“Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen” - Book review

Cathy Williams was raised by strong women, a grandmother who was an African Queen and her mother, a slave.  They taught Cathy to have pride in her heritage as a “Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen,” even as she is torn from her family on a Missouri plantation and sent to work as a cook for the army.  Even as a slave and woman in the civil war, Cathy chooses to keep her strong African heritage and her identity, and refuses to allow her circumstances to change them.  Eventually, she finds herself enlisting as a buffalo soldier and disguising herself as a man.  This book shares a powerful side of the civil war, unknown to many.

Hidden Treasures

Have you ever started a project and the entire thing turns into an even bigger project and into something you never thought it would?  Well, this last weekend, I thought I was starting just a small project, and found some hidden treasures along the way.

We bought our house last fall, and right in front of our house, leading to the front door, there are small stones buried in the ground.  They seem to be evenly spaced out, but they were pretty deep in the ground.  I thought they were some stepping stones that had sunk into the ground.  We'd found a bunch of 12x12 inch blocks buried in the back yard last fall. Since the weather is so beautiful, I thought I'd just pop them out.

 Here's what the lawn looked like before I started. 

None of the stones are peeking out more than about 4-6 inches around.

  So, I started to dig.  And dig. And dig!  I found an entire rock path from my front door to the driveway!  It had anywhere from 4-8 inches of sod covering all of it.

The bottom step of my front stairs was even buried!  It's not in wonderful shape, but at some point, we will be doing something to it.

 We moved all of the sod that was there, out to a low spot in the front yard.

We eventually, we plan to dig the whole thing up and put rock and sand under it to even out the path more.  There are a few bricks poking through on the outside edges of the path, so we think it is lined with bricks.  I plan to widen the path and make that front area between the path and the brick flower box into a flower bed.

So, there it is, my hidden treasure!  I'm pretty excited at what a change this weekend project ended up making to my front yard!

"Ours for a Season" - Book Review

Years after losing a child and the inability to have more children, Anthony and Marty, Old Order Mennonites, take a friend up on a chance to get away from their close knit community to try to heal their marriage.  Little do they know all the ways that thier one act of desperation can actually bring so many more to a personal relationship with Christ.  “Ours for a Season” by Kim Vogal Sawyer weaves in so many heart-wrenching issues of today, with God’s power to heal: a battle with cancer, loneliness, human trafficing, teen foster care issues, etc.  This story brings together people of different backgrounds and faiths, and through the wonderful healing of Christ not only heals themselves, but begins a new work in Him!  I cried. I smiled. I loved this book!

All opinions from this review are my own, however, I recieved an advanced electronic copy of this book from www.netgalley.com in exchange for my review.