Read this book...Switch

I really should have been a sociologist or psychologist because I love this stuff. Human behavior is fascinating to me, especially when brilliantly communicated through stories as Dan and Chip Heath do in their second best seller Stick: How to Change When Change is Hard.

Here's the premise--Everyone has a rational side and an emotional side. Merely appealing to the rational side is not enough to make lasting change (think health--we know eating healthy and exercising are important, but why don't we do it?"). Turns out, our emotional side is like an elephant--strong, powerful and hard to steer. Our rational side is like an elephant rider--great at giving direction and seemingly in charge, but easily exhausted and completely powerless when the elephant has ideas of its own.

The 3 keys to change are:

1. Direct the rider

2. Motivate the elephant

3. Shape the path

The studies in the book are fascinating. They open with a study at a movie theatre. Moviegoers were given buckets of stale popcorn of different sizes that were weighed before and after the movie. Turns out, people with bigger buckets of popcorn eat more. So if you don't want to eat as much, use a smaller container. This is an example of shaping the path.

Filled with stories and examples of why change works in some cases and doesn't work in others, this book will challenge how you think about your own behavior and give you practical ideas to make changes in your life.

If you live in the Omaha area, this is our next book club selection. We will be discussing it for the April 5th meeting at 7pm at the Panera on 72nd St. in Papillion.

The FAILURE Files: Do NOT try this recipe!

Juice Pulp Muffins:

4 cups fruit pulp

1 cup sesame or olive oil

3 eggs

1 cup honey

3 cups whole grain flour

1 T baking soda

1 t nutmeg, cinnamon or spice of choice

1 t vanilla

Mix fruit pulp with honey, eggs, vanilla & oil. Add dry ingredients. Pour into muffin tins (greased). Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Some efforts to be frugal turn into a flop. I found this recipe online for rescuing juice pulp from your juicer. Since we love making fresh juice, I thought this would be a great idea. I still think it might be, which is why I actually included the recipe I don't think you should try. What you shouldn't try is making this muffins with...

GRAPEFRUIT PULP!!!

Oh they smelled soooo gooooood. I wanted them to be yummy, but no, they were terrible. Awful. Disgusting even.

I made my friend try one and she actually spit it out!!! I gave some to my neighbor who eats everything with a warning that he may lose faith in my cooking skills. I have not heard back.

Now I know. I don't think grapefruit pulp can be repurposed. It is trash. You should not eat trash...even disguised in muffins. (You wouldn't put poop in muffins. See, there I go again?!)

This little muffin experiment is one of my many, many, many failures in this life. It's not a terribly important one, although honey is kind of expensive and I used a whole cup of it only to dump the entire batch in the trash. Ugh. I'm thinking of the failures that have cost a whole lot more than that.

But you know what is great about failure? I get to try again with more experience. If failure is not an option then neither is success. If I have failed then at least I've done something.

It is way more fun to succeed, but I can honestly say that every failure, even the costly, painful ones, have changed me in ways that I would not exchange for all the success in the world. I'm not making that up. I am way less of a jerk now than I was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. If you think I'm a jerk now, just be glad you didn't know me back then!!

The other great thing about failure is that you can warn your friends. So don't try this recipe with grapefruit pulp--it will be a waste of time and honey!

You're welcome.

Mystery Puddle

I have this friend who has been motivating me to tackle the clutter and mystery puddles in my home. Every day she emails a task to complete with before and after pictures from her own home. If you need a friend like this, I will share her with you. I could never be this friend because I can't manage to do much of anything every single day for months at a time. I've barely completed half of the list and I'm OK with that. Something is better than nothing.

One of this week's challenges was to clean the fridge. This is was an excellent week for me to do it because I used up my grocery money a week before the month was over so by Wednesday there was almost no food in there. Ketchup and celery anyone? Mmmm. What I discovered when I finally juiced all of those oranges and grapefruit that were getting kind of wrinkly in the "crisper" drawer was that I had a couple of puddles of some unknown substances at the bottom of the fridge. From the way they were all dried up, I'm sure they've been there a really long time. One was definitely meat juice and the other was something super sticky.

Why am I telling you this?

I'm not sure.

Maybe it's because I revel in gross things. My little sister claims that I purposely try to weave the word "poop" into every conversation. It's not true. Sometimes, like on Sunday when I was being interviewed at our church's annual meeting, I accidentally talk about "pee." I can be really, super inappropriate without even trying.

Maybe it's because I want to prove that I have done something productive with my life. My goal to blog every day has obviously fallen by the wayside so what have I been doing all this time? What do I do all day when my kids are at school and I'm "working" from home? Sometimes I'm unearthing marvels of science in my very own appliances. Do I have a fabulous life or what?

Maybe I'm being philosophical and I just want to show that sometimes you clean out one area of your life only to uncover something even worse lurking below. My shriveling grapefruit were covering up the really gross stuff. As long as they were there, I could ignore the puddles. It took a close friend and a really tight grocery budget to get me to the place where I couldn't look the other way any longer. But now that I've done it, I feel so clean and so free!

Let's go there. I feel that way about my heart. So often it's a mess. I long to be clean and free on the inside, but sometimes I don't want to reveal the mess underneath. It's too painful. I'm thankful for friends who listen to me and let me process in my own way and tell me the truth and help me to live in the freedom that is mine because Jesus lives in me. I need to let that wash over me a little bit right now.

Ripping it open a little bit. What is it about my children that just wrecks me? I was feeling in such a great place until one of my kids started melting down and not behaving how I would choose for him to behave. I put myself in a situation that I thought I could control and guess what? I couldn't. Can you believe that? I cannot control my child's wayward mouth. The insanity is thinking that I can when I clearly can barely control my own!! Poop. See? Just had to work it in.

I leave you with the one Word that leaves me with hope:

"Search me Lord and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:23-24