Books Worth Reading: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

This is the quote that convinced me to read this book, "...for both men and women...the most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women.  Time spent with men doesn't make a difference."  I guess my inner sociologist was awakened again and needed to be fed.  

Gretchen Rubin goes on a year-long quest to increase her own personal happiness.  The systematic way she does it seems like the last thing that would work, but at the end she claims that it did.  It's her story, I'm not going to argue.  In fact, it makes me want to try my own happiness project, which she highly encourages and has a website devoted to here. 

Each month, Gretchen chooses an area of her life she would like to improve starting with health and including marriage, kids, work, finances and friendship.  Coupled with research and anecdotes about personal achievements and failures in each area, Gretchen highlights specific goals she worked toward that month.  It's kind of like a New Year's Resolution on steroids.  

This was a great book to read three months in to the New Year when those hastily promised resolutions are not seeming so attainable.  It's a good reminder that growth takes time and that happiness in life often comes as a result of the things we do every day rather than a one-time burst of emotion.  

If anyone wants to do a happiness project with me we can start a group.  I have a non-milestone birthday coming up that could warrant a recommitment to some goals and dreams that I have yet to reach.  

Books Worth Forcing Upon Your Children: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

This is the book from which the movie Hugo is based and, to be honest, I actually brought home the book so that my kids would be interested in seeing the movie.  That doesn't seem quite right does it?  While standing at the Redbox I would suggest Hugo over and over, probably out of fear that we might come home with The Toothfairy 2.  My attempts failed enough times that I decided to change strategy.  It did work, after I forced my kids to listen to the book.  Turns out, they didn't want to read the book either.

(What is up with that Scholastic?  My kids love movies and books and yet, this pair held no appeal for either of them on the front end.  That is why I am taking it to the blog.  Just doing my small part to help out your marketing team.  I know, the 10 people who actually read my blog are going to have a huge impact.  But seriously, this is a great book and kids should be flocking.)

Maybe the fact that the book is 4" thick is a deterrent for kids.  I don't know why.  I mean, in our video game saturated culture I can't imagine a kid being intimidated by a mere 526 pages.  What you can't tell at first glance is that many of those pages contain pictures that tell the tale as brilliantly as words.  Oh, but the words are brilliant too.  Once the whining stopped after I explained that we would be reading this book at bedtime or they could go straight to bed without our delicious evening snuggle, it became one of those books we could hardly put down.  "One more chapter," became the chorus, which is music to any storyteller's ears.

What is it that makes this book so intriguing?  Well, it begins with the captivating premise that a twelve year old boy is living alone in a train station.  (Every kid loves a story about other kids making it on their own.  That's why we loved The Boxcar Children growing up.)  You have to keep reading to find out how he came to be alone and why he feels he must keep this a secret.  Then a seemingly heartless old man takes something from him and he must try to get it back.  In the process, he discovers that the old man has a mystery of his own and is somehow connected to his late father through a mechanical man with a secret message.

We ended up truly enjoying this book and as soon as we finished we rented the movie at Redbox for family movie night.  Warning--the movie is long like the book and I'm told that it's better in 3D, but we enjoyed watching how the mystery unfolds while the characters came to life on screen.

Caffeine Addiction and Head Injuries--My Post-Lent Sacrifice

Before Lent I read an article about giving something up for the season, which is not part of my Methodist upbringing I can assure you, but the author listed some great reasons to adopt this discipline so I decided to join my Catholic sisters and sacrifice something for 40 days. I want to grow in dependence on God and humility toward my fellow women...yes, count me in! The question is, how to choose? What would be sufficiently costly? The article said to ask myself what I could not live without?

Easy.

Facebook and Coffee.

Shallow. I totally know. Can I give you my excuses? Can I? OK thanks. Here's the reason for my Facebook addiction: I am alone most of the time. I am not an alone kind of girl. Facebook helps me feel like there's people around even when there isn't. So when I'm lonely, I log on and check out what my 600+ closest friends are up to. (Bo calls me "Facebook easy" because I'll say yes to anyone who invites me to be their friend.) As you can imagine, keeping up with over 600 friends takes A LOT of time. I confess, it has become a huge distraction/waste-of-time.

As for coffee...I'm just addicted. Plain and simple.

So I wimped out. I chose Facebook. Only I didn't give it up completely because it is useful and people actually communicate with each other there. It's a great tool when used correctly--how else would I have known to bring lunch to a friend whose daughter was in the hospital or collected some great baseball stuff for a kid in our town who has never played and his parents can't afford all the gear? So I didn't go cold-turkey. I just needed to set some parameters. I'm realizing how pathetic this is as I write it...my big sacrifice in life for 40 days was to limit my Facebook time to 20 minutes every day. Wow, I would make a terrible Catholic!! Really, Jesus died for me and I give myself a time limit?

A theological aside: This just proves, yet again, that the Christian life is all about GRACE. When we hold up our piddly offerings next to His outrageous love, there is no doubt that He is the one who accomplishes the thing.

It turns out that my meager sacrifice was, and is, a really good thing. I installed this thing (maybe they call it an application) on my browser called Waste No Time and it locks me out of Facebook after 20 minutes. And no, I don't have one of those fancy phones that let's me look at it on there so I really was limited to 20 minutes. Guess what? Even though Lent is over I'm keeping it. It's good for me.

One result is that since I only had a few minutes to read people's updates I decided to unsubscribe to a bunch of people. I didn't go as far as Un-friending them because that's not exactly how I feel about them, but there are a number of people that I don't really need to know what's happening in their lives on a daily basis. This is reality. Sorry 600+ friends. I know, we're so close you are devastated. Please, forgive me.

So all in all, despite my pathetic offering, I've been feeling like practicing this discipline for Lent was a positive. But THEN...

something REALLY crazy happened....

A week before Easter I got some kind of stomach bug and for two days I stopped drinking coffee. The reason I figured it out was because my head was killing me. Bo asked me if I was feeling better and I had to say that my stomach was fine, but I felt like CRAP.

That was all I needed to start part 2 of my meager Lenten sacrifice, but by then Lent was practically over. I decided to go for it anyway. My theory is that if you can get past the first two excruciating days you've done the hardest part. So here I am, it's been over a week and I have not had any coffee. Not a drop. I have had some tea, which I'm not sure is decaffeinated because it's from China and I can't read Chinese. This is, once again, where the GRACE comes in and believe me I need it; this one is way worse than a Facebook time limit.

Hoo boy. It's not pretty. I'm dragging, which last week I thought was because of having a sick kid and not being able to exercise, but no, I'm just dragging.

I'm moody. Wait. I was probably like that before. But really, it's worse. Ask my family.

This is the weirdest symptom--I have sustained multiple head injuries since quitting coffee. I'm not kidding. I just keep bumping my head for no apparent reason. One of them would be quite obvious were it not for my slightly-manly, bushy eyebrows covering the bump. It's like my head has become uncoordinated or something and I truly attribute this to caffeine withdrawal. Now don't go reporting this to some medical journal. My one-woman study is hardly scientific. It's just a theory.

Despite these set-backs I am determined to persevere. I'm wondering though if I will go back to my addiction as soon as the 40 days are over or if, like my Waste No Time thing, I will decide to keep it.

Please weigh in. Have any of you gone caffeine-free? Please tell me the benefits since I have yet to experience any. I've read a few articles online about how terrible it is to be addicted to caffeine, but I gotta tell you, I really didn't mind all that much. I guess there are worse things to be addicted to, but there are probably better things too.

If I don't stop banging my head on things I may just forget that I've given up coffee altogether!

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I Don't Want To!

Bo asked me the other morning why I haven't been writing recently. Roy suggested that I just don't know what to write about. I thought about it for a second and instead of taking the easy out by agreeing with him, I decided to confess my real reason. If I can't tell my family the truth, who can I tell?

I do know what to write about. These last few weeks I've been going through a kind of internal struggle. Heart level stuff that has been kind of festering and needs to be dealt with. One of those seasons where God is doing surgery on an old wound.

I know exactly what to write about, but here's the truth--I don't WANT to!

I wish I were an expert at something. Then I could write about that thing with confidence. But I'm not. I am one of those people who only acts like I know things, but really, I only know a little bit about a few things. I can't write from a position of authority.

The only thing I know anything about is what goes on in my own heart and mind. These are the things I write about because that's all I've got. But when I discover an ugly truth about the state of my heart and mind, I'd really rather not talk about it. I'm too fragile to be a writer.

So I've been holding back and holding out. I say that God is healing things, but I know that the real healing will come as I peel the bandages off and let the light in. And I know that writing about my journey will help me sort it out...it always does. Right now I'm not sure where to even begin so I'm beginning by explaining my absence. It's OK if you didn't notice I was missing.

Here's my promise to myself---I will keep writing--even if I don't want to. I will sort out the ugly heart stuff and share and trust that God knows how fragile I am and will not let me shatter to pieces...or if I do shatter to pieces, he will glue me back together!

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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