One.
Spring cleaning isn't a lot of fun in general, but one thing I always look forward to is updating my picture frames. New pictures from the last year - new memories to hang in front of me every day. I love it!! My organizing goal for this week is to update the pictures and freshen up the look of the place!!
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A few months ago, I interviewed Mandy from Biblical Homemaking about how to be a great thrift shopper. She LOVES thrifting, and the thing that always amazes me is how much great stuff she finds. {I'm one of those who gets too overwhelmed and quits on the clothes in a thrift store.} But in case YOU like to thrift too, she just wrote this really interesting post about how to tell the difference between retail clothes and outlet clothes when shopping in a thrift store. I didn't even KNOW there was a difference!
Four.
I spend some time on the morning show every day, and one of the guys, Jim Barron, is also an illusionist. He was invited to be on a local news show this week as part of their April Fool's Day fun. How cool! It's about a seven minute video, and if you love being baffled by tricks, check it out!
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I blew through another book last week! I started it pretty late one evening, read about three chapters, and had to go to bed, and when I picked it up the next night, I kept going until I was done. Couldn't stop!
The book is called The First Principle, and it's written by Marissa Shrock...and I actually know her in real life! We went to high school together {though she was a couple years behind me}. This is her first novel, and I am so proud of her for doing a fantastic job with it. She's a middle school language arts teacher, so she works with teens every day, and they are the subject of her novel. It's targeted to young adult audiences, but I completely enjoyed it even as an adult. I found it engaging and probably far more personally challenging than she even intended it to be as she wrote!
I've not read the Hunger Games or any other dystopian fiction, but when I told Lynne about this book, she said the feel of the book sounded similar...so if you have read those kinds of books and liked them, this should be a great choice for you.
Marissa's book is set in an undisclosed future year, when the United States no longer exists as we know it, though pieces of the country we live in presently are referenced throughout. There's been a massive economic meltdown and civil war that has led to a reorganizing of the land as United Regions, instead. Christians are persecuted and many have withdrawn into an organization called the Emancipation Warriors. The government has rewritten the Bible to modify it, and original print Bibles are destroyed if found. Half my brain wanted to view this setup as mostly crazy, and the other half of my brain felt a bit sick...because I have a feeling her ideas might not actually be all that far fetched one day.
The novel is written in first person from the viewpoint of 16 year old Vivica Wilkins. She's the daughter of the governor of one region, and she learns early in the book that she's pregnant, which is forbidden for teenagers, per the rules of the Population Management portion of the government. {There are restrictions on adults carrying babies to term as well...depending on their financial stability.} Vivica's quest to carry her baby to term puts her in all sorts of peril, and the story keeps a fast pace as she attempts to stay one step ahead of the government officials trying to find her in hiding.
One thing that is different in Marissa's book from many other similar types, is her strong lacing of faith throughout. She doesn't hide the plan of salvation or the truth of the Gospel in the lives of her characters. I appreciated that so much - especially as an option for readers who love dystopian fiction but miss the absence of faith in it.
While the story is great and fast-paced, the thing that smacked me in the heart was the TRUTH that we're already seeing the beginnings of the sorts of government control and lack of privacy that run rampant in the year of the book. It was such a reminder of the freedoms we enjoy now and the realization that one day, to claim the name of Christ could bring with it great physical danger. It was a faith-shaker {in a good way} for me.
Whether you have teens or whether you're an adult, I think this is a great read. I appreciate the faith message laced within it, the well-crafted story, and Marissa? I'm proud of you! Great job on your debut novel!
