Do you have grit? I imagine that most people like to think they do, but maybe I am projecting, because I want to be gritty. I can point to numerous situations in my life that have called for grit, times when I persevered. There have also been times when I quit. Times when I dropped one goal for another, games I lost, balls I dropped. Does that mean I don’t have it? This post is a sort of two-fold review. I listened to Angela Duckworth’s book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. It has been on my list for Read More
Tag: Read Harder
Untamed: Building a Coalition of Cheetahs
Back to my original question: What do I want to say about this book? I loved it. I was on the waitlist at the library, but when a friend starting sharing about it, I had to buy a hardcover version also. I have so many notes, highlights, bookmarks. There was only one thing in the book I disagreed with, and that is more an issue of semantics. The love-at-first-site narrative and “my sexuality is Abby” raises a few red flags for me, but I also kind of relate. I have referred to my own sexuality as “hetero-monogamous” because when I’m Read More
FREEDOM 2020
Why Pick a Word? Do you pick a word or phrase as a theme for the year? I don’t remember how long ago I started picking a theme word, but it might coincide with when I started using the Rituals for Living Dreambook and Planner. I love this planner so much. I really feel like it helps me stay focused on what is important and helps me make plans to achieve some things that might just fall under “that would be nice” or “someday” if I didn’t have a system for dreaming and planning. My theme word for 2019 was Read More
Second Quarter Review 2019
It’s the first of July, so we are officially at the halfway mark of 2019. This means it’s time to check in with our goals and themes for the year. My theme for the year is Adventure, and I tried to couch my goals in that theme. Let’s see how much progress I made in the second quarter. It feels like just the other day that I just wrote this post reviewing the first quarter…. Was it really three months ago? It was. So here’s my Q2 progress report. Mood I explained that the first three months were rough, so Read More
A Woman’s Words
Dystopian fiction is social commentary with a side of terror. It uses hyperbole to try and help us see that we are the frogs in the water that is starting to boil. It takes situations that some people are currently giving the side-eye, projects them into the future, and magnifies them x100. According to Rare Books Digest, the first dystopian novel was written in Russian but was banned and had it’s first release in the U.S. in 1924. What better way for such a form to make its debut than as a banned book? Aldous Huxley and George Orwell quickly Read More
First Quarter Review 2019
It’s April, and that means we have moved into the second quarter of 2019. Spring is in the air, and it’s a good time to check how we are tracking on our 2019 goals. I love using my Rituals for Living Dreambook and Planner to plan my year, and it is conveniently formatted by quarters to help break your long-term projects into achievable tasks. You might recall that my focus for the year is ADVENTURE, and I planned to embody that word through three avenues: attitude, activity, and (of course) books. Let’s review each of these and I will give Read More
Making the Political Personal – A Visit From Angie Thomas
One Book One Community I love my community. I live in beautiful Northwest Arkansas. This is a unique place to live, because it is not centered around one city but four. Then there are the smaller towns adjacent to those cities. I live in one of those. I grew up about an hour from my current residence, and I consider this entire region HOME. I am a Razorback. I spent 14 years working at a certain retailer that is based in the area. We are truly blessed that our area is thriving and growing. We have a world class art Read More
To Kill a TBR… What’s On Your List?
If you are a book-lover like me, then you can relate – there are so many books and so little time. Listening to audiobooks on 1.5x speed can only help so much. Any faster and I literally start to panic. When I see a book that I want to read, I know it will be a while before I can get to it, so I like to pop the book on my TBR list. You should already know that means “To Be Read.” And you should already have a method for tracking it. If you don’t do this yet, just Read More
Adventure 2019!
Do you pick a word or theme for the year? I started this practice several years ago. It is part of an effort to be more intentional and create the life I want to have rather than just letting life happen to me. It started as a casual effort but became a more serious endeavor once I started using the Dragontree Apothecary Rituals for Living Dreambook and Planner (affiliate link.) I love the thought-provoking exercises in the Dreambook section and the practical application of breaking my goals into tasks and scheduling them in my planner. I always feel as though I Read More