The Christmas song I just can't get out of my head...

vacation read

Alright friends, I need your help with something, and it's very serious business indeed! In a little less than 4 weeks we will be on our Caribbean Cruise and I need a good book. A vacation isn't a vacation to me if I don't get some good reading and relaxing time in. Here's the deal though, I don't just want any old book, I want a good vacation book. This is a different category of book altogether, but unfortunately Chapters only highlights it in the summertime, so I'm relying on you for some input. Think you can help? Here's what I'm looking for...


The Perfect Vacation Book - would be engaging, but light hearted. I don't want the subject to be too intense or emotionally draining because the last thing I want is to be feeling really sad or mad or something or other when I'm supposed to be vacationing. But I don't want to read air either, and I don't want reading to feel like a chore. I want to want to read the book, you know? So it has to grab my attention, and keep it. But, at the same time, I don't want to be so engaged and committed to the book that I avoid doing other fun or necessary things (like sleep) because I want to read (I have a tendency for this to happen). It's so tough, trying to pick the right book.


I was looking over my bookshelves seeing if maybe there's something I could re-read, or to get some ideas for what I may want. This book, Born to Run, would have been perfect. Too bad I just finished it (thanks Mel, it rocked!)

Or Eat, Pray, Love also would have rocked -also read it only about a year ago.

And Life of Pi also would have been good, I think. It's been a few years, so maybe I could pick that up again?


I've been considering reading the Twilight Saga, The Kite Runner, or something by Jodi Picoult. I don't know though, are these too intense? It's hard to know when you haven't read them. Have any of you read these books or have any thoughts on it?

I'd love to hear your recommendations, if you have any. Even if it doesn't fit all my Perfect Vacation Book criteria, let me know if you've read something good lately that I should consider!

What do I know of Holy? by Addison Road

I've been listening to this song a lot lately, and thinking about what the words mean, and how I connect to them - and I most definitely do connect with them. We've had some challenges in our life lately, and sometimes in the midst of that it can, for me, be easy to forget about who God is and His goodness. I know His plan for my life is always right and good no matter how it looks in the moment, but sometimes I need reminders of that. And then He gives me one and I'm awe struck. The line "then I caught a glimpse of who You might be; the slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees" rings so true for me.

So here's a little youtube video of the song... excuse the cheesy pictures please, but this is the best I could find. Enjoy!

My new favorite Christmas song!

It's a couple years old, but I can't stop rockin' it out to this Relient K Christmas song; I Celebrate the Day. Here's a youtube "video" of the song. LOVE IT!

The song in my head lately...

... is this awesome and thoughtful tune from Jon Foreman (the lead singer from the band Switchfoot). Here's a youtube video of the song, which really isn't much of a video, but atleast you get to hear the song!

"Love is just the skin of knowing"

So I finished reading "The Shack" last week, a book that's getting a lot of buzz from the Christian world. Here's the story; the young daughter of a family was kidnapped during a camping trip and murdered. The father, Mack, who was caring for his daughter at the time of her disappearance, was deeply impacted by this and suffered a great depression. Several years later, Mack receives a note, apparently from God Himself, inviting him back to the shack where his daughter's body was found. The story is about Mack's return there.

The book is a piece of fiction; the story is not true. Young states his reasoning for writing the book; "I was trying to save my kids 40 years! I actually wrote it out of obedience to my wife, who thought I should record the big picture of how I think and what I believe. I did just that, and gave them [the manuscript] in a spiral binder." He also states that, although the story itself is made up, the pain, the longing, the hurt, the questions and the anger are all real.

I found the book incredibly interesting. Originally I borrowed it from a friend, but before I even finished it, I knew I needed my own copy. Young's portrayal of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was fascinating and refreshing. His answers to the question "where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" were wise and insightful, left me wondering, and full of peace and hope.

I do hope, if you'll ever consider reading a book a recommend, that you will pick up this one. Inspiring and worth wrestling through.

Not nearly as good as Sara Groves...

There is this wonderful recording artist that I absolutely love to listen to, and her name is Sara Groves. She has this one song on her All Right Here album called "You Cannot Lose My Love" and I sing it to Asher every night. I love the message of this song, and although I don't nearly sound as good as Sara Groves does, I don't think Asher minds :) Here's the lyrics!

You will lose your baby teeth
At times you'll lose your faith in me
You will lose a lot of things
But you cannot lose my love

You may lose your appetite
Your guiding sense of wrong and right
You may lose your will to fight
But you cannot lose my love

You will lose your confidence
In times of trial your common sense
You may lose your innocence
But you cannot lose my love

Many things can be misplaced
Your very memories be erased
No matter what the time or space
You cannot lose my love

You cannot lose
You cannot lose
You cannot lose my love

Blink

I just finished reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Wickedly interesting read. The book is about what Gladwell calls rapid cognition; the kind of thinking that takes place in the blink of an eye and forms our first impressions. He draws on a crazy amount of research from every field imaginable (psychology, military history, health care, etc.) to show that by using very small amounts of information, we can make decisions that help us make sense of the world.

The opening story for the book is about the Getty Museum's purchase of a kouros, an ancient marble statue. Since this type of statue, especially one in such good shape, is so rare, the Getty conducted 18 months of research, including complicated surface analysis, and determined that the statue was indeed authentic. The odd thing was that when art historian's looked at the kourus, right away they felt it wasn't real. In the end, despite massive amounts of data that indicated otherwise, the kourus did indeed turn out to be a fraud. Gladwell's book is about how the art historian's knew this truth the instant they saw the statue.

One of the studies I found fascinating in the book was done by a psychologist named John Gottman. After years of fine tuning his method, he and his team are able to look at a 1 hour segment of a couple interacting and predict with 95% accuracy if they will divorce or not. Isn't that crazy?

There's lots in this book to talk about, and just so I can do that, it may make my next book club selection for the group to read.

More me

I love the discussion and thought that comes out of a group of women sharing their perspective on a book. After my book club meeting on "Eat, Pray, Love", I left with a lot on my mind.

I was inspired by the author and her relentless search for her truth. The distance she went to do what she needed to do, with no holds barred was so courageous, in my eyes. I shared at our meeting that I didn't think I would ever have the guts to do what she did. To take off for a year, by herself, and travel to all these crazy foreign countries.

Perhaps it was some combination of thinking of the author's choices, and sitting in a room with a bunch of women that I admire, that really got me thinking, "There are some really fascinating women out there". And I felt so absolutely boring when faced with it all. In my book club alone is a woman who composes music and actually gets published for it (she's planning on putting a piece she wrote up for competition for the new Hockey Night in Canada theme song), a woman who buys a farm share, another who takes belly dancing lessons, and one from an exotic country. I think the most interesting thing I do is attend a book club (ha!).

I guess, for me, I often feel that I have a ton of hopes and dreams and ambitions and curiosities festering around inside, but I never really manage to do anything with them. I'd love to travel the world, learn other languages, learn sign language, take up dance again, play the violin, really invest in jewelry making, become a lactation consultant, write, run, become more like or less like something else, but I always find something gets in my way. Underneath my excuses of not having enough time/money/patience/ability/motivation, I think I am actually fettered by my own insecurities and lack of self-confidence. And frankly, well that's sort of sucky.

One line from "Eat, Pray, Love" encourages me; "God dwells within you, as you".

When I get to the end of my life, I don't want to look back with regret at all I didn't do. I want to pursue the passions that God placed in my heart, because I do feel He placed them there. I don't want to be some insecure and mediocre version of what I could be. So here's to taking more risks, and chancing that just maybe, I too could be more interesting. More me.

Eat, Pray, Love

I am so ridiculously excited to talk about this book tomorrow at book club!

Basically the author, after a divorce and serious depression, takes a year to travel to Italy, India, and Indonesia on her search for pleasure, faith, and life balance. It's a wickedly interesting memoir of her experiences and journey as she discovers the truth for her life for herself.

Gilbert is a kickin' writer, with tons of courage, who's not afraid to take risks. I admire her willingness to truly and relentlessly search and fight to find joy, truth, and peace. It's perhaps that admiration, combined with the fact that I am so insanely interested in travel and other cultures, that made this book one of my favorites an a long time.

You should totally check it out!

the birth house

I really like to read. I always have. My mother would tell you stories about how when I was younger, she would come check in on me before she went to bed at night, and I'd be hiding under my covers with a flashlight reading. I've always enjoyed getting lost in a story, being captivated by people, experiences and events that are so foreign to me. Or even ones that are familiar, but challenge my perspective. I love a good author, who has the ability to bring meaning to life from the mere use of words. I love the look of books, the feel of them in my hand, the sound of pages turning.

I know, I'm a geek.

It gets worse. I also belong to a book club!

AND, now that I have a blog of my own, I can fulfill my childhood dream of being like the kids on Reading Rainbow who give book reviews. Except this isn't Reading Rainbow, but that's okay. I'm going to do book reviews anyways! :)

I just finished reading this book, the birth house by Ami McKay. I give it a solid 4/5. It's a story about a young mid-wife, as you can gather from the title, and it's set in rural Nova Scotia during the first World War. I loved the story, the sisterhood of women that the author weaves together, the challenges of childbirth and womanhood, of love and life. The book had me scared, and elated, and worried, and crying, and joyful as the story unfolded. I love the scrapbook element included in the book; it felt like a piece of the story I could actually touch and made it seem so real. You should totally check it out!