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Sunday, January 20, 2013

Project Rachel

After viewing this video on YouTube this morning, I felt compelled to share Project Rachel's contact information.


Project Rachel is a Catholic ministry for post-abortive women.  You don't have to be Catholic to use the service.  Project Rachel is confidential.  Whether or not a woman feels it at the time, abortion is a highly traumatic event.  Even if she never has a conversion experience that convinces her that abortion is an intrinsic evil, no woman can truly be at peace with making the decision to abort her child.  In this day and age, it is just not possible to convince yourself that you have done anything less than to kill your baby.  Call it what you want, pretty it up any way you have to.  A baby's heart starts beating 18 days after conception, before most women (especially those not trying to conceive) even know they are pregnant.  You don't have to have a degree in biology to know that beating heart = life.

At that point, then, it becomes an issue of ownership.  It's in my body, therefore, I can do what I want with it.  Even so, many women don't make that decision lightly.  And the aftermath hurts.  For teenage girls who may feel pressure from boyfriends or parents, growing up may be the biggest trigger or Post Abortion Stress.  Getting married, getting pregnant for the second time, experiencing what pregnancy can and should be like can raise all kinds of feelings that have been subsumed for years.  Project Rachel can help.

What many pro-abortionists don't seem to understand is that pro-lifers don't care only about the lives of babies (although, of course, as society's most vulnerable, those without a voice take precedence): we care about women! We care about women far more than Planned Parenthood does.  Planned Parenthood wants your money (or our tax money).  Then they want to poison your body with birth control pills and send you on your merry way never to see you again (until they can get more money out of you).  We want you to live a blessed and healthy life.  We want you to respect your body for the beautiful creation it is.  We want you to be HAPPY (how can anything Planned Parenthood rips out of you or puts in you make you happy?) - not just for five minutes of sex, but for a lifetime.

Sometimes this conversation feels like spitting in the wind.  I recently heard (can't give credit because I don't remember, but it was on Catholic Answers Live) that our society has gotten so instant gratification-oriented that the sins have to even more sinful to satisfy.  Planned Parenthood has never been richer and never been happier.  I know that no one who reads this is the person who actually needs to hear it.  The people who need to hear it have their ears (and eyes) firmly closed.  I know that prayer effects miracles.  Abby Johnson (and countless others) is proof of that.  I guess the instant gratification society has infected me as well.  It's just that in the time that I've been writing this, according to their own statistics, Planned Parenthood performed nine abortions.  The need is crucial.  The need is now.  Please pray to end abortion. Pray for the women and the children.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

NetGalley


Do you know NetGalley? NetGalley is a resource for professional readers. What is a professional reader? Anyone who blogs, recommends, or reviews books for a living! Librarians automatically qualify as far as I can tell, as do well-known book bloggers with large followings.  A whole bunch of other people qualify, too, though! I am guessing that a bunch of my homeschooling friends would qualify based on their blog followings.  I don't have a large blog following here, but because of my position with BellaOnline, I have a very large following! I have received hundreds of books free through NetGalley!

So how is NetGalley different from any other review-type program you may already be part of? Well, all of its books (or at least the vast, vast majority) are digital ARCs.  Several of the books I'm reading now are not scheduled to be published until June, 2013! Best of all, once you develop a relationship with a publisher (a relationship can be developed in one of several ways: you may end up reviewing several books for a publisher, thus establishing that you are a reliable reviewer.  You may have the type of blog or following that the publisher values.  You may not even know what you have that the publisher likes), you could very well end up on that publisher's "auto-approve" list.  That means that when you request a book from that publisher, you are automatically approved to receive it.  You don't have to wait to see if the publisher approves you! I am so thrilled to be on auto-approval with Random House Children's Books! I am currently reading and reviewing


set to be published on February 26, 2013.  Billed as a cross between Hunger Games and Matched, two of my favorite books, I am loving it! Look for the review in a couple of weeks!

NetGalley has tens of thousands of books from hundreds of publishers at any one time.  Register for a free account and start requesting books from publishers.  You might be amazed at what you qualify for!

Big thanks go to my librarian sister, Michaela, for steering me to NetGalley. I had never heard of it prior to her recommendation.

Monday, January 7, 2013

What Homeschooling Looks Like


Nicky is lying on the couch reading The Ransom of Red Chief by O Henry while Therese works on  grammar.  M-C is at her desk writing in her journal and Michael is in his room thinking about his temper (hey, I keep it real here).  I didn't have to worry about sending them back to school this morning.  I can let Therese do 9th grade grammar instead of 6th grade.  I can let Nicky read O Henry because Therese was reading him and Nicky thought it sounded exciting.  I can work with Michael on his temper and let Mary-Catherine journal when her mind takes her there.  I can take my migraine-addled head to bed knowing that my children will (probably) finish their schoolwork and that I don't have to set an alarm to pick them up at school.


I am blessed to have a husband who works so hard so that I can stay home and be a mother to my children (update: Michael just came out of his room and apologized for losing his temper - that didn't take long!).  I will have them for such a short period of time.  I am blessed to live in a country where I have the ability to live out my God-given role as mother and teacher.

Some homeschool days are the kind where I am tearing my hair out.  Thank goodness (given this headache), today is not one of them.  I am never tempted to send them to school, but I am sometimes tempted to send them all to their rooms.  Today, I am grateful to have them all around me in the living room (despite the fact that we have a beautiful schoolroom!), learning in the most natural environment there is.