1) They take my kids.
2) I get an uninterrupted shower.
3) I have 30 minutes for uninterrupted reading if I use an elliptical machine (you might think this is not high-quality reading time, but this is not the case... I've read scholarly articles as well as Mark Twain's Joan of Ark and didn't enjoy either any the less).
4) If I take a class, there are other adults with which to have conversations that go beyond whether they need to use the potty or if they need their nose wiped.
5) They take my kids.
I may well turn into a gym rat.... :)
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
The Happiness Project
If you haven't read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, I highly recommend adding it to your 2011 reading list. The author spends a year synthesizing and digesting the latest research about happiness as well as the wisdom of the ages on the subject, and then tries to incorporate the findings into her life.
In case you're wary, this book is not of the self-help genre. It's an interesting, quick read about one woman trying to change her life without substantively changing her life (i.e. moving to a tropical island and retiring).
Some of her insights that struck me as particularly profound include:
*You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you like to do.
*One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
*Do good, feel good.
*If it takes less than a minute, do it now.
*And much, much more (of course).
[Spoiler alert.] She concludes at the end of the year that she is indeed happier, and that the single most important element of her happiness project was not any of her specific happiness resolutions but her daily chart to record how she was doing keeping those resolutions. If you manage what you measure, then you have to measure whether you're going where you want to be going, and that very act of measuring will do a lot to propelling you to where you want to go.
I'm not sure if this works for people who aren't type A. Why? I suspect it takes a type A sucker like me to be anal (some might say "particular") enough to make a daily resolution chart and actually use it. But if something works for someone else, I think it deserves a try before you dismiss it: the old if-you-want-what-we-have-then-do-what-we-do philosophy.
So, I've made my own resolutions chart and so far I'm liking using it. Knowing that I get to give myself the proverbial gold star at the end of the day if I do what I aspire to, really is keeping me doing the things I want to be doing. Ridiculous but true.
And if you're wondering about this recent flurry of blog entries that actually involve substantive thought, guess what? One of my resolutions is to write something every day. (Not necessarily on the blog, of course, but until I get a more substantive project I think more will end up here than has been here in awhile.)
Check out Gretchen Rubin's blog: www.happiness-project.com
In case you're wary, this book is not of the self-help genre. It's an interesting, quick read about one woman trying to change her life without substantively changing her life (i.e. moving to a tropical island and retiring).
Some of her insights that struck me as particularly profound include:
*You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you like to do.
*One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
*Do good, feel good.
*If it takes less than a minute, do it now.
*And much, much more (of course).
[Spoiler alert.] She concludes at the end of the year that she is indeed happier, and that the single most important element of her happiness project was not any of her specific happiness resolutions but her daily chart to record how she was doing keeping those resolutions. If you manage what you measure, then you have to measure whether you're going where you want to be going, and that very act of measuring will do a lot to propelling you to where you want to go.
I'm not sure if this works for people who aren't type A. Why? I suspect it takes a type A sucker like me to be anal (some might say "particular") enough to make a daily resolution chart and actually use it. But if something works for someone else, I think it deserves a try before you dismiss it: the old if-you-want-what-we-have-then-do-what-we-do philosophy.
So, I've made my own resolutions chart and so far I'm liking using it. Knowing that I get to give myself the proverbial gold star at the end of the day if I do what I aspire to, really is keeping me doing the things I want to be doing. Ridiculous but true.
And if you're wondering about this recent flurry of blog entries that actually involve substantive thought, guess what? One of my resolutions is to write something every day. (Not necessarily on the blog, of course, but until I get a more substantive project I think more will end up here than has been here in awhile.)
Check out Gretchen Rubin's blog: www.happiness-project.com
Friday, June 19, 2009
Lessons from reading Madeline
Tucker and I had a fun day at the library, which is in a converted train station. It is approximately 10 feet from the tracks and occasionally we get treated to the train roaring buy. Today we had the best train day ever, because the train actually slowed down and stopped right in front of the library's big picture window.
From the same window, Tucker can also watch the fork lifts load lumber onto big flat bed trailers at the lumber yard across the tracks. So obviously, the library is a big hit, but we don't get much reading done.
I pulled some books for him to look at and decide which to take home. We were talking about Madeline this week at book club, so I looked it up and tried to get Tucker interested. I loved the Madeline books as a kid (my mom always told me that if I hadn't been named Jacqueline, it would've been Madeline), with all the little girls in rows parading around Paris.
Unfortunately, Tucker's interest was about nonexistent and the book got nixed in favor of I Like to Ride My Train. Sigh. Still... at least he wasn't like my friend's (slightly older) son who read the Madeline book where there's a guillotine and was so inspired he decided to build one of his own.
From the same window, Tucker can also watch the fork lifts load lumber onto big flat bed trailers at the lumber yard across the tracks. So obviously, the library is a big hit, but we don't get much reading done.
I pulled some books for him to look at and decide which to take home. We were talking about Madeline this week at book club, so I looked it up and tried to get Tucker interested. I loved the Madeline books as a kid (my mom always told me that if I hadn't been named Jacqueline, it would've been Madeline), with all the little girls in rows parading around Paris.
Unfortunately, Tucker's interest was about nonexistent and the book got nixed in favor of I Like to Ride My Train. Sigh. Still... at least he wasn't like my friend's (slightly older) son who read the Madeline book where there's a guillotine and was so inspired he decided to build one of his own.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Good books?
I have to come up with three suggestions for my book club next year by Tuesday. Everyone presents their three options, and we pick one book for each person.
So far, I have two of the three selected: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. I haven't read either, but I've read others by both Gladwell and Kingsolver, and love both authors. Gladwell writes non-fiction about how people think and make decisions, trying to explain intriguing everyday mysteries. In Outliers I think he poses and sets about answering the question why some people are successful and some are not.
I picked Prodigal Summer because it's a Kingsolver book I haven't read. It especially seems apt because it's set in the Appalachians, and has a bigger emphasis on nature and place than some of her books.
But here's the problem: I need a third pick.
Here are some candidates:
Gilead by Marilynn Robinson
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (fabulous book, but I've already read it)
The book I pick can't be a new release because it needs to be readily available in the library system. But otherwise just about anything is fair game.
Any ideas????
So far, I have two of the three selected: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. I haven't read either, but I've read others by both Gladwell and Kingsolver, and love both authors. Gladwell writes non-fiction about how people think and make decisions, trying to explain intriguing everyday mysteries. In Outliers I think he poses and sets about answering the question why some people are successful and some are not.
I picked Prodigal Summer because it's a Kingsolver book I haven't read. It especially seems apt because it's set in the Appalachians, and has a bigger emphasis on nature and place than some of her books.
But here's the problem: I need a third pick.
Here are some candidates:
Gilead by Marilynn Robinson
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (fabulous book, but I've already read it)
The book I pick can't be a new release because it needs to be readily available in the library system. But otherwise just about anything is fair game.
Any ideas????
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Article by Andree Seu
David sent this article to me by Andree Seu at World Magazine (6/3/09)
http://online.worldmag.com/2009/06/03/living-in-unfinished-stories/
Seu is writing about a book called A Praying Life by Paul Miller. In the article he summarizes "a few good things God wants for you in the deserts and ambiguity that stretch between asking and receiving." Here are a few excerpts from the list that particularly struck me:
• He wants you to have a chance to get to know him.
• He wants you to have a chance to get to know yourself.
• He wants to expose your idols—and deal with them—in a natural way.
• He wants you to come to the point of surrendering completely.
• He wants you to know what perplexity and the silence of God feel like, so that you can help others who are going through it.
• He wants you to have mad joy at the way He finally answers your prayer, rather than the lesser joy of an answer given too soon.
• He wants you to get to see, when you emerge from the desert, that He was there all along.
• He wants you to have a chance to hold on tight to him in the middle of the story, when you see no light—and then He wants to reward you for that.
• He wants to give you a chance to walk by faith and not by sight, not as a mere slogan or abstract doctrine but as an every-moment dance.
• He wants to give you a chance to learn that praying, as Miller writes, is “inseparable from repenting, serving, managing, waiting,” and not an add-on in your life.
• He wants to give you a chance to reject what seem like answers to prayer on a silver platter that have, as Miller writes, “little tests of integrity” attached to them.
http://online.worldmag.com/2009/06/03/living-in-unfinished-stories/
Seu is writing about a book called A Praying Life by Paul Miller. In the article he summarizes "a few good things God wants for you in the deserts and ambiguity that stretch between asking and receiving." Here are a few excerpts from the list that particularly struck me:
• He wants you to have a chance to get to know him.
• He wants you to have a chance to get to know yourself.
• He wants to expose your idols—and deal with them—in a natural way.
• He wants you to come to the point of surrendering completely.
• He wants you to know what perplexity and the silence of God feel like, so that you can help others who are going through it.
• He wants you to have mad joy at the way He finally answers your prayer, rather than the lesser joy of an answer given too soon.
• He wants you to get to see, when you emerge from the desert, that He was there all along.
• He wants you to have a chance to hold on tight to him in the middle of the story, when you see no light—and then He wants to reward you for that.
• He wants to give you a chance to walk by faith and not by sight, not as a mere slogan or abstract doctrine but as an every-moment dance.
• He wants to give you a chance to learn that praying, as Miller writes, is “inseparable from repenting, serving, managing, waiting,” and not an add-on in your life.
• He wants to give you a chance to reject what seem like answers to prayer on a silver platter that have, as Miller writes, “little tests of integrity” attached to them.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
A book too good to finish
Okay, I know that title doesn't make any sense, so bear with me. I started reading the Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry and had to stop less than three chapters into it because it was just TOO well written.
Seriously. Some days you just can't handle such a powerful, beautiful tear-jerker.
I frequently put books down without finishing. I give them a 50 page test (sometimes more if I'm feeling generous) and if they don't capture my attention, they're goners. This is the first time that I've stopped a book because it's too good.
Wendell Berry is amazing. His fictitious Port William series speaks so deeply and poignantly about community, roots, place, identity and time. Those books have more truth in them than any non-fiction book I've read trying to address the same subjects.
And yet, with the truths he writes about comes so much sadness. I can handle a tearful ending, but this one started out so beautifully sad, that I was crying by chapter 2. It's about an old man getting lost in the details of his past as the present blurs in his failing age. The losses and joys of generations get woven together in this old man's narrative, till your heart just about breaks for this old man whose whole world has slipped away.
It's impossible for me to read a book like this without seeing my life flash before my eyes like his. It makes me look at my young family and think how soon this precious time will change.
And yet what this book does (and what the best books are capable of), is it compresses time, so that you are dealing with all the joys and sadness and change of this community and this old man's lifetime all at once. I am so thankful that this is not how I have to experience my life. It is sensory overload to try to absorb it all at once.
I am also thankful that real life comes at a person so much slower, and with so many more mundane details, even if it contains the same change and tragedy and love and loss.
Seriously. Some days you just can't handle such a powerful, beautiful tear-jerker.
I frequently put books down without finishing. I give them a 50 page test (sometimes more if I'm feeling generous) and if they don't capture my attention, they're goners. This is the first time that I've stopped a book because it's too good.
Wendell Berry is amazing. His fictitious Port William series speaks so deeply and poignantly about community, roots, place, identity and time. Those books have more truth in them than any non-fiction book I've read trying to address the same subjects.
And yet, with the truths he writes about comes so much sadness. I can handle a tearful ending, but this one started out so beautifully sad, that I was crying by chapter 2. It's about an old man getting lost in the details of his past as the present blurs in his failing age. The losses and joys of generations get woven together in this old man's narrative, till your heart just about breaks for this old man whose whole world has slipped away.
It's impossible for me to read a book like this without seeing my life flash before my eyes like his. It makes me look at my young family and think how soon this precious time will change.
And yet what this book does (and what the best books are capable of), is it compresses time, so that you are dealing with all the joys and sadness and change of this community and this old man's lifetime all at once. I am so thankful that this is not how I have to experience my life. It is sensory overload to try to absorb it all at once.
I am also thankful that real life comes at a person so much slower, and with so many more mundane details, even if it contains the same change and tragedy and love and loss.
Practicing the Presence of People, quote 2
"Religious types are always asking, 'What is God saying?' But what are people saying? Once I confronted a well-known Christian leader with his alcoholism. He wouldn't listen. He said that before he'd believe me, he'd have to hear it from God. Meanwhile his wife as telling him how much she hated his drinking; his children were telling him; other friends were telling him; and I was telling him. But no, he was waiting to hear it from God. Relationships--even bad ones--speak loud and clearly. Listen to them."
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Practicing the Presence of People
I just finished the book Practicing the Presence of People by Mike Mason. Overall, a good book, though I have to say it got a bit long by the end.
Over the next few days, I'm going to post several quotes that struck me as particularly insightful. So here goes:
"Believing that people are good will not make them so, but it will issue a powerful invitation. By having faith in people, we dramatically increase the odds that they will actually behave well and grow in virture."
Over the next few days, I'm going to post several quotes that struck me as particularly insightful. So here goes:
"Believing that people are good will not make them so, but it will issue a powerful invitation. By having faith in people, we dramatically increase the odds that they will actually behave well and grow in virture."
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The burden of a book
I was just talking to my father-in-law, David, about what to do with all the books you collect over a lifetime that you don't want. You know, the mediocre books, that you're not going to give to anyone else or read again.
It's a burden to see all those books staring me in the face. Where do you donate them? I don't feel like Goodwill does a very good job with books. No one goes to those stores to pick up old books. I guess I should donate them to the library which has an annual sale.
Speaking of the library, I love the library. It is the antidote to this problem I'm talking about. I can just return a book I don't like and never have to see it again. It is such a commitment to buy a book... you have to be SURE that it's the perfect thing, but even after tons of research, I still feel like there are a lot of duds, books whose covers are WAAY better than their insides. And why spend your time reading a mediocre book when there are so many amazing books out there?
It is true riches to be able walk into a library and to pick up every book you could ever imagine wanting to look at, to walk out with about 20 books, and to have no obligation but to explore them to my heart's content.
It's a burden to see all those books staring me in the face. Where do you donate them? I don't feel like Goodwill does a very good job with books. No one goes to those stores to pick up old books. I guess I should donate them to the library which has an annual sale.
Speaking of the library, I love the library. It is the antidote to this problem I'm talking about. I can just return a book I don't like and never have to see it again. It is such a commitment to buy a book... you have to be SURE that it's the perfect thing, but even after tons of research, I still feel like there are a lot of duds, books whose covers are WAAY better than their insides. And why spend your time reading a mediocre book when there are so many amazing books out there?
It is true riches to be able walk into a library and to pick up every book you could ever imagine wanting to look at, to walk out with about 20 books, and to have no obligation but to explore them to my heart's content.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Cold Tangerines
Here are two quotes from the book Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist that I really like:
"Bitterness is like when you drink poison, hoping the other person dies."
And
"Hope always feels impossible until you commit to it."
"Bitterness is like when you drink poison, hoping the other person dies."
And
"Hope always feels impossible until you commit to it."
Friday, January 9, 2009
Hi, Liz!
In case you haven't noticed, I added a links section, so that I can link to my sister-in-law's blog, Motoring Forth, about her forays as a newlywed in the Motor City. Anyway, you really should check out her latest post (well, actually all her posts...), about competition, specifically, blogging competition.
motoringforth.blogspot.com
Of course, Austin has a divide and conquer strategy, sort of like his boss, Ned. So as soon as he heard that we were both doing blogs, he immediately tried to play us off of each other. ("But Liz posted, don't you think you should?") Not in a nefarious way, but like a little boy prodding two puppies to see if they can amuse him by wrestling a little bit.
Anyway, unfortunately, on Midway Farm Blog, I don't take Austin's bait, I expose his nefarious plots. (Hi sweetie, so glad you're reading this! Love you!)
Plus, it's funny, while Liz is finding that her competitiveness is blossoming in adulthood after a very quiet childhood, I am finding quite the reverse. Competition was just about my middle name growing up and its allure has faded over time. It's kind of a relief knowing no one's really keeping score and we all can just relax and live.
Incidentally, God is probably laughing at my new attitude and is going to bless me with really competitive kids who will torture me with their constant competition like Mike and I tortured my poor mother...
So, Liz, merry posting... and let the games begin (just kidding!!!!!).
motoringforth.blogspot.com
Of course, Austin has a divide and conquer strategy, sort of like his boss, Ned. So as soon as he heard that we were both doing blogs, he immediately tried to play us off of each other. ("But Liz posted, don't you think you should?") Not in a nefarious way, but like a little boy prodding two puppies to see if they can amuse him by wrestling a little bit.
Anyway, unfortunately, on Midway Farm Blog, I don't take Austin's bait, I expose his nefarious plots. (Hi sweetie, so glad you're reading this! Love you!)
Plus, it's funny, while Liz is finding that her competitiveness is blossoming in adulthood after a very quiet childhood, I am finding quite the reverse. Competition was just about my middle name growing up and its allure has faded over time. It's kind of a relief knowing no one's really keeping score and we all can just relax and live.
Incidentally, God is probably laughing at my new attitude and is going to bless me with really competitive kids who will torture me with their constant competition like Mike and I tortured my poor mother...
So, Liz, merry posting... and let the games begin (just kidding!!!!!).
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Horse and His Boy
Austin and I just finished reading the Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis out loud to each other. It's the third book in the Narnia series, and is excellent. I haven't ever read fiction out loud to someone else, besides a few times as a counselor at summer camp, and it takes a little getting used to.
I read very quickly to myself, and am in the habit apparently of almost skimming some words, especially the details. It's a very different experience reading out loud, because you can't skimp on the details. Every word is read, and takes more emphasis and time than reading to yourself. So it's interesting in that way, annoying at times, but also very fun.
Why are we reading the Narnia tales out loud to each other? Why not? We might as well practice for when Tucker gets old enough to have them read to him, right? Seriously, though, he's years away from hearing Narnia, and we were given this wonderful gift set of the Narnia books, and it just isn't possible to wait to read them for the first time with Tucker. And then a year or more ago we came across my brother and his now-fiancee (Hi Kat and Mike!) reading fantasy out loud to each other during a holiday. Of course we secretly laughed at them, but you know, maybe they had a good idea.
Anyway, I am not into spoiling plots. But what I love about the Narnian books is that they inspire you to chivalry, and honor, to gird up for the battle between good and evil. It is fun to think about worlds that are unseen sometimes, and where the good guys win. The plot is so gripping, I always go too fast and then end the book trying to remember what all the important, noble truths were that Lewis wove in there.
Also, I have to say, CS Lewis has characters with great names: Cor, Corin, Darrin... better than any baby name book, in my opinion (not that we are looking for baby names now, so don't go getting ideas!!!!).
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