Friday Five Recommendation Edition

I love the Friday Fives where the RevGals make recommendations: books, liturgies, music, whatever ~ the lists are always well worth saving and referencing.  So I'm looking forward to reading all the links to revljarla's FF today:

So, it's the time of year I get inundated with requests for recommendations for students that are looking to be camp counselors.  So in honor of camp counselors everywhere, today's Friday Five is the Recommendation edition  (which has nothing to do with camp or summer or anything--work with me, it's late....)

1.   Recommend a favorite worship resource or devotional book.

Right now, thanks to my friend Wayne who wrote about it here, I am reading Jim Manney's book about the daily examen.  St. Ignatius says that if you can manage nothing else in the way of prayer, you should do the examen every day but, like so many people, I struggle with that ten-minute practice.  This book is delightfully readable, has already been a great help to me, and both Jim Manney and his more famous predecessor are right:  You can always find something to pray about when you look for God in the daily stuff of your life.

2.   Recommend a blog that you like to read that you think others might find enjoyable.

I'm finding Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer to be an excellent read and terrific source of insight these days. 

3.   Recommend a fiction book that you think people might like.

My friend Quotidian Grace introduced me to Sharon Kay Penman's historical fiction.  I am only about halfway through my first (and the first of a trilogy), Here Be Dragons because, let me tell you, these are l-o-n-g books ~ but it's outstanding.  As a long-ago English major and a former teacher of world history, I am thoroughly enjoying her focus on the Plantagenet family of medieval England and her attentiveness to the details of royalty, politics, romance, and social custom alike.  I am stymied, however, by the plethora of Welsh names.

4.   Recommend a favorite recipe website.   O.k., if you aren't into cooking or food, then just recommend a random website that you find useful, hilarious, mind numbing or thought provoking. 

Out of my league here!

5.  And for the last recommendation--it's bloggers' choice!  Make a recommendation for anything!

In the spirit of the introduction to this topic, I recommend my daughter, a camp counselor many times over, for a job out there in international development.  She's finishing up her MSSA with a focus on community development  and she's ready to see the world! Or ~ my preference ~ places closer to home.  (I'm serious.  If any of you have any connections or know of any organizations in your own locales, send me a heads-up.)  That said, I also recommend retreats here!