Update and book reviews

 Hi all!

Long time, no see!  And a Merry Christmas!

I just got this nifty new laptop for Christmas, and am happily rediscovering my blog after several years.  It turns out that teaching teens is super time-consuming.  I now have 1 full-time first-year college student, 1 dual-enrolled almost full-time college/homeschooling junior, and an 8th and 9th grader.  I looked at my old blog posts and just a few down I see playdough - that was a while ago!  Looking back at everything, I think the whole homeschooling thing is working out well.  It always felt like a bit of an experiment.  However, they seem to be doing well, and my eldest tells me that he knows a lot more about practical things than his friends who didn't homeschool; he even got a 4.0 this last semester and is ready to take junior level accounting courses!  So I'm a proud mama, even if it's my kids that are making things happen.

I just finished reading Gretchen and the Bear, by Carrie Anne Noble.  It's a really fun sci-fi/fantasy hybrid young adult novel about a girl who used to live on a space station and ends up engaged to a man who occasionally turns into a bear (spoilers!).  It's not super predictable, and yet has a lot of familiar fairy-tale elements woven throughout. Highly recommended for lovers of fairy tales. 

Carrie Anne Noble also has a blog on blogger, which inspired me to get back on here and write something - anything. She uses this interesting publishing house at wordcrafts.net.  They make a cover and edit it, but mostly rely on the author to advertise their own book on book review blogs...which makes some sense, although I remember when I tried to promote my book that way that it was a little exhausting.  I mostly wanted to write and have someone else sell it.  Of course, now I know that that is totally unrealistic and even expensive publishing houses mostly rely on the author selling their own books.  Which makes me think that famous authors may not be the introverts that they are purported to be.  Also, it looks like Mrs. Noble has a herd of kids and is a born-again Christian - I think I'm a new fan! And secretly want to be best friends...or, maybe not so secretly.

Speaking of favorite authors, Chanda Hahn just wrote the fourth book in her Daughters of Eville series, Of Thorn and Thread, and I'm super excited!  This series has been way more fun than the title implies, and so far the characters all have unpredictable but happy endings. I might just buy it today and give myself a little extra Christmas gift!