The Domesticated Princess

Stories from the Golden Age Book and Audio Review

2013-05-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite times of the day is bedtime. No, it's not because I'm excited about getting some kid-free time though I will admit to loving how quiet our house is after all four kids are finally asleep. I love bedtime because I get to spend close to an hour reading with my four children. I always start with our precious two-year-old and lovingly read library books about princesses or her current favorite character Fancy Nancy. Then I move on to our two middle sons' room. I used to read to them separately, but now that they are 8 and 9 years old, they enjoy the same books.

After they've showered and finally brushed their teeth after only two or three reminders (why don't boys remember to brush their teeth?), they climb in their twin beds as I either sit on the floor between them or squeeze in with one of them holding whatever chapter book we are in the middle of at the moment. Meanwhile, our two kittens play frantically under one of the beds, batting at each other between the dust ruffle.

This past month, the book of choice was given to me by Galaxy Press, and instead of taking turns reading a page and passing the book around the room to the next person as we normally do, we got to lie down and listen to the book on CD. As a former English teacher, I've listened to plenty of audio books, but this one created for the Golden Age series was by far the most exciting. Instead of having the author narrate, they have professional actors, so each character has his/her own unique voice, and the sound effects are impressive! It was the first novel my boys have listened to, and it held their interest the entire time because of the quality of the CD. If you'd like to learn more about the making of their audio series, watch this Youtube video.

By now, I bet you are wondering what novel my boys enjoyed this much. It's The Iron Duke, by L. Ron Hubbard. I didn't realize this, but Hubbard is one of the best known science fiction authors known for his pulp fiction, and he wrote this book in 1940 for a magazine. His work and Galaxy Press's reproduction of his novel were both featured on television, and you can watch a replay of it here.

This particular book and audio is part of the Golden Age Stories' series where they are reprinting many of Hubbard's widely popular pulp fiction novels from the '40s for today's fans. The story is about a clever risk-taker named Blacky Lee and his nervous sidekick who are hiding from the German Gestapo by impersonating the crowned head of a Balkan kingdom. I can see why his writing was such a hit years ago as his style is rich in imagery. However, it was the audio that really lured my two boys and me into the story. We loved the sound effects and characters' voices. The plot felt reminiscent of books from an earlier era because the story line was slower moving than the action books of today, but my boys still really enjoyed it. I will warn you that this particular story mentions drinking alcohol, but it shows it in a negative light. I would guess that in today's rating, if this were a movie, it would earn a PG rating due to a little violence as well.

My boys and I enjoyed the two-hour audio of this book, and I was glad to be introduced to a new genre of writing with this example of pulp fiction. Next, we plan on picking one of their historical fiction books. If you'd like to find a book your whole family could enjoy together, you can look at all the titles available at the Golden Age Storie's website.

I'll be sharing this post at some of these parties here.

Our Honor Board

2013-05-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

You may recall the parenting book I reviewed back in March, Say Goodbye to Whining,Complaining, and Bad Attitudes in You and Your Kids. What I enjoyed most about this book was its focus on honor. Since reading it, we've worked as a family to show honor to each other. I can't say we are there all the time, and we continue to make plenty of mistakes, so I was trying to think of a way to help encourage my children to encourage, praise, and appreciate one another. I remembered a MOPS craft project I once saw on pinterest. Unfortunately, I didn't pin it because I didn't need to go back to it for instructions. Now I realize I need to just pin everything. It's not that I needed the instructions, but I would have liked to give credit to the blogger who inspired this idea.

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Chocolate Mint Cake

2013-05-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

Due to my mom's lung cancer, she hasn't been able to cook and bake like she used to. However, our family still congregates at my parents' house every Sunday afternoon and evening. While Mom no longer does much of the cooking or baking, we three daughters have stepped up. Usually I end up with the responsibility of desserts, mainly because I'm the only daughter who enjoys baking.

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Photography Technique: Pinterest Success or Fail?

2013-05-10T07:30:00.000-05:00

I discovered what seems like a super cool (yes, I said "super cool") tutorial through pinterest that allows you to take amazing photos of items for your blog. Check it out here: handmadespark.com.

As you can see on that blog, there is simply no background shown. It looks like the image has been cut out and pasted directly onto the blog page. However, I tried it out several times, adjusting various features on my DSLR, but I never achieved this exact result.

I tried out the technique another day with about the same results.

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My Favorite Banana Bread

2013-05-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

When my husband and I were first married and living in our first house, our next door neighbor was an elderly lady who loved baking. Her favorite treat to bring over was freshly baked banana bread. I loved not just the treat but the idea that she cared enough for us to bake us goodies.

After we moved to a new neighborhood, I decided that I would always bake a fresh loaf of banana bread for any family who moved in on our street; however, the next two streets we lived on rarely got new neighbors until we moved to our current house where the street was only half-way finished. Over the first year we lived there, we welcomed lots of new neighbors. I can't say I've baked banana bread for all of them. Sometimes I opt for cookies, but I love welcoming families to our street this way, and they seem to like it too. I also add a note with our names and our home phone number on it. I've made a few friends this way and feel closer to these neighbors than any others.

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Creating Your Own Family Rules Painting

2013-05-03T07:30:00.000-05:00

I've seen a lot of those "Family Rules" signs on Pinterest lately, so I decided it was time I made one for our family. However, I soon discovered that the signs I really liked were either (a) for sale or (b) made with vinyl letters that required owning a Cricut or Silhouette. Well, since I have yet to win one of those, I was out of luck. (I'm hoping Santa thinks I've been a really good year in 2013 though.)

I didn't want to buy a sign because I wanted it to be totally personalized for our family with every rule being ideal to our values we are trying to instill in our children. And, let's face it, I'm cheap. I figured if I was going to make my own, I had better look at all the possible rules various signs list and compile my own list. Here are fifty. Yup, fifty. I narrowed our list down to nine based on priorities and space. I then headed to Hobby Lobby to purchase a canvas, some black and antique white paint, and more stencils. I figured I'd do the lettering the same why I did for my Trick or Feet sign.

I guess the most challenging part of this sign is the layout. Once I selected the rules I wanted represented, I had to make sure they would all fit on the designated canvas. To do this, I decided on the layout and size of each rule, whether it would be painted with one of the two one-inch fonts or the two-inch font. I then typed them onto word using Word Art with font as similar to my stencils as possible and tried out various options until I found one I liked. This just seemed easier than doing it by hand. It wasn't to scale, of course, but it gave me a good idea of how it would work.

Next, I painted my entire canvas black and let that dry as I prepared my stencils. It would have been smarter to paint the canvas first and let it dry while I was playing around with my lettering on my computer.

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The Christian Parenting Handbook Review and Launch Party

2013-04-30T21:05:00.003-05:00

After reading and writing a review of Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller's book Say Good-Bye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes in You and Your Kids, I was invited to be a part of The Christian Parenting Handbook's launch team. Since their first book provided me with useful tools to encourage our family to focus on honor, I was excited about their second book. After all, in just two months of practicing what I've learned in their first book, I've seen noticeable differences in how my children treat each other and my husband and me. I feel like I'm a much more positive parent, which makes for a happier home! I will be sharing more on those differences in future posts along with some activities we've done to help our family stay focused on what we've learned, but right now, I want to share with you a little about what I've learned from their new book.

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Blogiversary Celebration

2013-04-30T07:00:00.000-05:00

Now that I've been blogging for over a year, I know I'm certainly a full year older and hopefully, I'm a bit wiser too, about blogging at least. Over this past month, I've shared with you much of what I've learned during my first twelve months thanks mostly due to the generosity of fellow bloggers, so I will end my month-long celebration with one last tip: Make fellow blog friends. While your non-blogging friends may follow your blog and offer up some moral support, they can't relate to what you are going through in Bloggy Land. Finding and growing relationships in the blogisphere is incredibly important in providing you with the support you need because they've either been there and done that or are going through it right along with you. It makes the whole blogging process a little less intimidating and a lot more fun!

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Pipe Cleaners and Felt Fun

2013-04-26T07:00:00.001-05:00

I am excited about two easy and inexpensive activities to make for your toddler or preschooler!

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What I Wish I Knew: How to Monetize Your Blog

2013-04-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

So far we've learned how to beautify our blogs for free and how to gain and keep readers, so we are ready to think about making money!

There are two basic ways to make money with your blog advertising and reviews.

Let's first discuss the four main ways to advertise:

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The Christian Parenting Handbook Launch Party and Giveaway

2013-04-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

As part of the launch team for The Christian Parenting Handbook: 50 Heart-Based Strategies for All the Stages of Your Child's Life, I was able to read it earlier this month and thoroughly enjoyed it. Similar to the philosophies in Say Goodbye To Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes I reviewed previously, this handbook, which is published by the same company, teaches parents how to focus on changing our children's hearts as a means of changing their behaviors. While I've usually prided myself in having children who behave with manners and respect (most of the time) in public, I've struggled to find ways to teach my children to show each other love and honor, and with a pre-teen in the house and two to quickly follow, I worry about how outside influences will impact my children's decisions as they gain more freedom.
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Three-Layer Ruffle Skirt Sewing Tutorial

2013-04-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

For Christmas, I bought my daughter the cutest outfit that included a ruffle skirt. When I examined it closely, I thought, "I can duplicate this!" Since I'm finally caught up on my other projects and responsibilities, I decided to give it a try. I sat down with a measuring tape and the skirt. Then I worked out a formula so the skirt would work for any size. After all, this is my BFF's and my next sewing project, which means we will be making three of these skirts.

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What I Wish I Knew: How to Gain Readers

2013-04-16T07:30:00.000-05:00

Once our blogs are beautiful, we are ready to share them with the world! I will admit that when I began blogging, I thought all I would need to do was ask my Facebook friends to check out my blog, pin a couple tutorials on Pinterest, and in no time, I'd have hundreds of people visiting my site daily. Well, that is all I did for my first four months. While I was gaining a few readers, I soon realized I needed to learn how to really enter the blogging world. The first tip I discovered was to participate in linky parties and blog hops. I was clueless. None of the blogs I followed hosted these, so I was entering a whole new realm. My first month of participating in various parties, my pageviews were ten times higher than the previous months. That was a great start, but I then realized I needed regular followers. That's when I realized the importance of making connections, using social media, and setting goals. What did I learn?
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Teaching Toddlers Shapes and Colors with Paint and Toilet Paper Tubes

2013-04-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

My daughter loves to paint, so I was thrilled when I was cleaning out an old craft box in the attic and found her oldest brother's old painting smock. She was excited about putting it to good use today.

A few days ago, as I was replacing toilet paper, I realized these empty tubes would make a fun painting opportunity. It didn't take long before I had two empty toilet paper tubes and an empty paper towel tube. I cut the paper towel tube in half, and we were ready to paint!

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Kids Email Review

2013-04-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

With a pre-teen son and his two younger brothers who think they should have the same privileges as their oldest brother, I have a difficult time determining when they are old enough and mature enough for certain privileges. Add in the growing popularity of all things related to the internet, and those decisions get even tougher! My oldest son got a laptop for his 11th birthday because he would be using a computer more for sixth grade and our family desktop was getting rather busy. With that new computer came a list of rules, and while we trust him not to intentionally visit inappropriate websites, we can't trust what others will send to him. That's where kidsemail.org comes in.
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What I Wish I Knew: How to Beautify Your Blog for Free

2013-04-09T07:30:00.000-05:00

When I began my blog, I was happy with the features Blogger gave me. Quite frankly, I didn't know anything better. But as I continued to familiarize myself with other blogs, I realized they offered features that I wanted. I began researching and learned how to spruce up my blog for free, which not only made it prettier but also helped increase my page views (but I'll discuss that in more detail next week).

What are the top ten widgets/gadgets/tools that I love?
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Custom Silhouettes

2013-04-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

As a child, I remember seeing booths at amusement parks and fairs where, for several dollars, you could sit on a stool while an artist cut out a black silhouette of your profile. We never got one, my parents obviously figuring they weren't worth the time or money, so I passed those booths with a feeling of curiosity and slight disappointment. Obviously, I got over it. Cotton candy and spinning rides will do that to a kid.

Just a few months ago, I was in a neighbor's house where I saw the cutest silhouette in a small picture frame. I didn't ask if it was of one of her daughters, but as soon as I saw it, I thought, "I must make these for my children!"
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Co-Hosting Wow Me Wednesday Linky Party

2013-04-02T19:00:00.000-05:00

As part of my blogiversary, I thought it would be fun to celebrate with Ginger from Gingersnap Crafts since this month is her two-year blogiversary! She co-hosts a wonderful linky party every week and invited several of us to join in on the party. I hope you'll participate too!

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What I Wish I Knew My First Year in Blogging

2013-04-02T07:30:00.000-05:00

This month I'm celebrating my one-year blogiversary with a What-I-Wish-I-Knew-My-First-Year-in-Blogging Series, which will include my very first give-aways and promotions throughout the series! Wahoo!

A friend of mine decided over a year ago, actually around the same time I did, that she wanted to create a blog. We took two different approaches. She worked tirelessly designing her blog and brainstorming topics, researching blog strategies and studying various blogs. Me? Well, I just jumped right in. She is still dipping her toes in the shallow end, not sure if she's ready to take the plunge. Whose approach is better?
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Easter Story Cookies

2013-03-28T13:56:00.000-05:00

When I had my first-born son, one of my husband's aunts gave us a neat parenting book, and as a new parent, I was eager to learn all I could. I enjoyed the ease of this book though most of the information was simple enough to grasp that I haven't had to refer to it for years for parenting tips. However, it's one particular tradition the author introduces that has kept the book in my house for almost 12 years. In case you are wondering, the book's title is
The Mommy and Daddy Book by Karen Hull. In the last chapter, titled "Making Memories," Karen shares a beautiful Easter tradition called Easter Story Cookies. It's a tradition we have followed almost every Easter weekend for ten years now, so I'd like to share it with you.

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Crock Pot Brisket with Mushrooms

2013-03-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

Are you ready for a recipe that is amazingly easy to throw together on your busiest days yet tastes delicious enough to serve to special guests? I was given a freezer bag of this brisket after I had my fourth child from a sweet friend and neighbor of mine. It was so yummy that I asked her for the recipe and was amazed at its simplicity. For those of you who work full-time, you can spend ten minutes as soon as you wake up throwing this all together and cooking on high while you get ready for work. Then lower your crock pot to low until you get home from work. Just grab a bagged salad and some hot French bread on your way home from work, and you'll have a fabulous meal!
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One Month to Love Book Review

2013-03-25T07:30:00.000-05:00

Are you familiar with Blogging for Books? I joined the program a couple months ago after reading another blogger's book review. I love reading, and while I know most of us rarely have the time to read a book apart from our children's, I wanted to start sharing some with you. This particular book is a non-fiction, Christian-based self-help type book focusing on strengthening your important relationships in your life.

I was drawn to this book because I have been struggling with a couple relationships in my life recently. I'm typically not a fan of self-help books because out of all the ones I have read, I rarely finish feeling my life has changed or that I have found specific answers. However, One Month to Love: Thirty Days to Grow and Deepen Your Closest Relationships summary gave me hope that this book would be different. And it was.

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Take Me Out to the Ballgame Ruffle Skirt

2013-03-22T07:30:00.000-05:00

I was at Wal-Mart the other day buying more thread to finish up more of the hospital dolls. I've gone through three spools already and decided to sew another 50 dolls. While in their sewing department, I found this baseball fabric. Isn't it cute? There wasn't much left and no price tag, so I asked the sales assistant how much it cost, and she said she'd give it to me for $1! Well, how could I refuse? Baseball season is starting, and my daughter will be drug to at least a dozen games over the next three months, and she simply needs something cute to wear to cheer on her middle two brothers' team. (I also got a great deal on a half yard of shirred Minnie Mouse fabric for another sundress, but I'll focus on that another day.)

I then searched for a solid-color girl's t-shirt to go with the fabric, but I had to settle on white. Why don't they have navy or red shirts for little girls?

To make this adorable and easy ruffle skirt, just follow along...

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Co-Hosting Thumping Thursday Blog Hop

2013-03-21T00:30:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed the party so much last week that I'm co-hosting it again this week! If you didn't get a chance to participate, please read the rules below, and, most importantly, mingle and have fun! To continue reading this post, please click here.

Co-Hosting Tuesday's Tea Party Blog Hop

2013-03-19T09:39:00.001-05:00

I'm co-hosting a blog hop today and hope you'll join in!

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