What Do You Do Yourself?

I don't know if hubby and I are lacking time, talent, or inspiration, but my extended family seems to be much more inclined to complete Do-It-Yourself projects.

Gotta trim a few strings and add some clothespins, but it's looking pretty good!

Between seeing all the fabulous things that they tackle, the constant influence of gorgeous Pinterest projects, and a general desire to make/have cool things done around my house, one would think I'd be all over the DIY scene. I mean, I grew up doing DIY (see the part about my extended family...)

However, the fact of the matter is that we are just now finishing our first DIY project in years. We turned an old chest of drawers into a dress-up clothes closet for my girls. It's in the last stages. All I have to do is add a few clothes pins and load it up.

I love the feeling of knowing I took something we had and gave it a new life AND filled a great need in our home. Dress up clothes tend to swallow the playroom in about 2.3 seconds. Now they will have a neat little home instead of a box in the corner.

Hopefully, actually finishing this small project will spur me on to other projects. There are certainly a few other things I'd like to see done around my house.

Are you a do-it-yourselfer? I'd be curious to know the biggest project you've ever tackled on your own. Was is a good idea? Do people who excel at doing their own projects motivate you or irritate you?

Pony Rides and Pinatas ~ Birthday Memories Revisited

What is the best birthday memory you have?

My kids' picnic table cake from two years ago. Everything is edible except the little people. And the candles.

Here at my house we're in the process of planning my children's annual joint birthday party. This always makes me think about the birthday parties of my childhood. My brother and I frequently shared birthday parties growing up since our birthdays were a mere week apart.

I remember having a tie-dye party where we all made t-shirts (in the eighties of course). Sleepovers were always popular insanity. My mom was a great cake artist. She would spend hours each year creating edible masterpieces for us to tear into and celebrate another year of life. One year I had unicorns and rainbows spilling across a cloudy sky.

My desire is that my kids have similar memories to look back on when they grow up. I spend a lot of time making their cakes and planning our annual cookout to make the most of each opportunity.

Now it's your turn! What are some of your favorite birthday moments?

Fifth Tuesday Frolic ~ The Gee I'd Like To Edition

Photo from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Every so often a month has five Tuesdays. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a problem. But when your blog has a 4 week topic rotation for your Tuesday posts.... That fifth Tuesday is left hanging without a topic.

So, instead, we shall party!

I'm doing what I have decided to call a Fifth Tuesday Frolic. We're going to share links and comments and basically tour around the internet together having a lot of fun.

This month, we're going to share things we'd like to do.... we plan on doing them... but in reality they may be little more than a pipe dream. I'll be putting mine in the comments a bit later this morning. So start sharing! Post a link to a picture or article of something you see and say "Gee, I wish I could..."

New Question Of The Week Feature!

Are you on Facebook? If so, I'd love for you to come and join my page where I will be doing a Question Of The Week Feature on Thursdays.

Today I'm asking about music. What's your favorite song about forgiveness? Christian, secular, country, pop, rap - it's all up for discussion!

Hit the Facebook Page and put in your vote or we can discuss it over on Twitter.

Google+ people, I'll have the question of the week over there as well as soon as I get my page up and running. About all I've done thus far is create it.

Aren't on any of those sites? Toss your answer in the comments below.

The Value of the Five Star Review ~ A Peek at a Writer's Life

You see them almost everywhere these days. Five little stars, some of them colored yellow or red, indicating what other people think of the particular item. How much weight do you give them? Do you even consider them?

I haven't thought much about them until recently. The only place I ever filled them in was Netflix and that was so I could get better suggestions from them. Generally speaking, I don't do Amazon reviews or go around to other sites and tell people what I think.

A few weeks ago I signed up for GoodReads. If you've never heard of this site, it's where you can keep track of books you've read, books you want to read, and interact with other fans of said books and their authors. It's really a neat site, though I'm still learning it.

If you're on there and want to connect with me, you can find my profile here.

The first thing you do when you sign up for GoodReads is rate a bunch of books so that it can offer you suggestions and hook you up with similar readers. I started using their scale, happily rating more than fifty books before stumbling to a halt.

They were asking me to rate a book I didn't like. A book I really didn't like. One I didn't like so much that I didn't finish reading it - I just skimmed through to the end to see if it got any better. Instead of giving it the one star rating I felt it deserved, I skipped it. I just clicked "not interested" and moved on. I've felt like a chicken ever since.

Do you review and rate books? Do those little colored stars factor into your buying decision?

Authors talk a lot about ratings and book reviews. It's rather important to us that people like our book, after all.  Ratings and reviews give us a glimpse into what people think about books... sometimes. I tried to be honest in rating my books. The scale according to GoodReads is this:

    - 1 star - I didn't like it
    - 2 stars - it was ok
    - 3 stars - I liked it
    - 4 stars - I really like it
    - 5 stars - it was amazing

I followed it. Which means I ended up with several books at two and three stars. I started to feel bad. How would I feel seeing a fellow author give my book two stars? Should I even rate books? Only rate them if I was going to give them a high rating? I refuse to inflate my ratings just because I happen to like the author as a person or because I want people to think Christian fiction is so stellar it's above putting out a mediocre book.

But I know this happens. I know people who've done this. They read a fellow author's new book and want to help them sell their book, so they give it a glowing five star review, when all it really deserved was a respectable four stars, or maybe it was just okay and should have a three.

The converse also happens. I've seen MANY one star reviews, particularly after a book has been on free promotion, that trash a book just because it's Christian. The story may be excellent, the writing superb, but the content is Christian and they were trying to fool everybody into reading it by making their book free for a couple of days. At least according to the reviewer.

I removed the identifying information on this review, because I'm not trying to bash someone for leaving their opinion. I just wanted to give an example.

All of this means that ratings and reviews have gotten to the point of being nearly worthless, or worse, detrimental.

What do you think about those little colored stars? Do they factor in to your purchasing decisions? Do you rate books?

If you're an author, what do you think when you see a fellow author give you something besides a five star rating? Does it hurt your relationship with them?

Do You Believe in Miracles? ~ A Peek At My Readers

No, we're not talking about ice hockey or the Olympics (though the Summer Games are only 73 days away!!!).

I'm talking about real miracles.

Today, I want to hear from you. I've participated in several conversations lately about whether God is still in the miracle business, and if He is, why aren't we seeing it.

I've heard a few different theories lately:

1. He doesn't do the major miracles like raising the dead or such anymore because then there would be no denying His existence. Faced with that kind of proof we would be forced to believe and the elements of faith and free will would be removed from the decision.

2. He saves his miraculous power for less developed countries that are more dependent on Him than developed countries.

3. We don't acknowledge His miracles because He utilizes technology such as defibrillators and computer glitches to deliver His power.

There are so many others, but most of what I've seen falls into one of these camps.

So you tell me... Does God still work miracles? Where? Why don't we see them or talk about them?

Twenty-Six Days of.... what? ~ Peek At My Readers

Because I think it's an interesting challenge and I like the idea of bouncing around to check out some blogs I wouldn't otherwise see, I am planning on participating in the A to Z blog challenge in April.

You can click the logo to read more about it.

Here's my problem... My understanding is that I'm supposed to pick a topic and post on twenty-six items from that topic - one for each letter of the alphabet. I've tossed around a few ideas, but I'm just not sure what to write.

What would you like to read about in April?

March Madness Brackets ~ Posting at Regency Reflections today!

Yep, I'm over at Regency Reflections today talking about sports. As the country gears up for another round of collegiate basketball madness, I'm taking a look at what sporting events caused a ruckus in early 19th century England. Here's a sample:

Ah, Spring. When a young American man's fancy turns to brackets and basketballs and he is likely to put more consideration into picking which college to root for than he did selecting which college to attend. There's a reason it's called March Madness.

 Kristi here, and the fascination with sports is not a new one. The Regency era saw a culture on the cusp of the organized sporting events. While many games remained unofficial skirmishes, there were several championship challenges emerging by the beginning of the Victorian era. And of course, all of them got gambled on....

Read the rest of the article!

Once you've finished reading, pop back over here and tell me who to put on my March Madness brackets, because I am clueless.

How Do You Save Time - A Peek at My Readers

Image courtesy of MorgueFile

Okay, so one thing I've been working at is stream-lining my day. Part of this is prioritizing what I need to do so that the most important stuff gets done. Another part of it is doing what I need to do in the quickest way possible. 


Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. - Peter Drucker



I want to be both. I want to be efficient and effective. 


So help me out here! What are some of the ways you make things more efficient? Got a link to a project that will help people be more effective? 


Throw it in the comments and let's all up our effective efficiency quotient today!