Things That Are Totally Unrelated But Nevertheless All In One Post

1. I planned two weeks' worth of meals out of the two Pioneer Woman cookbooks and we have been eating good. Possibly because she believes in a lot of red meat and potatoes. If you are doing meal planning you should get her cookbooks and sit down with them to meal plan while you sip wine and watch murder shows on tv one night. Then your family will eat good too.

2. I have too many books to read and so, instead of reading any of them, I'm grazing on all of them, kind of like a reading smorgasbord. Part of the problem is I recently read two books I loved so much that nothing else can live up. One of them I can't tell you because it's going to be our September pick for She Reads so it's a secret. The other was The Secret Life of Bees because my friend Kim Brock told me I'd been missing out and that merely seeing the movie was not enough. Kim? You were so right. I loved loved loved that book. I especially loved poor little unloved Lily who of course did find love in an unexpected place. I long to create a character like Lily someday. The other one I wish I could tell you about but I can't so stay tuned for our September book announcement over at She Reads. Maybe that'll make summer being over a bit easier for all of us? Nah.

3. A gym has opened up about 2 miles from our house and I think I'm going to have to break down and join it because it either rains or threatens to rain every single time I try to leave the house on a run these days. The lack of running combined with the Pioneer Woman meal planning has not worked to my benefit. Have I mentioned that it's bathing suit season?

4. Let it be known that July 7th is officially the day where all children everywhere utter the refrain of summer, "I'm bored." This year I was sure they wouldn't say that because they were so happy when school ended. But it took just one precious month of having nothing to do before they started saying it. It's almost enough for me to want them to go back to school. Almost. But not actually.

5. Even with our unfortunate "no internet" predicament last week, I did finish the YA (young adult-- some of you pointed out that you didn't know what that meant and I apologize) novel I was working on. Of course the minute I sent it winging off to my agent (courtesy of my working server, thank you very much) I had a complete and total crisis and became immediately convinced that I just wrote the worst piece of drivel ever known to man. I'm not sure I will ever get past that feeling but I think this time it was exacerbated by the fact that this is my first foray into YA. Let me tell you, writing outside of your comfort zone is a big stretching exercise. But not enough to qualify for #3, above.

6. My kids watched Superbook on ABC Family last week and loved it. My 7 and 11 year olds were both engrossed. I watched the Revelation one with them, which prompted an unsolicited sermon about how Satan was cast out of heaven. They've avoided pretty much any and all spiritual-type questions since. I might've gotten a tad too animated. Pun intended.

But if you're looking for a way to get the stories of the Bible in front of your kids in a way that speaks their language? I'd recommend these dvd's. My older kids had BibleMan and my younger ones have Superbook. No offense to Willie Aames but I think my younger ones are more fortunate.