F is for Fablehaven: Book Review

In the effort to catch-up, I need to review this series of books.  I have listened on audio to the first four in this series, and have checked the 5th one out of the library waiting for me to read it.  I finished this in December of last year, and since I have been reading the other books each one in order I am going to steal this summary from Goodreads.

Title: Fablehaven

Author: Brandon Mull

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 5 out of 5

Why Did I Read? I have always wanted to read this, and I like to have an audio book in my car when I drive.  This was the audio book that grabbed me. 

From Wikipedia

Summary: For centuries, mystical creatures of all description were gathered to a hidden refuge called Fablehaven to prevent their extinction. The sanctuary survives today as one of the last strongholds of true magic in a cynical world. Enchanting? Absolutely. Exciting? You bet. Safe? Well, actually, quite the opposite ... Kendra and her brother Seth have no idea their grandfather is the current caretaker of Fablehaven. Inside the gated woods, ancient laws give relative order among greedy trolls, mischievous satyrs, plotting witches, spiteful imps, and jealous fairies. However, when the rules get broken, an arcane evil is unleashed, forcing Kendra and Seth to face the greatest challenge of their lives. To save her family, Fablehaven, and perhaps the world, Kendra must find the courage to do what she fears most.

What Did I Love: I absolutely LOVED E.B. Stevens.  He reads the audio books and does a ton of voices.  I found myself laughing out loud at the text--which probably resulted from the way he read it.  Brandon Mull writes very well.  The story was very well done, and I immediately wanted the 2nd book.  It was a simple fantasy world, which I appreciated.  But it wasn't too simple that I didn't feel like I wasn't in the world-which was a perfect balance. 

I also love that this is a perfect book for students--I bet reluctant readers are more likely to pick up this book.

What Did I Hate: Nothing! It got the rare 5 out of 5!!!

E is for Empowered

One thing that I have been wanting to catch-up on with this blog is my quotes.  I know that sometimes during my 365 project, this was what I used on nights that I couldn't think of a thing to write about.  And honestly....I kind of was thinking that when I realized I didn't have a word for E.  I started thinking that quotes empower us.  That is why I love quotes so much (as evidenced by my Pinterest board).  Today I have been watching the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  As a result, a lot of great quotes have been sticking out to me.  Those of you that aren't familiar with conference, think of it as a great weekend to be taught by smart men and women. Some people this time have been comparing it to TED talks....and I'm like yeah that's totally true! So today, I will share some quotes that I have loved recently. And give you my little commentaries as always :P

Source: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/128915608058139676/

This one was from today. I LOVED this quote.  As women, we often try to make sure that we get what we need to done--she only gave us three things.  We can do that!

Source: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/128915608058140719/

This is the quote that actually inspired the word empowered. This is a great quote to remember because with it I can remember that I don't have to do EVERYTHING I don't have to be perfect.  I just need to do my best and in so doing I am empowered to become a better person.

Source: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/128915608058103974/

I saw this one recently and I just loved it.  I am always looking for great quotes about trying.  This one is great. Especially for my students.

D is for Dresback

So in the idea of continuing to catch everyone up on my life, I am trying to let everyone know about my recent obsessions.  As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, finding out about my family history is very important.  We believe that families should be connected as it says in the Old Testament (see Malachi 4:6). So one day, I got on familysearch.org which is the LDS version of ancestry.com.  It is free and open to everyone.  I can put myself in and my whole family.  I started looking for someone we didn't know anything about. My aunt and grandmother have done a lot to add to what we know about our family.

In my looking around, I found my fourth-great grandparents--Jacob Dresback and his wife Catherine Hoy. (Hence D is for Dresback) They had a daughter named Olive along with my third-great grandmother.  All we knew was that Olive was born in 1840.  We didn't know anything else about her.  So she became my focus.  As I started looking for her, it expanded into a huge Dresback family search (which is sometimes spelled Dresbach).  I found a lot of Olive's brothers and sisters--and their spouses and their children.

Eventually I got a trial period of ancestry.com to figure out what that had.  I love how it is set up with the collaboration.  Both FamilySearch and Ancestry have great advantages. Through Ancestry I started to add details to their lives--where they lived when etc.  This is a great advantage to Ancestry.  FamilySearch is great in that I don't usually have to approve hints--if the person is in the system they just come with their links.

It was a bittersweet day when I finally found Olive.  Through ancestry's find a grave connections, I figured out that she died after she was only a year or so old.  It was great to finally find her--my inspiration for this mission.  But I was sad to find out that she died so quickly.  I had kind of guessed that as I learned more about the family overall, but I had been hoping I was wrong.  She never had the chance to have a full life. But now she has a connection to someone--and I really do want to make a trip to Ohio someday and visit her grave.

C is for Coursera

One of the things that I have been doing a lot this year is learning. I am a bit of a nerd.  I want to be in college still...going to lectures...learning at the hands of experts....reading books about various things.  HOWEVER! I do NOT want the stress.  I also do NOT want to pay for it.

So....I came across this awesome little website a few years back...Coursera.  I have mentioned this sometimes on here (a paper I wrote, connection from class, and a movie review).  But I thought it fit into my great catch-up theme....because this has really taken the place of my 365 blog challenge last year.  I got really really really ambitious with what I was going to learn about.

In the last few weeks, I have really had to cut back on what I was taking because it was causing the stress that I wanted to avoid.  I have learned that sticking to the schedule as best I can, especially working for the certificates keeps me motivated to follow through.  But the deadlines were getting to be too much--so I dropped a lot of classes.  I can take them again if they are offered again later, and I can focus on the ones that I really really enjoy.

It makes me think about getting my masters...but this really satisfies my desire to learn.  How do you stay being a life-long learner?

B is for the Book of Mormon

So continuing with my theme of catching up, I need to talk about this because I need to follow up from my post here. I am actually a little nervous to do this blog post for the possibility of a wider A to Z audience. But part of my blogging attitude has been I have to get over what people think of my writing and just go for it. So here we go!

In the post I linked above, I told you about a 40 Days and Nights Challenge to read the Book of Mormon.  As a member of the LDS community, this was exciting to me.  And I definitely tried, but as often happens I quickly got off track.   But I just kept reading, I hadn't read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover straight.  I had done a lot more individualized topic study recently.  This was a nice start for me.  I had the goal to read all four standard works in 2013....which never happened.  But I suppose I have started the process if I start with my Book of Mormon beginning if I can do it in a year.

I finished about a month ago, give or take. And it was a great experience as I tried to make sure I read everyday before I went to work.  As I mention a lot, work has been really hard--and this has helped to keep my perspective.  Work is not my whole life--though it feels like it.  And it really doesn't matter in the big scheme of things.  This is SUPER hard to remember--and what I really felt like I learned this time through the Book of Mormon.  Each time I read the Book of Mormon, I learn something new.  That is the great thing about this wonderful book, and I want to spend the last little bit of my post testifying of its truthfulness.

I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that the prophets in this book saw our time, and knew what we needed to hear during this dispensation.  I know that by reading and studying the Book of Mormon we will come closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the Savior of the World, and by improving our relationship with Him we become better people.  We are here to learn and grow to prepare for the next life, and this book will help us do that. It brings so much peace to each of us, and I am grateful that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

If you want to know more, check this out and other links from this page. And if you'd like to read this book for yourself, request a free copy at this link.

Courtesy of the free copy site :)

A is for Allegiant: Book Review

So in my theme of catching up, there will be quite a few book reviews on this A to Z Challenge.  I have been trying to keep up with my reading, but I haven't kept up with blogging about them.  And a lot of these book reviews are books that I finished end of 2013 too, so yeah--when I stopped blogging, I also stopped writing about the books.  Sad day...but I am trying to fix that with this challenge (though I will admit...today it is tricky to get motivated to write).

So I actually finally finished Allegiant this past weekend after reading it for months--I started reading it when everything at work changed and it is really hard to find time to read a book.

Title: Allegiant

Author: Veronica Roth

Genre: Dystopian/YA Fiction

Rating: 4 out of 5

Why Did I Read? Well I read Divergent (see review here) and I read Insurgent (review to come on Day "I"). I really wanted to know how it ends. And I had heard interesting things about the ending. 

Summary: (Note if you haven't read the other two books, this might contain spoilers of those...they have become one long story to me.) We follow Tris and Tobias outside the fence to figure out what is out there and what they are suppose to do.  They are surprised when they learn the truth about their own existence.  Tris feels like she has walked into another world just like hers--will she change it or just let the status quo remain? 

What Did I Love: I loved how everything was explained in this book--that's why I have got all three of them in my head now.  She takes all of the loose ends from the first two books and really ties it all in a bow.  I actually really did like the big ending.  I won't say it here to avoid spoiling it for others--but I accidentally came across the ending to the story right before I finished the book.  And I actually wasn't too surprised, I kind of saw it coming.  I loved the theme of the book that really came out through the end and she had some great quotes and writing at the end. 

What Did I Hate: I really didn't like the perspective changes with the chapter changes.  I get why she did that now that I've read the whole book, I don't think she could have done it any other way.  But it was very disorienting and it took me awhile to get use to it.  Towards the end I would still see the character name at the chapter heading...read a few pages and then go back to the chapter heading to make sure I had the first person right.  I wonder if a third person would have made it better....I doubt it but that would have helped the confusion.

What did you think of Alleigant? I haven't seen the new movie yet, what did you think of that?

Thank you Wikipedia 

A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal: Catch-up!

Ugh....I still don't have a great idea as to what to do for my theme.  But I want to get in on Yidya Sury's blog hop to reveal....so by the end of this post we should have a reveal! (At least I hope!)

Oh it is totally great and powerful!
http://vidyasury.com/2014/02/a-to-z-challenge-theme-reveal-blogfest.html

So I got one suggestion on Facebook, one suggestion in the comments of my post, and one vote on Twitter.  So in terms of voting you guys weren't a whole lot of help :P My brain has been doing a lot of A to Z because I am doing two other blogs in addition to this! Yes I am crazy.  My students are doing the writing but it is still a bit of work on my end to get them motivated and moving.  So go check out the main blog to learn about the theme of Cedar Ridge Academy and the revamped and new learning blog for Cedar Ridge Academy and their theme of Social Studies.

As a result of the brain in other A to Z things it has been hard to focus on my own blog.  So today on the drive home, I had just posted and gotten all of the stuff done for the school blogs--I kind of took a breathe and was like what should I do with my blog??

I had a lot of great suggestions and votes.  But I was thinking it needs to be something realistic--especially if I don't get all of the student ones scheduled in advanced like I would want!  And what I got suggestion wise seemed tricky and the vote I got was actually the two I had posted with the most work--and I might save those for another year. But they just don't seem like they fit this year. 

The other thing with realistic is lets be honest, since I finished the #365 project and work invaded my life more (which I didn't think was possible) I have been a HORRIBLE blogger! I had all of these grand visions when I was done that I would keep up with a regular schedule and update things and network more etc. etc. etc.  So that thought process led me to the idea of a CATCH-UP THEME! 

I had the idea on the other post about doing a week of each thing that my blog focuses on. And I kind of went with that idea for a little bit, but then I was thinking about how it would be a bit of planning to figure out which theme to do with which week and what if I want to change my mind.  So...the catch-up theme gives me the flexibility to do a book thing one day and a knitting thing the next day. I have a lot of book reviews I want to do and lesson plans I want to tell you about.  So, I am going to map out what letters I can use with catch-up things and then probably fill in the rest.  We'll see...like I said at the beginning I hope to have a reveal....I'm not super committed but I'm trying to be.  I think it would have helped if I had all of my letters mapped out already but I'm tired, its late and time for bed!

Thanks for reading the rambling! Feel free to follow on the side and follow my school blogs too--the students are excited to see what is said to their ideas!

Go to the link above to hop on yourself!