He does. He is a great hus­band. He’s an amaz­ing dad. He’s a smart, funny, intel­li­gent, good look­ing, car­ing, lov­ing per­son. I’m guess­ing you get the picture.

At the con­ven­tion I attended over the week­end, there was a resource fair with tons of ven­dors. There were pub­lish­ers, music artists, and many other booths. I did a lit­tle bit of shop­ping at the fair and a lit­tle bit of brows­ing. I came across a booth that sold t-shirts, and I knew I wanted one. I’m cur­rently try­ing to cut back on my stash of t-shirts, but these were dif­fer­ent. I wanted one. Heck, I wanted them all! The t-shirts are made by a com­pany called From­Me­Tees. The two women work­ing at the booth were wear­ing shirts that said, “my hus­band rocks.”

Any­one who knows me in real life knows that I can’t stop talk­ing about Jason and every­thing he does that rocks. He does every­thing! He does laun­dry. He does dishes. He stays home with the boys when I go to Texas for a week­end. He sits on the couch with me and watches Veron­ica Mars. Let me count the ways.. I decided that instead of con­tin­u­ing to talk about him all the time and how great he is, I would just wear a shirt that could do the talk­ing for me. Instead of get­ting the one that said “my hus­band rocks,” I decided on “For­ever His Bride.” I wore the shirt for about half of today, and I have to say I love it! It just puts me in a pos­i­tive frame of mind when I think about Jason. It reminds me how much I love him and how much he loves me. It also helps me to keep things in per­spec­tive if I ever start to get a lit­tle frus­trated with him. When I first bought the shirt, I thought it was just a cute shirt. Now, after wear­ing it a cou­ple times, it is def­i­nitely still a very cute shirt, but it’s also more.

Some of you may (or may not) have noticed that my blog has been a lit­tle quiet for the past week. This is pri­mar­ily due to the fact that I was not around from Thurs­day to Sun­day. I had the oppor­tu­nity to attend the MOPS Inter­na­tional 2008 Con­ven­tion.

The week­end was filled with speak­ers, authors, artists, and time to get to know oth­ers from my local group. Because our local group has helped us with fundrais­ing for lead­er­ship train­ing like this, one of the other women who attended and I are going to be giv­ing a lit­tle recap of our week­end tomor­row at our meet­ing. When I got to think­ing about what I wanted to say, I had a list that was far too long for the time I’ll be given. I am try­ing to whit­tle down two and a half days of infor­ma­tion into about two and a half minutes.

The final gen­eral ses­sion that we attended was where it all came together for me. All week­end, we had been asked to wear but­tons that said SDWSC on them. Peo­ple had all sorts of guesses what that could mean, and on Sat­ur­day after­noon, we finally learned. It meant, “she did what she could.” Elisa Mor­gan, the CEO of MOPS, was speak­ing that after­noon. She talked about Mary bring­ing per­fume to Jesus and seem­ingly wast­ing it in an elab­o­rate ges­ture of pour­ing it over his head (Mark 14). Then, she elab­o­rated on the sen­tence “She did what she could.” Mary gave what she had. She did what God had asked of her. She didn’t look around to see what oth­ers were doing. She didn’t trade her per­fume for some­thing more use­ful. She didn’t sit around wish­ing that she knew how to sing a beau­ti­ful song or write a breath­tak­ing poem. She did what she could. That right there was the Big Idea for me.

In addi­tion to our gen­eral ses­sions, we also had smaller ses­sions through­out the day on Fri­day. My first ses­sion was geared toward rais­ing chil­dren with a con­cern about the world, the envi­ron­ment, and how our actions affect oth­ers. The speaker, Tracey Bianchi, talked about teach­ing your chil­dren to love some­thing and become pas­sion­ate about it. Then, once they love it, what­ever that it is, they will be more likely to pro­tect it and try to save it. The “it” might be a cer­tain pop­u­la­tion of peo­ple, a type of ani­mal, an aspect of the envi­ron­ment, or some­thing else entirely. Although she gave many ideas, I didn’t leave her ses­sion feel­ing over­whelmed, I felt moti­vated. I want my kids and my fam­ily to be socially aware. I want us to make a pos­i­tive impact on the world. This includes the envi­ron­ment and, as much as pos­si­ble, peo­ple on the other side of the world, too. I also had two other great ses­sions. I have a cou­ple many new books on my to be read list. There is so much I could say tomor­row about this con­fer­ence, but what really sticks out is that she did what she could. That’s what God expects of me. That’s what I should expect of myself. I don’t need to do every­thing, but I do need to do what I can when I can.

5MinutesForMom is hav­ing a sleep­ing angel con­test. They are giv­ing away a South Shore Children’s Bed­room Set from Home & Bed­room Fur­ni­ture. They are ask­ing peo­ple to post pic­tures of their sleep­ing babies, and the win­ner will have their choice of either the Lily Rose or the Sum­mer Breeze set. I would def­i­nitely choose Sum­mer Breeze if I were to win.

So, here is the pic­ture. It’s adorable, and it’s one of my favorites. We were at Jason’s par­ents’ house one day this sum­mer. I ran a few errands, and when I came back, I walked in the front door and saw this…

My Sleep­ing Angels

Well, like I said last month, I don’t have a night­stand. There’s one on Jason’s side of the bed, but we don’t have books on that one either. I just have my books all over the house. There are a cou­ple in our room, a cou­ple on the back of the couch, one behind the couch, one in my purse, one on my end table, and tons down­stairs on our bookshelves.

Last month, I was read­ing The Breast­feed­ing Answer Book, Reclaim­ing Nick, and Hap­pi­ness Sold Sep­a­rately. I have made some good progress in the Breast­feed­ing Answer Book. I read Reclaim­ing Nick and the two other books in the series, Tam­ing Rafe and Find­ing Stephanie. I did not fin­ish Hap­pi­ness Sold Sep­a­rately. It fell behind our couch, and I sort of for­got about it. Whoops. I did start it, though, and it’s pretty good from what I remember.

In the last month, I also dis­cov­ered Paper­Back­Swap and Book­Mooch. I wouldn’t say that I am obsessed with them, but they are so fun! I put 20 of my books on the sites (10 on each) and so far, I’ve received 4 books with a 5th on the way. I also thought I would try a swap with any­one on here who wants a book that I’ve read, but so far no one has taken me up on my offer. Since I wrote the post, I have decided, I will just give those books away, so if you want one, let me know. If you have any you’d like to swap, I’m open to offers, but I guess it’s now a giveaway!

I have a trip com­ing up in about 1 1/2 weeks, so my read­ing list is a bit more ambi­tious this month. I have some high hopes that I will be able to read a lot on my trip. So, here is my list for October:

See­ing and Savor­ing Jesus Christ by John Piper (from Paper­Back­Swap)- I was look­ing through avail­able books on Paper­Back­Swap, and I saw this one. I hadn’t heard any­thing about it, but if it’s John Piper, I fig­ured there’s a pretty good chance it’s got qual­ity content.

Break­ing Free by Beth Moore (from Paper­Back­Swap)- My friend from col­lege pur­chased this study, and she has done it sev­eral times. I love Beth Moore, so I fig­ured if my friend can do the study 5+ times and find it valu­able, I would prob­a­bly enjoy the book.

Mid­wives by Chris Boh­jalian (from Book­Mooch)- This is a book I had heard about, but I’m not quite sure what I will think of it. It’s a sub­ject I have pretty strong feel­ings on (mid­wives and home­births). I sup­pose it could really go either way.

The Mem­ory Keeper’s Daugh­ter by Kim Edwards (from Book­Mooch)- I was in Tar­get wan­der­ing around one night after a stress­ful evening try­ing to put A to sleep. I picked up this book and read the back of it. I had actu­ally for­got­ten about it for quite a while, but when I was trad­ing away my books, I decided to look it up.

Wild Goose Chase by Mark Bat­ter­son (received from Monica’s give­away on her site Paper Bridges)- I actu­ally found this give­away last month when check­ing out oth­ers’ lists.

Water for Ele­phants by Sara Gruen (bor­row­ing it from the library)- After hear­ing about this one for so long, I decided to find out what all the talk is about.

A Tree Grows in Brook­lyn by Betty Smith (don’t have it yet, but will be get­ting it from the library and hope to be a part of Octo­ber Book Club on 5minutesforbooks.com)- I have heard about this book, but I don’t know any­thing about it. Maybe it’s time I start learn­ing what the clas­sics are all about!

The Prob­lem with Breast­feed­ing by James Akre (bor­rowed from a friend)- She said this book is a must read. I guess I’ll find out.

Don’t for­get to check out www.5minutesforbooks.com for a list of peo­ple who have shared what they are read­ing this month!

I love to read, and I have loved it as long as I can remem­ber. Accord­ing to my mom, I’ve been read­ing since I was 4 years old. I don’t think I remem­ber that, but I do know that the library, books, and read­ing were a major part of my youth. I used to go to the library every Mon­day after school and exchange my books. I would sit there and read until about 4:45 when my dad got off work and met me there. Gen­er­ally, in that time, I would have picked out 8 books (1 for each day of the week plus one for the time at the library) and returned the one I had just fin­ished. Once I got into col­lege, my pace slowed down, but I still read when I could. The day that I turned in my master’s inde­pen­dent study, I went to the library to cel­e­brate. I checked out 4–5 books and read for the next week straight, I think.

Recently, I’ve got­ten a lit­tle claus­tro­pho­bic with all the stuff we have in our house, so I decided that I should list some of my books on some book swap­ping sites. I listed books on Book­Mooch and Paper­Back­Swap. The idea of the sites (with a few dif­fer­ences of course) is that you list books you’ve read. Some­one else requests them and you send your books to peo­ple that want/need them. Then, you find some­one who has books you want/need and you request those books. Of course, the books I want right now are also ones that 300+ oth­ers also want, so we’ll see how soon I get them. Haha…

But, why should I save all my swap­ping for peo­ple I don’t know and have no con­tact with? Any­one wanna swap with me? I’m putting 5 books up for a swap. If you want one of mine, offer me one of yours. I’ll pay my ship­ping, and you pay yours. I’m going to list my books, books I have liked in the past (to give you an idea of what my tastes are), and books I want now. If you think we could make a match, either leave me a com­ment or e-mail me at casey at berbs dot us.

First, books I have and want to give away:

A Fam­ily Apart by Joan Low­ery Nixon– This was a book I had to read for one of my ele­men­tary edu­ca­tion classes in col­lege. I remem­ber it being a good book, and I remem­ber being some­what tempted to read the rest of the series (The Orphan Train Adven­tures). It is a book that is appro­pri­ate for kids in the upper ele­men­tary grades. I would say it would be good for an advanced 3rd grader or an aver­age fourth or fifth grader. There are some themes in the book that are some­what intense for kids of this age (orphans, family/sibling sep­a­ra­tion, fam­i­lies that do not adopt the chil­dren out of love but are look­ing for labor or ser­vants) so be aware of that if you are intend­ing to give this book as a gift or to some­one younger than 14ish (?).

A Time to Kill by John Grisham– This is a great book. It’s a crime drama. It’s about a man who kills two men who raped his young daugh­ter. This book isn’t in great con­di­tion. I got it off the library swap table. It has the library book tag on the side and the bar­code on the back. The bind­ing is bro­ken and page 117–118 falls out. It’s def­i­nitely read­able, but it’s not fresh. It’s a book worth read­ing though.

The Wit­ness by Dee Hen­der­son– I read Dee Henderson’s books The O’Malley Series and The Uncom­mon Heroes series. I really enjoyed those books. I thought The O’Malley Series were her best books though. This book is good, too, but I didn’t like it as well as the O’Malleys. I think that I got so attached to those char­ac­ters I missed them when I was read­ing this book. It’s a Chris­t­ian sus­pense book. There’s a lit­tle romance in it, too, if I remem­ber cor­rectly, but it’s def­i­nitely PG.

The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaugh­lin and Nicola Kraus– This book is light chick lit. It’s about a woman who becomes one of “those” nan­nies to a wealthy New York fam­ily. The job starts out as car­ing for one small child. She ends up becom­ing much more than just a nanny. It reminds me a lit­tle of The Devil Wears Prada Nanny Edition.

Every Storm by Lori Wick– I read this book quite a while ago, so I’m not all that clear on the details of it any­more. I remem­ber some­thing about a plane crash and that’s about it. It’s Lori Wick. That should say it all. The main char­ac­ter is sweet and maybe a lit­tle unre­al­is­ti­cally per­fect, and there’s romance in it. Also, this is Chris­t­ian fic­tion and PG. It’s a good book. It’s hard­cover in case that mat­ters, too.

Books I have read in the past and liked:

See the list above. I liked all those. I have read books by Susan May War­ren, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, James Pat­ter­son, Lori Wick, Anita Shreve, Dee Hen­der­son, Dr. Sears, Mary Doria Rus­sell, John Piper, Henri Nouwen, and Beth Moore.

Books I am look­ing for right now:

I’m par­tic­u­larly look­ing for

You: The Owner’s Man­ual by Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Ani­mal, Veg­etable, Mir­a­cle by Bar­bara Kingsolver

The Shack by William P. Young

You can try me on Chris­t­ian fic­tion and non-fiction, but I’m not inter­ested in the Bev­erly Lewis/Amish type of Chris­t­ian fiction.

Ready, set, SWAP!

I’ve been blog­ging on this site for over a year now, and I’ve been read­ing oth­ers’ blogs for even longer. Only recently, though, have I really started par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­ments and give­aways on oth­ers’ blogs. Appar­ently, I’ve had a great streak of luck, because I’ve won 3 give­aways in the last few weeks. So, I want to take a minute to say thanks to those blog­gers for their fun con­tests. Thank you, 5 Min­utes for Books, for the book, Shop Your Closet. I have big plans for my closet! Thank you, Heather, for the lip­stick. I love it, and I’m so glad I took a chance on the Rais­in­berry. It’s so fun. Thank you, Mon­ica, for the book, Wild Goose Chase. I have a lot of read­ing I want to do, but I think this may make its way up to the top of the list rather quickly.

I have enjoyed read­ing new blogs, and of course, there’s always an extra thrill that comes with win­ning some­thing. Hmmm, maybe some time it will be my turn to do a giveaway!

I think over the course of the next sev­eral months, I will prob­a­bly be chang­ing my blog top­ics up a lit­tle. When I was breast­feed­ing K fre­quently or when A was born and I was feed­ing both boys fre­quently, I felt like I had a lot more to say about nurs­ing specif­i­cally. Now that they’re get­ting older, it’s just some­thing that’s an every day part of our lives. It just is. I don’t think or worry about it too much. We’ve got­ten over most of the hur­dles and pit­falls. A is sleep­ing bet­ter, and K has kept up his 2 a day nurs­ing rou­tine for the past few weeks.

Some of the top­ics that I have become more inter­ested in lately are healthy eat­ing, green liv­ing, cook­ing, exer­cise, and expand­ing my read­ing reper­toire. Maybe I’ll fin­ish a book (with­out read­ing the end­ing ahead of time) and do a review of it. Who knows?

What are you read­ing? I’m always look­ing for a good book or a good rec­om­men­da­tion. I start lots of books, and I fin­ish a few. I will start any­thing that sounds even remotely inter­est­ing. I’m not lim­ited to a cer­tain genre, author, or sto­ry­line. I read Chris­t­ian authors and non-Christian authors. I read fic­tion and non­fic­tion. I read as much as I can. I have always loved to read. As a child, my mom says that I taught myself to read around the time I was 4. Since then, I have almost always had at least one book in the process of being read.

Right now, I don’t have a night­stand, but I do have a read­ing list. Some of these I just started, and some I have been work­ing on for a while.

The Breast­feed­ing Answer Book — Who doesn’t love a good sev­eral hun­dred page, spi­ral bound, infor­ma­tional book?

Reclaim­ing Nick — I read this review on 5 Min­utes for Books, and I thought I should start at the begin­ning of the series instead of at the end.

Hap­pi­ness Sold Sep­a­rately — I got this book off freecy­cle. If someone’s giv­ing a book away, it’s worth tak­ing a chance, right?

I’m sure there are a few oth­ers, but these are the ones that get most of my time right now. How about you?

I decided after try­ing all those lip­sticks that I should prob­a­bly post a pic­ture of my nor­mal lip­stick. I think that when you see it, you’ll agree it looks fine. It’s noth­ing super obvi­ous or flashy. it’s fine. That’s my prob­lem with it, though. It’s just fine. I want some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent and more excit­ing. Maybe rais­in­berry is it. I’ll have to think about it.

My usual look

Bet­ter late than never, right?

Yuck, yuck, yuck. Let’s just say that I couldn’t find a way to make this color work for me. I didn’t wear it out of the house. Lip gloss just didn’t do it. It was very obvi­ously not me.

Pink Melon