I usually tend to live a relatively regimented life. I have daily routines and, for me, doing something every day is always the way to go. I am more likely to ride the bike 20 minutes a day every day than to do it for 45 minutes three times a week. When I do something every day it leaves no room for postponement. Every day means today is the day I do it because every day is the day I do it.
Simple.
And also sometimes a bit hard. Regimented. No wiggle room.
Sometimes I can find that I am feeling constricted by my own rules.
So this morning I woke up and decided it would be a holiday day. I acted like I was away on holiday and gave myself the day off.
The Best Part of this Week: The best part of this week was that it was no meeting week, it was half a week because I had some vacation and thus it was really quiet.
I celebrate: finally taking some real vacation
I am grateful for: downtime
This week, I exercised: I’ve still been riding, climbing, doing core, arms, restorative yoga and stretching regularly.
This week, I said yes to: really really slowing down.
I said no to: pushing through or checking my email on vacation.
I honored my values (love, learn, peace, service, gratitude): i feel closer to these than before. walking in the right direction.
Top Goals Review: it’s been a few weeks since last update so i will skip these.
My mood this week was: quiet. peaceful.
I am proud of: taking the time i needed and helping center myself.
I release: it’s sunday night so i release what didn’t get done this weekend.
Here’s what I learned this week: it is ok to soften, it’s ok to do aimless art, and it’s ok to let go.
Over ten years ago, I wrote an article for an online photography site. It was about how I take all the pictures in my family so I am never in any of them and that if something were to happen to me, my kids would not have photos to remember me by.
That day I vowed to get in the picture more and started our family photo tradition. Ten years and more and we are still at it. My favorite tradition.
This was a rich, atmospheric mystery read. When a girl disappears in a small, religious town, everyone’s secrets slowly start surfacing. Not a lot of likeable characters in this story but they were all very 3-dimensional and I like that there weren’t plot twists just for the sake of shock value.
What a gem of a book. This story of a girl who has to fend for herself for 55 days while her mother is gone is an absolute gem. It’s full of heart and it will break your heart and slowly put it back together. It’s a fantastic read, highly recommended. Grief, coping, friendship, companionship, loneliness.
What a fantastically well-written mystery of a novel. This is about the aftermath of a bar shooting. You get to experience the perspective of those who die, a survivor, the mother of the shooter, and the wife of an injured party. The characters are rich and well-done. The story is layered and engaging and creates room for you to empathize with each character. Beautifully done.
super-fun light read about several women who, for different reasons, are experiencing break ups, separations, divorce or widowhood. They are brought together by a book club at their local book store and they support each other. Very enjoyable.
Tara Brach is right at the top of my list of people whom I can never read enough. I’ve listened to her classes for years, I’ve read all of her books and I’ve learned something new each time. I’m reminded of things I’d learned and forgotten already and things that I know I need to hear again and again. She never ever disappoints and I cannot recommend this book enough. It’s a distillation of a lot of her stories, thoughts, encouragements, and lessons. As always, it’s told in her gentle style and it’s gold.
I am not going to rate this one because I don’t feel like I’ve read enough of it. At the 25% mark, which is about 160 pages in, I finally decided to put it down. I loved Doerr’s previous book and could not wait to read this one, but it just isn’t the book for me. At least not right now. I found myself skimming large chunks of it. The story switches around between times, genres and characters too much for me to get invested in any one character and I find myself feeling confused constantly. Many people loved this book so maybe I will give it another try in the future.
with gratitude to edelweiss and Scribner for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
She said “I’d like to get even closer to you, but I can’t.” “I know. If it were up to me, we’d sift together like sand, until we were inseparable.”
This is the story of Mike who runs into his old flame, June, years later in New York and they get together. The story is written in a very disjointed manner, that, for me, was hard to follow and consume. It’s bits and pieces of their life as they navigate this relationship and New York City and try to figure out aspects of their lives and who they are to each other.
To Tere: “I call her at work it’s like I’m talking to a different person. It’s whiplash, from how she is on the weekend to how she is Monday, which is all business. On the weekend, I’m reassured by her tone, if not by what she says. During the week, I’m out here on my own again.”
There were many sentiments, observations, thoughts I loved in the book. Little sentences here and there that were so profound, so human, so true.
She’d turned me inside out. Or I’d done it for her. I felt as though my heart was on the outside, beating. There was never enough of her. I could never get close enough, never possess her completely enough.
In the end, while I enjoyed this story, it didn’t come together for me in the way in which I would have hoped. The bits and pieces style kept the characters at a distance so I never felt immersed in the story.
with gratitude to netgalley and Soft Skull Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
“Truly, it is as if I do not exist, I guess is the closest thing I can say. I mean I do not exist in the world. It could be as simple as the fact that we had no mirrors in our house when I was growing up except for a very small one high above the bathroom sink. I really do not know what I mean, except to say that on some very fundamental level, I feel invisible in the world.”
I adore Elizabeth Strout. She simply does not disappoint. Her characters are so real, so three-dimensional and textured and layered and flawed and yet perfect. Her writing is so simple, so profound and so quiet. Her writing and story in this book felt like cotton to me, it felt like it was holding me and being so very gentle with me.
“Whenever I don’t know what to do, I watch what I am doing.”
I loved the two previous Lucy Barton books so I was excited to have more of her. This one is about William, her ex-husband as he navigates some major challenges in his life and Lucy is there to support, be a witness and be a friend to him. They are both old and the interactions of the two was very interesting to read.
“But I thought: It’s odd, because on one hand I think I am invisible, but on the other I know what it is like to be marked as separate from society, only in my case no one knows it when they see me.”
But the best part of the book, for me, was not what happened or the other characters but Lucy herself and the way she thinks, the way she processes the world around her and the way she feels in the world. Her observations about other people says so much about her and how she is in the world.
“I thought about Lois Bubar. I thought how she seemed healthy; I mean she seemed inside herself, as I have said, in a way that was comfortable.”
I loved every single moment I spent with this book and I cannot wait to read more of Elizabeth Strout’s books.
with gratitude to netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
He liked the idea of traveling with someone whom he could not trust completely. It would encourage him, even more than usual, to share no secrets.
Although I’ve wanted to, I’ve never read a book by Colm Tóibín before and nor have I read any books by Thoman Mann, so I am not exactly sure why I requested this ARC when I saw it but I am so glad I did.
This is the story of Thomas Mann from when he was a young child to his death. It covers decades of history contextualized within Mann’s life. It covers his family dynamics for his family of origin and then his relationship with his wife, his children and more.
It has a lot of backstory about his books and how they came to be. How they were received, what they meant to him and his life.
More than anything, he wished to live intensely in the voracious moments before this, in the sure knowledge that it would happen.
It also has a lot of the politics of the time. As a German who was in Germany all throughout the beginning of World War II, there is a lot of politics and the impact its had on his life (and books, and family, etc.)
There is so much interesting content here and it’s so incredibly well-told that I could not stop reading it. The family issues, suicide, politics, sibling rivalry, fatherhood, being gay at a time when it was not acceptable, fleeing war, citizenship and belonging, being an artist, writing novels, marriage, and so so much more is covered in this beautiful book.
He wanted to tell Golo, who was now thirty-two, that Elisabeth had declared that after the age of thirty no one had the right to blame their parents for anything.
I am so very glad that I requested this novel and I cannot recommend it enough.
with gratitude to edelweiss and Scribner for an advanced copy in return for an honest review
