Unintended hiatus

Well, as you may have realized, I have been absent from the blogging world again for the last two (and a couple of days) weeks.  But I have a really good excuse - at least I think I do. :) I started a new job on St. Patrick's Day. I'm cleaning houses for a living now. It's intense. It's fast-paced, thorough and after the first two days, I was fairly sure I was going to die.

Floors are all done by hand on your hands and knees. No brooms and mops here. As a result, my knees have been incredibly sore and my wrists have been acting up quite a bit. Tendonitis and working on hands and knees don't exactly go together real well.

But just the same, I have been plugging away at it. And I'm doing really well at work. At home, ehm, not so much. That's the one major drawback. I work so hard during the daytime and then by the time I get home, I am often so worn out and exhausted that I don't want to do a thing around here. Plus, since I spend all day cleaning homes, I'm kind of used to a certain level of cleanliness now that the house is just not living up to. It will eventually though. I just need to be able (and willing!) to thoroughly clean one room each day after work. If I do that, then it will be much improved. I just have not had the desire to do more work each day.

Also, I am planning on sharing a few tips with you all that I have picked up from work. I can't share all of it though, because well, there are policies and everything...but some stuff I already knew and do at home anyhow (when I'm not dead tired from work!). So look forward to that in a future post.

I am also excited because this next weekend, I am going to finally get a chance to visit a new(-ish) blog friend, Erin and finally get a chance to try out some Shaklee products as well! The company I work for uses green products, but I'm wanting to try out Shaklee because I think that their products are going to be even better than the ones that we use at work.

Also, during my blog absence, I was given my first blog award from faithful reader Patty.

As a recipient of this award, I am supposed to list 7 things about myself that someone may not know from reading this blog. Yikes! Which part of my life do I want to scare you all with share with you all? Well, here goes...

1. I am thinking about possibly opening a home daycare again. I need to look into the requirements and get all those things worked out, but I'm seeing it as a definite possibility.

2. I am really a private person. I bet you all would never realize that, given the frequency of the posts and the amount of stuff I talk about and share, but it's true. I'm actually really timid until someone gets to know me.

3. I am seriously addicted to sweet tea. Instant tea with artificial sweetener to be exact. LOVE the stuff! And I will easily go through a full jar of it each week if I allow myself to. Which I try not to, because I don't really need that much caffeine and artificial sweetener isn't really that good for you either.

4. I am starting to love cleaning again. In spite of my current job as a housecleaner, which I figured would make me hate cleaning even more, I am actually starting to get a little high from cleaning people's houses (and no, it's not the chemical fumes! It's the joy of a freshly cleaned house!)

5. I'm starting to play online games again. I have a bit of an addictive personality, so I try to avoid things that I think will get out of control in relation to my own personal time management and online gaming is one of them. However, recently, Hubby has gotten me onto World of Warcraft, which I do enjoy playing but haven't played much since one weekend shortly after Punky was born when I power-leveled from 1-42 in a weekend. The only thing I did that weekend was play the game, take bathroom breaks and short sleeping breaks. Everything else was done at the keyboard. I nursed Punky while playing, I changed her diapers there, I ate my meals there. It was horrible and something that I have never wished to return to, so therefore my gameplay has been in severe moderation because I know how badly it can take over. Oh - and I'm handling it much better this time around. About an hour's worth of game play two or three times a week is more than good enough for me.

6. Wow, this is harder to do than I thought. Um, I watch way too much TV - particularly on Mondays and Thursdays. We have DVR so I don't have to watch TV on that particular night, but my DVR series list includes the following shows: Sister Wives, 19 Kids and Counting, 90210, Make It Or Break It, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Hoarding: Buried Alive, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Downsized, Parenthood, Modern Family, Hoarders, Private Practice, Grey's Anatomy, NCIS, and Criminal Minds. That's like 13 hours of TV each week! Now, granted, I only record/watch new episodes and they have different running seasons, and sometimes there are conflicts on my DVR so I have to choose to not have one of them record, and that is never a hard call. I have definite preferences among the shows on my list. As for my viewing choices, well, I kind of like a hodgepodge of shows. I like teen dramas, I like shows with a medical basis, as long as it also has a storyline that includes interpersonal relationships, I like crime shows as well, as I like to guess whodunit along the way, I like some inspirational shows as well, And nothing makes me ready for a huge purge at home like an episode of Hoarders. :) And then I like special genres, family life, I suppose, like Sister Wives, Downsized, and 19 Kids and Counting.

7. Hmmm, one last thing. I love to rearrange furniture. Or rather, I love to have my husband rearrange our furniture. I think I come by this honestly though. My grandmother, who I spent most of my childhood with, rearranged her furniture every 3-6 months. And my parents moved about every 3-6 months when I was growing up, so I was used to constant changes in furniture arrangements.

Yep, there you go. Seven facts about me that you may not know from reading my blog.

Now, I get to choose 15 blogs to receive this award as well, so here goes:


1. With A Little Help From My Friends
2. Delightful Order
3. Grandma Becky L
4. Kingdom Twindom + 1
5. MckMama
6. Feeding Four
7. Good Enough Mommy
8. Life With Katie
9. Marni's Organized Mess
10. Organized Everyday
11. Ramblings of a Stressed Out Mom
12. Seams Inspired
13. sweet view from the hills
14. White House, Black Shutters
15. The Boys & Me

Okay ladies, there you go! It's now your turn! Grab the image, post it on your blog and then list seven things about yourself that someone reading your blog may not know and then choose 15 of your favorite blogs to receive the award as well!

I came across this site via a link on a blog that I visited through a blog hop. I love how things like that happens sometimes! :) Anyhow, she is hosting a Spring reading 2011 party. And I'm most definitely going! I love to read but often don't make the time to do it. I have books upon books on the Kindle (for pc - I'm too cheap/poor to buy a "real" one LOL!) and I also have a number of physical books on my bookshelf that I haven't gotten around to yet. Brand new books just sitting and waiting patiently for me. So this is perfect!

For starters, I am posting the list of books that I would like to read during this spring:

• Daughter of Joy by Kathleen Morgan (I'm currently on pg 100 of 334)
• Somewhere to Belong by Judith Miller
• Sunrise by Karen Kingsbury
• Summer by Karen Kingsbury
• Someday by Karen Kingsbury
• Sunset by Karen Kingsbury

I also want to read with the kiddos each night, even if it is only for a few minutes. Natty has some great longer chapter books that I would love to read to him, JoNo has a number of short chapter books and Punky and Boo have lots and lots of childrens' books that I intend to read to them. I'd like to start by reading to Natty and then sending him up to bed, then JoNo and send him up to bed and then Punky and Boo and send them up to bed. The idea behind doing it this way is that Natty would have time to read to himself after he went up to bed, JoNo would have a little bit less time to read after going up to bed and Punky and Boo wouldn't have time to read. All the lights upstairs would go out at the same time. I think it is a good plan, in theory. We will have to see how it works out though.

You can click on the button at the top of this post to join in on the book reading party. You know you want to! :) Happy Spring and enjoy your reading time!

Deanne from A-Z

I came across this last week while going through the Company Girl blog hop, and decided that I was going to do it for this week, so here you go:

A. Age: 29
B. Bed size: Queen
C. Chore you dislike: laundry
D. Dogs: 1 - cocker spaniel

E. Essential start to your day: prayer and kiddo hugs
F. Favorite color: purple
G. Gold or silver: I love the look of silver or white gold
H. Height: 5' 4" 
I. Instruments you play(ed): piano, clarinet, trumpet, baritone, french horn
J.Job title: CNA although currently I am a homemaker
K. Kids: 4 - three boys and a girl
L. Live: Southeast Nebraska
M. Mom’s name: Rosetta, but everyone calls her Sandy
N. Nicknames: Dee (also spelled Dea)
O. Overnight hospital stays: one for each child's birth, appendectomy, twice for what the doctors thought were strokes (they weren't though), twice for depression as a teen
P. Pet peeves: being late
Q. Quote from a movie: "Never leave your partner" (Fireproof)

R. Righty or lefty: Righty for writing, lefty for sporting, amby for most others
S. Siblings: 1 brother who is 12 years younger than I am
T. Time you wake up: roughly 3 hours after falling asleep, but it varies. Usually by 6:40 am
U. Underwear: The last person did “Uniform” instead. I tend to wear jeans or cotton pants and nice t-shirts at home, slacks or khakis and a dressier shirt when I am going somewhere.

V. Vegetables you don’t like: I LOVE veggies. I don't know that there isn't one that I don't like...
W. What makes you run late: Waiting on the kiddos or Hubby to be ready.
X. X-rays you've had: oh wow, really? Hmm, back, teeth, shoulder, lungs, wrist, foot, ankle, knee...not sure if there have been others.
Y. Yummy food you make: Lasagna is a family favorite, as are enchiladas.
Z. Zoo animal favorites: This one is hard because I don't really like the zoo. I hate seeing the animals in captivity for the viewing enjoyment of people. But, if I had to choose an animal, I'd probably say either the bears, monkeys or penguins. Sharks are pretty awesome though too.


So, there you have it - Deanne from A-Z. Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed answering it.

Tackle It Tuesday

Yesterday, I tackled the bottom portion of my front entry closet. It has been on my to-do list for quite some time and I am really happy with the way it turned out! I didn't get a before picture because it was really an impromtu thing to tackle.

So, I started by pulling everything out of there, from the rod down. Yes, the rod too but that was only because it fell down and it wasn't intended, but it also came out too, so therefore - I took everything out from the rod down.

We have tons and tons and tons of shoes. And after going through the shoes that were on the floor of the closet, I have come to a conclusion. One, most of them are mine and two, I have no idea where to store them. But we'll get to that yet.

What was in there before I took everything out:

• tote full of shoes
• box full of other shoes
• huge round clock
• picture
• wooden boards left over from our old entertainment center (formerly were shelves on there)
• plastic drawers - set of six
• Natty's walking stick from Cub Scouts

Yikes! I just took some finished pics of the closet and didn't realize that the littlest one took this pic while I was working on the closet. You can see how much stuff was crammed in there! That grey tote full of shoes, the short box next to the dog - shoes. The big box behind the dog had shoes too. Hmm, thought there was only one box and one tote of shoes... guess I did more than I thought I did. Oh - and pretty much everything you see here was IN the closet. And excuse me in the middle of the pic. Not the most flattering pic of me ever, but the Boo child was just tryin' to keep it real, I suppose.

I brought up a set of two plastic drawers from our bedroom because I wasn't sure if they were the same size as the drawers that were in our closet. Turns out, they were! So, I put them all together and had them all stacked up on the front right side of the closet to free up more of the rod space. Before taking everything out, the six drawers were stacked on the back left side of the closet, which took up about a foot or so of our hanging space.

But after looking at it, I decided that I didn't like the drawers in that spot, so I took them all out again and started over. I put two stacks of three drawers side by side on the floor of the closet once I realized that doing so wouldn't hinder the hanging stuff at all. That left a small square-ish area in the back left corner. I took a chance and tried the stack of two drawers that came from our bedroom to see if they would fit and they did.

Once I saw that configuration, I loved it! Oh, it looks so neat and orderly! I decided that the two drawers in the back left would hold a few things that the stack had been holding before anyhow. The top drawer has some plastic bags that our new curtains came in that I plan to reuse for something else and our extra vacuum bags. The bottom drawer has extra light bulbs, a heavy duty extension cord that needs to go out to the garage yet and the casters that were on the bottom of the stack of drawers.

The next stack over has three drawers, from top to bottom, they belong to Hubby, Natty, and Punky. The stack on the right side of the closet from top to bottom belong to me, JoNo and Boo. It is really easy to remember whose drawer is whose because of two things. First, if you look at the two stacks, moving from left to right, top to bottom, it is in order of our ages, (Hubby, me, Natty, JoNo, Punky, Boo) and second, Natty and Punky's real names both start with the letter A, JoNo and Boo's real names start with the letter J. We have long joked that the "A" kids belong to Hubby (because their personalities are so much like Hubby's) and that the "J" kids are mine for the same reason.

I put Natty's walking stick back into the closet. It's on the left side, propped up against the front corner and is very much out of sight, unless you are specifically looking for it. On the right side, there is a tiny nook area and I put one of our air mattresses over there. It's all folded up and neat, as it has never been used before. (We have three of them.) I plan to put it out in the garage once we get the room for it made out there. But that's another process altogether.

I decided that with our current weather consisting of both warm and cold temperatures, the jackets and coats and backpacks and shoes in our launch pad were driving me a little bit insane. I don't mind the backpacks and either a coat or jacket on the hook. I don't even mind a pair of shoes for each person on the rug below. But multiple coats ans jackets, multiple pairs of shoes? Uh uh. It was too much and it was driving me bananas. So, I took all of the jackets and coats and hung them on hangers in the closet. I put all of the backpacks on their hooks and I removed all of the shoes.

Speaking of shoes, I went through the box and the tote of shoes and decided on a number of them to get rid of. I probably got rid of, oh, I'd say 15-20 pairs of shoes. Yeah. See why it was driving me insane? I still have quite a few pairs left to deal with as well, but it's much better than it was. I don't have room for them on the floor in the closet, I don't want them by the front door - it gets too cluttered too quickly there and just doesn't look appealing when you walk in. So, now I have to figure out what to do with them all. I have the idea of maybe having the kids store their shoes on the floor of their closets or just under their beds in their rooms, but I don't know. I think that they are more likely to get lost by doing that, so I will be looking for alternative ideas yet.

We have two other doors leading in from outside, one in our kitchen (no room there to store extra shoes) and one in the den. I actually could use that area for the extra shoes very easily. The other idea is actually to store them in an underbed bin in our bedroom. We have the room there and the shoes would stay neat and orderly and I wouldn't have to worry about them. It's worth giving it some thought. Oh - and we have underbed bins that we aren't using at the moment, so it's not like I would need to be spend anything on it. I think I like that idea quite a bit. So, that's where those shoes will be going later today. (Thanks for your help, y'all!)

Let's see, what else came out of that closet? Oh - the former shelves. Those will go down to our laundry room. We have a cupboard full of old wooden shelf  pieces. They were actually here when we moved here and since they were already here, we can't get rid of them because they don't belong to us. But we are welcome to use them anywhere in the house. I figure that I can put these boards in there with those ones (they are similar in style, wood tone and everything).

The huge clock we hung up in our den. I'm not sure I like it where it is though. We'll leave it for now and I'll see if it grows on me within the next week. It might be okay there if we just move it up another foot on the wall, because it is seriously a large diameter clock. Probably a good 2 feet in diameter. We're talking big.

And the last thing was the picture. I took it out and I have plans to put it up in the little kids' bedroom. I also took some pictures down in our den that will go in kids' bedrooms too. So, there you have it. My tackle for this week.

I still need to clean off the top shelves, but believe me, I got a lot accomplished on just the lower half of the closet!

(edited to add in the pictures)

ALSO - please consider making a donation and sponsoring my boys by clicking on the links under my banner above. They would really appreciate it!

Menu Plan Monday

I hadn't even given much thought to the whole planning menus for this week due to the family being sick, but now that they are all mostly well again, I guess it's time to get back to the planning.

I have lots of chicken and lots of frozen sandwich meat as well, so I think this week may be heavy with chicken as the main dish.

• Monday - homemade chicken noodle soup - made with chicken hindquarters and using the bones to create the stock, homemade egg noodles, chopped carrots and celery. Yum! I will also bake some bread to go along with this meal.
• Tuesday - kids will be at Grandma's house for dinner and Hubby and I will probably have leftovers or sandwiches
• Wednesday - chicken enchiladas with beans and rice
• Thursday - white lasagna, with alfredo sauce instead of a tomato based sauce, broccoli and other greens and chicken. I will bake some super yummy parmesan oregano bread to go with this. Sounds so fantastic! (I will make this on Monday when I make the bread to go along with our chicken noodle soup.)
• Friday - chicken stirfry, with fried rice and mixed veggies
• Saturday - homemade pizza / kids' choice
• Sunday - roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole (this is the day that we have company over as well)

Click on the picture above to connect to Org Junkie's site and to see what others are planning for this week as well!

ALSO - please consider making a donation and sponsoring my boys by clicking on the links under my banner above. They would really appreciate it!

Saturday Night Special 3.12

Wow, what a crazy week we have had. I was so ready for our family movie night to begin! Tonight's featured film was a 7pm showing of "Aladdin". It's the original one, which is good. My personal favorite is the third one "Aladdin and the King of Thieves" - now THAT is a funny movie! Our encore presentation was a 9pm showing of the movie "Matilda", a classic. Love this movie! It was the first time my children had ever seen it. They loved it - particularly the older boys.

But for now, a recap of our week. Get ready!

Last Sunday was our family movie date with the kids for Frosty Flicks. Hubby thought that the movie was going to be "Megamind" but actually, it was "Legend of Guardian", based on the first three book of the "Guardians of Ga'hoole" series. Natty has the first three books in the series and had read the first book. I told him to be observant and see where the differences were between the book and the movie. It was the first time he had read a book before seeing the movie. He assumed they would be exactly the same. Man was that ever cute to watch him find the differences. I assume that the differences he noted were in fact accurate as I hadn't read the book and I didn't actually get to see the movie. Between needing pop and popcorn refills, three bathroom trips (two for Punky, one for JoNo) and then the movie being a bit too scary for Punky. (Remember, we thought it was going to be Megamind. By the time we realized it wasn't, we were at the theatre buying our tickets and it was kind of too late at that point to make alternative plans for her.)

Theatrical release poster from wikipedia

Punky and I ended up leaving the theatre and walked around the outdoor mall area where the theatre is located. We went into a few different stores and looked at clothes. Shopping without buying anything. It was a very new concept for my Punky Pie, but I think she enjoyed herself. I mean, isn't it every four year old girls' dream to go shop at Gap Kids, Gymboree, Von Maur (kids section), followed up by a stop at Claire's? Exactly. The stores in a short area were right up her alley. I did have to talk her out of going to Victoria Secret though.

Ever since she was three years old, she has had this thing for VS. I don't know what it is exactly, but I went shopping with a couple of new friends and Punky was with us. My friend, Gabby, asked Punky what she wanted to get at the mall and Punky said, "I need new unnerwears. I need CUTE unnerwears!" So, on the particular mall trip, I bought her some cute "unnerwears" from Gymboree. But even that day, she wanted to go to VS to shop. I couldn't figure out what the deal was for quite some time. I don't show at VS - I'm a plus-sized gal - VS doesn't fit me.

Eventually, I told my mother-in-law about the trip. I say eventually, but in reality, it was probably the following week. It was my mother-in-law who started the whole VS thing. She had been flipping through a VS catalog and had just absent-mindedly commented that she needed to go shopping to get some new underwear when Punky was in earshot. Punky had glanced over, saw the magazine and voila. My three (and now four) year old's obsession with VS. I just hope I can hold her off from the store until she's oh, thirty, or so.

I have to admit though, I have taken her into the store for their bath gels and lotions and sprays and stuff last year right before Christmas. But that's only because the store we were in has two separate entrances and it's divided up between the clothing and related stuff and the bath and shower stuff. She never made the connection that we were in THAT store.

Oh wow. Lots about VS there. Sorry for the tangent. But if you have been around here for any length of time, you know that I do that. A lot.

After the movie/shopping trip and a quick lunch at home, JoNo, Punky and I headed out. I was going to drop JoNo off at his friend, Con's house and also drop off our old stroller, carseat and base as planned and pick up our new lamps from Con's mom. The lamps were HUGE! I love them. They are in our living room on our tables up here. However, I think they match the style of the couches in our den. But the overall style in the den is more modern/contemporary - lots of black and silver and metal going on in that room, whereas our living room is much more traditional. I think these lamps work really well in here though. At least better than the black metal lamps that were in here before. Those are now down in the den, since they fit the style down there quite a bit more.

After dropping off JoNo, Punky and I headed over to Miss M's house. We got there a little bit early and I didn't want to just drop Punky off early, so we waited for a few minutes in the van across the circle from Miss M's house (her family lives on a cul-de-sac). Shortly after parking though, Miss M and her dad came out to their driveway and waved us on over, so we went over.

They have a beautiful house! After being in their house, they will NEVER come over here! LOL! I think our house is pretty nice, even if average, until I go to someone's house that is absolutely stunning. Just wow. So anyhow, Punky and I go in and she gets right to the business of playing with Miss M and the mom (Kate) and I sit and visit for an HOUR. I couldn't believe how easy she was to talk to! While talking, we realized that our lives connect in multiple ways. For one, she grew up near the area where we live and went to school where the boys attend school right now. Secondly, she is an ECSE (Early Childhood Special Education) teacher at another school, but her best friend is one of the ECSE teachers at Boo's school. He attends school in the afternoon and Kate's best friend teaches in Boo's classroom in the morning. It's just funny how closely things overlap like that. Also, Punky's teacher from last year at the private preschool is now teaching with Kate at her school. I guess Punky and Miss M had the same teacher last year, but I don't know for sure if they were in the same class or not. I honestly cannot remember if Punky went to morning or afternoon classes. I am thinking she was in the afternoon class. I might just have to pull out some of her old papers to see if I can figure out if they were in the same class together last year too.

So, then after visiting for a long while Kate, I left with plans to go pick up Punky at 7:30 at night, which is super late for a playdate for her, but it worked out so well! Then it was off to pick up JoNo from Con's house and then head to the store to get supplies for dinner, then to come home, where Hubby, Natty, Boo and our friends Chris and Missy were waiting for us. We fixed dinner and then played some cards. During dinner I had a bottle of beer, not thinking about the fact that I was going to have to go pick up Punky shortly. I remembered that I still had to pick her up at about 7:25 and Miss M lives about 10-15 minutes from us. Crap. I'd had a drink AND I was going to be late. Just the impression that I wanted to make! Oy!

So I commandeered Missy as a driver and we took her vehicle to go pick up Punky. I called Kate to let her know that we were running late and that I'd be there shortly to get my child. She said that it was absolutely fine and that there was no problem with that. They'd only had one incident the entire time and that was when Punky needed to go to the bathroom and Miss M wanted to go in with her. Punky told her "no, I need my privacy" which I thought was hilarious and adorable! Can you tell she has three brothers?!

So, we get there and I get out and I'm standing in the driveway talking to Kate and the girls say goodbye and all is well. We go to the ice cream store and pick up ice cream for everybody and then I notice I don't have my phone. Oh crap. Figuring that the phone is in the car somewhere, we drive home and eat our ice cream, then continue looking for it. Still not able to find it. I call the ice cream store to see if they found it there. Nope. I call Kate and she and her hubby go outside and look for it. Nope. Missy and I check the vehicle. Nope. Chris and Hubby check the vehicle. Nope again. They leave and go to the ice cream store to see if it is in the lot there. Nope. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. I have things on my phone that I don't necessarily want other people to see. Missy teases me because she knows. But still the phone is nowhere to be found. I'm freaking out over it, hoping and praying that it isn't at Kate's house or that if it is, she doesn't go through my phone.

Eventually, Chris and Missy leave and then Hubby heads over to Kate's house to check for the phone. He finds it in the grass at their house. Oh. My. Goodness. I am so relieved! He comes home and all is well! Thank you!

Monday, the family starts to get sick. I'm feeling supremely blah and I sleep in and just don't feel very well. Tuesday night, JoNo gets sick. Wednesday, Natty is sick, Thursday, Boo and Hubby both get sick. Friday, they are both feeling pretty rough, but I'm feeling a lot better and JoNo gets sent home from school. Hubby took him in to see the doctor and we discovered that he had a bulging ear drum. The nurse practitioner, who we LOVE, says she is surprised that the ear drum hadn't ruptured. Poor guy! So we start antibiotics and numbing ear drops to help with the pain. Today (Saturday), Punky gets sick. Really sick. I had actually held out hope that she had missed the whole thing, but no such luck. Poor girly! Hubby was feeling better finally, but Boo is still under the weather. Since I never got sick like the family did, I'm wondering if I was able to skate through with just the blahs this week or if I'm going to get slammed like Punky did. At least, if I end up getting slammed, everyone else will be better (maybe?) by then.

I went through this week and did a major disinfecting of the common surfaces in our house. But I think for the most part, it was too little too late, as the bug was already in the incubation stages in the kiddos. Sigh. Oh well, the house needed it anyhow. And today, I'm going to go through and do it again. As well as clean the carpets. I did what I could as it was needed, but really, the carpets now just need a good, thorough cleaning. Motherhood. It's not a glamorous job. But definitely worthwhile!

ALSO - please consider making a donation and sponsoring my boys by clicking on the links under my banner above. They would really appreciate it!

"A Century Turns" by William J. Bennett

It took me a long time to read this book, as it is not a genre that I find enjoyable, generally speaking. However, I wanted to give the book a fair chance and so it took me awhile to read through this.

William J. Bennett authors the book "A Century Turns" and covers events in U.S. History from the election of George H.W. Bush through the election of Barack Hussein Obama. Mr Bennett's writing style in this book is mostly narrative, which I find can be hard to get through at some points. However, the writing itself is very nicely done.

It was an interesting read, as I learned things I didn't know much if any about while I was growing up. When the book begins, it covers the 1988 election. I remember bits and pieces of the election, but I didn't really know many of the details of President Bush's history or campaign or anything. I was only seven years old at the time. This book has provided insights that I hadn't even realized I missed out on and opened my eyes and my mind to all that was going on and surrounding the events that occurred in these years.

These events were too recent to have been covered in my history classes in high school or college and too time-consuming to be discussed in my other classes, except for little bits and pieces that pertained only to the class in which the discussion was held.

This book is one that will be on our bookshelf for a long time to come. I want my children to be able to read this book and to be able to use it to understand events that happened in their parents' childhood up to the events that occurred in their own childhood as well, so that they don't have such a narrow view of what these events mean for them and for our country, as I did growing up.

I would recommend this book to others interested in more recent history as I think it provides valuable insight into the timeframe of 1988 to 2008.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”