Meet the Shaneyfelts

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A Reintroduction

Hi friends!!  I’ve seen several new faces around here and IG in the past six months or so, and since my friend Emily is hosting a fun link up today, I thought I’d reintroduce myself to those of you who are new!

If you’ve read my blog before or are new, please leave me a comment below!  I love talking with my readers!!  (If you are a no-reply blogger, I will have to reply back to you on this post instead of in email.)


My name is Sarah and I am from (and still live in) a small town in Alabama.  I teach seventh grade English in the same junior high where I went and with some of the same teachers that I had–which is always so fun!

I married the perfect person for me on July 26, 2014.  You can see all of my wedding posts here.


Other than molding young minds (😂) and blogging, I have many hobbies!  I enjoy reading, cooking, looking at clothes and buying (some of) them, reality tv, sending/receiving snail mail, exercising, drinking expensive coffee, vacationing, watching IG stories, and sitting in book stores or libraries for hours.

 I’m not sure if having a birthday can be considered a hobby, but I love my birthdays because that’s the one day that’s all about me 🙌🙌 #notconceitedatall  #imreallynot

 And I love any excuse to dress up!


Recently, I just did a post on 10 Facts About Me, so you should definitely check that out to learn more.


Last August, Dustin and I decided to share publicly our struggle with infertility.  We’ve gone through multiple rounds of Femara and Clomid, 3 IUIs (or 4?), 1 surgery for endometriosis, 3 rounds of IVF meds, 2 egg retrievals, 1 fresh embryo transfer, and most recently, 1 frozen embryo transfer.  Nothing has worked, but our hope and trust is still, and has always been, in God.  If you’d like to read about our struggle with infertility, click here.

The most important thing you need to know about me–and the most important part of my life–is that I am a follower of Christ.  I strive every day to live my life in a way that brings glory to God.  If you have any questions about my faith, please email me at saraheshaneyfelt@gmail.com because I would LOVE to talk to you!
“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 10:31

April 2017 Reads

I read some really good books in April, and all three books were so very different.  I sometimes go through reading slumps where I won’t read anything for a week or two and then I sometimes find books where I cannot put them down.  I read one of those books in April, and it was one that I wasn’t expecting to like!

To see my past book reviews, click here!

 “Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion.

On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman’s frantic plea to find a  person-a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance, open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to take desperate action.”

This is the book that I could not put down!  It’s different than any other Holocaust book I’ve read in that the narrator is not Jewish, so it’s a very interesting point of view.  Her life is affected by what Hitler is doing in Poland, but the reader gets a peak into what life was like for the non-Jew during WWII.  This is a young adult novel, but everyone will love it no matter your age!
 “At the turn of the twentieth century, in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest, a reclusive orchardist, William Talmadge, tends to apples and apricots as if they were loved ones. A gentle man, he’s found solace in the sweetness of the fruit he grows and the quiet, beating heart of the land he cultivates. One day, two teenage girls appear and steal his fruit at the market; they later return to the outskirts of his orchard to see the man who gave them no chase.
Feral, scared, and very pregnant, the girls take up on Talmadge’s land and indulge in his deep reservoir of compassion. Just as the girls begin to trust him, men arrive in the orchard with guns, and the shattering tragedy that follows will set Talmadge on an irrevocable course not only to save and protect them but also to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past.
Transcribing America as it once was before railways and roads connected its corners, Amanda Coplin weaves a tapestry of solitary souls who come together in the wake of unspeakable cruelty and misfortune. She writes with breathtaking precision and empathy, and in The Orchardist she crafts an astonishing debut novel about a man who disrupts the lonely harmony of an ordered life when he opens his heart and lets the world in.”
This novel was a little heavier and sad to me.  The main character, Talmadge, is lovable and so my heart hurt when I felt like he wasn’t treated fairly.  This book is pretty thick, so keep that in mind.  Overall, I enjoyed it but it wasn’t my favorite this month  (see above ha).

“Four lives knit together… 
There’s a little yarn store in Seattle called A Good Yarn. It’s owned by Lydia Hoffman, and it represents her dream of a new beginning, a life free from cancer. A life that offers a chance at love… 
Lydia teaches knitting to beginners, and the first class is How to Make a Baby Blanket. Three women join. Jacqueline Donovan disapproves of the woman married to her only son, but knitting a baby blanket would be a gesture of reconciliation. 
For Carol Girard, the baby blanket brings a message of hope as she and her husband make a final attempt to conceive. 
And tough-looking Alix Townsend (that’s Alix with an i) is learning to knit her blanket for a court-ordered community service project. 
These four very different women, brought together by the age-old craft of knitting, make unexpected discoveries—about themselves and each other. Discoveries that lead to friendship and acceptance, to laughter and dreams. Discoveries only women can share…”
This was Emily’s recommendation to me, and although it took me a while to get into the book, I found myself rooting for all of the characters in very different ways.  I found myself really drawn to each character in a different way.  Each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view, and I really enjoy books that do that!  This book is part of a really large series.




Linking up with Biana

February and March 2017 Reads

For today’s post, I’m combining both February and March since I didn’t read too much in February.  Don’t we all just go through reading slumps sometimes?  

BUT I’ve got some really great books to share with y’all today!  And one of them I’m calling My Favorite Book of 2017, so it’s going to take a really spectacular book to beat this one!

To see what I’ve read previously, click here!



If you remember from past posts, remember that I like to share the Amazon synopsis first and then my thoughts below in italics.

In January 1961, as the Cold War escalates, John F. Kennedy struggles to contain the growth of Communism while he learns the hardships, solitude, and temptations of what it means to be president of the United States. Along the way he acquires a number of formidable enemies, among them Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and Alan Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition, powerful elements of organized crime have begun to talk about targeting the president and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
In the midst of a 1963 campaign trip to Texas, Kennedy is gunned down by an erratic young drifter named Lee Harvey Oswald. The former Marine Corps sharpshooter escapes the scene, only to be caught and shot dead while in police custody.
The events leading up to the most notorious crime of the twentieth century are almost as shocking as the assassination itself. Killing Kennedy chronicles both the heroism and deceit of Camelot, bringing history to life in ways that will profoundly move the reader. This may well be the most talked about book of the year

I really enjoyed reading this book.  I learned a lot of information about JFK that I didn’t already know–especially about the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Sadly, I learned some not-so-good info about Martin Luther King, Jr. that I didn’t know either.  The authors of this book did an excellent job interweaving historical fact in a way that interests the reader.  If you haven’t read any of the Killing books yet, I would recommend picking up this one!  I also want to read Killing Lincoln at some point, too.



Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

This was the February book for my book club, and I’ll be honest, I was the only one who didn’t really enjoy the book.  I actually never even got halfway before I quit reading the book to move onto something else.  I think if I would have understood the culture better (i.e. been a little older) then I would have appreciated the book better.  Don’t let this deter you from reading it since it’s a popular book!


Maddy is a devoted stay-at-home wife and mother, host of excellent parties, giver of thoughtful gifts, and bestower of a searingly perceptive piece of advice or two. She is the cornerstone of her family, a true matriarch…until she commits suicide, leaving her husband Brady and teenage daughter Eve heartbroken and reeling, wondering what happened. How could the exuberant, exacting woman they loved disappear so abruptly, seemingly without reason, from their lives? How they can possibly continue without her? As they sift through details of her last days, trying to understand the woman they thought they knew, Brady and Eve are forced to come to terms with unsettling truths.
Maddy, however, isn’t ready to leave her family forever. Watching from beyond, she tries to find the perfect replacement for herself. Along comes Rory: pretty, caring, and spontaneous, with just the right bit of edge…but who also harbors a tragedy of her own. Will the mystery of Maddy ever come to rest? And can her family make peace with their history and begin to heal?

This book hooked me from the start!  It’s told from the POVs of Maddy, her husband, and her daughter.  The best part?  The ending!  It was very feel-good!  This book is also pretty short, so it won’t take you very long to read.
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

     In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.


THIS IS MY FAVORITE BOOK OF 2017!!!  I loved it so much that I literally couldn’t sleep because I kept trying to stay up later each night and read.  And I even skipped a workout one afternoon to go home and read.  This book is told in multiple POVs, and there are lots of characters who have a chapter from their POV….some are slaves like Cora, conductors on the Underground Railroad, and even slave catchers.  Also, this book is so well-written, and the syntax (sentence structure) is unforgettable.  If you pick one book from this post to read, I hope this is the book you choose!


At 32, Russell Green has it all: a stunning wife, a lovable six year-old daughter, a successful career as an advertising executive and an expansive home in Charlotte. He is living the dream, and his marriage to the bewitching Vivian is the center of that. But underneath the shiny surface of this perfect existence, fault lines are beginning to appear…and no one is more surprised than Russ when he finds every aspect of the life he took for granted turned upside down. In a matter of months, Russ finds himself without a job or wife, caring for his young daughter while struggling to adapt to a new and baffling reality. Throwing himself into the wilderness of single parenting, Russ embarks on a journey at once terrifying and rewarding-one that will test his abilities and his emotional resources beyond anything he ever imagined.

I don’t know what took me so long to pick up this book because my sister even read it before I did–and she never reads.  It’s a thick book so it took me about a week to get through it, and I was angry the entire time I was reading.  If you don’t know, Nicholas Sparks and his wife divorced maybe 2 years ago.  I feel like this book has a little of that sentiment.  Like any Nicholas Sparks book, I cried at the end, but not from what I was ever expecting to cry from.  Not my favorite Sparks book, but I’m still glad I read it.


I’m excited to get started reading books for April!  I’ve got three on my list to read, and one of them should be delivered to my house today!


Linking up with Whitney and Lindsay