2nd winner of the week

Amish Proverbs winner

The Vigilante's Bride by Yvonne Harris

Head over to my Scraps of Life blog for this book's tour.
Click here to get started.

Teaser Tuesday ~ Jungle Sunrise

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along, so I thought I would play for fun! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Memphis heard a small stick break. He froze. He knew his movement had not caused the sound. there were no limbs lying in the spot where he waited, for he had cleared out all debris when he settled in the night before. Something else had snapped the twig. A pile of leaves rustled. Another cracking of a stick sounded.

~ taken from p.3&4 of Jungle Sunrise by Jonathan Williams

Read this book's tour and my review here.

1st Winner of the week

to winner

She won Life's Too Short by Steve Diggs

Mailbox Monday ~ Aug. 30, 2010

Join Mailbox Monday meme
@ The Printed Page

Oh, I have to tell you about these two twin books I bought. They didn't come in the mail, but I got them non the less. I bought them at Sam's Club. They are the neatest books though. It is a cookbook for handme down family heirloom recipes. You fill in the recipe on each page for your daughter. It is for family favorite recipes. kind of like a scrapbook of family favorites. The recipe cards are the pages in the book. The inside front cover has a emergency substitutions chart. There is a nice note to My Daughter with an acrostic on how to use the recipe keeper. Each section has a note page at the beginning and an index page at the end so you can record the recipes in each section for fast look up. I had to buy two, one for each daughter.

the TIME has come...

And now for my long awaited Review.... Did you guess???

The CSN stores has graciously allowed me to review the Chef's Choice International WafflePro Taste /Texture Select Classic Belgian Waffle Design

My daughter was so excited when I selected this waffle maker to do a review on. She has been wanting me to get one so I jumped at the chance to do a review on this product. My what a product it is. We have been totally pleased with this waffle iron. It has made the best waffles. It is easy to use and clean up is very easy. Well, providing you don't use more batter than is suggested. But even at that I let the waffle maker cool and then started cleaning up the mess. A toothbrush cleans this maker right well. I love the chrome and black color very modern. We made several recipes with this iron. We used just the basic waffle recipe on the back of pancake mix and then we used the basic mix recipe that came with the waffle iron. We also had to try out the waffle brownie dessert that came in the instruction guide. It was superb!







The waffles come out golden and wonderful in color and texture. You can make the outside crispy with moist interior or make the whole waffle crispy. My family has chosen the moist interior setting. Someday maybe we'll have to try out the crispy waffle. There is a darkness button if you like y our waffles more or less golden. I can honestly say we haven't been disappointed with this waffle maker. May post the recipe sometime. Be on the Look out.


Check out the CSN stores today! They have a wide varity of departments from home improvement to office supplies. Housewares, Home Decor, outdoor living. Kids and pets alike will benefit in their store line, as well as your feet and health and fitness. They have your needs covered with a wide range of items, over 200 stores to choose from. Their customer service is excellent. They are prompt in their service and delivery departments too. I was not disappointed in that area either. Excellent service is what I received from the CSN stores on-line.

Now for the good news. You can enter to win my $60 gift code giveaway from the CSN stores and be on your way to finding out what a wonderful store they are. I'll draw a winner for the $60 on Sept. 1st. Check out the details here @ Scraps of Life or @ 4 the LOVE of BOOKS.

~*Opinions expressed in this post are strictly my own. I was not paid for this post. Thanks CSN on-line stores for providing the product and $60 gift code giveaway for this review.~*

Surrender the Heart by M. L. Tyndall

Check out this book tour @ my Scraps of Life blog Click here.

Still House Pond by Jan Watson

The characters and plot seemed good to me. I had no problem with that. The theme of the book: “All things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.” ~ Romans 8:28. The characters find that they must depend fully on God and believe that whatever happens is in His plan. Very good theme.

I found this book a little hard to get into. I don't know why. It took me awhile to really want to read the book. I don't care for books that don't grab me right at the start. I don't know if because this is book #2 in the series and I didn't read book #1 so don't know what went on before. Maybe that was my problem. Some series that is how it is. I have never read Jan Watson but I'm willing to give her another try if the opportunity arises. I haven't totally crossed her off my list of authors.

Product Description

Lilly Gray Corbett loves living on Troublesome Creek, but she would much rather play with her best friend than watch her little brother and the twins. Her mama, Copper, is often gone helping to birth babies, and Lilly has to stay home. When Aunt Alice sends a note inviting her to visit in the city, Lilly is excited to go, and Copper reluctantly agrees to let her. Later, when they hear the news that the train crashed, Copper and her husband, John, rush to find out if their daughter is injured . . . or even alive.

Read first chapter here.

Product Information

Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 384 Vendor: Tyndale House Publication Date: 2010 Dimensions: 8.25 X 5.50 (inches)

ISBN: 1414323867 ISBN-13: 9781414323862 Series: Copper Brown

Get more information about this book here.

A copy of Still House Pond was provided for review by
Tyndle House Publishing

winner

to



winner of Summer Sensations study Unit

Here are your random integers, generated with replacement:

 5

Timestamp: 2010-08-25 19:20:14 UTC

Masquerade by Nancy Moser

I have been down with my back. You may go to Scraps of Life for this book tour. Click here.

Monster Inside Me

Monsters Inside Me

Episode #210

Wednesday, August 25

10:00-11:00 PM eastern

Monster Inside My Daughter

“I feel a pulse,” one of the medics said.

The paramedics worked feverishly on Manisha to make sure she was still alive. My beautiful seven-year-old daughter from Nepal lay on the floor unconscious at the O’Connell Center of the University of Florida.

“Has she ever had a seizure?” another one asked.

“No, no,” I said in bewilderment. Manisha rolled over and vomited.

One emotion consumed me: Fear. The enormity of single parenting hit me like lightening.

I cried out, “Where are you, God? I feel so alone.”

After hooking up stabilizing IV’s, Manisha was whisked off in an ambulance to Shands Teaching Hospital. I found a pay phone and called my mother. Her first comment was, “Do you know what day this is?”

I remembered—September 19. Four years to the day and almost to the hour, my father had died of a brain tumor. It was about 5:00 p.m. My shattered world continued to close in on me. A short time later my worst fears were confirmed.

“There is something on the CAT scan. We have a called a neurologist,” I heard the nurse say.

“No, no, no,” every cell in my body cried out. “God, you can’t let this happen. Not again!”

But God was silent. The next nine days of hospitalization were filled with tests—MRI, gallium scan, spinal tap, TB test, HIV test, numerous blood draws, and too many questions and not enough answers by doctors doing their daily rounds with medical students in tow. Manisha had what in medical parlance is called a “zebra.”

As the days passed in the hospital, I asked God for two things that humanly speaking seemed impossible. I prayed first that the doctors would not have to do surgery. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Manisha’s beautiful thick, curly black hair shaved off. The ugly scars of surgery still lingered in my mind from my dad’s brain surgery. And I prayed that whatever was in Manisha’s head would not be cancerous. I had asked God to heal my father of a brain tumor and he died. Could I trust God for Manisha’s healing?

It was critical that the doctors make the correct diagnosis. The wrong treatment could kill her. Did she have a malignant brain tumor or a worm insider her head? Manisha had been adopted by me from Nepal at the age of three—old enough to be exposed to the extreme poverty of Nepal and lack of clean drinking water. Over fifty-seven percent of the water in Nepal is considered unsatisfactory for human consumption, contaminated with feces.

It was Neurocysticercosis—the most common parasitic infection of the nervous system. The larvae can travel anywhere in the body—the muscles, brain, eye, and other structures. The condition is still relatively rare in this country, but increasingly is appearing on the radar as part of the differential diagnosis for seizures.

Thankfully, twelve years later, Manisha is a well-adjusted 19-year-old just finishing high school and taking college classes.

Why did God allow this nightmare to happen? I don’t know why God allows the hard things in our lives, but I do know God never wastes anything. I hope writing about neurocysticercosis today will bring awareness to this very preventable disease. International adoptive parents and travelers to the developing world should seek appropriate medical care upon returning to the U.S. if they have been exposed to poor sanitary conditions or contaminated water.

In spite of the trials of single parenting, the years following that dreadful day of September 19, 1994, have been filled with life and joy. Manisha soon will be leaving home to make her own way in the world and I reflect on her middle name Hope—with God, there is always hope, and for that I am thankful.

For more on Manisha’s story, be sure to watch Animal Planet’s “Monsters Inside Me” on August 25, 10-11pm EST. Her story is also published in Children of Dreams, available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and your local bookstores.

Lorilyn Roberts graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Alabama and is currently working on her Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Perelandra College. As a Certified Court Reporter, Lorilyn has made contributions to the National Court Reporters Association Journal. She provides real-time broadcast captioning for television. Lorilyn’s first book, The Donkey and the King, is a beautifully illustrated children's book. She also co-leads Word Weavers in Gainesville, FL. When not writing, taking graduate classes, or closed captioning for television/web, Lorilyn homeschools her younger daughter, Joy.

Lorilyn is offering a drawing for a free copy of Children of Dreams on her website and blog. The drawing will be on September 1, 2010. Go to the website for details.

Website address: http://www.lorilynroberts.com/blog.html

Blog address: http://lorilynroberts.blogspot.com/