Desperate Households: How to restore order and harmony to your life and home By Kathy Peel

Kathy Peel is the Family Manager extraordinaire.  In Desperate Households, she covers 10 areas that can cause stress to Family Managers.  These areas include: dinnertime, clutter, finances, priorities, self-development, and others.  With real-life examples and great tips/ideas that can be easily implemented, this book is a must read for any Family Manager in need of some de-stress tactics.  Is your morning routine causing issues within your family, or do school days send you into a whirlwind of lost shoes?  Then I highly recommend this easy read!  You can even skip right to the chapter that really speaks to your current need!  I suggest tackling one area at a time rather than trying to hit all 10 at once.  That would cause you more stress!  Great hints from her own experience and that of other women will set you on the road to order and easy-breathing.  Don't be "desperate" anymore - read Desperate Households!

Friendship for Grown-Ups by Lisa Whelchel

I moved back to my home state over a year ago and have since struggled to develop friendships.  The struggle has taken a toll on me, but I know that God has a plan for me and for my friends.  God is good!
I was in the library looking for books and found Friendship for Grown-Ups by Lisa Whelchel on the shelf and decided to check it out.  What a great book!  As I was reading, I kept thinking "I've been there; I know what she's saying."  Books where I connect with the author that way are so powerful to me.  I want to internalize her words, follow her suggestions, learn from her mistakes/fumbles.  Lisa goes through her journey on the road to friendship in this book.  She tells the reader the low points, the high points, and the in-between.  I am both hopeful and a little scared about stepping into the real world of friendship.  The road to deep, meaningful friendship is not always going to be easy or free from potholes.  Why?  We're human!  This book is ideal for a discussion group or just some self-evaluation.  In the back of the book, Lisa includes useful helps in growing your friendship and great starter questions to ask your friends or your friends-to-be.
I wish I could tell you the emotions I went through as I read her words about women who may only have a thimbleful to give and those who have even more.  Or the feelings I had when I read about addressing bricks before a wall is built.  So many helpful tools!  If you want to learn more about friendship, real, deep, abiding friendship, check this powerful book out.  And, if anyone wants to do a study of it with me, let me know!!!