Tag Archive: personal-growth



Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash CreativityEmbrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity by Felicia Day
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This has been on my Currently Reading list for a year! It wasn’t that I was struggling to read it. It was digesting and doing the homework. I highly suggest doing it the way a friend and I did it. We held each other accountable as we worked through all the tasks, well, most of them. We often thought about bringing other people on board but realized adding anyone else would make it harder to stay on task.

Both my friend and I found many of our creative issues met through Ms. Day’s carefully set up agenda toward creativity.

Felicia kept us going, her sense of humor lightening some old personal issues of social anxiety and performance anxiety, worries if our art is good enough, and seeing us through those walls we had built up for ourselves. Ms. Day told us about her own issues and helped us see from another point of view. And though her problems were from a young mother’s perspective, we could relate, having been through her issues, and could apply the precepts to our seniors years. We all feel insecure about our soul searching writing and artwork.

Whether or not you use the book in the buddy system or solo, I think you will find depths in your own abilities if you take your time and work on the tasks.

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Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear SugarTiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One day, in the last couple of months, my daughter kidnapped me so I could spend a week back in Reno. It was one of those serendipitous things that made me very happy. I got to spend time with her and with other family and friends.

My daughter loves to listen to podcasts on long trips. When she learned that I had read and watched Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, she pulled up the Dear Sugar podcasts and we enjoyed a long listen.

Once back at home I found the Dear Sugar websites and other books by Cheryl Strayed. I looked at the eBook/Overdrive local library copies. I found this copy but it was just an eBook with no text-to-speech and no audio version. I tried very hard to enjoy the book. There was wonderful advice given here.

I wanted to keep reading past the mid-point that I thought I got to, but with no way to listen it was hard to read. I will try to keep an eye out for the Audible or Kindle with TTS to read later. Besides, most of it was written for younger people. I played the kind of game I used to play with the Dear Abby advice column, see if I can give the same advice the writer does. I was pleasantly surprised that Ms. Strayed gave more personal answers and helped in deeper ways than Abby or her sister Ann Landers ever did.

I think this is a wonderful book for young people to have. I think Dear Sugar is a good podcast for those under forty. I hope to find this book again in an easier form for me to read.

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Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the WorldFluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World by Benny Lewis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I finished reading this a couple days ago. No, I was not in the haze of wanting to stay with the story or characters. This is a non-fiction about learning other languages. I didn’t want to leave this one because it helped me so much and I want to re-read it a lot more times.

As many of you know, I have been working with Duolingo learning Spanish and German. I have taken two levels of both in school but would like to be fluent in both of them. Right now I can read a bit but I feel so very elementary in both of them.

There are so many good ideas on how to learn a language and get to the point of fluency! And I read this using the Audible with the author’s voice. What a delight to hear his accent and enthusiasm! And he is a polyglot. For those of you like I was, who don’t know, that means he is fluent in many languages, all learned since he was an adult.

The best part is that there are web-links to study certain aspects of each chapter. I didn’t follow those with the first reading, but I will with the next. And I will take notes and make flashcards.

This is the best book about languages I have ever read. If you are thinking about studying another language, this should be your first book to read to give you the best start.

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Taxi - Talk (Book 5)Taxi – Talk by Sophia DeLuna

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Remember when I read the first four episodes of Taxi? Well, I got a welcome surprise after the review of the fourth one. Ms. Sophia DeLuna, the author of these great stories, sent me a sweet email that included coupons for the next three books in the series. Yay! Thank you so much. With my tight budget, it is often hard to decide if the next dollar is for food or reading. I hate to admit that I don’t look like I would if I chose books more often. Or maybe it is the fact that one can do both eating and reading comfortably at the same time?

At any rate, I got to the reading as soon as I could. And I think that Taxi 5, Talk, is one of my favorites. It is so real and honest. It touched deep emotional threads for me. This book deepens the relationship of Carmen and Ulrike. You see Carmen, still dealing with her bit of PTSD, or maybe there is a deeper issue going on, like social anxiety, depression, or other mental problems. I found I related to Carmen very much, phone phobia, isolation, etc. And Ulrike is fleshed out in how she and Carmen’s cat bond over yogurt, sharing a spoon. Carmen cringed and so did I. But as different as Carmen and Ulrike are, you see them working hard to communicate and deepen their love for each other.

By the way, I just did a review of New Hire: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…, where my complaint was that the characters weren’t deep at all. In comparison, this Taxi series has what I think give fictional characters real life. In this series, I was surprised at how well I had pictured the two characters. It had to be how the author described them. I went to the author’s website: http://www.sophiadeluna.com/ and under the Taxi category I found the author’s rendition of her characters. I would have known who they were had I met them on the street. That is how good Ms. DeLuna is creating her characters. She’s quite the artist, as well! I can’t wait to read #6!

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Other WomenOther Women by Lisa Alther

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After reading Original Sin by Lisa Alther and having a hard time liking it in any way, I had a decision to make. You see I got both of these books through Kindle Unlimited which means they were free to borrow. I thought about returning this one, Other Women, and not reading it at all. Thank goodness I didn’t. I loved this book!

If you have had a good experience with a counselor, dealing with problems of the past or current ones, this will feel familiar. I think everyone should have a good counselor once in a while to air the mental stuff that you might not want to weigh down your friends and family with. And here in Other Women there were plots and characters that felt so real that I was sorry the book ended. I think I might read it again, sometime.

Though this book ended quite well, all threads neatly sewn up, I still wish there was more. I want to see what happens next. We are left with ideas as to how life might continue, but I knew I would miss all these people as much as the real people in my life. I like when an author can do that. She created a reality that felt real.

Just saying that made me smile. Wasn’t it because Original Sins felt so real that I hated it? I think I could relate more with the characters in Other Women much more deeply than I could with the characters in Original Sins. So maybe that is why the reviews on both books had such a variety of ranks. I guess it has to do with your own viewpoint of the world.

This is one book I will have to buy someday. I think many will love it as much as I did.

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Spontaneous HappinessSpontaneous Happiness by Andrew Weil

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As someone on disability for depression and now fibromyalgia for over a decade, I felt I needed some new answers. I have always admired Dr. Andrew Weil so when my friend told me she liked it, I thought I ought to give it a try.

Kindle and their whispersynched Audible co-play helped me get through the techno-speak. Kindle’s ability to fast forward Dr. Weil’s slower speaking speed, helped this to be a fast and educational read. By the way, that was a hint my husband pointed out to me. That on smart phones, tablets and Fires one can speed up the narrator’s voice and not lose quality. It’s like the person is speaking faster, not higher like a chipmunk.

I can see that the paperback or hardback book would have its points as one could highlight or check back on references later, still, I like this version for the first run-through. That way I got the gist of what it was all about in a quick over-read. I will go back and take notes and try to follow many of the suggestions presented in this book. Meanwhile, I will try a couple ideas that stayed with me and see how they help with the mental and physical pain.

This book is well worth the read, and further study.

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Bountiful Women: Large Women's Secrets for Living the Life They Desire
Bountiful Women: Large Women’s Secrets for Living the Life They Desire by Bonnie Bernell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a slow read for me. Not that the writing was bad, but because it was the paperback version and the font was small. But it wasn’t so small that I couldn’t take it in small doses.

Going deeper, the information that gave reminders that all of us need; that we are okay as we are. Fat shaming has never helped a bountiful woman or man to lose weight. That those who are of bountiful size have had enough with dieting that doesn’t work. That trying to hide so as to avoid the critical voices, hides us from those who might be our friends or more.

Did I learn anything new here? No. Just some affirmations I had forgotten. Moreover, I wish the book had started with the ending stories. The beginning seemed a dream for those of us who have fixed incomes. The suggestions we go to health spas or invest in counseling that can also be exorbitant. Instead offering ideas to find those positive beings to come into our lives that create the kind of support we all need.

So, sorry, it’s just okay but worth the read. Find the bits, as I did, and pass it on.

I registered this one with BookCrossers, the BCID here:  473-12817834

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