Maid To Match

Maid To Match
by:  Deanne Gist

From the day she arrives at the Biltmore, Tillie Reese is dazzled--by the riches of the Vanderbilts and by Mack Danvers, a mountain man turned footman. When Tillie is enlisted to help tame Mack's rugged behavior by tutoring him in proper servant etiquette, the resulting sparks threaten Tillie's efforts to be chosen as Edith Vanderbilt's lady's maid. After all, the one rule of the house is no romance below stairs.

But the stakes rise even higher when Mack and Tillie become entangled in a cover-up at the town orphanage. They could both lose their jobs, their aspirations ...and their hearts.

My Review:  I enjoy the writing style of Deeanne Gist as I can pick up one of her books anytime and get involved in the storyline.  Maid To Match was a nice light read, mixed with some humor, romance and a glimpse into history.  It was easy to read in a short amount of time!

***Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications Inc.  Available now at your favorite bookseller from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group***

Looking For Advice

I need some help!

I am trying to plan out a painting scheme for the girls' room in our new place.  Of course I am trying to accommodate each of them with their favorite colors.

It's going to be difficult however.

Ella wants pink.

Brie wants red.

I've been browsing online for some ideas (as a way to avoid school and house related work!) and have found a few ideas.  Keep in mind that we will have a bunkbed in their room, rather than two individual beds.  However their beds, dressers and bookshelves are all white.  As are the window trim and doors in the room.

What do you think looks nicer for a girls room?



Light pink on the top 2/3 of the room, with coordinating red on the bottom?

Chair rail or no chair rail?

OR.....








































Light pink on all walls with 1 or 2 walls striped with coordinating red?

Do you have any other ideas?

Storyteller

Last night we drove to the city to see Robert Munsch!

Although I purchased the tickets months ago, it was still a rushed trip as Brie had school and John was working, although they both finished their days a little earlier than normal.

Up until a week and a half ago, I was super excited to see the master storywriter and storyteller.

Afterall, we own about a dozen of his children's books.  And Brie typically takes out 2 of his books from the library every day at school.  So much so that the librarian has joked about it with me!  We just love his stories.  The repetition and humor in every story is pure genius.

When we told the girls that we were going, Brie applauded for about 10 minutes straight.  She just loves his stories!  In fact, recently she created her own chapter book and announced that she is going to be an author AND artist for her own books someday.  (It wouldn't surprise me at all.  This girl has some TALENT!)

So we have been looking forward to this for quite a while already.

Until we heard from a "friend" that Robert Munsch has been in the news recently.  And not for something good either.  So I had to google it to find out for sure.

*gulp*

Yep, he is a drug addict.

But he has been clean for 4 months.

4!

F.  O.  U.  R.  months.

Pretty much about the time that I bought the tickets.  But we made the decision that this wouldn't negatively affect the children.  They have no clue what drugs even are.  Even knowing this man's battles with addictions doesn't take away from the fact that he is very talented.

So we went with a mostly positive attitude.

Although I do have to be honest and say that both John and I questioned if he was sober or not last night as we watched him with a critical eye.  (Darn RCMP makes you very sceptical!)

However the show was very entertaining.  He didn't chat first, instead he just jumped right into the first story.  The audience loved joining in on the repetitive parts of the stories, as well as volunteering to be the characters in each story.

Ella LOVED joining in on the repetitive parts of the stories.  Loudly.  She is quite the dramatic child so she also sat very still for the entire hour of the show.  When it came time for "Love You Forever" she snuggled close and demanded that we each take a turn rocking her back and forth.  The song for that story is still stuck in my head this morning.  But that is alright since this is one of my favorite books.      

Neither of our girls even considered putting up their hands to volunteer for a story.  That is until Robert Munsch (do I need to add his last name every time I talk about him?) asked if any parents had loud children.  Then Ella's eyes lit up as she threw her arm into the air.

I love that girl, despite (or maybe it is because of...) her loudness!  At least she knows that she is noisy.

Brie had a great time too.  She is more reserved when showing her excitement but she was giggling along with everyone else.  I even saw her yelling out the repetition a few times!  (Way to go girl!)

It was a fun time for everyone.  John's favorite was when he did "The Paper Bag Princess" and a dad was volunteered to be the dragon from the story.  Poor guy was not very animated but it made for some really funny entertainment as he had to "fly around the world".

We enjoyed many stories that we knew (Up Up Down, Mortimer, Moira's Birthday to name a few more) and some that we hadn't heard before.  I was positive that Brie had taken out every single one of his books at least twice, so it was a little surprising to find out there was some that we did not recognize.

I'm so glad that we all enjoyed it and had fun.

Wonder Full World

A trip around the world in one weekend

Wonder Full World Women’s Ministry Retreat Kit, the newest retreat kit for women from Group Publishing, Inc., offers an affordable, fun-filled, interactive experience for churches of any size and budget. The retreat kit equips churches to create an experience for the women of their congregations using the talent of their own members rather than having a speaker come in for the weekend. Wonder Full World is more than just a weekend getaway. It’s an imaginative journey around the world and an exploration of the “I wonders” in a woman’s heart through in-depth Bible study, an unforgettable worship experience, and an open invitation for girlfriends to draw closer together and experience the vastness of God’s love.

Q & A with Amy Nappa, Executive Editor of

Wonder Full World Women’s Ministry Retreat Kit

Q:  Let’s talk about the way churches usually do a women’s retreat. What makes Group’s retreat-in-a-box such a great alternative to the usual retreat setup?

A:  The traditional approach to a women’s retreat has been to look outside of the church for content and leadership, usually by hiring a speaker for the weekend. This tends to result in a lecture environment where women do a lot of sitting and listening. With a Group retreat, churches have access to all the resources they need to lead a meaningful, life-changing retreat, including the opportunity to encourage the women in their own congregation to fulfill the leadership roles. A Group retreat is about interaction. We give women ample opportunity to discuss, to share their hearts, and to make new friends.

Q:  What kind of woman will be touched by a Wonder Full World retreat?

A:  We really want to engage women of all ages and from a variety of experiences. This retreat was written to engage both married and single women, mothers and those with no children. In Group’s 2009 State of the Church Report, we discovered that 94 percent of women’s ministry leaders we polled felt that reaching younger women was a great area of need for them, so that is one of our greatest target groups. There is also a special woman that we are thinking of as we plan the sessions—the woman who does not know Jesus. We include a gospel message in every retreat, shared simply, and we tell the leader of that session to be prepared to share her own salvation story. We have also included all the Scriptures in the participant journals so that women who don’t know much about the Bible won’t have to search for them.

Q:  As you develop new ministry materials, what steps does your team at Group take to ensure that those materials will really connect with women?

A:  One of the most important aspects of the creative process at Group is the research. We do focus groups with women all over the place, with both the women who love retreats and those who hate retreats. We are intentional in creating a retreat to meet the needs of many women, and what those women tell us is that they want to be able to talk and make friends, not just sit and listen. We have incorporated lots of discussion time, allowing women to share their own stories of how God has worked in their lives and what they hope He will do in their lives. Once we have completed the actual content, we lead every retreat ourselves with a group of real women before we market it to churches. We invite teens as young as 14, and we don’t put them at the kids’ table because we see these retreats as great opportunities to initiate relationships that will become mentoring relationships.

Q:  As a woman equipping churches to minister to women, what do you see as the biggest challenge women’s ministries face today?

A:  I think the biggest challenge is to come up with new and creative ideas for engaging women. Most people know they need to do something different, but nobody wants to change. They wish they could reach more women, but they are bound to tradition. We don’t wear the same clothes now that we wore ten years ago, so obviously we are willing to change some things in our lives to stay relevant in the culture. But for some reason, nobody wants to give up on the Christmas Tea, for example, because it was once the highlight of the women’s ministry year…15 years ago! No wonder so many women perceive women’s ministry as something for their moms. For some ministries, reaching more women could be as simple as offering a women’s Bible study in the evenings as well as in the mornings so that working women can attend. But none of this will happen until someone decides to change.

Q:  Tell us more about Wonder Full World. What was the inspiration for the “around the world” theme?

A:  That was based on research. We do focus groups and research to determine the next theme. We were tossing around the question: where do we want to go? Then we realized that we had a seven-session retreat…and there are seven continents, seven wonders of the world. But women don’t care so much about the “wonders of the world.” They wonder about their faith, their families, their purpose, and their God. As women began to tell us what they really wonder about, seven clear themes emerged.  We have called them the Seven Wonders of a Woman’s Heart.  They are things like: “I wonder if anyone cares about me…I wonder if I matter to God…I wonder where God is when life is hard…I wonder if I can make a difference, etc.”

Q:  What is included in the Wonder Full World Women’s Ministry Retreat Kit?

A:  The contents of the kit (retail: $99.99) include:

·         Director’s guide with supply list, suggested schedules, and decorating ideas

·         Worship leader’s guide with sheet music for the songs

·         Custom CD with eight songs

·         Seven leader’s guides—one for each session

·         Training and promotional DVD including three commercials

·         CD with reproducible graphics, forms, and other goodies

·         Travel themed audio tracks for each session

·         Samples of all of the per-woman essentials and gifts (journal, charm, music CD, and tote bag)

·         Sample swatch from the service project blanket

The cost for materials is $13.50 per participant, which includes these essentials:

·         Journal with all the discussion questions, song lyrics, and Scriptures which is used throughout the retreat

·         Globe charm which is presented as a constant reminder of the retreat and God’s everlasting love

·         Service project (materials for fleece blanket – one blanket for every two participants)

For an additional cost, churches may also purchase a Wonder Full World tote bag and CD for each woman at the retreat. When the essentials and extras are purchased as a value pack, along with one blanket for every two women, the total cost is only $21 per attendee.

Wonder Full World Women’s Ministry Retreat Kit

Group Publishing    May 2010

ISBN: 978-0-7644-7400-2/$99.99

For other product information, visit www.group.com/womensretreats

Tears

This morning the girls and I wanted to take full advantage of the sunny weather, and the break in this horrible rainy season, and go to the park.

Apparently everyone else had the same idea this morning as the park was full of energetic happy children.

The kids were running around having a blast, and the parents were also thrilled to be out the house and finally enjoying some adult conversations.

We were there for quite some time, and I noticed that Ella had been sitting by herself for quite some time, on some large rocks that are on the edge of the park.  So I journeyed over to see what the problem was.

The poor girl sat with tears in her eyes and she looked very sad.

The reason for her tears?

Her best friend moved away in December.  Time has not softened the loss that Ella feels when she thinks of her friend Danielle.  Today she was remembering how she and Danielle would run around and play at the park.

It makes me cry just thinking about it.  I wish I could take that pain away for her, and I pray that our upcoming move will help her to find a new best friend for the years to come.

I have had many tears in the last days as our time here draws to a close.  Just this past weekend I was watching my best friend Kristi as she tested for her 5th black belt in Taekwondo.

Yes, her 5th black belt.

She is awesome!  She is now a Master of Taekwondo.

I was amazed as I watched her skill and confidence, but I had tears in my eyes as I thought how soon our time together was coming to an end.

(And yes....I feel a little silly for watching Taekwondo and crying)

I have no doubt that we will continue our friendship, no matter the distance that separates us.

But I'm still like that little girl sitting on the rock by herself, with tears in her eyes, thinking of the wonderful moments that we have shared together and wondering why it can't stay the same.

Meds

I have been on the meds for my Essential Tremor for a solid month now.

Both the pharmacist and the neurologist recommended that I give it 4-6 weeks to "kick in".

I have been assessing my tremor to determine if there has been any change.

Honestly, I don't think there has been.  Which can happen in some cases, and apparently an increased dosage will not help either.

Not that I want to up my dosage anyways.  I have been feeling very blech and VERY tired lately.  I have been extremely unmotivated, which is not ideal since we move in a month and I'm supposed to be working on a large essay for another class.  I just can't seem to get the energy to do much of anything these days.  In fact a simple trip up the stairs has tired me out some days.

Last night I actually looked up the side effects of this particular drug to see if what I'm feeling is "normal".

Here's what it says:  Dizziness, lethargy, weakness, drowsiness, headache, insomnia, fatigue, anorexia, anxiety, mental depression, poor concentration, reversible amnesia and catatonia, vivid dreams with or without insomnia, hallucinations, paresthesia, incoordination.

Right.

So the lethargy, weakness, drowsiness, fatigue, depression and insomnia are not just in my mind.  It's really from this drug.

And really are those symptoms all supposed to be different from each other?  I'm surprised that they listed that many similar side effects.

No wonder I've felt so tired!!

So I have made the decision to discontinue these meds.  I have wean myself off of them slowly since it also affects my blood pressure and heart rate.  But I'm ready to get back to "normal" again, if such a thing is possible.

It just means that I need to get used to having this stupid tremor forever.

I KNOW that the effects of the meds just isn't worth it either.  However, I need to learn how to not be embarrassed by the shaking when people comment on it.  Which is challenging since "stress and social interactions tend to worsen the tremor".

Lovely.

At least I won't be so exhausted all of the time.

Changes

From This:

To This: