Joseph F. Radosevich

Emma recommended A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus after she read it to the kids as part of their school. I wrote down the recommendation, but thought I would read it on vacation this spring. Then, I noticed that my little ones listened to it three straight times after my wife finished it for school. I thought something must be up that they love it so much and decided to read it. It is a sweet, beautifully told, meaningful story set in World War II England about three orphans trying to gain a family in the evacuation of children from London. I thought about it for days. It even inspired some conversation around the dinner table tonight. I can't believe it didn't win the Newbury Award in its year.  It would be a great book for bed time, family read-aloud, or vacation. How to Learn Any Language by Barry Farber describes a system and several methods to learn a language. It's not about one language but about the skills involved in any language. I sounds too good to be tru...

Mid-February is late winter around here. We can still have cold weather and snow for at least two more months, but the worst of the sustained winter weather is now behind us. We will probably have up and down weather in March and April. It was really pretty today, though. Someone asked me this morning if I was ready for gardening, so I thought I'd write about gardening topics. I finally got around to cleaning out my tomato plants from last year. I was really busy with church and family things from early November on. Since we had such a warm fall all the way until the temperature dropped like a rock Thanksgiving weekend, I never got a chance to clean that part of the garden out. It was an ugly sight every time I looked at it. I'm happy to have that cleared out now. The rest of the garden had layers of mulch with oats planted as a cover crop. It is good to be caught up now. Right now, we have taps in our maple trees for gathering syrup. We had two good days of collecting, before ...

In January, I sorted through my pile (piles, really) of books to find books that I wanted to read but hadn't found the time. I organized them from shortest to longest, and then I started a book sprint so that I could make a dent in that pile before moving on to books that I wanted to read more slowly because they are important. Some of the books in my book sprint were there for 3 years. Life is too short to read everything. Most of the time I prioritize important authors and subjects to me like J.C. Ryle, biblical studies, Robert Caro, John Piper, history, Newbury Award winners, D.A. Carson, etc. There are other books and topics that I like to dip into from time to time or books that people give me that I want to give a chance. My January book sprint helped me read 9 books from my list that were getting buried beneath other books. I spent about 3 days per book. It was well-worth doing, but I was ready by the end of January to slow down. I like to read several books at a time and di...

I started giving blood in 2025. I thought I would reflect on that and write why I think more people should donate blood. I considered donating blood for a while. I'm a healthy 41 year-old and saw the ads about why it was needed for a long time. I thought about the need and how I could help with it for a while before I finally did it. I wasn't scared of needles, because I gave plasma years ago (don't tell my mom). My main obstacle was that didn't know how long it would take or if I could fit it into my schedule. I haven't been deferred or had any slow downs since I started (I have seen people deferred). It takes me less than 30 minutes from the time I walk in the door to walking out. You can only donate blood once every 2 months or so, but you can donate platelets more often. I didn't know anyone who talked about donating blood. I have been surprised by the number of people I know that I see when I donate.  I found it really meaningful after I donated blood the f...