Something Special for St. Joseph's Feast

Hi Friends!

I'm jumping back on to let you know that Paul and I will soon be giving up trucking. We are praying that this will be a blessing for us and that God, through the intercession of St. Joseph, will bless our new business. God willing the change will be a little easier on my body than trucking has been hence allowing us to get pregnant.


We will be marketing the books that my mother and aunts write and illustrate for our family company, Precious Life Books. I have created a new blog for our company that I'd like to share with you all. You can check it out by going here.


I also wanted to quickly share with you a wonderful book that we published that is perfect for children and adults as Holy Week draws nearer. Children's Stations of the Cross is both a beautiful story of two young Irish boys and the journey they make with their Grampa to the parish church to reflect on the Stations of the Cross. It is a reminder of the importance and beauty that suffering can hold for each of us. I just love the illustrations in this book! They are truly POWERFUL!

I hope and pray this has been a meaningful and reflective Lent for each of you! May God bless your daily sacrafices!

Saintly Books for Little Ones

I feel like I just struck Gold!!!! I was over at one of my favorite blogs, Shower of Roses, and noticed her widget link to amazon's St. Joseph books. They are selling select titles in packages of ten for $1.50! That's 10 books for $1.50!!! Amazing titles that I remember from when I was growing up. Ones like these:

Confession: I bought 180 of these books from Amazon tonight! I selected 18 titles and was given a discount atomatically because of the 4 for 3 discount amazon has. With so many titles I received free shipping, so my total was $21.00! I use Swagbucks as my search engine and have earned a $5.00 amazon gift card.

Grand Total= 180 books $16.00!!!!

What am I going to do with so many of the same books, you ask?

1. One of each title for our family.

2. A set of each for our goddaughters.

3. A set for our nieces and my brother's baby who is due in March.

4. 4 sets to add to a Mass time tote to give as shower gifts, First Confession/Communion gifts, Christmas gifts, etc.I hate to admit it, but my Mom and Aunt were interviewed by EWTN for two hours last week about our most recent book and, in the excitement, I failed to post about it in case anyone wanted to listen. Luckily, the interview went so well that they have been invited back for a second interview next month. I will try to post the date and time as early as possible. The picture of our book, The Most Beautiful Thing in the World, that I placed above is not our newest book, but one of my favorite. The story is a beautiful and simple story of God's love and mercy that always brings tears to my eyes. Not to sound like an ad, but you can buy any of our books (and the most beautiful Catholic art!) at http://www.catholictothemax.com/ You will love all of their amazing paintings, mugs and clothing! When I worked there, I had to be very careful not to spend every pay check before I left work!

I also bought the sweetest nun doll recently. This is an awful, distorted picture of her! She is a lovely little nun with removable glasses, little leatherette shoes, white pantaloons and more. I can'y wait to watch a curly, red haired angel playing with her.

Any other amazing Catholic deals out there??? Feel free to share them with me! :)

May God bless the work of your hands!

Bon Appetit!

A while back Paul and I went to see Julie & Julia. We both really enjoyed it, particularly the portrayal of Paul and Julia Child's marriage. When we stopped at Cracker Barrel for our weekly book (on cd) run, we found the book My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme and decided to listen to it.

I was really hoping this would be a more in depth look at their life and marriage. It was that, but it was mainly the story of Julia discovering and learning French cooking. No real suprise there. It was certainly interesting. Paul even thought so!

Not being food, cooking or French experts, we were a little lost at times, but we both laughed at the similarities of the Child's nomad lifestyle and our own.

In the movie, Julia cries, "Where is home? where do we live?" Her husband, Paul (Good name, huh? ;D), calmly answers, "Home is where we are. We'll work it out. We can figure it out."

Amen!

I have never been a Meryl Streep fan, but Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci really make you feel the love, joy and fun that Julia and Paul must have shared during their marriage. Meryl was PERFECT for this part! It is inspiring to see the way that Paul Child is portrayed as a husband who is madly in love with his wife and who protects and leads her without ever pushing. In the movie, Julia always looks at Paul like a woman who is just falling in love. What a wonderful reminder for every marriage! We should be constantly falling in love with our spouse (and God!!!) and show it!

They seem to have had a marriage that was both passionate and fun, as all good marriages should be!

I felt myself joined with the characters in the movie, when Paul quietly supported his wife during moments that she felt broken hearted. It was very moving.

I enjoy Amy Adams as an actress and she was cute in this movie where her Character, Julie, is feeling her own life parallel with that of Julia, but I did find her character too be a bit to whiny and slightly annoying. That said, Amy Adams cuteness, especially when trying to be like Julia, reminded me of a cute and quirky, young Meg Ryan.

I would recommend this movie as a great date movie (and if you are on a car ride, the book is interesting enough to make any trip fly by!). If my Paul can suffer through it and find the beauty of it, any man can!


You might even send the kids to bed early, make a fancy meal for your own hubby and watch the movie whiloe enjoying a lovely (affordable!) bottle of French wine.


And, of course, as Julia would have said:


Bon Appetit!


And here are a couple of fun Julia quotes I found online:


"The only time to eat diet food is while waiting for the steak to cook."

"I think every woman should have a blowtorch!"

A funny thing happened on my way to the post office...

Today, two days after THE snow storm, Paul and I walked from a truck stop in New Jersey to a post office to drop of some Christmas cards and to buy more stamps. The snow was up past my knees! We waded through the piles of snow until we made it out to the main road. As we walked along Paul yelled out "LOOK!" and excitedly started following a little field mouse who had popped out from a plowed corner. Poor little thing was desperately trying to find somewhere safe to hide, but couldn't penetrate to wall of snow.

We decided his name is Herald, as in "Hark, the herald," and that he is most definately a Christmas mouse!

He reminded me of the little mouse in the book, If You Take a Mouse to the Movies... a book that I have on our coffee table at home. I know I'm a Dork, but I'm okay with that.

Even though Paul didn't say it out loud, I'm pretty sure that Paul wanted to make Herald his very own pet just to shock people. He's funny that way. But, he bit his tongue and kept silent remembering what happened last time he tried to bring home a mouse.

I know you are saying, "Last time he did WHAT?!?!"

Yes, my husband found a baby mouse in our kayak and put it in his pocket to bring home and show me. He got in the truck and the mouse got out of his pocket. For the next month, despite the fact that I never SAW the little mouse, I found nibbled packets of food and knew Paul's little friend was still with us.

Luckily, we soon traded our truck in for a new one.

As we walked back to the truck stop, my dearest, ever-loving husband decided to push me into a mountain of snow. I must say that it was very fun. I pushed him in and he made a lovely snow angel.

Aaahhh, my very own snow baby! :) He probably won't like me calling him that out on the world wide web for everyone to read- not manly enough and all that. Lucky for me, this post will be published by the time he reads it. Heee, heee!!!! Merry Christmas, Little Herald!

My Summer Reading Indulgence

Last summer, my youngest sister, Maria, introduced me to the wonderful world of Regency Romance as penned by Georgette Heyer. I was very skeptical since these stories were termed as "Romance" and the old paperback copies my sister loaned me looked very much like the stacks of thrashy romance novels that I believe would be perfect for helping me to light our woodstove on frosty mornings. But I know my sister well enough to know she would never recommend such junk.

I was becoming somewhat desperate for good reading material since I can devour at least one book a day while we are trucking. These books have become the balm for my travel weary soul. Once I begin reading I can't put a book down. It's honestly the next best thing to our dear Miss Jane Austen!

The only problem that I've had is that they are just beinning to reprint these books and ebay shops tend to only sell one of Miss Heyers books in with a lot of 5 or 6 novels that I wouldn't bother with. Lucky for me my cousins and sisters have scoured the internet and thrift store to find old copies (sometime the covers are very decieving and have NOTHING to do with the story) and they have a great collection which I've been bumming off of them. I haven't gotten to read very many yet since I don't get to see the girls very often, but hopefully I'll get my hands on a few more soon. And, as I said, they are beginning to reprint them, so some are available on amazon, etc.

If you are looking for an enjoyable escape from reality as you enjoy the shade of a tree in your yard or travel to visit the family this summer I would recommend popping one of these books in your carry on. It will make your summer just that much sweeter and more relaxing.

I think BBC should make these into movies now that all of the Austen movie have been portrayed on the screen. There are such a limited supply of stories like these with dashing men, evil villans, and lovely ladies of court.

Here's a little something from a site I came across:

"Georgette Heyer (August 16 1902 - July 4 1974, pictured left) was an amazingly prolific writer who created the Regency England genre of romance novels.

Although Jane Austen published during this period (1811 - 1820), she was writing contemporaneously while Heyer was making very well-researched historical fiction, full of all you could ever want: romance, fashion, upper classes, arranged marriages, murder, intrigue, cant language, sarcasm and humour!" - http://www.georgette-heyer.com/

Bake a batch of scones, make a pot of tea and then find a comfy spot to curl up and escape for a little while. Happy reading!