2010 Reading List

Below are the books I have read during 2010.  I read a lot of "girlie" books this year and enjoyed them all.  I didn't read as many books as previous years since I started reading only the Old Testament the last 4 months so it has stopped any other reading.  Also, I took 5 classes this year so that also cut out a lot of my personal reading time.  All books with an asterisk (*) were read on my kindle.  Click here if you are interested in last year's list.

They are in the order of Most Current to Oldest Ones Read:

1. Old Testament * (The Bible in 90 Days) - I started on September 4th and I am almost finished with just the Old Testament.  It has taken me a lot longer than 90 days, but it has been a great experience.  I read it on my kindle so it is easy to carry my bible with me to the doctor and read while I'm waiting, read in the car while Kevan is driving or read at night while I take my bath.  It takes me about an hour or so to read the full days reading.
2. The Contrary Farmer (Gene Logsdon) - This book was okay.  I'm not sure I would recommend it.  He does not have the same political views as I do so it was hard to get through some things, but the farming information was pretty good.
3. Sense and Sensibility * (Jane Austen) **
4. Persuasion * (Jane Austen) **
5. Pride and Prejudice * (Jane Austen) **
6. Emma * (Jane Austen) **
7. Midnight Sun * (Partial Book by Stephanie Meyer)
8. A Passion Denied * Book 3 (Julie Lessman) ***
9. A Passion Redeemed * Book 2 (Julie Lessman) ***
10. A Passion Most Pure * Book 1 (Julie Lessman) ***
11. The Confession * Book 2 of The Heritage of Lancaster County Series (Beverly Lewis)
12. The Shunning * Book 1 of The Heritage of Lancaster County Series (Beverly Lewis)
13. Coral Castle The Story of Ed Leedskalnin and his American Stonehenge (Rusty McClure, Jack Heffron) - I really enjoyed this book.  We traveled to Coral Castle in Homestead, FL to view it in person and that is where I purchased the book.  Ed was a very interesting man.
14. Core Christianity: What is Christianity all About? (Elmer Towns) - This was a book I had to read for a class at Liberty.

I love to read so I enjoyed all of the books. 

* Read on my kindle.

**Jane Austen - It is hard to say which Jane Austen book was my favorite (this was my first time reading them).  There were so many parts that I loved about each of them.  My favorite characters were Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice) and Emma and Mr. Knightly (Emma).  I would have to say Pride and Prejudice was probably my favorite, but Emma is very close behind.

***The Julie Lessman's books are Christian Fiction Romance novels and I would not recommend them to someone that is younger than 18.  They aren't x-rated or anything (of course!) and they are not that graphic, but I feel certain topics were too mature for someone under 18.

Christmas 2010

My parents, sister and my sister's boyfriend traveled down from Michigan to Tennessee to visit us over the holidays. We have been staying in an old farmhouse from the 1930's on 8 acres that Kevan's dad purchased at an auction back in July. It is known as the "Sullivan House".


It was a wonderful visit with family and I will cherish all of our memories together. We ate, talked, laughed, worshiped God, played cards and played the Wii (wish I had pictures of our bowling scores...after several nights of playing against my dad I FINALLY beat him at bowling Wii). It was a really great time and I was so blessed to celebrate Christ's birth this year with my family and Kevan's family all together in one place.


We all played lots of games and everyone participated! Dad watched football with Joe and Kevan. Joe was a great help with chopping the wood we needed for our woodstove. My mom and I enjoyed preparing Christmas dinner together. It was a really special time and I look forward to another Christmas when they can visit us (maybe with my brothers and their families too).

Tasha and Joe playing the Wii. The little Christmas tree was my very first tree when I lived by myself in my 20's. It is so cute. The feet belong to my dad and Kevan. :o) I'm glad they are nice clean socks with no holes. lol!


Here is a picture of the living room at the Sullivan House. We do not have furniture in this room so I decided it would be nice to have Christmas dinner in here with the fireplace. It turned out really well. The only thing was that all of the chairs have wheels (except one) and since this house was built in the 1930's the floors are not level. Everyone kept sliding all over during dinner. Kevan had to put his foot under my chair to hold it in place because I just couldn't stop my chair from moving. lol! It was funny. Also, all of the junk in the top right corner was my sewing supplies. Please pretend that they aren't in the picture. I forgot to move them before dinner.



The kitties loved having visitors and Stormie enjoyed playing with everyone's tissue paper. She was tired after all of the play and needed a nap.




Messy family room where everyone gathered to relax, watch TV (mostly football or foxnews) and play games. We were also blessed with 2 beautiful couches by Kevan's cousins. They no longer needed them and gave them to us for FREE! Thank you Jenny & Chris!


Another view of the messy family room (that is my dad sitting on the couch):



Kevan and I slept in the woodstove room so that my parents could have the bedroom to sleep in. They had their own bathroom (which they do not have at home) and I'm sure they enjoyed their master suite even if it was from the 1930's. :o) This "blue room" was the old porch on the house that the previous owners turned into a sunroom. That is why there are windows between the two rooms and not a wall. It is great that it is this way as it allows the warm air from the wood stove to flow into other areas of the house. Also, the cats love going through the windows to the other rooms. We were also able to chat with Joe & Tasha through the windows as they played video games in the next room while we were trying to sleep at 2am. ;o) Mostly, we were telling them to go to sleep or to turn the TV down so we could sleep!



Lastly, Tasha is turning 18 in January and I won't be there so I planned a special dinner to celebrate her birthday. Of course her birthday cake HAD to have Edward on it. :o)



Dad, Mom, Tasha & Joe....I miss you guys already! Sniff sniff.

Rock Island State Park

I recently took my family to see Rock Island State Park while they were visiting. I did not take very many pictures so I will be including pictures from October this year as well as pictures from December. This post is to document my family's visit during Christmas 2010. We had a great time, but my mom fell because it was so slippery and it is such an awful feeling to know that your mom has fallen and injured herself. She is going to be fine. She just scraped her palm and knee pretty good, but we got her all bandaged up when we arrived back home. She will be good as new in a few weeks.

Here is a picture of the dam.


Below is a picture of where the local kids cliff dive when it is warm. This picture is from October. No one was cliff diving when we were there. It was way too cold. If you are a Twilight fan...I'm sure you can imagine that it is Jacob jumping from the cliff. Hee hee!


Another picture of another group of falls farther away.


Close up of the falls.


Tasha and Joe walked up to this little building. We were unsure what it was, but it was across the street from the old mill.

The Riley Farm

These string of posts are for my dad. He wanted a bunch of pictures of the Riley Farm after he visited over the holidays. So, I'm putting these posts together for him to document what he saw when he was at the farm and visiting us in Tennessee.
Driveway leading to the farm. This is a picture from earlier in the year. It is much more brown and dreary during December.


Here is a picture of the original homestead. It is an old cabin from about the 1880's. The fireplace is still entact and Kevan's dad is restoring the cabin slowly when he has time.


This is a picture of the side of the cabin and the upstairs window. You can view all of the cabin pics on our flickr page here.


We said hello to Bear while we were there. He followed us around the farm and kept the cows in order while we were there. He is only about 9 months old now and he is soooooo sweet. Just look at that face.

Dad, here is the view from the hill where we will be building our house someday. Kevan's father owns all of the property you can see in the photo. The total acreage is 80 acres. It is beautiful and calming when you are there. You just have to make sure when you are walking around that you walk AROUND the cow pies. ;o)

The main barn up close.

Here is a picture of me standing next to a huge sinkhole on the property. Here is a link to more pictures of the farm.


I will leave you with this photo. She wanted to come home with you to Michigan.

Canning Pears

While Kevan and I were at the farm in Tennessee we noticed that the Pear trees were ripe. The previous farm owners did not take good care of or prune the trees in YEARS. The trees were in bad shape. But, they tasted okay. They were becoming too ripe. We knew this because of the swarm of HUGE hornets, bees and wasps that surrounded the trees.

This is a picture of one of the 3 Pear trees on the property.

We gathered up the good ones and sat them on the porch so they wouldn't rot on the ground. Unfortunately, the hornets/bees/wasps loved them so we wrapped the best ones in newspaper and put them in a styrofoam cooler until we arrived back in Florida.

The pears do not look that great on the outside, but there was nothing wrong with the inside. We were able to save about 44 pears. Unfortunately, I was not able to can them immediately upon returning to Florida because of work, school and life. So, when they started to look too ripe I put them in the fridge (leaving them in the newspaper in case they got too ripe). I put 1/2 on a shelf and 1/2 in the fruit/veggie drawer. When it was time to can them, I took them out and the ones in the drawer had rotted, but the ones on the shelf were just fine. I'm not sure why that was the case, but I think it was probably due to not being enough air circulation since I really shoved them in there. I was/am devastated. I can't believe I lost 6lbs of pears because I was stupid!!

I cut up the remaining pears.

As I cut them I placed them into an anti-browning mixture (1/2 gallon water, 1 T salt, 1 T vinegar). Since I was going to can preserves and quartered pears in separate jars I tried to keep the better looking pears in the bowl on the right and the smaller cuts on the left.

Once I was done cutting them up it was about 6lbs of pears. I created a medium syrup for the preserves (sugar/water) and sliced a whole lemon. I heated the syrup and then added the smaller pear pieces to the mixture.

I cooked them until they were translucent (about 1.5 hours). While they were cooking I worked on my research paper for school. I would much rather be canning than doing homework!

It smelled so good!! It was hard to stop eating them as they were cooking. Once it was about time to actuall "can" them. I heated the pint jars up in boiling water. I also prepared a light syrup for the remaining quartered pears.

Our stove here in Florida is a glass cooktop stove so I am not able to use it for canning. This is a HUGE downside if you have one. The boiler canner is just too heavy and can crack the cooktop. So, I use our propane camp stove out on the lanai to actual do the canning.

I filled the jars with pear preserves and then with syrup, leaving a 1/4 inch space at the top. I put the tops on and then processed them using the boiling method for 20 minutes. I do not have a boiler canner so I used my pressure canner (removing the regulator and emergency plug first).

Once they were processed, I ended up with 4 pints of preserves and 4 pints of quartered pears. Of course, if I had not put the other 1/2 of the pears in the fridge drawer I would have had 16 pints instead of 8.
Also, since we didn't want to waste the pears that had fallen on the ground or were too ripe to can we gave them to the cows. They loved them!

Living in Tennessee

Some of you may not know, but Kevan and I have a place up in Tennessee (thanks to Kevan's dad) where we've been staying. I was pretty hesitant about the place in the beginning because there seemed to be so much work involved with getting the place ready for us and looking nice. Not to mention all of the creepy things God created that have overtaken the porch, trees, etc. But it has turned out pretty nice so far. We have been here a total of 10 days so I thought i would make a list. I have written a list of my favorite things as well as the things I currently "dislike" about the place.

Things I love about the Sullivan Place:

8. I love that we have a 4-Wheeler that we can drive all over the property. It is soooooo fun! Here is a picture of Kevan sitting on it.


7. I love that a (very sweet) family member gave us a bedroom suite and we now have a bed to sleep on instead of the futon. My back is loving it! Our kitties our loving it too. (Yes, that is ugly paneling in the background....try to ignore it).

6. I love that when we go into a store or a restaurant the owners chat with us and if we are frequent visitors they recognize us and thank us for our business. One owner even offered to sell the store Kevan if Kevan wanted a job working 4am to 8pm. :o) I guess he doesn't know my husband. Kevan has never been awake in the 7's let alone the 4's.

5. I love that we have "Meat and 3's" within driving distance from our house. For those of you that don't know what a "Meat and 3" is...it means you get to order a meat (fried chicken, roast beef, BBQ, etc) and then pick out 3 veggies to go with it. It also comes with corn bread, biscuit or a roll. The price is usually about $5.99. It really warms my soul to eat at a "Meat and 3". Mmmmmm!

4. I love that there are Pear trees on the property and that we have been able to save about 15 lbs of good ones for me to can. I'll update the blog after canning on how that all goes.

3. I love that we have otters in our river. They are soooo cute. Sorry for such a bad picture, but they are FAST and it is hard to get a photo of them.


2. I love that we have birds coming to our feeders right outside our office windows. So, instead of seeing our neighbors side of the house or the road in front of our house (like in FL) I get to look out and watch the birds (and squirrels). I love birds.

1. I love love love the jacuzzi tub. I feel like I'm at a resort and it is big enough for two (we tested to make sure lol!). Again, I LOVE this and it is my favorite part of living in the country.

Things I dislike:

8. In the 10 days that we have lived here we have smelled or saw (running through a field) 6 skunks! CRAZINESS! I haven't smelled or seen a skunk in 5 years....so for 6 in 10 days....this place is overrun by skunks! Kevan said if I get my camera out and take a picture of one that the flash might cause him to....well....spray us with it's perfume. lol!! So, I won't be taking any pictures, just in case!

7. I hate that there are two HUGE satellite dishes in our yard. One that you see when you come in the driveway and one peeking out of the woods in the back of the house. I can't wait until we get them in the trailer and dispose of them.

6. I hate that I keep finding cave crickets in our bathroom. Now, I am blessed that they are "mini" cave crickets, but I just can't help thinking big daddy is somewhere in the bathroom just waiting to scare me. If you don't know what a cave cricket is. Here is a picture (warning: it is pretty gross).

5. I hate that we have wasps, bees, yellow jackets and hornets flying around right outside our door (due to the pear trees mostly). My husband purchased a yard stick and has successfully killed about a dozen hornets and wasps, but this still doesn't make me feel any better about them.

4. I hate that there are grand daddy long legs hanging from every corner of our porch, crawling on the front door, all over the front porch (along with all of their egg pouches). I did spray most of them (and their babies) with the pressure sprayer this weekend, but they are finding their way back.

3. I hate that the previous owner decided to use empty coffee cans for the top of their porch posts. lol! As soon as we are able we are going to finish the porch and add nice pretty post toppers!

2. I hate that the previous owner did not know what a square or straight line was. Everything is off kilter.

1. I hate that the DirecTV guy installed the dish on our PORCH! I will post a picture tomorrow if I have time.

Merritt Island - Black Point Wildlife Drive

Please note: The pictures in this post were taken before I purchased my Nikon SLR camera so the pics won't be that great.

As you know, Kevan and I love to watch/take pictures of various animals as well as just be outside walking/hiking. One of the things we do on a monthly basis is drive out to Merritt Island. Depending on how long we have, we visit Apollo/Playalinda beach for a few hours before we head over to Black Point Wildlife Drive (7-mile one-way self-guided tour). There is a cost to visit the beach, but the Black Point Wildlife Drive (BPWD) is free. It is also a great thing to do with any relatives that do not like to walk or be outside "too much" because you are able to drive around and view the beautiful landscape and animals without leaving the comfort of your vehicle. If you end up driving out on a Sunday the visitor center is closed, otherwise, stop in and visit the Visitor's center and put a few dollars in their donation box. When you are finished you will be glad you did. Also, there is a restroom at the Visitor's center and another restroom toward the end of BPWD.

The visitors center is pretty nice depending on what time of year it is. There is a gift shop inside as well as different interactive learning centers for kids. There are various scopes to look through to see Osprey in nests nearby (sometimes with babies) as well as a large pond to view turtles, snakes, alligators, etc. We have seen all 3 during various visits. There is also a boardwalk to walk around and see the landscape. We have seen various insects and armadillos during this walk. If you are interested, before you leave you can purchase an audio CD that will allow you to listen to a tour on CD as you drive around BPWD. The drive has numbered posts that tell you where you are and the CD corresponds with those numbered posts.

Once we are done with the visitors center we head over to Black Point Wildlife Drive. Here are a few pictures of things we have seen.

When we are finished with BPWD we usually head over to the Manatee observation deck down the road.

Then we finish off our day with the best fresh shrimp we've ever eaten at the Titusville restaurant "Dixie Crossroads". You will love their warm corn fritters that they serve you when you get seated. Depending on what time of day it is expect a wait. Only on a few occasions have we not had to wait to be seated.