Excellent Reading and More Recommendations

In the past couple weeks I read two wonderful books. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a fun read. It's light-hearted historical fiction that is cleverly written.
Three Cups of Tea is the biography of Greg Mortenson, an unlikely philanthropist who has done amazing things building schools in Pakistan and Afganistan. He is able to empower so many without critizing or insisting they change. The world would be a much better place if more people were like him. This is one book I would recommend to everyone!
If you are interested in more books I'd recommend, scroll down to the bottom of my sidebar.

The books doubled as drums for my kids as well!

Here are a few other random things that I would highly recommend:

1. Google Reader I was kind of late to jump on the bandwagon with this one. I've only been using it for about five months, but I love it! You can use it for news feeds or all kinds of things, but I especially like to use it to keep up on all of my friends' and family's blogs. I never miss a post thanks to Google Reader.

2. Exercise TV This year I've been on a bit of a health kick. I was rediculously heavy when pregnant with baby number two. Six weeks post-partum I started working out and eating right and have lost nearly 40 pounds! Yay! Anyway, part of that is due to www.exercisetv.tv. On days when it's too hot or too cold to go running outside, I would do aerobics inside. I'd get kind of sick of my same two videos everytime, so I'm glad I found Exercise TV. There are over 100 free workout videos and hundreds more clips. My favorite trainer is probably Cindy Whitmarsh. Anyway, there are some great workouts available for free on this site.

3. Aflac "Maternity" Insurance We didn't know about it with Parker, but before getting pregnant with Jason, I took out a hospital indemnity policy with Aflac. It cost just over $100 a month and we had it for a year. After having Jason, I filled out the two minutes of paperwork and sent it in to Aflac and a couple of days later got a check written out to me for $3,300. Basically it was over two-thousand dollars free money. People who have C-sections get more. You have to have had the policy for ten months before going into the hospital, but it's pretty sweet! Before trying for a child, look into it!