Thank You For The Versatile Blogger Award

I've been given The Versatile Blogger Award by Laurel-Rain Snow's Reflections.  This is the first award I've received on this blog and I am supposed to pass it along to 15 newly discovered blogs.  Well, if you are on my blog roll here, you are a newly discovered blog so feel free to take this award and run with it on your blog.


The award comes with some rules, which include these:


1)  Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them when creating the award post.
2)  Share seven things about yourself.
3)  Pass the award on to 15 recently discovered blogs.
4)  Contact the bloggers to let them know about the award.


Here are my 7 little known things about us:


1.  We go to the library every Saturday.

2.  We go to church every Sunday.

3.  Neither of us drinks coffee or alcohol.

4.  We have a huge collection of stuffed animals, some in every room!

5.  We are both on the puppet team at church.

6.  Our favorite show right now is "Army Wives."

7.  We both used to be AWANA club workers at church.


I pass this on to anyone who wants in that is on our blog roll here. 

Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer

Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer tells the story of Pat Tillman, the NFL player who gave it all up to join the fight in Afghanistan.  The two best parts of this book to me were the early years of his life, which I knew nothing about, and when he got to Afghanistan.  The author really gives great insight into Pat.  His thoughts especially make for very fascinating reading.

(Gerard's review 11/7/09)

Do You Listen To Music While You Read?

This is part of the Book Blogger Hop at Crazy-For-Books.com.

The Question this week is:

Do you listen to music while you read? 
If so, what are your favorite reading tunes?

Sometimes we do.  If Gerard has music on and I want to read, it really doesn't both me but I don't put it on purposely while I read.  More often that reading while listening to music, I'll read while watching TV.  I can get a lot of reading done on commercials or during ballgames.  My mom always used to read while watching baseball games on TV.  What about you?

"Season of Life--A Football Star, A Boy, A Journey To Manhood" by Jeffrey Marx

Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx is about Joe Ehrmann, an ex-football player who became a minister and a high school football coach.  The author was a ball boy for the football team when he met Joe.  They lost contact but then got back in touch when the author, who grew up to be a journalist, decided to track down the former players and write about what they were doing.  Jeffrey Marx followed Joe's high school team for a year and found out that winning and losing is not the only things that Joe teaches them.  He taught them life lessons on how to be a man by being focused on others and not themselves.  With High School football coming up soon, this is a good book to read.  I enjoyed it a lot!
 (Gerard's review)

Season Of Life by Jeffrey Marx is a inspirational book that I highly recommend to any man, teen boy, parent, coach or teacher. It does not read like a text book at all.  I really enjoyed following the High School Football team through the eyes of the author.  Joe Erhmann is an example of a Godly man putting God’s Word into practice.   Season of Life is all about teaching boys to become men.  The author learns to improve his relationship with his father through watching Joe Erhmann model the basic strategic masculinity principles he learned from God’s Word as he teaches them to the high school football team he coaches. 

Jeffrey Marx looked up to Joe as a football player when Jeffrey was just a kid and connected with him again as a man.  Joe had a father who was always telling him to “be a man” and would punch him and tell him to be tough, that real men don’t cry.  He was into the “false masculinity” mindset of athletic ability, sexual conquest and economic success until his brother died.  While waiting at the hospital during his brother’s illness, he came across a poem that impacted his life by Edwin Markhm:

There is a destiny that makes us brothers;
None goes his way alone:
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.

Then he searched for some real meaning to life and through talking to the team’s unofficial Chaplain and studying the Bible God transformed him into a devout Christian.  Joe became a minister and a high school football coach whose program included “building men for others.” 

He came to the realization that masculinity is all about relationships, being focused on others, and a code of conduct that includes accepting responsibility, leading courageously, enacting justice on behalf of others and empathy.  From here on he not only models these principles but also teaches them to the boys on his football team. 

The book that Joe gave to Jeffrey Marx that helped him get to actually know his father better is Questions For My Father—Finding The Man Behind Your Dad.  It’s just a collection of questions to ask to get communication flowing on a deeper level.  This may be helpful to someone so just thought I’d mention it.
(Karen's review)

Please tell us: What categories of literature do you like? What are you reading now? Who are your top five favorite authors? Have you read this one? What did you think of it?

"Game Six" by Mark Frost

Game Six by Mark Frost is an awesome book!  Being a die hard Red Sox fan, I just had to read this book.  It’s about the greatest World Series game ever played:  Boston vs. the Reds.  The whole book focus is on this game.  

What makes this book for me is the background on the players who played in this game.  The writing is superb!  It feels like you are right there.  I really enjoyed this book a lot and recommend it to any Red Sox fan.

(Gerard's review 10/25/09)