Garbage Land: On The Secret Trail Of Trash by Elizabeth Royte.  The premise of this book is pretty simple: A woman wants to know what happens to her waste after she's done with it, so she tries to follow it.  I say "tries", because it's actually kind of difficult to follow some of your trash.  The book is divided into three sections: landfills, recycling, and sewers. I'll be honest, everyone has their own level of grossness they can handle, and I made it through landfills and recycling with … [Read more...]

Teaching From Rest: A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakeable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie.  Having already watched the three-part video series where Sarah walked through this book, I kind of knew that I was going to enjoy it.  So I ordered a paper copy of this book back when Amazon had a coupon code last month.  The basic premise of this book is that teaching from a state of rest doesn't mean that there is not work involved, but instead that you have an attitude of peace, trusting that you when you … [Read more...]

In 2015, I set a goal on GoodReads of reading 30 books, which I thought was a pretty reasonable goal.  I ended up finishing 17, and I think a big part of that is that I let other forms of entertainment steal the little bits of quiet time that I had.  So this year, my goal is 25 books.  That's two books per month, plus one extra somewhere in there.  I think it's doable, as long as I consistently make an effort to read. Before you think I'm forcing this upon myself, let me tell you that reading … [Read more...]

The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig. I requested this from the library, and was actually able to finish it (barely) before I had to return it.  I liked the first book in this series better, but this one was an easy read as well, diving into a few of the characters who were just side players in the first book, and pretty much ignoring the main characters from the first book, except for one chapter. While there were a few misleading hints to try to throw the reader off, it was … [Read more...]