My Faerie Name

All my friends know I love to collect Faeries. You should see my house. No room for the hubby here!  Anyway, I found a place that can find out your Faerie name!!!

My fairy name is Gossamer Cornglow
She creates bounty and harvest.
She lives in spider-webbed wonderlands and insect grottoes.
She can only be seen in the light of a full moon.
She wears dresses made of cobwebs and gossamer and has butterfly wings the colour of yellow corn.
Get your own fairy names from The Fairy Name Generator!

Since i picked on the hubby, I looked up his faerie name too!

A Review & Giveaway for unPLANNED by Abby Johnson, DVD

The LORD has done great things for us,  and we are filled with joy.    Psalm 126:3

I have been Pro-Life my whole life. Raised in a Christian home, I hated how dehumanizing Pro-Choice people made the unborn babies feel. “Fetus”, they called it. That word has always had a BAD taste in my mouth. I don’t like seeing that word or even saying it.

Now I am 31, and working as a Labor and Delivery RN in a rural hospital in Wisconsin. When I first started this role, I was in a Catholic hospital. I am not Catholic, but we all agreed on believing in God and that abortion is wrong.

We also know, via her records, if she had had a spontaneous abortion or induced abortion. “A what?” you ask. A miscarriage or abortion, respectively. I only mention this because in this Catholic hospital, in this small fundamentalist Christian town, if unwed mothers are highly frowned on, what are women who have had an abortion thought of. I’ve not heard anything. But in our heads, I know we think it. “How could she do that?”  “That was selfish of her”. “I know people who would love to adopt a baby and can’t have their own.”  Dare I say I lose a bit of respect for her?

Now, I am at a non-religious hospital in not so religious town, where 50% of the women delivering babies are not even married. More women here have had abortions. And in my mind, I still say something to myself. Granted, she is here now, pregnant, choosing to carry this child. But how I was raised is still engrained in my head.

So, I got this email from Tyndale Publishing about unPLANNED the documentary about Abby Johnson. I saw the book online a couple months ago and thought, “eh, another righteous Pro-lifer.” I didn’t want to waste the $$ for something like that.  But Tyndale was offering it free for Reviewers/Bloggers for the Unite for Life blogcast happening on May 17th. Here is my thoughts on the DVD.

The book and DVD were prefaced how Abby Johnson made national news in 2009. (I’d never heard of her or what happened to her before watching this movie.)   The DVD starts with family and friend interviews of Abby before college. They went on about how she was such a good, Christian girl, never thought she would get into something like this, Pro-Life, happy. Then Abby goes into how, after Texas A&M in 1998, she was dating an older man and became pregnant. He took her to get an abortion because his previous girlfriend had one. Abby thought, “this is the only option.” At Planned Parenthood they did group counseling, watched a video, and one woman stated she’d had 9 abortions. All Abby remembers is the pain and embarrassment of dressing in front of the other women who had all gone through the same thing.

One day while walking thought a Volunteer Fair, Abby came across a “hot pink” Planned Parenthood booth, and the recruiter helped to “make me feel like I really needed to protect these women”.  It was just a volunteer job and she could leave whenever, right?

That is how Abby got in.

But what happened then? Why and how did Abby make national news? Ha! Now you have to watch the movie or read the book, because finding back issues of news reports online will only give you part of the story.

Overall, I think the documentary was done well (I don’t really care for documentaries either).  I was afraid when she was telling about an Ultrasound-guided abortion she saw, that they would show pictures or video of it.  I was cringing. As an L&D RN I’ve seen miscarried babies from 9-17 weeks gestation.  I have first hand experience holding them for the crying moms to gaze upon their lost one, to touch it, and to kiss it goodbye.  They are small, perfect, wanted. I take teeny, tiny hand and foot prints on a business card-sized sheet of paper.   And to have a mental image of one of those babies being sucked out in a tube into a biohazard container…I couldn’t even watch the screen for fear they would show it.

This movie has shown me you don’t need to be a loud protestor, with big signs, screaming “murderer”.  Prayer is powerful in of itself.  How did the walls of Jericho fall?

I also liked the argument Abby and the gentleman, I forgot his name, from The Coalition for Life had.  She argued about the Jews in the Holocaust and the African-Americans in slavery being dehumanized.  But that was his point, that abortion is dehumanizing another group of people, ones who cannot speak or fight for themselves.  The ones who didn’t even have a chance- the unborn.

When we have a pregnant woman come in ready to delivery her term baby, we are to address it as “fetus”.  What?!  Nuh-uh.  Nope, It’s a baby, and they want it to be a baby, and they call it “my baby” and they have a name for it. I’m calling it “baby”. “Has the baby been kicking you in the ribcage today?” It’s a BABY!

************The Giveaway*************

I know you are all excited about this part! I get to give away a copy of unPLANNED on DVD to a lucky randomly selected reader. Entries need to be in by May 19th 11:59pm Central Time. How do you get entered??  There is only one way, but after that you can earn extra entries.

Post a comment below.  You need to address at least 4 things in your comment:

1) Have you read this book or seen the movie?

2) Did you hear about this when it initially started in late 2009?

3) Your thoughts on my review.

4) And your name and email address so I may contact you when you win! (Don’t forget to leave your email in a non-spam manner like this: email at address dot com)

For extra entries

(1) Follow me on Twitter

(2) ReTweet the link of my review on Twitter

(3) Sign up for the Unite for LIFE webcast and leave me a comment that you did so

(4) Read another review of mine on my webpage and post a comment on that page.

Be sure to sign up for the Unite for Life webcast and invite your friends and family to view it as well.

The Unite for LIFE webcast is a free webcast featuring Abby Johnson that will benefit pregnancy care organizations.  You can sign up to participate on May 17 at 8:00 p.m. (in all time zones) at www.uniteforlifewebcast.org.   Unplanned the book and the DVD will be available for purchase as a package deal and 33% of each purchase will go to crisis  pregnancy centers like CareNet, the National Institute of Family & Life Advocates, and Heartbeat International.

Watch the Trailer for unPLANNED here

Thank you to Tyndale for the free copy of the DVD to review with my honest opinion.

A Review: Danger in the Shadows

by Dee Henderson

Published by Tyndale House in 1999

I had never read Dee Henderson before.  I’ve had a lot of people tell me how good she writes.  I am glad I got this free book for my Kindle.  Well, I like free stuff, and it was a great book! Ms. Henderson even won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Inspirational Romance (2000) for this book. Now if that doesn’t say something!

Ok, so I was reading this book about this girl who had been kidnapped with her twin sister, who dies, and she is still living in fear from the guy who kidnapped her 25 years ago. That is no life to live -in constant fear of everyone around you- because you can’t remember what he looks like!

I liked this book book so much I actually had to stop reading it for a day. Most of the book takes place in Chicago, not to far from me. While being scared of the bad guy, they take a trip up to the EAA fly-in in Oshkosh, WI. VERY CLOSE TO ME!!!  Now you have to understand I was home alone. It was late at night.  No one to save me from my paranoia. No hubby to snuggle into. I had to stop reading.  THAT is how good this book is! I am slightly scared to read the rest of the O’Malley series, but I really liked the way she wrote and really got me into their heads.

Read the First Chapter here!!

5 stars for an excellent book!

spam

As a blogger I frequently get spam from bots. I usually don’t read them, cuz they are from “viagra” or “mortgage your house here”, neither of which have anything to do with Christian fiction.

However, I think I need to share this one. The hubby and I were laughing of the ridiculousness of this one. Please….. read it slowly.               You’d think computers would have generated better translators than this one!!

“Considerably I did commencement this earlier and went the same response, merely the information submitted here appears more informative. I will articulate that people really are trying to assistant at there best and we forever stimulate to know some or the other thing good from each other. Thank you for starting the discussion again. And I will likewise spot the earlier info here to build it more helpful for all. Thanks again and proceed up the good work.”

Sorry, dude, but that was not even remotely close to what you wanted to say, right? 

A Review: Unwrapping Christmas

By Lori Copeland

Published by Zondervan in 2007

I downloaded this book to my Kindle for free a few months ago. So when I decided to read it last week, I didn’t remember what it was about. Sometimes that can be nice, not knowing what is going to happen. But sometimes it is difficult since you don’t know what to anticipate in the story.

Rose was caught up in the busyness of doing God’s work. She needs to do it all. And she will. She just needs to rearrange things… again. Her family will understand. They always do. But why does she feel so unsettled?

This is the first contemporary Fiction book I have read by Ms. Copeland since her series Brides of the West of 6 women heading west on a wagon train.

4 stars for the story that was too short and could have had another 2-3 chapters. But a great story on slowing down and letting God’s work be everyone’s work.

A Review: A Woman Called Sage

by DiAnn Mills

Published by Zondervan in 2010

Husband shot, mudered. Sage, shot and left for dead. She does what many of us dream of doing when our perfect lives are shattered. Revenge. But years later, things are not turning out the way she planned.

I have enjoyed reading Ms. Mills books over the years. She loves action and adventure and so do I.  I know when I pick one of her books, I won’t be putting it down any time soon.

4 stars for this book that I read for free on my Kindle.

Click here for a free sample of this great book!

A Review: More

by Heidi Marshall

Published in 2010

An interesting story. Well, really, simple: girl+boy= love. Right? Maybe? Is it him? Or him? Not today?

The overall concept of the book was good. I just didn’t like the writing style.  I know I seem to be picky lately.  But, honestly, there are all these commas, parenthesis, and dashes, that could really be eliminated, the author would just rethink her sentences (get the picture?).   I got lost and confused in the many comma’d sentences and the parenthesis…. totally did not fit.  I even told my husband, “this book feels like something I wrote in 5th grade”.  He chuckled, but I told him I may have some of my old English papers to prove it!

Anyway, for the 5th grade effort I have to give it 3 stars.

Watch the book trailer here

A Review: Tandem

By Tracey Bateman

Published by Waterbrook Multonmah in 2010

Second in a series, the story continues on about vampires in Southern US. I still don’t get how you can have God and vampires in the same world.  But I enjoyed this story more than the first. I didn’t like the style of writing: 1st person about one character, 1st person on another, 3rd person on 2 more, all within 1 chapter.  It was confusing at times, and made for choppy reading.

After all of that I would have to give it 4 stars, which is better than the 3 I gave Thirsty.

Read the first chapter here

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

A Review: The Christmas Lamp

by Lori Copeland

Published by Zondervan in 2009

A very cute Novella. I really enjoyed reading this free Kindle book. The deceiving part was how long the book was… or rather, how short it was. I think it ended at 85%. That is one reason why I like paper books. I can flip through the last pages to see what the last page number is.

Side note: My husband occasionally steals my books, finds the last page, and reads me the last word!! What a traitor! Then he laughs, returns the book, and I have to figure out how to get from my current location in the story to “_______”.

Anyway, back to the reason I started this post at 1:10am: I really liked the book, aside from it being short. I liked how the characters were written, and the way the story flowed. I really loved the name of the city, “Nativity”.

4 Stars!

The House on Malcolm Street: A Novel

by Leisha Kelly
Published by Revell in 2010

Please read my previous post on Ms. Kelly if you have not done so already.

I have enjoyed reading Leisha’s books on the Great Depression era. This one was set in the 1920s. It took me a while to get into it, but I think this had more to do with my disruptive home-life of a particular 2 year old and 4 month old.

I loved how everything trailed along. Her style is slightly different and sometimes difficult to get used to, especially with many disruptions. Two main characters write in the first person. Each chapter is titled with the character’s name, so you know who to expect. But I read to fast and frequently skip that one line. I am usually corrected in the first paragraph.

I highly recommend this book and her others to anyone who doesn’t know much about the time period, or even to those who do!

4 stars
Find it here on Goodreads

If you wish to send a sympathy card to Mr Kelly please let me know.