Forever Beloved

Faith, Love & Truth

Celebrating International Literacy Day with Grammarly

Tuesday, September 8 was International Literacy Day. Grammarly is celebrating the initiative all week and reached out to me to help raise awareness on my blog.

Illiteracy is so much more than just a lack of reading skills. I was shocked to see that even in the United States, there are 32,000,000 adults who can’t read!  This breaks my heart, as reading is one of the things I’ve enjoyed crazy amounts my entire life.

Check out their infographic below on illiteracy in the world. There are so many ways you can help contribute to your local community, your country or the world, even by simply sharing the statistics and raising awareness. Let’s work together and help raise awareness for illiteracy!

Literacy Day

Grammarly is a fabulous service and they are dedicated to fighting off plagiarism.  You can check out their services HERE.

TEN | BUCKET LIST

Today’s prompt: 10 items off your bucket list. If you haven’t made one, now’s a good time to start!




College Bucket List - roadtrip with your favourite people. http://www.facebook.com/unisouthdenmark:

1.  Go on an all girls road trip with my bests.
Playlists.  Laughter.  Food.  Craziness.  Chinese fire drills.  Random stops.  Heart to heart talks.

2.  Go to New York during the holidays.
Radio City Music Hall.  Ice skate.  Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.  Light tour.  See Santa at Macy’s.  Shopping.

I don't want to necessarily write a book, but more like create a book out of my photography. I have a few in mind, but I'm not sure if I will ever do it.:

3.  Write a book.
My Mama always did say I was wordy, ha.

4.  Design my dream house.
With barns, a guest house, custom coop, outkitchen for canning…so so many ideas.

5.  Travel to Italy.
Bathe in the mineral baths.  Eat a cannoli.  Take crazy amounts of pictures.  Go on a food tour.

visit redwood national park #bucketlist:

6.  Visit Redwood Nation Park.
I’ve been obsessed with this ever since looking at my Grandma’s pictures when I was little.  She was a traveler and loved to see the world and take pictures along the way.

1972 CHEVROLET CHEYENNE CUSTOM PICKUP:

7.  Own an antique lifted Chevy.
pleaseandthankyou

Who needs an atlas when you have an algorithm? Data tinkerer Randy Olson, who is now known across the internet for developing the optimum search path for Where’s Waldo books, has used this same algorithm to compute the optimal American road trip. At the urging of Tracy Staedter from Discovery News, Olson set out to […]:

8.  Travel across the US with my love.
When we retire, this will be our first trip.  I would love for it to be based on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

I've wanted to ever since I saw Soul Surfer. I think getting away from everything and doing something amazing for people without anything being given back is exactly what I need to remind me that I live a very lucky life.:

9.  Go on a mission trip to another country.
Oh how I would love this.  And to serve alongside my family.

Want to dance in the rain?... So do we! @Graced By Grit 's Land and Sea line makes moments like this possible with quick dry, compression fabric that's made for the water. So laugh your heart out, dance in the rain, cherish the moment, live, love, forgive and forget, because life's too short to be living with regrets.:

10.  Dance in the rain with my love.

Gather Around the Amish Table {Book Review + Giveaway}

Gather Around the Amish Table
Treasured Recipes and Stories from Plain Communities
By Lucy Leid
Incorporate Amish cooking traditions this fall in your kitchen with Lucy Leid’s Gather Around the Amish Table. Straight from Amish kitchens to yours, this cookbook offers favorite family recipes and charming stories from Amish and Mennonite cooks. Gather your family around the table to sample the nourishing fare and trademark charm of the plain people. In the words of one cookbook contributor: “Bake someone happy!”
This cookbook combines two of my favorite things…food and the Amish.  In the past few years, we’ve had quite a few Amish families move in around our area.  Actually, I can sit on my porch on any given day and watch buggies drive past.  One of our favorite summer activities is visiting the Amish bake sales.  Their baked goods are like no other!  You just can’t beat pies, cookies and fry pies baked from scratch.  So when I saw this book, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it!
I had an evening alone, so I snuggled on the couch with a blanket and a cup of coffee.  I pulled this book off the coffee table and began leafing through it.  What I found inside the cover was amazing..not only recipes but pictures and stories to go along with each one!  Oh my, if it wasn’t so late I would have been running straight to my kitchen.
This cookbook came at the perfect time, my bread machine quit last week.  I know, I’m still ridiculously sad about that.  So if I make bread, it has to be hand kneaded and let to rise.  There was a cheesy bread stick recipe in this cookbook that I was dying to try.  The recipe was so descriptive, even I could do it myself!  I made them to go alongside baked ziti and they completed our meal perfectly.
Gather Around the Amish Table is absolutely a keeper and will be going straight on my cookbook shelf.  I highly recommend it!

Special THANK YOU to LitFuse for providing me with a complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.  My review is my own personal opinion.

Get your fall baking underway with an Amish baking basket giveaway from Lucy and MennoMedia!

gather-400 

One grand prize winner will receive:

gather-lasagna-recipe 

Enter today by clicking the icon below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on September 29th. The winner will be announced September 30th on the Litfuse blog.

gather-enterbanner

You can purchase your own copy HERE.

Lucy Leid is an Old Order Mennonite wife, mother, and cook in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.