It’s the first of December.  Don’t forget that the December Book Club Selection is not a book but an assignment.  Catch up on some reading, read something light and easy, visit friends and family.  We will have a new book selection for January.  I’m enjoying a Thanksgiving vacation with my family in North Carolina.  Yesterday I took Zach and Hannah to church which, if you don’t know us, is a new and exciting adventure. We’ve never been into sitting, being inside, group singing, praying, group reading, or sinning.  All of these things seem to be synonymous to church goers.  This is merely a personal observation.  Our adventurous spirits did enjoy this outing; plus we got to see my dad sing and it was his church. We got a bit lost when the group would chant something that they all seemed to know or when they would start singing from a book that we found in a book holder in front of us.  God  spoke to them about what they were going to sing and they all knew which page to be on .  No; that’s not it.  You had to follow along in the program which was your cheat sheet for the Hymnal and the Bible. The minister was very good, kept our attention, and had a nice speaking voice.  His sermon was about Luke.  But in reality Luke was never mentioned.  This was a story about Zach and Elizabeth.  Elizabeth was a failure because she was barren and now a burden to Zach who had to feed her.  It was like she was a lame horse and should be shot.  I’m pretty sure that was not the lesson to the story.  I don’t want to give the plot away because that is never the intention at Wild Women Book Club.  Zach went into this secret room because he was a higher up priest. It was such a holy room that only one person at a time could go in and they tied a rope to his leg in case he died in there and they had to drag him out.  A big, ugly, scary angel came to visit him in the secret room. ( This is all starting to sound Mormon to me, but we were in a Presbyterian Church. ) Luckily for Elizabeth, the angel told Zach that Elizabeth would be done with her suffering and humiliation of being barren and he would make sure that she would conceive even though she was old,which was also   going to happen to  the unmarried teenager Mary. And Zach would now be mute.  What?….was Zach saying things to Elizabeth that were not romantic “hey Liz, that robe makes your ass look fat”. Maybe if he kept his mouth shut she would have a better chance of conceiving?  The end.  The minister kept mine and Zach’s attention and we were both feeling pretty bad about Elizabeth’s self worth and suppression as a woman in this story.  We lost Hannah right off the bat.  She chose to read the Bible starting with page one, just like you would do with most books.  I believe her words were  “…this is some scary, intimidating shit…”.  The rest of our day was much dialog about our church adventure, religion, other religions and god.  Is God a thing to fear or a loving, accepting entity? Do we worship Jesus or was he meant to be an example to follow?  Both Zach and Hannah said they would like to read the Bible; but maybe a children’s version.

Going to add a gallery of pictures for you.

This is my church in Montana:

I am always continuing my education and, I am happy to announce that I am taking an online class called “Creating WordPress Websites”.  You may notice some exciting changes in our blog as I move along in this class and next I will take “Creating WordPress Websites II” and then we’ll really get crazy!  That’s what I’m reading now.  Two lessons a week using this blog as a working model and you get to enjoy the result.  You might see some weird pages added and wonder “what the heck is she doing”.  It won’t be the first or the last time you have those thoughts about me.  The online class I’m taking is through a web site called Ed2Go.  They offer many classes for enriching your life and learning some cool stuff.  This is my first one and I do like it but I don’t think I’ll give it a complete review until I’ve finished the class and taken a few more.  I do recommend that you check it out and see all of the classes that they have to offer.  This one I’m taking now is 6 weeks long and cost $95.  I’m going to try to add a photo now:

A picture of a homemade watermelon, basil, vodka popsicle.  I call them cock-sicles.

Let’s attach a document for you to read; since you like reading so much.  This is one of my most favorite things I’ve ever read.  Thank you Hannah for sharing it with me:  Exposed by my Children

Now I’m going to try a video; this is a good one too you should check it out; this isn’t just for homework people.  I’m giving you some good things.  You’ll be making eggnog cock-sicles for Christmas and flaunting that beautiful body; no doubt.

I quickly finished “The Untethered Soul” and for the first time ever; as soon as I finished, I went to the first chapter and started over.  I enjoyed the book so much that I read it too quickly.  This is a book that should be savored and digested and certainly followed.  I really love the message this book delivers.  I had a dream one night that I was on top of a tall skinny wall with no way down.  I was trying to signal to the people below that I needed help getting down off this tall wall.  Everyone was ignoring me.  I just needed a ladder, if someone could just get me a ladder.  People were down below just going about their business oblivious to my precarious situation .  I knew that I could not stay up there forever and I would have to jump.  I had no choice.  It took a  long time to get up the courage to jump, but I did.  I landed safely on the ground, on my feet.  The wall ended up being only six inches high.  I recall that dream often in my daily life and that nothing is as big a deal or as dramatic as most people make it out to be.  “The Untethered Soul” is a book about your wall not being as tall as you think.  It teaches you to let things flow in and then out; don’t dwell on it or let it stagnate in your heart.  Let it in and let it out.  Move on.  Don’t worry; be happy. Expand your boundaries. Lots of good lessons to learn from this book.  I hope you get an opportunity to read it.

I’m also reading “E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality“.  I’m not recommending this book because I do not like the author’s style of writing; but I do like what she has to say about quantum physics which in my opinion appears to be the same thing as the power of prayer.  The best real life example I can think of for this book is the way a person deals with technology.  I sit down to a computer and feel confident that I can figure out what I need to do.  I have worked in enough programs to know what details to look for, what icons to notice, what my resources might be if I get stuck and in the end I will accomplish what I set out to do.  I have seen other people sit down to a computer already anxious and frustrated because they doubt that this project will end successfully and that even if it does it will take many hours and the resource they use will have a thick Indian accent.  Guess what?  We both got what we thought we would get.  Another example is when Hannah was playing in the State tennis tournament in Missoula and was losing.  I was yelling at her; “Hannah you are the stronger player, you know you are stronger”.  Of course I was getting thoughts into Hannah’s head but unknowingly I believe I was getting thoughts into her opponents head too.  Now her opponent was thinking that Hannah was the stronger player.  Hannah came back and won.  She made it into the championship game and lost; in this case she was not the stronger player and I couldn’t lie to her.  That’s the conundrum.  How could I help her with positive thoughts.  Did I not believe she could beat this person.  I would have to believe it.  Why didn’t I believe it?  This was the Montana State Girls Tennis Championship game. Had I put Hannah on my tall wall afraid to jump?  You can jump now Hannah.  It’s only six inches off the ground.

 

 

I like to write.  It’s one of the reasons for this blog, so that I can get that need to write released from my system.  Right this very minute I am writing  a Management Discussion and Analysis, also know as an MD&A, for the yearly audit at my job.  This, I do not like to write.  I am going to creatively add my own comments throughout the MD&A to see if anyone really reads it and to add entertainment value to my day.  It’s dangerous when I get bored and have to create my own entertainment.  This is also when I decide that I deserve a “lunch beer”.  Next, I’m going to write the meeting minutes from last night’s school board meeting.  This too is not an enjoyable writing task.  This job of business manager/clerk at a public school is not really who I am.  Which brings me to this month’s book selection “The Untethered Soul”.  Without ruining the book for you I am going to let you know that the last chapter is all about God.  In my religious snobbery, I would have to admit that if the last chapter had been the first chapter I probably would not have continued reading this book and not selected it as the November book for the Wild Women Book Club.  But, since I had read the entire book, completely engaged in the content, I found the God chapter to be very enlightening and it has given me a new perspective.  If you’ve read my other blog post you will remember my desire to understand my good friend the Mormon Bishop.  I am now thinking that I shouldn’t try to understand him; I should get him to understand me.  I’m going to give him this book and tell him that he should read the last chapter first so that he will then want to read it and will appreciate the rest of the book.  Otherwise, he will start the first chapter and think that his good friend, the beer drinking, liberal, agnostic, vegan, snowboarding, yogi  is trying to convert his non-drinking, republican, Mormon, cowboy, meat eating, reality tv watching ass into thinking more like her.  It’s all about the presentation.  So if you’re more like my good friend the Mormon Bishop you might want to read the last chapter first.

 

Read on.

My mom told me once that she shouldn’t be surprised that I ended up living in and loving Montana; just look at the types of books I enjoyed as a child.  Interesting that she would justify my lifestyle on my book choices.  Speaking of books.  Holy Cow I’m loving “All the Light We Cannot See”.  I can’t wait for everyone to read it.  So enjoyable.  I want to get into this author’s head. How do they come up with this stuff and then intertwine it all together so beautifully.  I want to be able to do that.

I have to admit that you are not my only book club.  Go ahead call me a book whore; it ‘s probably true and I take it as a complement anyway.  My other book club is unaware that it is part of a book club.  I just snuck it into an administration meeting  and BOOM!  They’re all reading…..no that’s wrong, they are not all reading…..but they are all taking in the idea of the book.  “Drive the Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us ” by Daniel Pink is an excellent book for leaders, parents, teachers, etc.  I read it several months ago and wanted to share it with the leaders at work and bought them all a copy to read.  Our administrative meetings were lacking any substance and were not inspiring.  I thought that by having a group reading we would have one common theme that we could discuss and that that theme would be relevant to making our work place a better place for everyone involved.  I’m going to bounce back and forth here from the lessons of the book to the benefits of our group reading; keep up.   The book proves that our old way of motivating people through extrinsic motivators is actually hurting our progress and that what people really need are intrinsic rewards.  We are more driven when we have autonomy and purpose than when we are offered bonuses or rewards.  If you walk into a classroom and offer the students an itunes card if they write an article for the school newsletter, you have made a mistake.  Next time you ask this group for something they are going to want to know “what will we get”.  Also, their focus is now on the reward not the task and their creativity will be lacking.  But, if you go into a classroom and ask the students to write an article for the school newsletter that will be  published and mailed out to every household in the school district, you will end up with a more creative article that is written  with the sole purpose to be a well written article worthy of publication and not because you’ve been bribed.  As soon as you bribe with a reward, you have deemed the task to be unenjoyable.  Read the book.  Back to the unknown book club.  This is really a beautiful way to create some dialog among a diverse group of people.  It doesn’t matter what book you chose and it really doesn’t matter if they read it, it helps, but it doesn’t matter. We read one chapter a week.  You do need a leader who guides the group and presents the book in a way that discussions are interesting and everyone is involved.  You will learn a lot about your group and get to know them on a different level.  Now, when tough situations arise you are able to work together as a cohesive group to come up with a solution.  I should take this concept to congress.  I just want everyone to get along.

I know you’re all looking forward to the Wild Women Book Club November book selection which will be released next Saturday.  Keep reading.

Good Times.

I’m pretty sure the universe is trying to tell me something but I’m struggling to find the underlying message so I will need your help with this.  Here’s the story.  I’ve just returned from a successful evening of grocery shopping and dinner at the brewery in Hamilton.  After putting away the groceries, doing a little knitting and watching some Monday night football, I get ready for bed.  Of course going to bed  means reading for a while, which has been my routine since I learned to read in 1st grade.  As you know I have multiple books going at once and I just flip back and forth (love my Kindle).  I’m a little over half way through “Why Quantum Physicist Play Grow a Greater You”.  It’s just getting into implementing “a greater you”.  Just when I’m thinking this is too heavy for before bed reading, he tells a story I’ve never heard before.  If you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly bring it to a boil the frog won’t notice and he’ll be cooked.  But if you put a frog in a pot of already boiling water the frog will experience some serious pain and may even think get me out of here, I’m being cooked.  I don’t think too much of this story, this author is constantly using analogies such as this one.  Mostly he’s saying to change the beliefs of your subconscious you must do it gradually so it doesn’t want to jump out of the pot.  Here’s the freaky part of my story.  I flip over to our October book selection “All The Light We Cannot See” which I’m also just over half way through. This is a totally different if not completely opposite book than the quantum physicist book.  The title of the chapter I’m just now getting ready to read is “The Frog Cooks”

Are you kidding me? Can this be the same story within two minutes of each other from two completely different books?  Yes!  It is the same story.  Madame Manec tells the story to  Etienne and Marie-Laure while she is preparing potato soup.  But in her version she is making the point that the seriousness of the German occupation of France is being unnoticed due to it happening so gradually.  The French are about to be cooked and no one is aware of that.

I couldn’t read anymore.  This was too ironic.  I couldn’t sleep either.  What is the meaning of this?  Besides, each book took the story to mean something different.  One was that slowly being cooked is good and the other, that slowly being cooked is bad.  What’s the universe trying to tell me? What is my pot of water and what is my frog?

It was a most perfect morning for my run today.  I thought about taking a photo in the middle but a photo would not have done it justice.  Perfect views of Lost Horse Drainage for the first half and Como Peaks for the second half.  An eight mile loop and I never saw another person and I was never passed by a car.  I love Montana.  The beautiful thing about a Saturday morning run is that I can now sit on my deck in the sunshine and read all afternoon without feeling guilty.  The book I’m reading right now; “Why Quantum Physicist Play Grow a Greater You” addresses this very flaw that I have.  The flaw being that I can’t sit on my deck and read all afternoon without feeling guilty (unless I ran, washed windows, or cooked casseroles for the week).  My desire IS to sit on the deck on a beautiful afternoon; but my beliefs tell me that that is not allowed without having earned it.  The goal is to adjust my beliefs and this is what this book is about.  I recommend it.  I also read his book “Why Quantum Physicist Don’t Get Fat”.  It’s good too as it is more a book about life than a book about having unwanted weight.  Also reading (although not very fast) “Abundance; The Future is Better Than You Think” recommended by my mom.  So far not an easy read but I like what it has to say about our future.  I’m so tired of hearing the excuse phrase “well…in this economy”.  How long are we going to use that crutch.  The lines at the coffee huts have never gone down.  The attendance at major sporting events never goes down.  Cell phones, internet and satellite TV are like running water and electricity.  Everyone has to have them to live.  What???? This quote from the book is what has kept me reading:  “…the inability of people to see the positive trends through the sea of bad news- that may be the biggest stumbling block on the road toward abundance.”  Here’s a secret about me; sometimes, while riding in the car I’ll listen to Rush Limbaugh, I rarely last more that two minutes.  I think he may be the cause of a lot of negative thinking and he says “…well in this economy…” in most of his sentences.  I wouldn’t recommend listening to him.  I was just trying to understand my good friend the Mormon Bishop.

One more book I read this month was “To the Moon” written and illustrated by one of my assistant daughters, Emily Lovejoy.  I recommend that book too.  And even though I haven’t read the new and improved version; my son Zach just published his second short story in an anthology of Christmas stories called “The Miracle of Love at Christmas“.  I’m excited to get my copy.  I also recommend his first published short story in a book called “Southern Gothic New Tales of the South”

I hope you’re liking this month’s book selection.  I’m about half way through and find it a delightful story and very well written.  If you haven’t started it yet; no worries.  Remember, our book club has no rules and is pretty laid back and you can comment on it once you’ve read it even if you decide to wait for it to come out in paperback.  Don’t feel guilty.  You deserve to read what you want when you want.  That I believe.

Good Times

I am going to get better at this blogging thing; I promise.  In November I’m going to get special one on one training at a training facility in Durham, NC. (Just warning you Hannah).  It’s almost our deadline for reading “The Invention of Wings”; but what does deadline really mean at the Montana Wild Women Book Club Blog?  Not a God Damn thing! There are no rules here; no stress; just good times with good people and good books.  Sharing some ideas and commenting on some books.  I went with the blog idea due to an experience I had on face book and determined that face book was not the medium I wanted to use for the book club.  I had challenged my face book friends to list their top five books and I listed mine as a start.  Since I accept everyone’s friend request; the next person to comment listed their top five books starting with “The Living Bible” and a book by Sara Palin.  This was honest of my “friend” (since unfriended) yet this was not what I was looking for nor wanted to be associated with.  Also, this blog idea started because my day job is lacking in creativity that I desire and this blog is here to fill that void.  Perhaps I’m just justifying this to myself and this venue is merely a way to express myself to myself. Hum… Do you go blind doing that?

I’ve read so many books this month that I haven’t had time to preview our upcoming book club book.  I’m also on a knitting frenzy trying to get Hannah’s scarf finished.  I started it Christmas 2011 and want to finish it Christmas 2014; it’s just a flipping scarf, get on with it.  I’ll post a picture when it’s done.  I’ll get Hannah to model it, she looks good in everything I knit.  I digress.  One book I just finished is “The Unveiling of Grace”  a book that I would have never read had it not been my desire to understand my good friend who just became the Bishop at the Mormon Church.  The book is about a women who is a professor at BYU; became a Mormon as an young adult, raised her children Mormon; sealed her marriage in the Mormon Temple; all of the things a good Mormon does.  After her third son returned from his mission, the whole family started to question the Mormon religion and this book is their journey of being a Mormon for 30 years and then letting that go.  It was very informative but did not help me understand my good friend.  I’m also reading “The Emerald Mile” which I spoke of in a previous blog and “Racing Weight” a book about endurance sports and training for them as I have a little bucket list thing to run a marathon and a time frame of when I’m 50 which happens this October.  I may sign up for the Missoula Marathon on my birthday this year.  Please join me.  We have many months to train as the Missoula Marathon isn’t until July 2015.  I have about 8 books in my wish list on Amazon including our next book selection.  I’m considering posting one new book a month for our book club and since we are a stress free no rules book club you can do with it what you want.  It’s possible that all you do is read my blog post.  The new book will be announced October 1 although I may be knitting instead of previewing it so no guarantees on the book; but I’m pretty good at picking them out.  This is another novel, but we will branch out to some other types of books soon.  Don’t worry, I won’t make your read about endurance racing.

 

Good times.