My Book List 2018

My Book List 2018

This list contains the books I’ve read and listened to.  I love holding real books in my hands, but sometimes, I don’t have time to sit and read.  I enjoy listening to audiobooks while I get work done.  This list will be updated throughout the year.  I have a short review of each book as well.

Many of these books I love to listen to with my children.  I work hard to instill a love of books and for learning in them.  Books are the key to untold worlds.  They can bring you to different lands and adventures and teach you a wealth of knowledge.  I want my children to develop the skills of educating themselves through the written word now in the hopes that they’ll always have the desire for learning within them.

Books I’ve Read

  1.  The Bible
  2.  Food Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of Our Edible World by Julia Rothman
  3. The Big Book of Kombucha by Hannah Crum and Alex LaGory
  4.  100% Real: 100 Insanely Good Recipes for Clean Food Made Fresh
  5.  The Big Awesome Book of Hand & Chalk Lettering by Dina Rodriguez
  6.  City Farmhouse Style: Designs for a Modern Country Life by Kim Leggett
  7.  1000 Tangles, Patterns Doodled Designs produced by Walter Foster Publishing with Various Artists
  8.  Pencil Art Workshop by Matt Rota
  9. Jesus-The Way, The Truth, The Life
  10. Once There Were Castles | Lost Mansions and Estates of the Twin Cities by Larry Millet
  11. Castles | A History of Fortified Structures Ancient, Medieval & Modern by Charles Stephenson
  12. Minnesota’s Own | Preserving Our Grand Homes by Larry Millett
  13. Hearst Castle | The Biography of a Country House by Victoria Kastner
  14. 150 Best Cottage & Cabin Ideas by Francesc Zamora Mola
  15. Compact Cabins | Simple Living in 1000 Square Feet or Less by Gerald Rowan
  16. How to Build Your Dream Cabin in the Woods | The Ultimate Guide to Building and Maintaining a Backcountry Getaway by J. Wayne Fears

 Audible Books I’ve Listened To

  1. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
  2.  The Transfer by Veronica Roth
  3.  Four The Initiate by Veronica Roth
  4.  Four The Son by Veronica Roth
  5.  Four the Traitor by Veronica Roth
  6.  The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
  7.  Legend by Marie Lu
  8.  Champion by Marie Lu
  9.  Prodigy by Marie Lu
  10.  The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers by Gary Chapman
  11. The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris
  12. A Mutiny in Time by James Dashner
  13. Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
  14. Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
  15. The 5 Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell
  16. Eat Dirt by Dr. Josh Axe
  17. Master Herbalist published by Author’s Republic with Various Authors
  18. The Selection by Kiera Cass
  19. The Elite by Kiera Cass
  20. The Guard by Kiera Cass
  21. The One by Kiera Cass
  22. The Queen: A Novella by Kiera Cass
  23. The Heir by Kiera Cass
  24. The Favorite by Kiera Cass
  25. The Crown by Kiera Cass
  26. The Siren by Kiera Cass
  27. Servant of the Crown by Melissa McShane
  28. The Cage by Megan Sheperd
  29. The Hunt by Megan Sheperd
  30. The Angel Experiment by James Patterson
  31. The Faerie Path by Frewin Jones

A lot of the books on the list below, I’ve read or listened to before, but I’d like to listen to again.  Several of these I’m going to be listening to with my children.  A bunch of these I’ve already started reading, but I take breaks and come back to, depending on what I’m in the mood for.

Books I Want To Read/Listen To

  1. The Bible
  2. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T Kiyosaki
  3. Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths by Bernard Evslin
  4.  Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality by Professor Robert Sapolsky
  5.  Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
  6.  Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  7.  How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  8.  Dr. Andrew Weil’s Guide to Optimum Health by Dr. Andrew Weil
  9.  Understanding Genetics: DNA, Genes, and Their Real-World Application by Professor David Sadava
  10. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  11.  Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  12.  Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  13.  On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  14.  By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  15.  The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  16.  Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  17.  These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  18.  The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  19.  Caroline: Little House Revisited by Sarah Miller
  20.  Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
  21.  Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
  22.  Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery
  23.  Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery
  24.  Anne of Windy Poplars by L. M. Montgomery
  25.  Anne’s House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery
  26.  Anne of Ingleside  by L. M. Montgomery
  27.  Rainbow Valley  by L. M. Montgomery
  28.  Emily Climbs by L. M. Montgomery
  29.  Jo’s Boys by Louisa May Alcott
  30.  Classics of American Literature  narrated by Professor Arnold Weinstein
  31.  The History of World Literature narrated by Professor Grant L. Voth
  32.  The Science of Natural Healing by Professor Mimi Guarneri
  33.  Medical School for Everyone: Pediatric Grand Rounds by Professor Roy Benaroch
  34.  Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
  35.  Understanding Japan: A Cultural History by Professor Mark J. Ravina
  36.  Beauty and the Beast narrated by Jenna Augen
  37.  Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book by Jennifer Donnelly
  38.  The Giver by Lois Lowry
  39.  Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
  40.  Messenger by Lois Lowry
  41.  Son by Lois Lowry
  42. Emma by Jane Austin
  43. The Princess Diaries By Meg Cabot
  44. The Lost Queen by Frewin Jones
  45. Deep Nutrition by Luke Shanahan, Catherine Shanahan MD

Have you read any of these books?  Please tell me what’s on your book list this year!

I’ve decided to include a short, and by short, I mean tiny, review of the books that I’ve read.

  1. The Bible: Honestly, I haven’t read the entire thing yet, but I’ve listened to several entire books within it.  Since there are 66 books in the bible, I thought it might be easier to add simply, “The Bible” rather than each specific book.   I love the Bible, it’s my guide to life.  I could read it every day and never get sick of it.  It’s full of wisdom, poetry, history, adventure, romance, drama, and so much more.
  2. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo: This book changed the way I think of the objects within my home.  I’ve been using her methods to minimize my personal belongings by keeping only what I love.  If you’re a packrat, or a hoarder, then I really recommend this book.
  3. Food Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of Our Edible World by Julia Rothman: This book is kind of something you’d want to leave on a coffee table.  Every page is full of fun illustrations and descriptions of food and it’s history.
  4.  100% Real: 100 Insanely Good Recipes for Clean Food Made Fresh: To be honest, I looked at every page and drooled over many of the recipes.   Then I didn’t make a single one.  I love cookbooks, but usually, I look online for recipes.  I’ll probably continue to check out every inspiring cookbook that crosses my path though.
  5. The Big Awesome Book of Hand & Chalk Lettering by Dina Rodriguez: This book was a lot of fun!  Both Cupcake and I practiced a lot of the variations in lettering.  I might check this one out again in the future if I want to work on another chalkboard.
  6. City Farmhouse Style: Designs for a Modern Country Life by Kim Leggett: This book was full of beautiful, inspiring images of home decor.  I love browsing these types of books for remodeling our humble abode.
  7. 1000 Tangles, Patterns Doodled Designs produced by Walter Foster Publishing with Various Artists: This book was pretty cool.  It’s full of different ways to doodle.  I would have loved this one when I was in high school.  I really enjoyed looking through it, but I came to realize that I’m past doodling on paper.  I don’t have hours of boredom stuck in classrooms anymore.  My kids all enjoyed looking through the designs though, hopefully, it will inspire them for their future doodling.
  8.  Pencil Art Workshop by Matt Rota: I used to love sketching.  This book was full of inspiring pencil art and directions.  I didn’t attempt to sketch anything, but It brought me fondly back in time.  Maybe I’ll get back to it one day when I have a little more time on my hands.
  9. The Transfer by Veronica Roth: I had read the divergent series back when it first came out.  I enjoyed the movies, even though they varied from the books in a few big ways.  I happened to come across these companion books, from Four’s perspective.  I love when a good book series relates the story from another side.
  10.  Four The Initiate by Veronica Roth: ”    “
  11.  Four The Son by Veronica Roth: ”    “
  12.  Four the Traitor by Veronica Roth: ”    “
  13.  The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman: I feel like this book should be a requirement for every high school student.  Gary Chapman made a lot of puzzle pieces about love click into place.  It helped me realize whats important to me to feel loved and also help me realize how I can better love others.  This kind of information is useful for every type of relationship, not just the romantic kinds.  I immediately took the love quiz and found out my love language and then talked to my family about what theirs were.  I’ll definitely read this book again and again over the years to refresh my memory.
  14.  Legend by Marie Lu
  15.  Champion by Marie Lu
  16.  Prodigy by Marie Lu: This is the second time I’ve read this series.  Actually, the first time I read it, this time I listened to it.  If you like futuristic adventure stories, this is a great series to add to your list.
  17. 150 Best Cottage & Cabin Ideas by Francesc Zamora Mola: I loved all of the images in this book.  I’ve been looking into small houses and although these are cabins, I think this is a good small home book too.  Most of these had huge windows, tall ceilings, open floor plans, and beautiful views.  Much of the interior styles were not to my taste, however.   I would look into this book again if I were building a home.
  18. Compact Cabins | Simple Living in 1000 Square Feet or Less by Gerald Rowan: This book is pretty awesome.  It contains 62 floor plans, black/green & white images of the completed cabin, off the grid options, green design, and from start to finish plans that help lay out exactly how to build.  It goes over everything you’ve thought about and everything you didn’t even think of.  I’m thinking of purchasing this book to keep at home so I can plan my future home.  One thing to keep in mind is that the title is accurate, these are tiny cabins.  It mentions that you can add on in the future if need be.
  19. How to Build Your Dream Cabin in the Woods | The Ultimate Guide to Building and Maintaining a Backcountry Getaway by J. Wayne Fears: I actually did not finish this book.  It is quite detailed and my time at the library was out before I could finish.  I’d like to check it out again or purchase because it contains A LOT of info about having and caring for a small home/cabin.

What I’ve Learned From A Year of Dedicated Blogging

What I’ve Learned From A Year of Dedicated Blogging

I started my blog as a fun hobby.  In the first few years, I only made a couple of posts.  I knew I wanted to do more, especially since I was making the investment in paying for hosting.  Letting my blog sit there seemed like a waste of money.

It wasn’t until my circumstances changed that I decided to dedicate time specifically to blogging.  My health had taken a turn for the worse, I had to quit working.  I was struggling with accepting my new life and the depression that came with significant change.  I knew I needed to fill the void of work with a new hobby.

Blogging seemed like the perfect way to occupy my mind and fill my time with something positive.  Since I stopped taking professional portraits for other people, I reminded myself that I could still be a photographer, only, I would be taking images for myself.  I decided to challenge myself with something I have always wanted to do, a 52 project.  It was a lot of fun and I love the way my images turned out.  From there, it became easier to blog about things.

With the end of school nearing, I decided to add another challenge to my blogging, vlogging.  This took my blogs to a new level, as I had videos to go along with my writing.  I initially started vlogging for fun and as a challenge to warm me up to what I really wanted to do.  I wanted to do a video series on the challenges of severe, life-threatening allergies.  Along with this, I will have accompanying blogs that detail in writing the facts that go along with my videos.

Over the past 5 years of health struggles, I have done an extremely large amount of research.  Some of the things I researched had little to no information and I had to really dig in order to learn.  It was so hard to gain footing in the world of severe allergies.  Not many people are allergic to nearly the entire world, and there isn’t a handbook that goes along with it.

I knew that I wanted to help people and make their journey a little easier, by sharing my story and experiences.  I wanted to help someone avoid some of the mistakes I’d made in the beginning, or maybe find a new way to help them cope now.

I realized that I had found the purpose of my blog.  I guess you could say I found my niche.  This information isn’t only helpful for those with severe allergies.  It is beneficial for everyone.  I tell people that I am the canary in the coal mine.  If my health takes a dive because of my sensitivity to chemicals, then It can’t be very safe for other people either.  Even if they’re not having a life-threatening reaction to it.  Toxic chemicals are not beneficial to anyone.

Holistic health and nutrition can benefit everyone live a healthier, more meaningful life.  Living life without toxic chemicals reduces the risk of having cancer, heart disease, eczema, diabetes, and more.

I love sharing what I’ve learned with others.  Blogging gives me a platform so I don’t have to drive my friends and family crazy by constantly talking about the latest medical article I’ve been reading.  It allows me to share my photography.  It allows me to be creative and give me an outlet for my lack of ability to work.  Hopefully, someone out there will appreciate and enjoy my ramblings and my photography.

After a year of dedicated creating every month, I can definitely say that blogging is something I enjoy and will continue to do.  Thank you for those of you who have commented, shared, liked and followed me over this last year.  I have loved hearing that you enjoyed something I shared.  Hopefully, I’ll have more fun things for you in this coming year!

Love, Melissa

Wishing for Happiness

Wishing for Happiness

As a very young child, I would wish for different things, a fun new toy or a special treat was probably what made the top of the list.  Life was simple and sweet.  As the years wore on, I learned that life wasn’t quite so simple.  I learned that living in this world could sometimes be very hard.  People and animals were suffering and dying.  Not all people were kind, compassionate and empathetic.  And sadly enough, that there were horrors that were beyond the scope of a little girls imagination.

I remember coming home from elementary school one day, horrified that some day the Earth would end in a fiery ball called a red dwarf.  I went to my Dad worried sick about all of the people that would die.  My father tried to reassure me that it wouldn’t happen in my lifetime.  The sun wouldn’t explode for a loooong time.  Still, I worried about the people who would be alive when the sun engulfed the Earth.

I started to worry about everything.  I would find hurt or dying animals and bring them home to save them.  Often, saving them was beyond my skills and I would bury them in my yard.  My pet cemetery grew blackberry bushes over it as a gift from my fallen friends.

I worried about the children in other countries who were dying from starvation and disease.  I worried about people hurting and polluting the Earth, our home.  I worried about the amount of salt we ate and the amount of coffee my Dad drank because my school told me they were bad for our health.  I’d lie awake at night thinking about all of the horrible stories I’d read about concentration camps.  I’d worry about strangers trying to kidnap me or get me to buy drugs.

Eventually, I started wishing on stars and birthday candles and certain times(12:34 and 11:11) for something other than treats and toys.  I started wishing for happiness.  I wanted to be happy.  I was so sad and worried all the time that I was quite a serious child.  I wanted the whole world to be happy.  I wanted everyone to be safe and healthy, loved and happy.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized I had stopped wishing for happiness.  It has been so long that I don’t even remember the last time I made a wish.  Why?  It’s because I AM happy.  What a wonderful thing.  So I came to this conclusion:

Happiness is the result of finding purpose in life.

I’ve spent most of my life wishing for happiness.  It wasn’t until I stopped searching for happiness and focused on finding purpose that I realized I had also found happiness.

For me, my solution has been finding and getting to know God.  My aspiration has been to learn as much as I can about God through the bible.  I have been studying the bible for the past 5 years and doing weekly bible studies and going to Sundays services for the past few years.  I have never in my life found anything else that gives me as much satisfaction, and purpose as this.

If you haven’t yet given the bible a chance, you might ask why?  I honestly never used to give much thought to God and the bible.  I thought God was like a Santa Claus for adults.  I thought the bible was an old outdated book of stories, mere fantasy like fairy tales.

The idea that some benevolent, omnipotent spirit created the Earth seemed far-fetched to me.  I had been taught evolution in school.  The world taught me to scoff at the notion of believing in things I couldn’t see.  I was extremely critical and predisposed to evidence-based facts.

In spite of this, I was searching.  I wanted peace on Earth.  I needed answers to fulfill my spiritual side.  I researched peaceful religions and people who seemed to have answers.  I wanted to find answers to the questions that seemed burned into my very being.  Why are we here?  What is our purpose in life?  Why is there such evil in the world?  I wanted to feel complete.

I liked to think of myself as open-minded and tolerant of all religions.  Although all of the religions I researched had bits of wisdom, a lot of them had things I was skeptical about.  I never felt fully committed and invested in them.  In my search, I even tried reading the bible by myself once or twice.  Unfortunately, it was all over my head.  I gave up and didn’t bother to try again.

Then one day, a girl showed up at my door and asked how I was coping.  At the time, I was dealing with a stressful situation. Wary of strangers, especially with the modern prejudices of strangers carrying bibles, I was polite but hesitant.  Those I knew cracked jokes and told me what they would do if someone showed up at their door with a bible.  They gave me advice on how to be rid of this “problem.”

I was unsure of what to think.  I was curious about the literature left by this sweet girl and yet, everyone I knew made a mockery of such things.  I must admit that I wasn’t ready to commit to anything more than friendly chit-chat.  My sweet Jehovah’s Witness continued to stop by and bring me new magazines.  She didn’t give up on me and for that, I am eternally grateful.

I have heard this quote that makes me think of my journey to find happiness.  Why wish on stars when you can pray to the one who created them?  I no longer wish for happiness on stars because I have a relationship with our heavenly father, Jehovah.  Through him, I’ve found all the happiness I’ll ever need.

Why wish on a star when you can pray to the one who created it?