P.S. I Love You

I was at Costco and it was a few days preceding Valentine's Day, so I was in the mood for a love story. I heard the movie was good and then someone said the book was even better. I caved and bought the book. Hmmmmph. I'm sure the Irish folk would be disappointed to know that after reading it, the book feeds the stereotype that all the Irish do is drink! I think if it was rewritten and set someplace in the states, I'd like it more. Minus the Irish lifestyle, it had a great message in it--- and yes, I bawled my eyes out in a handful of chapters... I learned that I must love without holding back. We do not know when our time will come to leave this Earth, nor do we know when the time will come for those we love to leave us...

Movie: Return with Honor

I just watched Return with Honor with my parents and was pleasantly surprised how much I liked it. Now, I have to admit I also like The RM and and The Best Two Years and Singles Ward--though Singles 2nd Ward wasn't worth watching. Return with Honor is a drama, though, and slow moving. I enjoyed it.

Google Reader/Yahoo version

I wrote this post on our family's blog and wanted to share it with all of you. If you're into reading a couple (or more) blogs on a regular basis, this is an easy way to not have to regularly check them for new posts. Check out the comments too; my sister Jane/Shannon and friend Carolina have some good things to say about it too.

Love & Respect

I don't know this person at all, but I happened upon her book review and thought it was worth sharing. Click here.

You Just Don't Duct Tape a Baby!

This is a really interesting book of "true tales and sensible suggestions from a veteran pediatrician." I wanted this doctor for my own! He was always trying to improve his practice. For instance, when he finally got his dream office, he had a separate waiting area for adolescents, sick children and well children. Doesn't that make sense? Have you ever taken your kid in for their yearly check and there's another kid coughing all over the place--and you fear you're going to take home that other kid's malady? He also had a consultation room just for talking about issues going on in the families. And he apparently talked to the families a lot--not like my (very nice) pediatrician who always seems in a bit of a hurry. Dr. Weinberger (the pediatrician from the book) almost seemed too good to be true.

Anyway, the book is basically just entertaining stories of how families deal with the struggles of raising children. It really affirmed for me my conviction that my time is best spent at home with my children. Some of its philosophies are things like how important family dinner time is, how children shouldn't have so many structured activities that they aren't allowed to be kids, how you can't have it all (dual long-hour careers) and expect your children to thrive, how children may need counseling during times of stress like divorce and death, etc. (made me want to go to counseling too, it sounded so good), how parents need to view their children objectively in order to cope with learning disabilities and serious illness and just get the children every care they need.

There were two parts that resonated most with me. The first is where it talked about sibling rivalry. I realized I need to be paying more attention to what goes on when O bullies A and A retreats in tears. I need to give A the tools to deal with those situations, and I need to make sure that her self-esteem is healthy. The second part is about discipline, and it's where I received confirmation that I'm a really great mom, from this quote, "A mother of one of my patients was telling me she doesn't think she's doing a good job as a mother unless her eleven-year-old daughter tells her she hates her at least once a week." Check. Except it's almost daily from O. Maybe that's a little excessive?

The Peacemaker Comment Section for February

I thought I would create a blog for those of you bookclub girls who want to post some comments about the book. I just finished reading it and would like to take notes on it so I'll remember them at bookclub in March. But I figured that we could post our notes on here under the comments section of this little blog and then we can all see what we think of the book! I will put my comments under the comment section as well. This book is amazing and I would definitely recommend it to all of you!

Book of a Thousand Days

I really loved this book! It's a youth fiction written in journal format from the perspective of a young maid to a princess/gentry. It's based on a Grimm fairy tale. It's such a fun and fast read. It was recommeded to me by a friend and now that I'm done, I'm passing it on to Melanie (13) who I know will love it, too. *Note about the author - she's an LDS woman but this is published mainstream - her books are very clean. Go buy this book or put your name on the long waiting list at the library. You won't be sorry. --Alisa

(Marcy - seriously, this book is right up your alley!)

Bridges of Madison County

So to curb my appetite for strolling through the book store and buying a book (I'm embarrassed to go to the library and pay my late fee for a book that was like 2 months overdue-- I swear it wasn't my fault!), I perused my own book shelves for a read. I do have a number of books I have not read. One caught my eye-- Bridges of Madison County. I have heard this is such a great classic novel, blah blah blah, and it was a skinny book, so I knew I could read it in a sitting..... so I read it.

Totally disappointed. Don't read any further because I will spoil it for you if you had no idea what the book was about. Basically it's about this totally mysterious and attractive photographer that travels around the world. He finds himself in a small town to do a story on bridges and meets a woman, native to Italy, but since turned into an American farmer's wife who found herself living a life she never really wanted to accept-- void of passion, intellectual discovery, learning, poetry, etc. Her husband and two kids were out of town at a county fair to show off their steers (or something like that) and of course... the photographer and farmer's wife had a hot, steamy affair for 3 or 4 days. Francesca (the hot Italian woman) justifies herself in this affair because she felt like this man, Robert Kincaid, filled that void of her life that was so lacking in all the passion, intellect etc as she lived her simple life in a po-dunk town with a husband who just talked about cattle prices and watched TV. She felt like Kincaid was the most amazing man ever; the most powerful, intense, deep man she could ever dream up. She decided to stay home with her family instead of running off with Mr. Amazing and kindly, Mr. Amazing respects her decision and remained celibate the rest of his life, also feeling complete and fulfilled by this amazing woman he happened upon while doing a photo shoot on the Bridges of Madison county. Well if there were ever a good excuse for adultery, this book really tries to muster one up.