Favorite Books of 2014

I thought I would look through my notes and pull out my favorite books from the last year. I was aiming for ten but when the list only included eight and there were no fiction in that list I went through again and that resulted in this current list. 

Families Where Grace Is in Place: Building a Home Free of Manipulation, Legalism, and Shame by Jeff VanVonderen was so extremely applicable to me, my past, and thus my current life that I already see from my notes that I need to read this again - actually I need to own this.


Scribbling in the Sand: Christ and Creativity by Michael Card. I read a lot of books on art, creativity, and the Christian worldview. Card does such a beautiful job of showing artists how important art is and what a gift it is to be able to celebrate creativity, beginning with the creativity of Christ.

Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now by Walter Brueggemann writes in a brief but profound way about making the Sabbath (the Christian Sabbath being Sunday) a way of resisting modern culture's focus on competition, one-upping, getting ahead, etc.

True Woman 101: Divine Design: An Eight-Week Study on Biblical Womanhood (True Woman) by Mary Kassian and Nancy Leigh DeMoss was a very well written study on what the Bible says about womanhood and how does that play out in our culture today. There are accompanying free videos that go with it online and I appreciate that she had women participate from all walks of life and all personality types. This was a very well-grounded study.

Grace Filled Marriage: The Missing Piece, the Place to Start by Dr. Tim Kimmel was a marriage book that emphasized giving your partner grace -- learning to appropriately overlook, forgive, choose to think the best about your spouse.

Eyes Wide Open: Enjoying God in Everything Eyes Wide Open: Enjoying God in Everything by Steve DeWitt is probably the best book on art, beauty, and the Christian worldview that I have ever read.

Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattie may just be the most life-changing book I read this past year. I had a tricky childhood and that has resulted in some very predictable behaviors which this book explains in such easy-to-understand ways. Not only that but the author so clearly shows how these behaviors can be changed and overcome.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader (Dover Books on Americana) by Elinore Pruitt Stewart was such a fun, easy, delightful, non-fiction read written by a true woman homesteader who lived in Montana 100 years ago. Her adventures are amazing and she is so gifted with how she describes her life. This is a page-turner.


Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys by Stephen James and David Thomas is definitely the best book I've read on raising boys. In fact, I read it early in the year and have just now ordered it from the library to peruse again. The book is broken down into age-groups so you can look up what stage your boy is in and see just how they might be behaving and what their greatest needs at that age are.

A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live by Emily Freeman. Another excellent book on art and creativity and the Christian.

Longbourn by Jo Baker is probably my favorite historical fiction from this year. It imagines the life at Jane Austen's "Bennet Household" from the perspective of a servant. Very well done.

Time for Tea: Tea and Conversation with Thirteen English Women by Michele Rivers was such a fun book even if it is a decade or two old now. I loved reading about the lives and tea rituals of these women, each unique and beautiful in their own way. I would love to write a book like this!

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel by Rachel Joyce was definitely a favorite paperback from the year. It chronicles the long-distance walk of Harold Fry from the south to the north of England and how his life changes along the way.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear was my best fiction discovery of the year. I do love this series, set during and after World War 1 in England and always involving a mystery.

And that's it for now! Of course I am still surrounded by stacks and stacks of books I'm reading or planning to read... I am so thankful for this delightful hobby and the library system that makes so much of it possible!

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The Tea Trolley

Since my posting was a bit different in December I have quite a few tea bits and pieces to share....

I think this was my birthday breakfast: a cup of my favorite decaf Earl Grey (Mighty Leaf seems to make the best here in the USA) and a slice of Dundee Cake, sufficiently dry to be the perfect accompaniment with tea.  Certainly one of the nicest treats.


I think this was my birthday lunch - a new crockpot recipe I love from Cooks Country (its not available online).


And I received a glass teapot for my birthday! yay! This tea ball was aptly named "Juliet's Kiss" since we actually had a Juliet sitting at the table!

Pecan pie was my dessert of choice for my birthday this year. So very good.

Thanks to Christina, I also had a birthday cake at our sister birthday celebration -- chocolate with caramel.

 And I even received a little teacup for my birthday! George and Martha Washington!

I brought the little table and two chairs in from my patio over the winter and it makes the perfect place to sit in the kitchen with a cup of tea. Too bad this doesn't happen daily.....

Tea with a friend -- see that teapot cookie? One of my favorites we made this year.

The fall cozy saw a lot of Christmas use - fortunately it didn't look too out of place! (Turns out I forgot about my Christmas cozies until after Christmas!)

Mince pies! Yum! Yum! We love them so much! I used my favorite gluten free pastry recipe and a mincemeat recipe very similar to this one (I used dried cranberries instead of currants, replaced the butter for suet, and left out the mixed peel).

For the very first time I found a gluten-free recipe that worked for Candy Cane Cookies -- they are one of my very favorites!!! We add crushed candy canes on top as soon as they come out of the oven.

This year all the baking had to be done pretty much in one day (Christmas Eve) since we had the stomach flu in the five days leading up to that!. Yikes. It was a full day!

Another wonderful first this year was actually having a gluten-free tea ring!!! (top ring in picture) I used a package of Bob's Red Mill Pizza Crust made up for the cinnamon roll dough on the back of the package and then just formed it into a ring in the same way I make the regular ring! It worked so well I'll probably make this throughout the year!

You can find my recipe for the regular tea ring in this post.

Let's see, I used this recipe for the sugar cookies and this recipe for the gingerbread men -- both gluten free and both wonderful! (The secret to getting creamy looking cookies is to add a few tablespoons of Birds Custard Powder to the dough in place of some of the cornstarch.)

I think the favorite cookie of all were the gluten free thumbprints which we ate the last of today. I used this recipe and jam in the middle before they were cooked. For a lot of my baking I have been resorting to using Costco's gluten free flour blend that they sell. It seems to work fine. Many of the recipes above actually have measurements for rice, tapioca and potato starch in them -- if they do, I use my individual ingredients to save money.

You will find my great-grandmother's recipe for shortbread in this post. I make it gluten free by using rice flour and just a bit of Bird's Custard Powder for the color and taste.

And for the incredibly delicious homemade sausage rolls? I used this recipe for gluten-free puff pastry. It is a labor of love to be done only once a year!

Homemade marshmallows thanks to Martha Stewart. I also bought and enjoyed using this little booklet for vegan and gluten-free recipes. It has a recipe for honey marshmallows which I would like to try sometime. I did love the stuffed mushrooms I made and the hot chocolate worked well too. Seems like I made a few more of the recipes....

Don't you love this picture of the tea cozy I sent a friend? It's what every guy wants to do when they open up a cozy -- stick it on their head!!!!

Got to include a picture of the Christmas Day tea!!!! So much fun!

 And the dollhouse has a new tea set. :)

Boxing Day lunch in my chair! It was perfect!

I got the idea from a friend to have a Hobbit Dinner after we went to see The Hobbit on Boxing Day. It was great fun! We had biscuits/scones, mince pies, eggs, sausages, mushrooms, and cider.

 And then just this past week my mom found and pulled out the Christmas tea cozies! Ha!

That's all for 2014 and the tea trolley! On to the new year next time!

Mondays are for Grace

Winter is the time for comfort, 
for good food and warmth, 
for the touch of a friendly hand 
and for a talk beside the fire:  
it is the time for home.

Edith Sitwell