Friday Favorites

A great article of encouragement for all those moms out there who sometimes feel like the work they do is mundane or unimportant.

An acquaintance of mine from college started a new blog. Claire was the Resident Director of Humes Hall at UT and hired me to be a Resident Assistant my junior year. She also majored in deaf education, so we had a lot in common at the time. She was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. She's decided to keep an account of her experience. Check out her blog - and say prayers for her!

This lady makes me laugh. I hope you find enjoyment from her blog posts, as I do. Plus, I'm planning to use some of her writing prompts from her Writer's Workshop. Should make for some fun blog posts in the future!

Staggering information on the gap between rich and poor kids and their vocabulary skills. An excerpt from the article: "a seminal study in 1995 found that children whose families were on welfare heard on average 616 words per hour, while children from wealthier families heard 2,153 words per hour." Wow. Makes me feel very validated in the work I do through the library...and at home.

I've been doing some research lately on healthy eating and I ran across this article about gluten. Good information to have and know, I think. I will certainly not be going gluten-free anytime soon, unless my health changes and I need to, of course.

Along the eating healthy lines, I checked out The 17 Day Diet by Mike Moreno. He has some good tips and advice on how to lose weight and keep it off. I plan to look further into it.

Our IQs are getting higher, but "talent is universal and opportunity is not." An interesting article about this smart world we live in. Let's not forget to give others some opportunity, too.

I know I reference Tasha Via on here a lot. I just love reading her blog and hearing her stories and being encouraged by her words of wisdom and insight. This post that she wrote recently really hit home to me. Let us be encouraging with our words and not bring people down!

Precious wisdom and advice from a dad to moms on raising boys.