Updated: Thank you all for leaving comments with your own life-changing books. I can’t wait to check them out. The random number chosen for the winner of the free book is #12 Anna!

(In no particular order.)

Parent: Shepherding a Child’s Heart

Think about money: The Total Money Makeover

Understand education: Dumbing Us Down

Decided to educate my children: For the Children’s Sake

Organized my curriculum: The Well-Trained Mind

Write about nature: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Imagined the time when Jesus walked on Earth: The Bronze Bow

Experienced reading aloud with my kids: The Bad Beginning

What’s one book that changed the way you…

(I’m going to choose one commenter on this post and give away one of these life-changing books of your choice.)

My friend posted some old (scary hair) photos from the eighties taken while we were at church camp on Facebook last week. When I looked at this picture from 1987, I thought about how little had changed since then. I still drink Coke. I still love sunflower seeds (which is why my lips are puckered about to spit a shell). There’s contact solution on the window ledge and I still can’t see an inch without my contacts. I still have my old baby quilt folded in a closet that’s covering my bunk.

But what has changed?

What if someone had handed me a book that day, a story written about the future details of my life but did not tell me I was the main character. Would I recognize her? Would I make a connection? Would I be satisfied with her choices? Surprised by her actions? Would I like her? Or would I find her old, boring and strange? Would I beg her to do things differently? Tell her it’s not how I wanted my life to be.

There’s absolutely nothing I would say to this girl to make her change anything that might make a difference in my life today. But, I wonder, what would she say to me?

What would your 17 year old self think about where you ended up?

Emily at Chatting at the Sky is posting her talk she did at She Speaks with her sister. Today I decided to answer her questions here. It’s given me a lot to think about.

Which posts make you nervous when you hit publish? Nervous in a good way, because what you said there in that post was really important to you and you hope it is well received.

Facing My Fears

Reflecting on This Season

The Social Misfit

Which posts feel like work or drudgery? You do these because you feel like you should or you are supposed to. Chances are if you don’t like those posts, we don’t either. Or if we do, then you are attracting an audience of readers who will continue to demand things from you that you don’t like giving.

I couldn’t think of a specific post that felt like drudgery here. I used to write a blog for homeschoolblogger for Arkansas homeschoolers. Because I had to post once a week on things to do in Arkansas or relevant to Arkansas, those sometimes felt like drudgery.

Having specific guidelines on me when I write are what make it not fun for me.

On which posts do you receive the most comments? These may give a hint as to the type of readers you have…

Excluding posts that included giveaways, link ups and Tess’s birth announcement (and the one where I asked for suggestions on a tub cleaner which produced a whopping 46 comments, my readers like to help!), I came up with these:

1. The 3 Week Pity Party (38 comments)

2. Raising a Reader

3. 3rd Trimester Fashion Follies

4. On the Last Day of Freedom

What did this tell me about my readers? I have wonderful readers!

They are encouraging. They are helpful, full of wisdom and good advice. They like to laugh (even at my expense Fashion Follies). They are mostly moms, supportive of me and each other.

On which posts do you receive the most comments that mean something to you? …but these posts give a hint as to where your passion and the passion of the reader intersect. Bingo!

Sewing a Memory
It always helps to be reminded that I’m not the only one who neglects the important things.

Unschooling
This post and the comments left me thinking about the way kids learn for a long time.

My Big Family
Everyone commented about their own family situation, big or small and I enjoyed hearing about their dream family.

What are your top three favorite posts? Simple, I know. I never said this was rocket science. (I couldn’t narrow it down to 3 and it was hard to put just 4, I would probably change my mind about my favorites tomorrow.)

The Floating Baby

Finding Lost Dogs and Sending Memos

On Reading and Writing

Maybe a Memory

If you could have a blog about anything but didn’t worry about if other people would read it, what would it be? Give yourself permission to answer this one honestly.

Obviously, I’ll answer this question in my head.

Do you still love what you write about?

I do! Going through these posts made me realize how many of them I do love. I often sit down to the task of printing some of them out, the ones my kids particularly love and ask me to read over and over again, and it’s difficult.

Copying and pasting from a blog post doesn’t translate well to any program I have. I wish it were easier to print it. And I don’t like those blog book things because I don’t want my entire blog slurped and printed. I want it printed with their real names, excluding the posts about blog stuff like this one.