a parent of children and periodically not being able to find my children when they "disappear" whether it's within a store or what.  It's always a very scary feeling.

I think this DVD is worth watching that's a feel good movie with a good ending.  What I found not plausaible was the amount of time the kid was missing and he was really alright.  That is amazing.  However, this is a Christian based movie and God does work miracles, He does provide and protect.

It's good that a community comes together to help find this little boy and the things they must go through to find him.  It's about listening to the voice of God, even if it sounds strange or doesn't make sense.  God doesn't do things always in the manner we deem logical.  He's God.  He can do anything.

-----------------------------------------

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The Least Among You

Richard Kelly was in jail because he tried to stop the violence in some riots, but he didn't and got sent to jail. One of the police officers had to go to the hospital. Instead of staying in jail, he got probation, but he had to go to an All-White Seminary.

Richard met a man named Sam, who was the grounds keeper. Sam helped Richard a lot, taught him a bunch of things. Richard's roommate was from Texas and a very nice guy that was on his side. Richard called him 'Tex'.

Richard had a friend named Roscoe he grew up with, but in the end, Roscoe died because he made a lot of wrong choices, including dealing in drugs. He also killed an old man because he wanted the man to sell drugs for him and the old man would not let him.

Richard had to get a petition signed with 70% of the students & faculty agreeing so that they would let more blacks or people of other races into their seminary within 10 days. President Beckett of the seminary started out on Richard's side, but in the end, was not. He ended up getting kicked out of the seminary for trying to bribe Richard to not do the petition.

This movie does have violence and people smoked a lot. I didn't like that part.


-----------------------------------------

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Let's Do Lunch

I would have to give the author of the book 5 stars for his accomplishment of losing 230 pounds and keeping it off for more than a decade. That is quite a feat and he figured out what he needed for him to lose the weight.

However, I am disappointed in a number of things as I thought there would be a greater emphasis on the Lord in the book, so that was maybe an assumption I made that wasn't all that great. My error. He does give God the credit.

Although my background is not medical, nutrition or fitness, this book kind of pulls this and that out of each of those areas. Yes, it does give a disclaimer at the beginning of the book to check with your doctor, blah, blah, blah. Most doctors have very little training in nutrition. I found some of Roger's suggestions like using Splenda (though, it seems like he uses Stevia more) a horrible suggestion, as well as some references to diet soda. Those are just simply awful. Really, would you rather have arsenic 1 or arsenic 2?

Roger is also big into corn. The fact is, corn is really hard for your body to process & digest. He seems to be really in favor of these corn cracker things, popcorn, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.

Butter, real butter isn't bad for you when eaten in moderation. It is way better than margarines or other more processed spreads. He also isn't a big advocate of avocados or nuts. God created these things to be eaten and they do have very healthy fats in them.

The nutritional content of the book is poor and I give this, at best, a 1 star. This was quite disappointing. Though he says that this isn't a fruit diet, it seems mainly that way. He doesn't address on this weight loss style of eating about people who are into weightlifting or more intense forms of exercises.

He advises eating your 3 meals a day: lots of fruit for breakfast, lots of protein for lunch, and a dinner that has very little protein. No snacking, but if you must, it seemed rather limited here, as he advises to not eat fruit between meals. The "nutritional" stuff that is correct is scattered all over the book where some things are bogus and others are factual. The thing is, you need to know what is what.

So, if you seriously exercise, what about feeding your muscles after your workout? He doesn't talk about this unless I missed it. He says you can do this weight loss program without exercise, but that if you exercise, it will accelerate the weight loss and help you get healthier.

The reason why I give it 3 stars is because people do get positive results. It's something that can probably be doable for many people, but it's unclear to me for those in a more rigorous exercise program that you will have more meals.

I think he could've just simply said for a good part of the book is to really eat 1 ingredient items instead of processed things. Anyway, he wasn't as organized in the book as well as I would've thought.

Anyway, I would be willing to give some of the general thoughts of this way of eating for a bit to see how effective it is to give him the benefit of the doubt.

-----------------------------------------

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Miracles Happen

This book was not as inspirational as I expected to it be. Was hoping to hear more about some of the greater difficulties, but that wasn't so. She did talk about some of the challenges she had at the beginning. There were a couple things that I was able to take away from the book - MaryKay was a HUGE workaholic.

As I am challenged with my own dealings with trading in the stock market, the time and work into and everything else, I think about the workaholism of MaryKay. Was this godly?

Or, was this an extreme commitment & dedication to a greater call, a mission to empower the lives of many other people, particularly women? I think those were noble things and she very much paved the way for other women in the business area, not only in the work force, but also in owning their own businesses.

She does give God credit and it would've been nice to hear more about God in the book. She had a tremendous confidence, as well as a resolve to overcome all the challenges that she was confronted with. She had a totally "can do" attitude, and when she would fall, she'd get back up with a greater tenacity. She had good control over her thoughts - which is really where I continue to work on.

Other than the workaholism, the other part I did not take too keenly to was that in order for women to do MaryKay, often you have to sacrifice healthy eating and habits. That just didn't seem right. She seemed to make light of living in the takeout line or eating out. I don't want to do that in my life, but I do still want to have success with my MaryKay business.

Popes & Bankers by Jack Cashill

This book by Jack Cashill turned out to be a disappointment to me in some ways and in other ways quite fascinating. I give this book a 1 star in terms of readability and ability to keep my interest. However, in terms of research and information, I give it a 5 star.

The best way I can describe this book is the tone of the book, for me, was similar to "This American Life" on NPR. I could imagine Ira Glass reading this book. Maybe then it would be more interesting to me.

This book is comprised of lots of politics, religion, philosophy, banking, business, murder, intrigue, ethnic groups, and more. There are all sorts of twists, turns, plots of not good things happening. There are lots of dates, statistics.

Frankly, though I'm a numbers person and deal in the area of finance such as in the area of the stock market -- that part was interesting, to learn how things came about, I did have a challenging time following. Maybe it was because I read this book in over a month's timeframe in 10-20 page intervals.

I kept hoping that as I read, that I would get excited about what I was reading only to be disappointed that characters were not further developed. But, that was not the point of the book to develop its characters, rather to introduce a plethora of characters in history who helped shaped our American financial situation, notably many of the not good things happening in America currently.

Maybe when in a different mindset, I'll reread this book. This was not a book that I could zip through, gain a handful of ideas that I could logically implement into my life. This is not the type of book I am accustomed to reading either, but thought it would be good for me to have.

It was quite interesting, however, to understand where a term or something that is happening or has happened was derived from. Money, money, money.

What I gather from all that I read, as Americans financially, we seem to keep repeating the same mistakes again and again -- it just gets bigger and more out of control. We seem to forget. The tools just become more sophisticated. It's a lack of accountability & responsibility.

It probably makes for less interesting material to have more like a flowchart in timeline format of this book, but that would've interested me more. It was not easy to read and grasp for me.

Would I recommend this book? I think if you like to read historical things and are not overwhelmed by all the data, go for it. If you want an easy read like in a weekend or so, this is not the book.

-------------------------------------

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”