Jacob Holmes has worked so hard to provide a decent life for his wife Mindy and their 4 kids. His efforts finally pay off after 15 years of labor and are acknowledged by his boss, which leads to a promotion that could change the course of their lives forever. Did Jacob make the right decision for his family?

A Gentle Invitation into the Challenging Topic of Privilege The notion that some might have it better than others, for no good reason, offends our sensibilities. Yet, until we talk about privilege, we’ll never fully understand it or find our way forward. Amy Julia Becker welcomes us into her life, from the charm of her privileged southern childhood to her adult experience in the northeast, and the denials she has faced as the mother of a child with special needs. She shows how a life behind a white picket fence can restrict even as it protects, and how it can prevent us from loving our neighbors well. White Picket Fences invites us to respond to privilege with generosity, humility, and hope. It opens us to questions we are afraid to ask, so that we can walk further from fear and closer to love, in all its fragile and mysterious possibilities.

Behind the White Picket Fence: Power and Privilege in a Multiethnic Neighborhood

This smart, provocative look at how the American Dream of single-family homes, white picket fences, and two-car garages became a lonely, overpriced nightmare explores how new trends in housing can help us live better. Over the past century, American demographics and social norms have shifted dramatically. More people are living alone, marrying later in life, and having smaller families. At the same time, their lifestyles are changing, whether by choice or by force, to become more virtual, more mobile, and less stable. But despite the ways that today's America is different and more diverse, housing still looks stuck in the 1950s. In Brave New Home, Diana Lind shows why a country full of single-family houses is bad for us and our planet, and details the new efforts underway that better reflect the way we live now, to ensure that the way we live next is both less lonely and more affordable. Lind takes readers into the homes and communities that are seeking alternatives to the American norm, from multi-generational living, in-law suites, and co-living to microapartments, tiny houses, and new rural communities. Drawing on Lind's expertise and the stories of Americans caught in or forging their own paths outside of our cookie-cutter housing trap, Brave New Home offers a diagnosis of the current American housing crisis and a radical re-imagining of future possibilities.

Growing up in the seventies, our family appeared perfect to the residents of our small community. My mother was determined to have her Camelot on the North Dakota prairie. My father was an unwilling participant in her goal of perfection; the children were props in the setting she was determined to create.

Novel about Liz who life is turned upside down after Tony her fiancé waits until three days before they are to wed and he calls off their wedding.

Taylor Wayland's cozy life of happiness with her husband Joseph and their three children weren't the only things going well in her life. She had a beautiful home, longtime friends, good health, happiness and prosperity, things that made one's life seem picturesque. But even being surrounded by all of these fortunes, it didn't deter her selfish passions to fill a void. In search of what she saw as a deeper sense of self, she gives in to her thirst for an old flame, her husband's best friend. At the height of their indiscretions, their tryst is revealed during a dinner party, but is immediately outshined by a shocking misfortune involving another friend in the group. In this book, the reader is taken on Taylor's exploration of masking her indiscretions, while grievously including everyone in their inner circle. Taylor's betrayals intertwined with her evolution as a wife, friend and uninhibited lover soon reach a hard-won outcome. It reveals that her vision of a perfect life, would travel along a broken and much less than perfect road. And in receipt of this life, she'll lose just as much as she'll gain.