Real Life is Better Than Fiction

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book! You never know when I might play a wild card on you! Today's Wild Card author is: Melody Carlson and the book: Lock, Stock, and Over a Barrel B&H Books (June 1, 2013) ***Special thanks to Laurel Teague for sending me a review copy.*** ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Melody Carlson has written around 200 books for teens, women and children. That's a lot of books, but mostly she considers herself a "storyteller." Her books range from serious issues like schizophrenia (Finding Alic...

My house has been exceptionally quiet this week, but that’s all about to change tomorrow. Not only is my son coming back from a week-long trip to Cincinnati with our church youth group, but Cousins Week commences as well. The cousins from my side of the family are coming to spend their annual summer week with us. This year is special as the youngest is able to join us. There will be swimming, hiking, picnicking, camping, tons of laughter, maybe even a few tears and possibly thunderstorms that make "certain" people scared. It will be fun for all! We have been doing this for about 10 years now and it is one of my favorite weeks of the summer. I look forward to the kids coming. I love watching them all do things together – and age doesn’t matter. The 21 year old doesn’t have any problems hangin’ with the 6 year old. I love that they love each other and have built relationships amongst themselves. These will truly be their friends for life. I was never close with my own cous...

Flashback Friday I wanted to start a series on the blog that I’ll call Flashback Fridays. One Friday a month I’ll post a story from my past. If you want to know more about my childhood, or if you knew me during my childhood, you will want to keep coming back. You never know, if we were kids together, you may be one of my victims. And now the first victim… Sheelagh’s Shingle Sheelagh moved in about a mile down the road from us one summer. Where we come from that was practically next door. I remember the day I met her quite vividly. I was weeding my two rows in the garden when a girl came out of nowhere and said, “Hello!” I think I said something about her bob haircut commenting that she looked English. Her response, “What do you expect. I’m English.” I’m sure after working in the garden in the hot sun I had some kind of hairdo that could not be associated with any country! Sheelagh and I became fast friends and often spent summer days together riding bikes or going ...