Test Post for Australian Adventure

My name is Susan and I'm on an adventure to Australia.

Currently

celebrating - a great start to a new school year and the lovely temperate weather we are experiencing.

creating - a crocheted blanket for my sister.

growing - basil, oregano and rosemary.

learning - new ways to enrich our read-aloud experience from the book Deconstructing Penguins by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone.

listening - to the audio version of Jane Eyre, wind chimes and the wind blowing through trees.

Around here

July

Yarn Along

One of my very favorite blogs that I discovered last year is Small Things.  Each Wednesday she hosts a link up featuring bloggers current knitting/crocheting projects and current reads - two of my favorite past-times! 

I have been enchanted with this crochet pattern for quite some time - ripples.  I finally mastered it (after several tries - my pattern reading skills are very basic) a month ago.  This will be my Autumn Throw.  For the past several months the colors of orange and gray have figured largely in my scrapbook layouts and most recently my new flip flops!  The color scheme of this blanket reminds me of autumn fires - the orange flames, the gray ash and the dark gray of wood.  This is turning out to be a long term project!

On the reading front, I just finished Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison.  It is the memoir of a woman in Massachusetts whose family has fostered children for many years.  I literally could not put this book down and it stirred again my desires to foster.   Now is not the right time for our family to re-enter this venture full-time, but I am praying that there will be a small way we can soon get involved again.

The Ultimate Prescription

from the back of the book..."Many of the diseases sending us to doctors' offices, surgical suites, and early graves are preventable-and we don't need to be overmedicated to cure them."  This intriguing claim is made by Chattanooga cardiologist Dr. James L. Marcum, author of The Ultimate Prescription.

In this book, Dr. Marcum directly coorelates the cure for many of our (non-acute) illnesses to a health plan based upon the days of creation.  He also details common and prevailing myths and lies that we are bombarded with through both the media and other sources.  While Dr. Marcum definitively supports the use of modern medicine to combat illness, he also strongly proposes a definitive shift toward God's "original Health Plan" in our lifestyles. Among the eighteen chapters, are chapters relating each day of creation and how the particulars of that day's work impacts our health. The last chapters bring it all together in "The Ultimate Prescription" and "The Ultimate Healing."  Also included in this work are appendices dealing with symptoms, diagnostic testing, and treatment.

Dr. Marcum is a practicing cardiologist at the Chattanooga Heart Institute.  I found this book both throrough and very readible.  He presents his thoughts with clarity and in layman's terms.

I recieved a complimentary copy of this book for review by Tyndale Media Center.  The opinions are my own.

The Book of Man

I recently finished reading The Book of Man by William J. Bennett, also author of the literary compilation, The Book of Virtues. 

from the back of the book "Using profiles, stories, letters, poems, essays, historical vignettes, and myths to bring his subject to life, The Book fo Man defines what a man should be, how he should live, and to what he should aspire in several key areas of life:  war, work, leisure, and more....."

This literary masterpiece is divides the writings under the headings:  Man in War, Man at Work, Man in Play, Sports, and Leisure, Man in the Polis, Man with Woman and Children, and Man in Prayer and Reflection.  The pieces in each section range broadly in both period written and style.  The selections span both fiction and non-fiction material.  All, however, are united by messages of noblilty, honor, respect, courage and humility.  There is an overarching sense of elegance throughout these writings.  Bennet did a masterful job in compiling this work.  And while the themes are directed toward men, I, as a woman, found much to be edified by also.

I was given a complimentary copy of this book for review by Thomas Nelson Publishers.  The opinions are my own.