Wednesday, November 24, 2010

What I've Read

I thought that after the summer I would find more time to write but apparently that isn't quite the way things are working out. I try to take it easy, especially in this weather and at this stage of pregnancy, but for some reason silly little things keep making it into my schedule to tie up my time.
But I really wanted to post on some of the great books I've read over the last year.
A lot of them have been about birth and breastfeeding and parenting. Here's the list on that topic:
Mothering your Nursing Toddler: Norma Jane Bumgarner
Natural childbirth the Bradley Way: Susan McCutcheon
Pregnancy and Birth, the Best Evidence: Joyce Barrett, MD & Teresa Pitman
The Discipline Book: Dr Sears
Ina May’s guide to Childbirth: Ina May Gaskin
Adventures in Tandem Nursing: Hilary Flower
Womanly Art of Breastfeeding: La Leche League International
The Breastfeeding Answer Book: La Leche League International
Silent Knife-Cessarean Prevention & Vaginal Birth After Cesarean: N.W. Cohen & L.J. Estner

I have learned so much from reading all these books. It's amazing how there are certain books you and read and they meet you exactly where you're at and make you feel like you're really on the right track. I truly don't enjoy reading books that tell me I'm doing everything wrong!

Another topic of interest to me has been homeschooling and education in general. Here are some of the books I've read in regard to that topic:
Playful Learning-An Alternate Approache to Preschool: Anne Engelhardts & Cheryl Sullivan
The Homeschool Handbook: Mary Griffith
Why So Many Christians are Going Home to School: Llewellyn B. Davis
For the Children's Sake: Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
Homeschooling at the Speed of Life: Maralyn Rockett

I haven't read any books on homesteading but I have spent a large amount of time looking at articles and websites online about it. For those of you (like me) who are newbies to this phrase, it basically means getting back to living off the land. This is something that people do both in cities as well as in rural areas. I have always been intrigued by this lifestyle. I love reading books about the Amish for example and learning about how they live with no electicity or vehicles (though some do have those things of course). It's silly but I've even incorporated some of their ideas about housework. The biggest thing is probably that (most of) the Amish women in the books do laundry on Mondays. So now Mondays I make sure to do a load or two of laundry.

I have a couple of books that I'd really like to take some more time to talk about because of the impact they've made in my life. I would love to tell you what I've learned about all the books but I think that would just take to much time. If you have questions about a particulat book or even just a topic in general that I've been looking into feel free to ask and I'll fill you in more on what I've learned.

So there's two books that have quite radically changed my thinking (and lifestyle)but, unfortunatly, I don't have time to type more right now! So yes, I'm going to leave you in suspense for those two. I'll start typing up on the first book and I'm not actually finished the second one yet but I hope that you can get something out of my experiences with them too.