Summer Reading List:

i was thinking today how different my summer reading list is this year compared to years past. i guess mainly because of how my life has changed now that it is less focused on me and more focused on bringing up a sweet little one, and partly because my time is very valuable these days and when i read something i feel like i should learn something.

summers past were filled with "The Nanny Diaries", "The Devil Wears Prada", "Something Borrowed", "Something Blue", and the like.

this summer has been:

"Sacred Parenting" by Gary Thomas - highly recommend it, it's not a how-to book and does an excellent job at looking at parenting through God's eyes and what our Teacher would have us learn through the experience. i enjoyed this so much i also bought "Sacred Marriage"

"1-2-3 Magic for Christian Parents" - so the "Christian" part was kinda thrown in as an afterthought in this book because there is also a "1-2-3 Magic for (just regular old) Parents", but i will say the tips in this book have really cut down on the temper tantrums in our house

"The No Cry Potty Training Solution" - i've only started this and it looks like my little guy is showing none of the signs that we are ready to attempt potty-training yet....here's to hoping he will soon!

"Out of the Crescent Shadows" - really excellent book that i read for a missions trip i was supposed to be going on in october, but it was cancelled on sunday. for anyone who wants to understand better how to be a witness to people (especially women) of the muslim faith; i found that i wanted to talk about what i was learning in this book so it may be a good one to read in a group

"The One Minute Manager" and "Leadership and the One Minute Manager" - the first one was totally cheesy and pretty obvious tips, the second one i found very interesting and will use some of the tips, though not as formally as proposed in the book - the take home message is that people are different in their confidence and experience at a particular job function, and therefore, need to be managed differently based on this fact.

"Make Your Place - Affordable, Sustainable, Nesting Skills" by Raleigh Briggs - love the look of this book because it's all hand written and illustrated and i'm very into learning about homemade cleaning solutions and natural remedies, but as much terrified of how some natural products can do weird things to your body and some manmade products...truthfully, i'm in a constant state of anxiety about this. i found out about it here.