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.

This post will be for everyone to list books that they recommend to the group (not to be confused with the book club book that we will all be reading together sort of). Just throw your recommended book in the comments for others to see. Since I have finished “The Invention of Wings” and the due date for finishing is not until September 30 and the new book club announcement will not be until October 1st; I have started another book on my own. I am never without a book. There have been times that I am reading 4 at one time; but I am never reading nothing. This is why I love my kindle. There is no need to have a stack of books on the night stand, there is no need to be in a panic if you finish a book on Saturday night and the library is closed Sunday and Monday, there is no need to read cheap novels. You always have a plethora of books at your fingertips that can be downloaded in seconds. Also, if you start reading the just purchased kindle book and after 7 or less days you don’t really like it, you can return it to amazon for a full refund.

The book I just started and am totally loving was recommended by Heidi Kaminski. “The Emerald Mile”. It’s about an epic trip down the Colorado River during an outlandish spring run off that closed the river to floaters. This group illegally floated in a dory in an attempt to set a time record for the float in a number of hours that normally takes two weeks. There is lots of history about the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon and the building of dams. Although I just started, I see this as being a fabulous read and recommend it to all Wild Women Book Club members.

I was looking for a way to start an e-book club.  You know; a book club for all my book reading friends no matter where they live.  I’ll pick out a book for us to read together and we can all add to this blog.  I’ll be learning how to use a word press blog at the same time.  Hopefully Hannah will join our book club and guide us in this. We’ll see where this takes us. Good Times.

 “Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars