book reviews, Uncategorized

When God Made Light – a Review

Posted on September 7, 2018June 4, 2019 by Jess C.

Publication Date & Publisher: February 13, 2018, Waterbrook

Genre(s): Children’s, Christian

Length: 48 pages

ISBN: 978-1-60142-920-9

My Rating: 5.0/5.0

Description (from Goodreads):

From the author and illustrator of the best-selling When God Made You comes a new illuminating message about God’s design affirming young readers.
‘Let there be light!’ that’s what God said. And light began shining and then started to spread.” Wild and creative illustrations from top children’s illustrator David Catrow pair with Matthew Paul Turner’s lyrical verse in this message of a God-made light that cuts through darkness to bring vision and hope to all young readers. This light radiates, chasing away the shadows, providing the wonder and fun of stargazing or firefly chasing. Most important, this light appears in each child–an inner God-given spark that grows and will be used to change the world.

My review:

Last year, I reviewed the amazing children’s book by Matthew Paul Turner, When God Made You. At that time, the only children in my home were well into their teen years so I didn’t have any young children to read my favorite children’s books to…
So imagine how excited I was when Turner’s newest children’s book, When God Made Light, was published earlier this year, and I had three young foster children to read it too!
As excited as I was, the bar was set pretty high. I had compared Turner’s writing in When God Made You to Dr. Seuss… and Dr. Seuss is one of the very few children’s book authors that I can not only read over and over again, but that I know, no matter which of their books I pick up, I’m going to love it. To be honest… I loved When God Made You so much that I wasn’t all that sure Turner would be able to pull it off again with his following books…
BUT HE DID!!!
My two-year-old foster daughter preferred When God Made You over every other children’s book we have…until we bought When God Made Light. Now, before nap time and bedtime the answer to “What story do you want mama to read?” is always “God Light.”
And after months of reading this story twice a day, everyday… I’m still not sick of it! I actually still enjoying reading it to her!
The story is uplifting and joyful to the point that I continue to find myself occasionally tearing up while reading it, thinking of just how precious the little people are that God has entrusted me to care for.

Now, when God made light,
God made all different kinds.
Some sparkles, some flares, but all light shines.

I love the way Turner points out in such a hopeful way that God made light for so many different things… the sun, the moon, the stars, the light inside of us – they all have a purpose and a use.

Shimmer and shine,
be a beacon so bright,
’cause when God made you, child, God made light.

The illustrator from When God Made You also did the pictures for When God Made Light and they are just as beautiful! They feature the same girl from When God Made You, along with some cute animals and a baby.
Basically, there isn’t anything negative for me to say about this book!
So what do you think? Leave me a comment below!
Affiliate Links to Purchase When God Made Light: Amazon, Book Depository

Uncategorized

Meet and Greet: 4/29/17

Posted on April 30, 2017 by Jess C.

about me, Uncategorized

I lost that loving feeling…

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Jess C.

I’ve loved to write since… well, I can’t remember a time I didn’t like to write. Even during periods of time when I didn’t have the time, or was just so down on myself that I figured “why bother,” the stories would run through my head as if I was typing them at a typewriter (without all the messy corrections).
Characters and places haunted me and I found myself lost in conversations as I tried to listen to what they wanted to tell me. As a teenager, it was typical for me to sit in class or at a party or even watching TV, but be visiting my fictional world in my mind. (Go figure I wasn’t valedictorian.)
But one day, it just stopped. I quit trying to remember my characters and their worlds, quit telling myself that one day I’d write out their adventures and read them when I’m old. I’d lost my first love. It just went away.
And I didn’t care.
I didn’t ask myself why.
I’m not even sure I noticed…
Until I took a week long road trip with my daughter.
Now I can’t get the silly little goblins in my head to be quiet! And my poor husband has had more one-sided conversations with me than he’s probably had the whole time we’ve been together. (I’m incredibly lucky he understands and just laughs.)
I’m pretty sure it was stress and just general busyness that stole my stories away, but it doesn’t really matter.
They’re back now. And the typewriter in my mind is steadily typing away.

about me, Uncategorized

I'm a whole year old!!!

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Jess C.

Well, I wasn’t sure what I was going to post about today. All I knew was, I really needed to post something…
I figured it’d probably be an update on my Anger Management Experiment. That seemed pretty boring though since it’s been two weeks and my husband has yet to make me want to yell at him… I’m not complaining, just doesn’t make for a very interesting blog post…
Then I thought to myself… Self, we may have to check out The Daily Post and see if it’s got a good writing prompt for the day. Hey, I’m dramatic. That would’ve been an awesome post for me!
But, I ultimately decided to celebrate with you guys instead. Because when I logged in to start typing away I discovered… My blog is a year old!!!
One year ago today I started this whole crazy blogging experience thing!
I looked back at my first blog post. My husband did get laid off not too long after posting that and I did go back to working outside the home for a while. It didn’t take him long to get back to work though (praise God)! Now I’m doing transcription part-time from our house and still spending tons of time with my babies.
One thing that I said in that post that I completely forgot about was that simply realizing my dream of finishing my first novel was enough. Obviously, I was a little naive when I said that. Finishing writing a first draft was pretty simple… perfecting it is a whole other bag of worms all together!
Sure, technically I “finished” writing a novel. (Technically I’ve got 1 1/2 novels written at this point and way too many short stories to count.) But I had no idea how hard it was going to be to get it to a point where I feel like I can say it’s done. I’m actually starting to wonder if I’ll be able to make it as great as I want it to be…
But I am incredibly proud of myself for writing it at all… I did realize the dream (even if the dream is currently in something like its 6th draft stage and has had almost every word changed at some point.)
And here I am, a year from starting this blog and I’ve met so many great people! I’ve been introduced to some awesome authors and my to be read list just keeps growing. I’m really looking forward to what the next year on jesscombs.com will bring.
Another amazing experience blogging has opened up to me is the wonderful world of book reviewing! I had no idea that you can get free books in exchange for writing an honest review. This is something I just started and I’m looking forward to sharing lots of reviews with you all!
(Please still use the contact me form to suggest books for me to read! I plan on posting reviews on books from my blogging peeps over the next year as well and if my husband doesn’t have to buy me books anymore, I’ll have to come up with something else to write on the I love you because board…)
I hope those of you who have followed jesscombs.com over it’s first year have enjoyed it as much as I have (although, admittedly, posts were few and far between there for a while). And I look forward to another year with all my new blogging friends as well… Let me know what you think and if you’ve got any suggestions for the next year.
Happy Birthday to ME!!! 🙂

book reviews, Uncategorized

What if it were YOUR time to pay up?

Posted on July 27, 2016 by Jess C.

The Invoice by Jonas Karlsson
Published by Hogarth on July 12, 2016
ISBN: 110190514X
Pages: 204
Goodreads
Synopsis

Hilarious, profound, and achingly true-to-life, Jonas Karlsson’s novel explores the true nature of happiness through the eyes of hero you won’t soon forget

A passionate film buff, our hero’s life revolves around his part-time job at a video store, the company of a few precious friends, and a daily routine that more often than not concludes with pizza and movie in his treasured small space in Stockholm. When he receives an astronomical invoice from a random national bureaucratic agency, everything will tumble into madness as he calls the hotline night and day to find out why he is the recipient of the largest bill in the entire country.

What is the price of a cherished memory? How much would you pay for a beautiful summer day? How will our carefree idealist, who is content with so little and has no chance of paying it back, find a way out of this mess? All these questions pull you through The Invoice and prove once again that Jonas Karlsson is simply a master of entertaining, intelligent, and life-affirming work.

Have you ever settled on a book? You know, your buddy suggests this awesome book that you just HAVE to read, but when you read the jacket you’re like, “Dude, you’ve GOT to be kidding me?”
That’s about what happened when I chose The Invoice by Jonas Karlsson. I browsed through my choices, saw other books that seemed right up my alley, but ultimately settled on The Invoice entirely based upon the fact that it had the best reviews.
Apparently, it’s okay to “settle” sometimes…
I knew I was going to enjoy this book by the second page, loved it by page 50, and it took me all of two days to read it’s 204 pages. (That’s impressive when you’ve got a job, two dogs and a clingy teenager who’s been gone for a week demanding that you put down the book and watch Supernatural with her.)
You’re never told the narrator’s name (which I honestly didn’t realize until I started writing this post), but his life is thrown into a complete loop when he receives an invoice from a company he’s never heard of for an amount he could never pay. After all, he works part-time in a video shop where he apparently doesn’t bother to put out the open side until after lunch.
He later learns that the government (every government, really) has begun charging for happiness and that the mistake he assumed was made in his amount wasn’t in his favor! As he argues the case for how much of a loser he really is, his happiness score only goes up (along with the amount due).
While you gotta feel for the guy, it’s hard not to laugh at his continued misfortune.
While I loved the narrator, what really kept me from being able to tear myself away from the story was the way it constantly kept me asking what was going to happen next. Once I would get the answer to one question, I had about three more that needed answering (like what they can do to stop your experiences if they’re not going to kill you)!
This book forces you to ask the question, what would happen if you had to pay for your Experienced Happiness… and what if you were too happy to be able to pay?
What really got to me was that I can totally relate to the guy’s E.H. type. While I’ve definitely had my ups and downs (as we all have) I tend to be happy with relatively little. I work part-time, watch television when I can and if you give me a good book and some time to write I’m pretty much ecstatic.
It does have a few “naughty” words in it, but I’d recommend The Invoice for anyone age 15+. About the only negative I can possibly say about this novel is that I wish it had been longer. I was actually sad when it ended and I had to put it down (please see that this is deducted from my E.H. score).

Thanks so much to the Blogging for Books program for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for this review.

family, humor, Uncategorized

The Anger Management Experiment

Posted on July 16, 2016 by Jess C.

In general, I’m a pretty quite person. One of my best friend’s uncle nicknamed me “Mousy” because I’m too little and too quite.
I can spend an entire day not speaking to another living soul and be completely happy and content. (Truthfully, I could do this for days and get a lot of reading, writing, knitting and work done. It makes me feel accomplished and whole when I get to do all those things and bonus if I get to do it without interruption!)
Unfortunately, I can also be loud. VERY LOUD!
My entire family is LOUD. Which is something I never really noticed until I married my husband. His entire family, including cousins, can fit into one room comfortably.
Mine can barely fit into one house.
And when we do, it’s sounds a bit like we could all use hearing aids. We’re all trying to have conversations and be heard. The volume goes up and up and up until children are covering their ears and neighbors are wondering if they should call the police.
We are not yelling at each other.
We are, however, speaking in upraised voices that force attention to the conversation and has been known, on occasion, to make babies cry.
This is normal.
It’s what we do.
How else are we going to be heard?
It’s a problem.
When I’m not heard in my little mousy tone, I get a little louder. When I’m still not heard, I get even louder. I continue to increase my volume until I feel I’m finally getting through and that’s the volume I stay at until I’m done saying what I need to say.
It scares my husband.
So I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to stop yelling and screaming to get his attention.
Great plan… no idea how to put it into motion.
We’re really caught in a cycle here. It goes like this…

Me: [Insert random thing] really hurts my feelings.

Husband: [blank stare]

Me: Seriously, I’m upset because [Insert random thing] really hurts my feelings.

Husband: That’s stupid.

Me: It’s not stupid, you’re not listening to me. [Insert random thing] really hurts my feelings.

Husband. Yeah, and that’s stupid. Just stop feeling that way.

Me: How can you say that to me?

Husband: I love you.

Me: I don’t feel loved because [Insert random thing] really hurts my feelings and you think it’s stupid.

Husband: Well, that’s dumb.

Me: You’re being a jerk. I know it’s dumb to you, but it’s not to me. I can’t just stop feeling that way and I need you to quit doing it.

Husband: Okay. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.

Me: Thank you.

Husband: Can you not yell at me anymore?

Me: You don’t listen until I start yelling.

That’s the basic format of our arguments. The last one we had got really bad and my throat is still raw.
This is not healthy. I know that.
And I don’t feel like an angry person, but after talking with another couple, I’ve realized that I definitely am. I mean seriously, who isn’t automatically on the defensive when someone is raising their voice to them? And even though I don’t feel angry when I first start raising my voice, I am by the time I’m done.
I have got to find another way to express myself.
I stayed up until 2 a.m. last night trying to figure out how I’m going to handle the next time I need him to hear me. I still didn’t have it figured out when I woke up at 6.
I talked to my husband about it. He had no idea and then he had to go to work.
This was me on the inside:

Kinda the exact opposite of what I was going for…
So I got proactive and did what every normal person does these days…
I asked the Google fairies…
Apparently no one else on the planet has a problem with yelling at their spouse. However, people yell at their kids A LOT!
Google has lots of suggestions for not yelling at your children.
While my husband and I can be pretty immature and act more like our kids ages than our own, I’m not so sure I want to approach my issue the same way Google tells me to deal with a child.

Or do I???

I found a site called the Orange Rhino challenge. It’s a 365 day challenge to help mom’s stop yelling at their kids.
On it, there is a list of “Orange Rhino” Alternatives to Yelling. It’s a list of 100 things you can do instead of yelling at your children. I’ve decided to steal this list (or at least part of it since I don’t actually own any of the 50 Shades books and have no desire to) and try it on my husband the next time I feel like raising my voice.
If you don’t have time to take a look at the list, here are just a few of the things my husband has to look forward to:

The Hokey Pokey
Somersaults
Me banging my arms on my chest like a gorilla
Him being tickled
Me flushing my screams down the toilet

I figure I’ll either get his attention or he’ll put me in a psychiatric hospital. Either way, it should be interesting… and fun… and much better for my throat!
Wish me luck and I’ll let you guys know how it goes!

Category: Uncategorized