Book Challenge, Week 6

Brishen:

7. The Pearls of Wisdumb by Chris Mosdell
8. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
9. The Paper Doorway by Dean Koontz
10. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke


Melani:

7. Undress Your Stress by Lois Levy
This was a nice, quick read. It gives several ideas for quick things you can do in a few minutes' time to relax. I have been using the deep breathing techniques since reading this. I also like the idea of coloring--it is relaxing but something adults rarely do.

8. The Painted House by John Grisham
My sister passed on this book. I really enjoyed it. Brishen and I are learning about slavery and the Civil War right now, and I enjoyed learning about the life of a cotton farmer in the 1950s. I don't think I'll ever go into farming in order to make a living.

9. Thin is the New Happy by Valerie Frankel
This book is a good example of why a reading challenge is a good thing. I really did not like the first half of this book and really wanted to give it up. The only reason I kept reading was because of the challenge.

I didn't like the book at first for a few reasons. The author has had a life-long issue with needing to lose 10-15 pounds most of the time. Seriously? That's fat?? She was a size 14 at her very heaviest, but for the most part she was a size 10 and constantly dieting. I do understand that she was in a family and an industry where a size 10 is big, but that was hard to understand from where I am today. Also she talked a lot about her years of drug use and sleeping around. I just didn't think that I would really get anything out of this book because her experiences are so different from mine.

But I kept reading. I'm so glad that I did. After being on diets since the age of 11, she decides that she is done. She keeps track of the negative thoughts she has about her body image in one day and realizes that it dominates her life. I can definitely relate to that! She forces herself to stop those thoughts and to stop dieting. In the process she becomes much healthier inside and out.

Because of this book, I am going to make real changes in my life. I have weighed myself every day for the past two years and have told myself that if I stopped weighing in that I could lie to myself and gain back all that weight.

I didn't weigh myself yesterday. It was wonderful. There have been so many mornings when I woke up feeling good about the way I ate and exercised the day before, but the number on the scale didn't match. That would instantly sour my mood, and I could tell the difference in that day's eating. How nice it will be to feel good about myself and what I have done without that scale to ruin it. I know when I've had a good day/week/month. I know the things it takes to keep in shape and happy. I know when my clothes fit and when they don't. I don't need the stinkin' scale to tell my I'm healthy!

Now for the body image issue. I have an area of my body that I just hate--my stomach. I know that I hate it, and I know that I focus on it too much. When I look in the mirror, that is the first thing I look at. If I happen to pass by a mirror, you can bet that I have glanced at my tummy. When I am taking my walks, I look at how big my tummy is in my shadow. I never really thought about how much I focused on my tummy and thus how often I was thinking negative thoughts about myself. Yesterday, I tried to stop myself each time I looked down at my stomach or at it in the mirror. Man, it will take a long time to break myself of that habit, but it sure will be nice to have a life without all those negative thoughts. I would hate to add up all the minutes in a day that I have been wasting on hating that part of myself.

So I'm glad I finished this book.

Jon:

(He's a late arrival to the challenge, and is trying to remember what all he might have read so far this year... but here's three he knows for sure he's read in 2009)

1. Rocking the Boat: How to Effect Change Without Making Trouble by Debra E. Meyerson

2. Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading by Martin Linsky and Ronald A. Heifetz

3. Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip--Confessions of a Cynical Waiter by Steve Dublanica Aka The Waiter

4. Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living by Reuben P. Job

Basia:

So Basia's not exactly in the challenge. The books she reads are the types with a very few words on each page. The books I read to her are many picture books and a few short chapter books, probably closer to 52 a month than in a year. I don't want to leave her out, though, so I'll list a book that she really enjoyed over the past week or else just tell a bit about what we've been reading.

Something About Hensley's by Patricia Polacco

I don't know what it is about this book that we got at the library, but Basia fell in love with it this past week. She actually kissed the cover a few times (we just won't think about the germs) and made me read it many times. She is considering "Hensley" as the name for her Barbie.