Celebrate your special day—and yourself—with simple rituals in this modern guide to ancient spiritual traditions. Your birthday is the ultimate moment to celebrate, honor, and reflect on who you truly are. This practical companion is a modern-day grimoire filled with rituals, spells, and other simple practices for making the most of your solar return. Practices include simple spell craft, candle magick, solar work, astrology and numerology, kitchen witchcraft, recipes for specific intentions, and more. Reflect on the past year, let go of what you don’t need, and move into your new year with clarity, purpose, and a touch of self-care magick. Blow out the candles in a whole new way this birthday and beyond.
Be careful what you wish for!Rita really really really wanted a rabbit.Spike was NOT a rabbit.He was scaly, scary, scratchy, scrabbly, scrawny, speckled and spiky.Rita is so very sure she wants a fluffy pet rabbit and NOT a scaly, scratchy bearded dragon called Spike . . . But when a fussy, grouchy, messy rabbit comes to stay, she discovers they aren't necessarily as adorable as they seem. Spike saves the day and Rita is very glad to be rid of the rabbit and very in love with her speckled, scrawny, spiky pet.A very funny text wonderfully complemented by Hannah Peck's witty artwork.
A New York Times bestseller. “My life was a complete mess, and God bless all of it. Because it’s in the messes where we learn the most—as long as we slow down enough to realize what God is trying to show us.” Suddenly in the spotlight, twenty-four-year-old Hannah Brown realized that she wasn’t sure what she wanted. After years of competing in beauty pageants, and then starring on The Bachelorette and Dancing with the Stars, she had become incredibly visible. There she was, in her early twenties, with millions around the world examining and weighing in on her every decision. She found herself wondering what it would mean to live on her terms. What it would mean to stop seeking approval from others and decide—for the first time—what it was she wanted from her own life. An honest and earnest examination of her own mid-twenties, God Bless This Mess is a memoir that doesn’t claim to have all the answers. Hannah knows she doesn’t have all the answers. What she does have is the insight of someone who has spent critical years of her youth under public scrutiny. Thus what emerges is a quarter-life memoir that speaks to the set of difficulties young women face, and how to move through them with grace. By pushing against her engrained need to seek approval, and learning how to think critically about her own goals and desires, Hannah inspires others to do the same—and to embrace the messiness that comes hand-in-hand with self-discovery (even if that sometimes means falling flat on your face). Using her time on The Bachelorette as a launching pad, Hannah doesn’t shy away from the most painful experiences of her life: moments when her faith was tested, when she feared it was lost, and the moments when she reclaimed it on national television. “And Jesus still loves me.” Fans will be inspired by the never-before-told stories: the ones about facing depression and anxiety during her pageant years, the ways in which therapy and journaling have proven to be a saving grace, and the previously private moments—both at home and on television—that have shaped the star’s outlook. Honest and emotionally urgent, God Bless This Mess is a reminder that true growth doesn’t come without strife—and it’s through those dark, messy moments that self-acceptance and love can bloom.
Hannah is a little girl with a big problem. She loves her dresses – so much so that she cannot decide what to wear. Her solution is inventive. She will assign one dress to each day. The problem seems to be solved until a special day – her birthday – rolls around. To save having to make a decision, Hannah piles on all her seven dresses! But how can you play games, or blow out candles, when you are swaddled in cloth?
Hannah is 5 1⁄2 years old when her parents are hit head-on by a drunk driver, leaving her at the mercy of her father’s estranged cousin, Thomas. He is only after the life insurance that has been left to Hannah by her parents. He also holds another secret, the secret about a family ranch which should, by all rights, be half Hannah’s. This secret leads Thomas to resent Hannah. Carrie Ann, Thomas’s wife, and Erik, Thomas’s son, are now expected to take care of this little girl, and they greatly resent having this responsibility thrown at them. This leads them to abuse and neglect Hannah. Hannah is forced to learn the rules of surviving in this new environment, but as she becomes a teenager the rules change. As her body changes Erik takes notice and he takes advantage. Through all of the terrible abuse, there have been angels placed in her path to help her survive. Then two horrible events take place. First: the only friends she has had are kidnapped. Second, the abuse becomes more than she can handle. Hannah is pushed to the point of giving up when an old friend, Light Foot, finds her. He stays by her side through the healing process and is committed to helping her recover. Light Foot, who is doing an internship with the Forest Service at Yellowstone National Park, doesn’t realize that helping Hannah means he is putting his own life in danger. He is forced to go on the run. Choosing to run to the trails in Yellowstone, that he is so familiar with, and praying for help, he is saved by bears. Hannah’s story takes you through real abuse and the emotionally charged situations that come from it. Hannah’s climb is unique in the fact that it contains real hypnotherapy sessions. Sessions that have worked with my clients. Sessions that have brought some of the most amazing outcomes. In the end, Hannah learns to climb out of her old life and find greater heights in a beautiful new world.
When sixteen year old Rachel Schwartz meet a young sailor, Andy Russell, no one would expect, especially her parents that their love-at-first-sight would last. Rachel faithfully waited for his return from his extended submarine duty and a year later, after his return, Andy proposed marriage. Parents on both sides agreed that their children's love for each other was genuine, but Rachel being Jewish and Andy being Catholic seemed like an obstacle that Andy was willing to bridge by converting. Rachel anxiously waited for Andy's decision about their wedding day that kept getting further, delayed for various reasons, new civilian job, conversion, money issues and then the unbelievable happens, Andy commits the ultimate betrayal. Rachel becomes devastated by the break-up but in an attempt to seek revenge, she seduces one of Andy's brothers and she had to face the unexpected consequences of her action. After losing faith and trust in men, Rachel concentrates on her career after moving to California. Because of a strange string of events, she travels to Israel where she encounters a man, Yossi, who would give her another chance for happiness, but only if Rachel is able to put the past behind her. While she is trying to make the decision about her future, first she must face a devastating event that she is not sure that she is able to overcome. With the help of Yossi, Rachel puts her life back together and makes the ultimate decision that affects everyone around her.
Every once in a while a book comes along that can change your life–a book so special, it is destined not just to be read but to be cherished, to be passed from one reader to another as a precious gift. Filled with wisdom and grace, tears and laughter, Hannah’s Gift is one such book. Within these pages Maria Housden shares the transformative lessons in living she received from her three-year-old daughter Hannah, who brought courage, honesty, and joy to her struggle with cancer. During the last year of her short life, Hannah was fearless in the way she faced death–and irrepressibly joyful in the way she approached living. The little girl who wore her favorite red Mary Janes into the operating room changed the life of everyone who came in contact with her. Now, in a book that preserves Hannah’s indomitable spirit, Maria Housden offers the gift of her daughter’s last year to all of us. In a lyrically told narrative, both moving and unforgettable, Housden recounts Hannah’s battle with cancer in simple, straightforward language that transcends grief and fear to become a celebration. From Hannah’s story emerge five profound lessons–of truth, joy, faith, compassion, and wonder–that have the power to change our lives. During her illness Hannah showed how we can truly live in the moment and break free from lives suffocated by too many unlived joys. Even more memorable is the message Hannah delivered after her death to those she loved–a message of hope for anyone faced with the deepest questions of life and death. Hannah’s Gift nourishes the soul with an ageless wisdom all the more invaluable for having come from someone so young. A remarkable story, remarkably told, it will bring comfort to anyone touched by loss, and renewed faith in the power of love. Closing her eyes and extending her arms, Hannah began to dance. Oblivious to everything but the shoes on her feet, she skipped and clicked across the floor, twirling in circles, faster and faster. There was something about her pure joy and the defiant nobility of the red shoes that caught everyone’s attention.... The true measure of a life is not its length but the fullness with which it is lived