You've seen the cute boy on the book cover loaded down with activities, right?If not, here he is:People frequently ask me if that boy is "The Boy"; that is, my son.I'd like to clear things up here and now:Nope. He's not my son. He's not "The Boy."The Not So Fast boy is, however, going to be a big part of my life. He'll travel with me to various speaking events. He'll grace … [Read more...]
Make-Do Mondays: Slow Setting for a Slow-Down Book
see below for alternative buttonAt Make-Do Mondays, we discuss how we’re simplifying, downsizing, repurposing, buying used, and using what we’ve got.It’s a carnival celebrating creative problem-solving, contentment, patience and ingenuity. To participate, share your own make-do solution in the comments or write up a Make-Do Mondays post at your blog, then return here to … [Read more...]
A First Look
David C. Cook Publishing made sure I received a copy of Not So Fast to have, hold, hug, smell, flip through, gape at, and blog about.The official release date is just a few days away: August 1st.Ask your local bookstore to order it for you!Don’t miss a word:Subscribe to annkroeker.com updates via email or RSS feed.Join Mega Memory Month for the month of July! … [Read more...]
Sneak Peek
I've been working on my forthcoming book, Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families, for years. Much of that time, I wasn't sure what I could say about it here on the blog.In fact, for quite some time, I was evasive. I didn't know how long it would be before the book's release, so I didn't want to post searchable text that described what it was … [Read more...]
Not So Fast
For two years, I've been working on a book.I've mentioned it occasionally. In fact, you may recall the following photo I posted of the manuscript. I submitted this ream of paper to my publisher last year:As you can see, I was, well, a little wordy.I had to cut it way down. Susan, my editor at David C. Cook, and I tossed out entire chapters in hopes of getting it to a … [Read more...]
Long-Awaited Logophile Lists
(CC) Gaetan Lee, www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/In Write to Discover Yourself, Ruth Vaughn tells about a character named Julia Redfern in a children's book called A Room Made of Windows. Julia keeps a "Book of Strangenesses" in which she makes lists. Her lists include Beautiful Words (Mediterranean, quiver, undulating, lapis lazuli, Empyrean) and Most Detestable … [Read more...]
Stir Our Minds Thoroughly
An entry in the classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest offers a writerly application. From My Utmost for His Highest (December 15) If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don’t, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself … [Read more...]
Just Fifteen Minutes a Day: Ready…Set…Read!
Jennifer at Scraps and Snippets posted about Lifelong Learning at her blog, citing a 2006 article by Harvey Mackay packed with statistics to make an autodidact sprint to her bookcase and grab anything within reach: Only 14 percent of adults with a grade-school education read literature in 2002. 51 percent of the American population never reads a book more than 400 … [Read more...]
Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture
Some time ago I read Mary DeMuth's book Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture: Practical Help for Shaping Your Children's Hearts, Minds, and Souls.I "met" Mary online while clicking around from blog to blog as a relative newcomer to the blogosphere. I landed on hers and found myself charmed by her personal chronicle of life in southern France. She and her husband … [Read more...]
Monday's Meme-ish Musings
Having been tagged for a meme a while back by L.L. Barkat, I thought I'd tackle it today.Although I don't always jump at memes, I thought this might produce an interesting post. Maybe. She invented this particular meme, and that seems more "real" than the ones that get passed and passed around until they aren't really "fresh" anymore.So here are L.L. Barkat's rules for 5 … [Read more...]
Is Google Making Us Stoopid?
The cover article for the current issue of Atlantic magazine (July/August) is entitled “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” Hm. Is it?Author Nicholas Carr writes:“As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems … [Read more...]
Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places
When I was relatively new to blogging, every once in a while I'd be scanning comments on somebody's post and spot one by L.L. Barkat. I'd read the well-formed response and think, "Wow. That person's smart!" I wasn't sure, at first, if this person was male or female. No photo confirmed gender, and the initials L.L. didn't help me know for certain. At some point I finally … [Read more...]
6 Questions to Ask Yourself
I like to explore why I make certain choices or feel strongly about various issues. So I find that a few questions like these get me thinking and writing and praying. Sometimes I use variations on these questions with my friends, generating some interesting discussion. I'd love to sit and have tea with you so we could explore these six questions. They're not only great … [Read more...]
Five Days of How-To Posts: A blog experiment offering helpful information in bullet-point form
What makes a post popular?On my blog, which is an unfocused mish-mash of ideas that flit through my mind at any given moment, the all-time top posts are as follows: Castile Soap for a Simpler Life (and blemish-free face) Thick and Chewy, Fast and Easy Pizza Dough Overnight Crockpot Steel-Cut OatmealWhat am I doing posting about the perils of my attempts to multi-task?Why … [Read more...]