I love reading!

Somehow, I've found a lot of time for reading lately.

I started and finished reading Mitch Albom's For One More Day last night. It was so good. I think Mitch Albom has such a talent for writing and engaging readers, and he's easy to follow. Tuesday with Morrie is probably his most well-known book, which I think is a book everyone needs to read at least once in their life, but Five People You Meet in Heaven was very interesting too. For One More Day helps us appreciate life, even if you don't have a lot to be excited about or think you've made too many mistakes to keep on living. And it's a GREAT book to read near Mother's Day to remind us how much our mom's do for us.

I finished listening to The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on mp3. Very capitvating story. I love mysteries and Sherlock Holmes is the best of the best. This story is especially interesting of the Sherlock Holmes tales because he is hardly in it at all and Dr. Watson takes the forefront. I was also interested to learn that Sir Arthur killed off Holmes in one of his stories because he wanted to be done with the character, but the fans were so upset with him he had to resurrect Holmes! This is one of the tales soon after his "resurrection".

I read The Night Journal by Elizabeth Crook for a book group. I'm hesitant to say I even read it because I don't really recommend it, but I wanted to keep up on my "Books I've Read List". It needs a lot of editing for my standards, but it got me thinking about how we either are trapped by our past and our ancestors' past, or enabled by it. It's just another account of how one generation making a very large mistake or mistakes can greatly affect several generations after. Sometimes I wonder if there is a way to help us when we're young see how debilitating some of our choices will be for our children and our children's children. It cetainly humbles me and makes me realize this is not just my life I'm living...am I trapping my children or am I enabling them? It completely negates the common teenage phrase, "It's my life, and I can do what I want with it." It's not. Even if you have no children, people around you are still affected by your choices. The book also left me realizing again how sometimes we think because someone is part of our family that we know what it's like to walk a mile in their shoes, therefore we have a right to judge them, when in reality we don't really know what it's like to be in their life even though they are family and we don't know everything they've been through that made them who they are. So we shouldn't get as mad or as frustrated about personality traits or behaviors because if we could see the whole picture we would understand why and judge a whole lot less. It reminds me of being frustrated with my parents as a teenager only to realize the more I got to know my grandparents the more I understood why my parents are the way they are...and to be more grateful for who they are. Judging each other, whether family members or not, just seems to bring on more contention.

The last book I read this month is Jon & Kate Gosselin's book Multiple Blessings. I know there is a lot of controversy over this family right now and who knows how things are going to turn out for them (this is the family that had twins and then sextuplets and have their own show on TLC, Jon & Kate Plus 8), but I really enjoyed this book. It made me cry several times and it made me love God and appreciate Him even more. It took me through their journey of faith and reminded me of many of the feelings of helplessness and fear I had during our move to Chicago with a two-week old baby and all the blessings we received when we found out we couldn't move into our house and had no where to go. (I want to go through and write all that down soon so I can remember how blessed we are.) Hearing stories like these help us remember "what great things the Lord hath done" for us and help us gather the strength we need to conquer the next trial that's sent our way. Truly with God all things are possible. I highly recommend this book, and ignore all the hype and negative publicity, and read it like you don't know anything about them.