BIG BLACK FRIDAY SALE!

Hey everyone! Guess what guess what guess what?!?!?!

Some very awesome authors of some very awesome books are grouping together to have a very awesome Black Friday sale! :D YIPPEE!!!!!

It’s that time of year. The time for buying presents, making wish lists, and planning New Year’s Resolutions. If any of those activities involve books for you, Indie Christian Authors has a perfect event for you.

From Nov 25 (that’s today!) through Nov 28th, more than 70 independent Christian books are on sale. You can find free shipping, $0.99 ebooks, package deals, and more! And if your budget is depleted from Christmas shopping, they’ve got you covered with some freebies!

Think 70 books is overwhelming? Narrow it down and find the perfect books for you or someone on your Christmas list by using this quiz to generate a customized book list.

So hurry over to the site and check out the books! (It's AH-mazing, just sayin' ;)) When I first heard about the sale, I literally jumped up and down, squealed, and hugged myself in excitement xD 


What awesome reads of 2016 are you grateful for? What books are you looking forward to reading in 2017?

A note on the Ebooks Only page. All books are listed as "Sold Out." This only refers to paperback copies of these titles. Please click onto the product pages to find descriptions and links to discounted or free ebooks. Also, some of the authors this year chose to not sell their paperbacks directly through the site. Those books are also marked "Sold Out" but if you click them open, you'll find a link to the site where they are on sale and a discount code for you to use at check out.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Leah E. Good and Kendra E. Ardnek for their work organizing this sale, and Hannah Mills for her fantastic design work on the website graphics. Hannah can be contacted at hmills(at)omorecollege(dot)edu for more information about her design services.

12 Days of Christmas ... Coming Soon!

'Deck the halls with boughs of holly fa la la la la la la la la!

Tis the season to be jolly fa la la la la la la la la!' 

IT'S ONLY 31 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS. THIRTY ONE!!!! *jumps up and down in excitement* 

Have you started playing your Christmas music yet? I have! (ok, so I actually started in like September/October-ish :P) 

Anyway, the main point of this post is to tell you all about this very amazing, super awesome, absolutely fantastic Christmas blog party that Faith P. will be hosting. 

If you weren't able to attend last year, let me tell you, it was sooooo awesome! (you may or may not hear me say 'awesome' multiple times during this post ;)) 

Last year, Faith P. hosted a very lovely Christmas party at her blog where other bloggers could share their Christmas posts, from music to stories to book/movie reviews and a whole bunch more awesomeness! 

The Details

When: The blog party will kick off on Wednesday December 14th and run through to Sunday, December 25th 

Where: The main party blog will be at our hostess, Faith's, blog, Stories by Firefly. There you will get a list of all the participants along with their posts of the day 

What: 12 Days of Christmas is a blog linkup designed for people to connect together (virtual though it may be) in the Christmas spirit to share stories, traditions, books, and more! 

Why: (words taken directly from Faith herself ;)) "Last year and again this year, the purpose of 12 Days of Christmas is to remind all of us of the true Reason for the Season. And to share Christmas love and joy with each other, and to enjoy ourselves while we're at it. :) 

How: Want to join in the fun? (I hope so! Would love to party with you all ;)) Have some Christmas posts in your head that are dying to be shared? ;) You can contact Faith through the Blogger contact form on her blog, Stories by Firefly. The deadline is December 11th, so hurry and let her know! :D 

To see Faith's post about the party, you can click on the button on the right sidebar. 

You excited for the party? Sure hope so! ;D

Oh, and it's Thanksgiving Day for you Americans, isn't it? Happy Thanksgiving! :D

I'll be back in a couple days with a post I'm sure you book lovers are gonna enjoy immensely! ;)

Ta-ta! *goes away singing Winter Wonderland* (*whispers* cause we have snow! =D)

War Room // Movie Review

My family finally watched War Room. . . and I LOVED IT. The Kendrick Brothers never disappoint, that's for sure! 

I've never done a movie review before, so bear with me ;) I just enjoyed this movie so much I feel like I gotta write down my thoughts on the movie before I burst. Or my mind explodes. Whichever one comes first ;) 

Anyway, let's get onto the review, shall we? 

Look! They even have their own whatchamacallit now! :D Loooovveeee it!
(*afterthought* what is it called, exactly? Symbol? Someone help me...)

~ Ze Trailer ~

~ My Review ~ 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was a little apprehensive at first because I honestly had no idea how this movie was going to turn out. I had heard that it was about people in a room praying and somehow got this idea that the entire movie was going to be in a room with people silently praying together. Which could, especially to those who might not know what praying is, be seen as just a bunch of people sitting in a room. And seeing that for 2 hours or so doesn't sound very exciting, if you know what I mean. 

But from past experience with the Kendrick Brothers, I can't believe I actually let myself think that they would have directed any kind of movie like that. They completely blew me away with their new masterpiece. 

And there wasn't anything fake about War Room either. They didn't try to portray prayer as some magical thing where you wish for something (kinda like a genie) and poof everything's good. Uh uh. Not the Kendrick brothers. They used a real life example, complete with all the struggles of keeping a family together, and fighting for a marriage. War Room shows how powerful a weapon prayer can be and that we shouldn't take this privilege for granted.

There were some very intense scenes, like the very last one with Miss Clara praying. Whew, was that intense! And the one where Elizabeth was praying for Tony for the first time...almost cried there too. But of course, there was the humour that the Kendrick brothers are just so good at. It really helped to lighten up the movie. 

I love the actors! They all fit their roles perfectly and gah, it's awesome. One thing that surprised me though was that Alex Kendrick wasn't one of the main characters in this movie. War Room is the first Kendrick movie I've ever seen where he isn't the main character . . . ;) 

All in all, I really enjoyed this movie. It's amazing, people. If you haven't seen it already, go do so. Please. You'll be glad you did. Promise. 

~ Quotes ~

~ Characters ~ 

Elizabeth Jordan is played by Priscilla Shirer. She is a real-estate agent, wife, mother and friend. She struggles with her marriage and prayer-life until she meets one of her clients, Ms. Clara. Then her life is changed forever.






Tony Jordon is played by T.C. Stallings. When I first saw him in the movie, I had this really bad feeling about him. Not because of the movie, more like I had seen him before and he was - bad :P A little more into the movie, we finally figured out he played T. J. in Courageous. You know that gangster in the black do-rag and baggy clothes and yeah ;) He looks a lot different here, all spruced up as a his pharmaceutical company's top salesman. But he plays his part very well. No fake acting here, peoples ;)

Mike is played by Michael Jr. He's a good friend of Toby. And he's just plain hilarious, both in the movie and in real-life.
After we watched the movie, we watched the bloopers and BTS and killed ourselves laughing at his antics. There was this one time they were filming and the camera mic came down into the screen. He looks up and goes, "Oh hey black mic. I'm a black Mike too." xD This guy is just hilarious.

Mandy is played by Beth Moore. Some of you might have heard of her before, or read some of her books perhaps? :) She (Mandy, in case you were getting lost with all them pronouns ;)) works with Elizabeth at the real estate agency.









Miss Clara is played by Karen Abercrombie and does she ever do such a good job!!! Her fervency and passion is so clear and eekks, I love her so much! She mentors Elizabeth and she's so funny too. Couldn't help myself, so I added a clip from the movie. Go watch it. . . . Please :D

Coleman is played by guess who?! Alex Kendrick! Whoot whoot! He's awesome. Some of you please tell me you've seen his other movies? Flywheel, Courageous, Facing the Giants. They are all awesomely amazing and so inspiring and yeah, I love them all so much. I know he directed Fireproof but I don't know if he acted in it. Haven't seen it yet, but I'd like to some time :)

*All images taken from Facebook. You can check out their FB page here: War Room


Have you watched War Room?
Did you like it?
What's your favourite Kendrick Brother's movie?

Counting Our Blessings // Faith P.

Good morning, afternoon, or evening! (depending on when you're reading this :)
A special friend of mine (and fellow ASL student ;)) sent me an email today. . . and now she's here to share some of her blessings with us. Thank you so much for coming, Faith! Take it away! :D 

Hello everyone! :) I'm so tickled to be here today – guest posting for my friend, Blessing Counter! She asked me awhile back (probably, knowing what a procrastinator I am and knowing I would need plenty of time… *wink*) and, well, I finally got this written and into her inbox. ;)

Let me begin by introducing myself. I'm Faith – a born again Christian, a PK, and a homeschooled teen. I live with my parents, my little brother, and our two yellow labs in the mountains of NC. I enjoy writing, reading, pottery, camping, biking, and kayaking. I blog at Stories by Firefly and Chosen Vessels. :D 

On to the post! I chose three blessings to talk about as part of Blessing’s Counting Our Blessings series. I can't say they're my *top* three blessings, but they're all pretty special and dear to my heart. :) 

My first blessing would have to be prayer. To be perfect honest, previously my prayer life was…well, not existent. But this year God has been working in my heart. And now prayer time means so much to me!! 

Let's just stop and think about the whole concept of prayer for a minute. 
Sinful, broken people have the ability to go to the Lord of the Universe and talk to Him. We can pour out our hearts and He will listen. We can confess of our many wrongs and ask a pardon and He will forgive us. We can offer up thanks for all our Heavenly Father has done for us and He will listen. How amazing is that?! 
We can simply praise His holy Name...for He is so deserving of any honor and glory we can give to Him. Prayer is a blessing indeed. 

For my second blessing, I chose blogging friends. And I don't mean just those people you talk to once in awhile in a Blogger/Wordpress comment box on your blog or theirs every one in awhile. Although those are great too and often where these friendships start! 
I mean those people who you read their blog and they read yours…then someone took the initiative and sent that first, carefully worded email…and now your friendship has grown soooo much and you couldn't ask for a better long distance friendship.  
I'm beyond blessed to have several of these types of friendships. And these girls mean THE WORLD to me. 

With different people, there are different things that have pulled us together. Maybe we write together at ridiculous hours of the night. Maybe we talk in hashtags just to the annoyance of certain someone. Maybe we write emails about a certain TV series that are so long they would be a twenty pages if we printed them out. Maybe we attend the same online ASL course and have that in common. 
Whatever it is that drew us together, I love it and I wouldn't trade y'all for anything. *hugs* 

My third blessing is…writing. Writing had come to mean a lot to me. It's how I express myself. How I escape into a world of my own imagination. How I create people and places form nothing. 
Until the late summer/early fall of 2014 I didn't write. AT ALL. (I even wrote an assignment for an English course in one of my elementary years explaining why I didn't like writing. XD) But that year there were some hard things going on in my life, and writing became my go-to. Now, over two years later, I write pretty much everyday and I'm constantly comparing real life happenings to that of my beloved characters. ;) 

I'm a writer through and through. It's who I am now. :) 

Thanks for having me, Blessing! :D And thanks for reading, y'all! 

~Faith

I'm Baaaaaack! :D

Hello!!! *gives all you lovely people a hug* I've missed you so much! Hope you're all doing well! How has life been? :D 

Goodness, has it really been over a month since I last posted? Where has time gone? I'm sooo glad to be back in the blogosphere, though I will admit, I really needed that blogging break ;) Got to tick quite a few things off my to-do list. . . and of course add things too ;) 

Talking about time . . . it's only about 2 weeks before the baby shows up!!! *squeals* (in case you didn't know or didn't see the blog cover *points up* *winks* - Mom's having her 8th) As was with every single one of their children, Mom and Dad did not find out the gender until after he/she was born. This baby is no different. Sooo... I thought it would be fun to put up a poll and see what your guesses are for the gender. You can enter on the sidebar. Pretty easy, really. Ya got only two choices. Boy or Girl. No in between ;) Oh yeah, and it's not twins so you don't have to worry about that either ;)

Okay, so now that that's been said, let's get onto the post, shall we? 

~ Life ~

- Celebrated Thanksgiving with family. All us cousins together can get kinda . . . crazy xP

- Caught up and finally understood how Biology Grade 12 works. (Yippee!!!!!) Not saying I completely understand all the content, just how the course works ;)

- Found and applied for a job at Tim Hortons. Annnddd.....got it!! :D *does the happy dance*

Oh and uh...just wondering you all do know what Tim Hortons is, right? I thought everyone knew what it was until I talked to some of my school friends from the US - and found out they had no idea what it was :P You can imagine my reaction to that. It's like not knowing what McDonald's is!! (now you've got me wondering, do you all know what McDonald's is?! xD)

- Spent time with friends at Awana and made these turkey-apple-candy thingies

Everyone's apple-turkeys. From left to right; oldest to youngest. And in case you were wondering, Toblerone's apple is bare because he ate all the candy in the car on the way home ;P 

- Took Driver's Ed. 20 hours of in-class lessons in two weekends. Which means 5 hours a day. I was the only girl in a class of four. It was - interesting :P
- Started preparing for the baby. SO exciting!!!
- Been practicing for our Christmas piano recital. Tiger Lily is going to sing The Call *gasp* Which is really big, 'cause she's always been against singing a solo on stage. But she's gonna do it! Woohoo!!!
- Got to know people better at the new church we've recently moved to. I will admit, it was kinda hard adjusting to such a huge change. It hurt quite a bit leaving the church we've attended for almost 7 years. Still hurts, actually, but not as much. God's taught me quite a good lesson in family, trust, and change lately :)
- Met a new blogger friend, writer, and singer! You know who you are ;)
- Read books (duh) Wrote some.
- Did school. Lots and lots and lots of it.
- Guest-posted on Faith's blog, Chosen by the Potter. You can see the post HERE!
- Took family pictures. Here are some of them, but I'm trying not to do an overload of pictures on this post. Trying ;) Which reminds me, I've updated the 'My Family' page, so if you have time, you can go check it out! :)

Behind the scenes :P
Photo Credits: Ironman

- Oohed and Ahhed over the fall colours this year. Seriously, they were soooo vibrant and so different from last year! Fall 2015 was a sad mix of yellows and browns. But this year, the trees outdid themselves with a marvellous burst of vivid reds and brilliant oranges, with a few yellow-oranges mingled in.

LOOKIT THE COLOURS!!!!

- Went apple picking

Photo Credit: Ironman

Toblerone and his 'babies'. He just loved the little tiny apples he picked :) 

- Bought a new camera!

My darling little puppy! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 
Photo Credits: Ironman

~Random Conversations~

And by random, I mean really random. I'm putting them on here mostly so that I'll always have them in memory, and if one of the mentioned people go, "I never said that" well, I'll just come on here and show it to 'em ;P

Tiger Lily's explanation for a bruise: When you bump yourself, all the blood rushes up to the skin because it thinks there's going to be a cut. But there isn't one. But the blood is too lazy to want to move all the way back down, so it stays where it is and turns purple. Sometimes even green. Makes total sense!"


12:00 am 
Dad: 20's too young to date
Me: You and Mom were dating in your teens!
Dad: That's different. We weren't homeschooled
Me: You didn't just say that
Dad: You girls can't marry until you're at least 30
Me: o_o
Dad: Just kidding!!


Ok, so one huge difference between the youth group at the new church and the one at the old church is that the majority of people are high-schoolers, not homeschoolers. So it's been quite interesting seeing the differences between a homeschooler and a public-schooler (is that what you call them? :P) Such as this one particular night:

Leader: "Reading and understanding the Bible does not need to be as hard as trying to understand Beowulf or Shakespeare."
Boy: "Isn't Beowulf a singer?"
Leader: "No, you're thinking of Beethoven"
Me: PEOPLE!!
xD

And another night, homeschooler-me made myself look super silly. . .
Boy: Apple products suck
Me: Make them yourself then! :D
Boy: How?
Me: Uhhhh ...you bake them
Boy: o_o
Me: OH you meant apple product as in iPod and iPhone not as in apple pie *facepalm*

~Books~

The Ghostfaces

Scorpion Mountain

Slaves of Socorro

The Invaders

The Hunters

They Called Her Mrs. Doc

The Lost Stories

Love Comes Softly

Straight to You

Blood of Pioneers

Just As I Am

The Kings of Clonmel

The Contest

Ella Wood

God's Smuggler

Favourite: They Called Her Mrs. Doc and Love Comes Softly. Totally my favourites from this month. LOVED them sooo much! And I really want to read the rest of the Love Comes Softly books now! :D Oh, and God's Smuggler. *shakes head* Can't believe I almost forgot about that one. It is an AMAZING book and if you haven't read it yet, you absolutely positively must! It's really good and it just left me awed at the mighty works of God! :) 

Least Favourite: Probably Straight to You. The storyline is . . . cute (there's really no other way to describe it) and the book in general is very clean and enjoyable. But there are certain things mentioned or talked about that just made me feel uncomfortable and I definitely would not recommend this book to younger readers. 

~Movies~

Actually haven't seen too many movies lately because of school and Awana being on movie night and stuff like that. But Tiger Lily and I have been watching When Calls the Heart. I literally squealed out loud when I found out that WCTH was on Netflix. Finally! Sadly, there's only one season, but still. At least we get to watch that! 

We weren't disappointed in the show at all. It's amazing and soooo beautiful! The way the scenes are shot are just gorgeous! Elizabeth is so funny and pretty and Jack is one awesome character. I also have a thing for RCMP's so yeahhhh..... ;) And Jack and Elizabeth ❤️ 

In which I now proceed to bombard you with the loveliness that is When Calls the Heart xD 

LOOK at that scenery. Just LOOK at it!!! :D 

"Sometimes we women cry when we're happy..."

"...sometimes we cry when we're sad..."

"...or for no reason at all."

"I'll never understand women."

Bahahahahaha..... xD

Ok, I'll stop the pictures now ;) 

~November Goals~

Read 8 books.

Post at least once or twice a week. 

Complete a tag or two.

Experiment with my new camera.

Comment on y'all's posts from the past month. Saw some pretty awesome posts...and a few vlogs too! :D 

Record a couple songs.

MEET THE BABY!!! 

And I think that's about it for now! Thanks for reading! 

How was your October? 

Have you watched When Calls the Heart? 

What are some things you would like to see in future posts? 

Oh, and before I forget, I'm thinking of doing a giveaway again for Christmas - is there anything in particular that you think I should give as a prize? 

Psssttt....don't forget the poll! All you have to do is click a button, one button, any button ;) 

Have a lovely November everybody! :D