Since there is not a Wild About Books December book club selection and November’s book was so good; I believe we should discuss “The Untethered Soul”  one more time.  My favorite chapter is  chapter 15 “The Path of Unconditional Happiness” The secret to living a spiritual life.  It’s amazingly simple really.  Happy or not happy; it’s your choice. That’s it.  You choose to be happy or you choose to be unhappy.  An easy example would be; you added cumin to your muffin mix instead of cinnamon.  Now you’ve wasted your time and money on a dozen nasty tasting muffins, throw the muffin tin and the muffins out the front door and vow never to bake again because you are too stupid to pick up the correct spice.  Unhappy choice.  Or; you rename the muffins “Mexican muffins” and see who will eat them and clearly mark the cumin container so that that doesn’t happen again, lesson learned.  Happy choice.  Even worse is when you allow others to make you unhappy.  You base your happiness conditionally on what other people do; that’s ludicrous.  I’m going to be mad all day because someone cut me off in traffic.  No.  My choice is no; I will not let them control me like that.  I will still be happy.  What about people that let the weather control their happiness? There’s nothing they can do about the weather!  How can you let the weather control your happiness?  There are people that I work with that get upset when the snow comes.  What?? You live in Montana!  Or people that choose to be unhappy because it’s Monday or worse, unhappy because it’s Sunday which means that the next day IS Monday.  They choose to be unhappy.  Clearly they choose to be unhappy if they make a day of the week a happiness indicator.  A difficult example would be when a 24 year old co-worker who you’ve known most of his life wrecks his motorcycle on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and dies.  It’s still your choice to be happy.  You can be sad about the death and grief can grip you when you are not expecting it with uncontrollable emotion.  If you are his mother this grief can grip you at any moment for the rest of your life.  But; and this is a big but and I can not lie, you can choose to be happy.  Happy that he was out doing what he loved on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and you can choose to be happy that his death was a blessing over being mangled and crippled and in pain for the rest of his life and you can be happy that for 24 years his family was able to enjoy having him around. It’s your choice.  It’s your choice and it must be genuine.  You have to believe it.  If you are faking happiness it doesn’t count.

Let’s use an every day example.  How do you stay happy every day at your desk job pushing paper, filling out online forms, nagging people for receipts, etc.  You can attempt to purchase happiness.  A new computer for your desk, a new desk for your office, a new office space with a big window. You can list all of the great things about your job such as the pay, benefits, flexible hours, cell phone, matching retirement plan, etc.  No matter how much you try to make it better, you are still at a desk managing super boring, non challenging, uncreative paperwork.  Did I say you?  I really mean me.  What makes me excited to get up in the morning?  I choose to be happy.  I choose to make off color, inappropriate jokes at work, I choose to send silly emails that make people laugh, I choose to start an administrative book club for some interactive dialog and I have a Happy Sack.  Yes, I have a happy sack.  Before I moved into my new office with a big window, I had a small closet next to the staff bathroom.  In that closet office I had an outside door that took me right to the reader board sign for the school.  So I took it upon myself to be in charge of the reader board sign.  Usually it was upcoming events like home football games or the next school board meeting. One day just for fun I put up: “Never trust an atom, they make up everything”.  Some days I would have students put up the letters for me.  Two boys from the 7th grade came into my office to do the reader board.  I had to introduce myself, because, as the school paper pusher, I don’t interact with the students and therefore don’t know them.  One of the boys eyes got big  and a huge grin came upon his face as he looked at the shelving on my wall and exclaimed in excitement; “YOU have a happy sack”.  Oh jeez, what does he see on my shelf?  What have I brought into my office that could be referred to as a “happy sack”?  I slowly turn, scan the shelves and there it is.  My hacky sack; now and forever known as my happy sack.  It has now moved from the shelves to my desk.

Choosing to be happy is not as easy as it sounds and it is easy to forget that you have that choice.  Believe me when I say that having a happy sack on my desk not only reminds me that I have that choice to choose happiness, it also puts a smile on my face and how can you be unhappy with a smile on your face.

How many psychologist does it  take to change a light bulb?    Just one; but the light bulb has  to want to change.

Lots of newness and  improvements are happing to  our blog.  The biggest one is the name change.  The Wild Women Book Club has now become……Wild About Books, A seriously great reference site for book lovers. If you are a follower of this blog, you get emails when a new post has been published and you don’t get a chance to see the blog, which is now more of a web site with the home page being the blog itself.  Check it out; Wild About Books.

My challenge this week was from my son Zach.  He asked if I ever read about things that I didn’t believe.  For example, I’m a vegan and probably would only read books and cookbooks that promoted the health benefits of being a  vegan.  Or, when I  wanted to read about Mormonism, I chose a book about a person that ended up leaving the Mormon Church because it justified my beliefs about the Mormon religion. The closest I’ve ever come to reading something that might not lean towards my beliefs was when I read “Killing Lincoln”.  My mom had a fit that I would read something by Bill O’Reilley; I didn’t know who Bill O’Reilly was so that one doesn’t even count. The day after Zach challenged me, my dad called, which only happens one to three times a year, and recommended a book “Mere Christianity” by C. S. Lewis. Dad is on his 4th time reading this book.  He must really like this book to recommend it to his unreligious daughter and to be reading it for the fourth time.   I do believe that the universe makes things happen for a reason and that it is important that you are aware of the signs from the universe. Therefore, through the combination of Zach’s challenge and dad’s recommendation I will be reading  “Mere Christianity“.  C. S. Lewis is the author of the popular series The Chronicles of Narnia of which “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” is one of the books.  I just started “Mere Christianity”  and haven’t even gotten past the introduction and forward and I am already sucked into the philosophic style of writing.  You have to read each sentence with focus because each sentence is a masterpiece of writing.  Then you have to stop and ponder the sentence.  This is the epitome of a thought provoking book.

In the mean time; I’m reading “Winter of the World”, which I’m really not into and “The Gluten Free Edge”  a book about gluten free athletes and how their performance improves by eliminating gluten from their diet.  I don’t recommend the book but I do recommend trying a gluten free diet. You must be asking yourself; how will she find time to research and find a book for January with all of this extra curricular reading going on in her life?  No worries my fellow followers, I have my staff and the universe working on that research right now.

Wild About Books is about reading good books and sharing how they impact your life.  I’ll guide you in our monthly book selection, but there will also be references to many other books in the weekly posts.

If you would like to “follow” this blog then look in the upper right hand side of this page, enter your email address and click follow.  Followers will receive an email whenever a new post is published.

Blogs start with the most recent post and work their way down to the oldest post.  If you are interested in reading them in order then scroll down to the bottom of the home page and start there.

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?