Monday, October 7, 2024

August reads


First, the grown-up reads!

πŸ“– Mountain of the Dead: The Dyatlov Pass Incident (secular, nonfiction)... My most recent obsession subject! I always loved the story of Roanoke as a kid, then later the Mary Celeste and the missing prince sons of King Edward IV. This story might be my favorite unsolved mystery of all. A group of Russian hikers set out in the 1950s and were all found dead but in ways that didn't make sense. They had slashed through their tent from the inside rather than using the opening, run out into extreme cold without the shoes and winter gear inside the tent, and "froze to death" nearby but several of them with massive and fatal internal injuries yet no matching external injuries. But there's even more to it! And no true answers, just theories. I'll have to work really hard not to read more books on the subject πŸ˜…

πŸ“– Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way (secular, nonfiction)... Self-explanatory, I'm sure. I overall liked this one. I think it might be a re-read but i can't remember for sure.

πŸ“– Shaped by the Waves (Christian, fiction)... I just adore Christina Suzann Nelson novels! She's one of my favorite Christian fiction authors. There are domestic violence trigger warnings for this one but oh man, was it a good read! Cassie is back in her hometown in Oregon to be the caretaker for her ailing aunt (dementia and Parkinson's) and reading through an anonymous story that seems to connect to her own life. Meanwhile, Nora is pregnant with gestational diabetes and looking for her biological family to understand family history. Slowly seeing how things are connected was such a treat!


For my kids' shelves:

πŸ“– Aedyn Chronicles series (Christian, middle grade, fantasy)... Not a very favorite fantasy but a soft hit nevertheless

πŸ“– Frightful's Mountain (secular, middle grade, fiction, TGTB book list)... This third book in the trilogy is primarily focused on Frightful (the falcon). I liked it, I think more than the second.

πŸ“– Jack Zulu and the Girl With the Golden Wings (Christian, middle grade, fantasy)... This is the second in this series and was a big hit! We love SD Smith around here! Lots of good vs evil battles.

πŸ“– Son of Angels series (Christian, middle grade, fantasy)... This series is about a boy who discovers he's part fallen angel. There are lots of good vs evil battles and this series quickly became a new favorite for one of my kids.  

πŸ“– Sylvia and Aki (secular, middle grade, fictionalized biography, TGTB)... I absolutely loved this story about Japanese internment camps and race. It reminded me a lot of one storyline from Echo! 

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Bookish links- October 2024



October new releases I'm excited about: Specters in the Glass House // All We Thought We Knew 

The prettiest, short little photo montage to get you excited for cozying up with a good book this autumn. 

Did you know there are writing pens that cost over $1,000?! 


I used my Tyndale Reader Rewards points for a free book last week! I thought I was getting All We Thought We Knew but it was out of stock so I got How the Light Gets In. If you sign up using my link, we both get points towards free books πŸ˜‰

My daughter loves this poster- Cool cats read books 

My current favorite contemporary Christian fiction authors for those who like to see a lot of character and relationship development + tough issues in a book- Robin Lee Hatcher // Karen Kingsbury // Christina Suzann Nelson 



When I lived in Flagstaff, Arizona there was a church-run coffee shop (now closed) whose sandwiches were named after Beatles songs. I occasionally got the Eleanor Rigby but I usually got the Paperback Writer, which I remember featured pesto cream cheese. I loved the theme element and it makes me certain I'd love these fun book-themed coffee shops


Did you see that the Christy Award finalists were announced? Winners will be announced November 14th! 

The cutest ideas for a storybook-themed wedding


Teachers (but not homeschool parents) can get 6 free audio books per month 

Homeschool moms of younger kids, I really enjoyed this Jennifer Pepito interview on the Read Aloud Revival Podcast


Also, Jesus loves you πŸ’™

Monday, September 23, 2024

Soup Season!


Soup season is back and I am so excited! I still had soup for lunch almost every day this summer and now I'll have it for all my lunches + some of my dinners. It's my favorite! There's something so cozy and comforting about it! Plus, soups are such a great and easy way to get more nutrients you may or may not have eaten if it wasn't in soup form!

All of the soups we make are gluten free and plant based but they'll still work for you if you aren't. Feel free to add chicken or cheese and dunk some crusty French bread into it- you do you! I'll also include curries on our list because they show up on both Soup Night and Rice Bowl Night in our house. I'll also include chili, and of course this glorious clip to go with it.


Soups we already know and love:

πŸ› Baingan bharta... One of my favorite Indian food dishes, and the only way most of my family eats eggplant! We had a big Indian food taste test night once, made a big pot of rice and we each tried a few bites of multiple different packaged Indian food dishes. This was one of them and it was a hit so I was happy when the first recipe I tried was a win. I eat a bowl of this like a stew but my family likes it over rice + riced cauliflower. 

🍲 Black bean soup... I don't follow a true recipe. I make this with garlic, onions, tomatoes, black beans, rice, cilantro, and lime juice. Plus seasoning. It's a little different every time but it's always delicious. Especially topped with avocado chunks and diced raw red onion! 

πŸ› Bombay potatoes... This was another hit from Indian food taste test night and is my best recommendation for anyone who has never tried Indian food. The flavors are mild and who doesn't like potatoes? I eat it in a bowl like a thick stew but my family likes it over rice + riced cauliflower. One of my kids loves adding peas to theirs. 

🍲 Broccoli soup... We've tried so many dairy free broccoli soup recipes, goodness! Probably one from every cookbook on the list below, quite frankly! But PlantYou's Panera copycat video is our favorite version. (We don't actually like the version in her cookbook!)

🍲 Creamy tomato gnocchi... My daughter and I call this Christmas Soup because of the red tomatoes, white gnocchi, and green zucchini + kale. We serve it on Christmas Eve now. I also recently served it to my meat + dairy eating parents and they both liked it, too! 

🍲 Curry potato... My daughter and I love this with cashew cream mixed in! We also enjoy it with chickpeas and/or peas mixed in. 

🍲 Hannah soup (that's what we call it, anyway!)... I blend it a bit more than she does and add salt + cayenne. This was my very favorite soup for a while. I ate it for lunch every day for I think eight months! 

🍲 Lasagna soup... This is my current favorite soup. I make a few minor adjustments to this one (like omitting nutritional yeast and blending sunflower seeds + pumpkin seeds + hemp hearts + crushed red peppers as the cream, for example) but I also enjoyed it exactly as the revipe states. I just can't help myself and know what we like + what I value nutritionally so I tend to tweak just about every recipe I touch! 

🍲 Loaded cauliflower baked potato soup from The Colorful Family Table... Pretty good! Potato soup is actually not my favorite (after like a thousand bowls of creamy / cheesy potato soup my taste buds still aren't really impressed by plant-based versions) but this one is okay and my kids who weren't addicted to the dairy version love it. 

πŸ› Madras lentils... This is another dish we all loved on our Indian food taste test night. Once again, my family likes theirs over rice + riced cauliflower. 

πŸ› Peanut butter curry...  After trying this at a gf + vegan restaurant in the city i knew I had to come home and make it for my family. Big hit! Always served over rice + riced cauliflower. 

🍲 Pumpkin chili... We first tried this one at a restaurant and several of us absolutely loved it! I make a few tweaks to mimic the restaurant version + top with cashew cream. 

🍲 Rustic Italian vegetable... We don't follow a strict recipe with this one. We tried and loved the Amy's soup so make a homemade version. Garlic, onion, carrot, zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, rice, chickpeas, seasoning. Delicious! 

🍲 Spinach soup... So healing when we're sick! It doesn't taste like spinach at all, just like tomato soup. Maybe I'm more open to this than some but I blame my mom for feeding us green ketchup in the 90s πŸ˜‚

🍲 Three-bean chili... Super simple! Garlic, onion, tomato. Sometimes green chilies or jalapeno or bell pepper. Black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans. Garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, paprika. Cayenne for those of us who like spice. 

🍲 Sweet potato chili... Basically same as above but with pureed sweet potato all mixed in! 


Soups we plan to try this year 

🍲 Amy's Creamy Wild Rice soup from Gluten Free Vegan Cooking in Your Instant Pot... I've been wanting to try a wild rice soup for years! 

🍲 Creamy celery and Cannellini bean soup from Eat Better Live Better Feel Better... I don't tend to love fully blended soups that aren't tomato but I've thought this soup looked yummy for years! 

🍲 Italian wedding soup from the most recent Forks over Knives magazine... It's pretty unlikely that I'll be impressed by the lentil-based "meatballs" but one of my kiddos really wants to try so we'll see! 

🍲 Jalapeno popper soup from Lissa's Raw Vegan Soups, Stews, Curries & Chilis... This one always sounds so yummy to me! 

🍲 Lazy lentil soup from PlantYou... I'm big on lentils and this looks and sounds great! 

🍲 Minestrone from PlantYou... One of my kids loves a packaged minestrone soup. We try not to do much packaged food so we've decided to try this recipe! 

🍲 Pinto bean soup from Simple and Delicious Vegan... A friend recently said pinto bean soup is even better than black bean soup so, okay! 

🍲 PlantYou's hidden veggie noodle soup... I have star-shaped pasta in my pantry so I can make this next time my kids are sick with sore throats. The broth will be healing but they won't have to swallow pieces of veggies with a tender throat! 

🍲 Pot pie soup... I have wanted to try this one for some time now but what I remember loving about (Banquet brand πŸ˜†) pot pie was actually the crust! So we'll see if I actually make it. 

🍲 Roasted red pepper & cauliflower soup from PlantYou... I was super into roasted red pepper soup for a while in the early 2000s and suspect I'd love this one! 

🍲 Tortilla soup from Gluten Free Vegan Cooking in Your Instant Pot... A few of us tried and loved a restaurant tortilla soup last year and we've planned to try making our own this year ever since! 


My personal favorite plantiful cookbooks containing soups and more: The Colorful Family Table // Eat Better Live Better Feel Better // Forks Over Knives magazines // Gluten Free Vegan Cooking in Your Instant Pot // PlantYou // Simple and Delicious Vegan 


Do you have a favorite soup to recommend? 


Also, Jesus loves you! πŸ’™

Saturday, September 21, 2024

July reading

First, the grown-up reads. Much more than June, though I don't actually remember why! Probably just the timing of starting some in June that wrapped up in July?

πŸ“š Bumpology (secular, nonfiction, science/health, pregnancy)... This is a re-read about the science of pregnancy. I enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time.

πŸ“š Called for Life by Kent + Amber Brantly (Christian, nonfiction)... So inspiring!! I really love all things medical despite my in-person squeamishness. I plowed through this one so quickly and felt so moved + inspired!

πŸ“š How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson (secular, nonfiction)... This was a fun, quick read... Kind of a short history of random things. I added it to my kids' high school list.

πŸ“š Move Your DNA (secular, nonfiction, health)... So good and has already made such a difference for my annoying 'dancer's hips' which are a mildly painful clicky-poppy issue every day but not quite as much now. I bought a copy for someone with a hip replacement, too.

πŸ“š One Perfect Word by Debbie Macomber (Christian, nonfiction)... I think every single word had a section that made me cry, or at least tear up. I was inspired by this one, too.

πŸ“š The Printed Letter Bookshop by Katherine Reay (Christian, fiction)... It took me a while to warm up to a couple characters but I really liked this one and liked all the characters by the end. This has been on my list since before it released and I'm so happy I finally read it!

πŸ“š Someone Like You by Karen Kingsbury (Christian, fiction)... this is the Karen Kingsbury Baxter family book that was recently made into a movie. The movie is not actually a Baxter movie as the characters and locations and such were changed, not sure why exactly. This one deals with a character learning that they were actually adopted as an embryo and they are of course grappling with what that means for their family identity. Basically, one of the Baxters is suddenly announced to have actually been adopted and I was not so sure that would actually work but she really did manage to pull that off very well in my humble opinion. Because this is one of the later Baxter books you do not at all have to have read any others to understand this one.

πŸ“š Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates (secular, nonfiction, history)... This was about a piece of American history I knew nothing about. So fascinating! I added it to my kids' high school book list.


And for my kids' shelves:

πŸ“šAlmost Home (Christian, middle grade, historical fiction)... This is the third Daughters of the Faith book I have read and liked. This one is a Mayflower story. 

πŸ“šKing of the Wind (secular, middle grade, fiction)... Animal books are always a hit with some of my kids and horse books in particular are highly sought after.

πŸ“šPigture Perfect (secular, middle grade, fiction)... Pig books are also highly sought after.

πŸ“šThe Twenty-One Balloons (secular, middle grade, fiction)... I learned about this one from Read Aloud Revival. I had never read this one before but knew right away one of my kids was going to love it. Sure enough, it was a hit!

πŸ“šTuck Everlasting (secular, middle grade, fiction)... I read this with my class in sixth grade. I couldn't remember the story at all and feel like I was ambivalent about it. I'm glad I re-read it though because I thought this one was pretty good.  


Also, Jesus loves you πŸ’™

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Christy List Update - 2024


I like to update my Christy Award list after the finalists are announced. I'm usually excited about many finalists and would miss out if I only checked out the winners! 

Here's an update to my list of winners + finalists I most want to read, mostly for my own reference! This is only a list of the ones that interest me, not an exhaustive list.  Asterisks are just for myself to see which list items I already own on my TBR shelf. 

✔ 12 Days at Bleakly Manor by Michelle Griep 

✔ Aftermath by Terri Blackstock 

All the Lost Places by Amanda Dykes

All That is Secret by Patricia Raybon 

All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese 

✔ The Alliance by Jolina Petersheim 

All That it Takes by Nicole Deese 

Almost Heaven by Chris Fabry

✔ The Amish Midwife by Mindy Starks Clark and Leslie Gould 

The Art of Losing Yourself by Katie Ganshert 

✔ The Barrister and the Letter of Marque by Todd M Johnson

✔ Bookshop by the Sea by Denise Hunter 

Borders of the Heart by Chris Fabry*

A Broken Kind of Beautiful by Katie Ganshert 

By Reason of Insanity by Randy Singer 

Candle in the Darkness by Lynn Austin 

✔ Catching Christmas by Terri Blackstock 

✔ Catching the Wind by Melanie Dobson

✔ The Chair by James L Rubart 

✔ Chasing Fireflies by Charles Martin 

Child of the Mountains by Marilyn Sue Shank 

The Color of Justice by Ace Collins 

✔ Dark Justice by Brandilyn Collins 

By Darkness Hid by Jill Williamson 

The Day the Angels Fell by Shawn Smucker 

✔ Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay 

✔ The Delusion by Laura Gallier 

✔ Dust by Kara Swanson 

✔ The Edge of Belonging by Amanda Cox 

✔ Eli by Bill Myers

Extinction Island by Janice Boekhoff 

False Pretense by Heather Day Gilbert 

Firefly Island by Lisa Wingate

Forbidden by Ted Dekker 

Freedom's Ring by Heidi Chiavaroli 

A Gentle Tyranny by Jess Corban 

✔ The Girl from the Train by Irma Joubert 

The Great Divide by T Davis Bunn  

✔ The Healer's Apprentice by Melanie Dickerson 

Hidden Current by Sharon Hinck  

Hope Between the Pages by Pepper Basham 

The Hope of Refuge by Cindy Woodsmall 

The House on Foster Hill by Jamie Jo Wright

✔ If I Run by Terri Blackstock  

Indigo Isle by TI Lowe 

The Italian Ballerina by Kristy Cambron 

Larkspur Cove by Lisa Wingate*  

The Last Exchange by Charles Martin 

The Last Plea Bargain by Randy Singer 

The Letter Keeper by Charles Martin 

✔ Life After by Katie Ganshert 

✔ A Long Time Comin' by Robin W Pearson

Long Way Gone by Charles Martin 

The Lost Boys of Barlowe Theater by Jaime No Wright 

The Man He Never Was by James L Rubart 

Many Sparrows by Lori Benton 

The Means That Make Us Strangers by Christine Kindberg 

The Medallion by Cathy Gohlke 

✔ The Meeting Place by Janette Oke 

✔ The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson 

✔ Missing Isaac by Valerie Fraser Luesse 

✔ The Mitford series by Jan Karon 

Motorcycles, Sushi, and One Strange Book by Nancy Rue 

Mr. Nicholas by Christopher de Vinck 

No One Ever Asked by Katie Ganshert 

A Noble Calling by Rhona Weaver 

✔ North! Or be Eaten by Andrew Peterson 

Not in the Heart by Chris Fabry 

On Moonberry Lake by Holly Varni 

Once a Queen by Sarah Arthur 

✔ Over the Edge by Brandilyn Collins 

✔ The Pawn by Steven James- DNF, too much for me!  

Plague Maker by Tim Downs 

✔ The Prayer Box by Lisa Wingate 

Predator by Teri Blackstock 

✔ The Promise of Jesse Woods by Chris Fabry

Recorder by Cathy McCrumb 

✔ Roots of Wood and Stone by Amanda Wen 

Rule of Law by Randy Singer 

✔ The Seakeeper's Daughters by Lisa Wingate 

✔ The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck 

Secrets She Kept by Cathy Gohlke 

✔ Set the Stars Alight by Amanda Dykes*

✔ Shadow by Kara Swanson 

✔ Shadows of Swanford Abbey by Julie Klassen 

Shadowcast by Crystal D Grant 

Sky of Seven Colors by Rachelle Nelson 

Soon by Jerry B Jenkins

The Souls of Lost Lake by Jaime Jo Wright 

The Sound of Light by Sarah Sundin 

The Space Between Words by Michele Phoenix 

The Story Peddler by Lindsay A Franklin

✔ The Storykeeper by Lisa Wingate 

Submerged by Dani Petrey 

Sugar Birds by Cheryl Gray Bostrom 

✔ A Texas Christmas Carol by Karen Witemeyer

The Thing About Home by Rhonda McKnight 

✔ A Time to Die by Nadine Brandes 

A Time to Seek by Tracy Higley 

A Time to Stand by Robert Whitlow

The Trial by Robert Whitlow 

True to You by Becky Wade 

Under the Magnolias by T.I. Lowe*

✔ Under the Tulip Tree by Michelle Shocklee 

✔ Until Leaves Fall in Paris by Sarah Sundin 

Vanish by Tom Pawlik 

The Vanishing at Castle Moreau by Jaime Jo Wright 

The Warsaw Sisters by Amanda Barratt 

Washington's Lady by Nancy Moser 

Wedded to War by Jocelyn Green 

The Wedding Chapel by Rachel Hauck 

✔ When Twilight Breaks by Sarah Sundin 

The White Rose Resists by Amanda Barratt 

✔ Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes 

Wildflowers from Winter by Katie Ganshert 

Wishtress by Nadine Brandes 

The Wonderland Trials by Sara Ella 

Wrapped in Rain by Charles Martin 

The Year of Jubilee by Cindy Morgan 

You Don't Know Me by Susan May Warren  

Yours is the Night by Amanda Dykes*