What I'm reading...

I am a self-help book fanatic. I read self-help books like others read best sellers. I'm not sure they've done all that much good (!) but hey... I'm open to new ideas. Before I talk about the newest self-help book I've read, I do want to mention a book called HAPPINESS by Will Ferguson. It's fiction - wonderful fiction! - about what would happen if self-help books actually worked (the end of civilization as we know it!). Truly a great read with a few belly laughs and a lot to think about. But I digress... I just finished Beth Lisick's HELPING ME HELP MYSELF. It's self-help that reads like fiction. Beth and husband are reasonably successful in their own careers, but careening down a path of chaos and financial ruin. Not normally a self-help book reader, Beth decides to devote one year of her life to improve all aspects of her life, and chooses ten of the most widely known self-help authors and speakers, and pay attention to what they have to say. She reads the books, attends seminars, talks to the authors themselves. If you're a self-help book junkie like I am, you'll know every author she mentions and will have probably read their bestsellers. If you're a self-help skeptic like I am, you may know the ending before you get to it. Beth writes of the basic theories of each author in a funny "Cliff Notes" style. Whether or not you improve your life by reading this book is almost unimportant. What's important is that it's just a plain good read with lots of laughs and no deep introspective thinking required.

CAUTION - This is WAY too funny!

Make sure you're not drinking anything when you view this video... you might snort it right out your nose! This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. It's right up there with Roseanne Barr in her early days (back when she was funny, not sarcastic). Great stuff. If you have problems viewing it you can also see it at http://mrshughes.com . Enjoy!

Monday's To Do List

My To Do list isn't all that long today, so I hope to get through it early and move on to some quilting. The temperatures today are to be in the mid-50's, so this afternoon I want to turn the heat off and open windows and air out the house -- at least for 30 minutes or so. Nothing like fresh air to make a house feel clean! I may even grab a cup of coffee this afternoon and go sit on the deck and do some hand quilting for a bit (actually, in this case, it's UN-hand quilting as I'm ripping out a quilt that needs to be re-quilted!). My To Do List -- Make bed - done -- Jeff's breakfast - done -- Pack Jeff's lunch - done -- Clean kitchen, run dishwasher, empty trash -- Vac downstairs -- Dust dining room -- Clean upstairs bathrooms -- Cobweb patrol* upstairs and down -- Windex front and back doors, outside windows I can reach -- Freeze leftover chicken soup * Cobweb patrol is simply walking around the house with a long-handled dusting brush and sweeping out room corners, tops of draperies and curtains, and light fixtures. That's not bad - maybe two hours of work at the most, if I stay focused. (Repeating to myself, "Stay OFF the computer...stay OFF the computer..." I also want to find a recipe (oops - so much for "stay off the computer"....) for something sweet but not over-the-top sugary. Jeff has a real sweet tooth, and I've not been buying any kind of desserts since the first of the year, with the exception of sugar-free cookies for his lunch. Maybe I'll make some kind of baked fruit with a crumble crust and some sugar free whipped cream... Not sure yet, but I would like to bake something for him. I know if I mix 1/3 splenda with 1/3 stevia and 1/3 sugar I can cut the sugar dramatically from almost any recipe and still have the end result with a good sweet taste... We'll see what I can come up with. If my sister Sarah is reading this - Hi Sarah! So glad to hear you're home and recovering from your surgery!!! I have a letter almost ready to mail to you -- hopefully I'll get it done before our mail lady arrives this afternoon, but if not, definitely in the mail to you tomorrow. And thanks for those things you mailed to me -- I'll make sure Gail gets her stuff, but I have no idea where Rick is. Big hug!!! Now go lay down and rest some more! (Shaking my MOM finger at you!) Not to bring up the whole buying-a-car-for-Mary incident again, but I saw this quote this morning and thought to myself, "That's why I don't mind helping Mary buy a car." She's been through the clouds and the rain in her life - but the rain clouds have almost passed her by and it's time for her to begin the harvest. "Truths are first clouds; then rain, then harvest and food." — Henry Ward Beecher It's going to be a GOOD productive day! I can feel it already... Enjoy it everyone!

When I was a girl...

Someone sent us a joke about how different kids of today have it from those who were kids in the 1980's. That got me thinking about how different things were when I was young... No, I didn't walk 25 miles in snowstorms to get to school (I lived 5 doors down from the school -- however, I did walk that in New Hampshire winters with a cast on my foot that exposed my toes! LOL). But when I stop and think about how technology has changed since I was a child... it's amazing. And boy, some of it makes me feel O-L-D!

-- The first phone I remember at our home was a CRANK telephone -- and our phone number was 114. When you cranked the phone it put you in touch with "Hazel" the phone operator in town, and you told her what number you wanted to reach. Long Distance was all but non-existent. I remember long distance phone calls being made ONLY during emergencies and then they were very difficult to hear and understand the caller!

-- Call Waiting - Ha! If your phone rang you just answered it and hoped for the best. You had no idea who was calling and you had no capability of dodging phone calls you didn't want to take.

-- Remote controls for TV's? No such thing. Cable TV? No such thing. Our first TV was black and white with rabbit ear antennae, and you had to physically get up and change the channel when needed. But that wasn't so bad -- we only had 4 channels (NBC, CBS, ABC and PBS) and they didn't even come on the air until 3pm. I also remember the very first show of General Hospital, which I used to race home from school to watch every day!

-- Computers - nope, no such thing. Email? Nope - we sat down and hand wrote our letters, and had to trudge to the post office to buy a stamp and mail them off. Going to the post office every day to get your mail was what brought our small town together. You met everyone at the post office, said hello and chit-chatted for a few minutes. It was the heart of our community.

-- The Internet - no such thing (not even a twinkle in someone's eye at the time). When we wanted to do research for homework, we spent hours at the library -- which, by the way, was open only on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday, so that meant advance planning or your homework didn't get done in time!

-- MP3 players - DVD players (or for that matter VHS players) - No such thing. If you wanted to watch a movie, it was either a TV movie or you drove 30 miles to a theatre. My first movie was Disney's FANTASIA when I was around 10 years old, and I don't remember going to another until years later.

-- Restaurants - Fast food restaurants did not exist. Our town had only one small local diner (and that was none too clean and I wasn't allowed to go in it!). Until I was married, I had never had pizza or chinese food! We did go to a restaurant as a family when we drove the 400 miles to my grandmother's house -- once a year at best. The restaurant of choice was Howard Johnson's because that served the food most like what was cooked at home.

-- Shopping, shopping malls - The nearest department store was 30 miles away, which you did not drive without much pre-planning and preparation. Personally, I don't ever remember going clothes shopping, though I imagine my mother must have. School shopping was easy. My mother brought out the Sears catalog and we picked two outfits we wanted. Girls were not allowed to wear anything but dresses or skirts to school (in New Hampshire winters you wore "ski pants" under your skirt/dress and removed it once you got to school). There was no clothing store of any kind in our town, unless you count the hardware store that carried work clothes for the men.

-- Credit Cards - did not exist. You either had the money to buy what you wanted - or you didn't buy it. No long thought process needed to figure out what you could or could not afford. You looked in your pocket to see what the budget was for any item.

-- Video games - No such thing. As kids and even teenagers, we headed out the door after breakfast and returned when it got dark. In elementary school we played some great creative fantasy games -- like "horse" and "colonial times". We used our imagination and kept ourselves busy. We rode bikes a LOT, and roller skated and jump roped and hop-scotched. We had some "wicked good" games of tag and hide and seek. We'd walk a half mile or mile to a friend's house just to see if they were doing anything fun! If not, we'd walk on to the next friend's house.

So what have I seen in my lifetime? The entire world become tiny through computers, the internet, cable television and phone service. I see communities and neighborhoods full of strangers who barely know each other's names because there's no single place they meet and greet each other. I see neighborhoods bare of children because they're in the house playing video games or on the Internet, and because being outside on a bike more than 100 feet from the safety of your home can be dangerous. Today your "home town" is simply the town you know your way around the best -- not the town that helped you grown up, watched over you, and kicked you in the butt when you needed it.

I'm a child of the 1950's and consider myself lucky for being so. The kids of today may have it "easier" but, in my book, they do not have it "better". From that time I have life-long friends who are so very precious to me to this day, and fond memories of a town that helped me grow up because the adults took a minute to talk with the children, or because they had the heart to call my parents when I needed a kick in the butt. Yes, all the new technology is wonderful and convenient and even educational -- but it will never replace what is missing in our children's hearts and moral upbringing.

Life is Good

Picture to the left is Brayden Lee tasting grape tomatoes for the first time. We saw them in a magazine we were looking at together, so I got them out of the fridge so he could taste them. Notice his buddy, Joey, next to him on the stool.

In times of stress or even just life getting a little bizarre (because, after all, the latest car incident hasn't been all that stressful for ME), it's always a good idea to count your blessings. So here's what I'm grateful for today:

--My house is clean (enough).

--My laundry is done.

--I talked to my daughter and grandson first thing this morning. All is well with them.

--I sat down and had breakfast with my husband this morning.

• It's not snowing out.
• Spring will get here.
• I am feeling very good physically.
• I have spent a lot of time quilting lately.
• I have a valid excuse (no car) for not going to a luncheon today.
• I finished reading Jane Austen's Emma last night.
• It's almost time for race season to start back up!
• I saw a beautiful sunrise this morning.
• After being quiet over the holidays, my Yahoo group has livened back up again
• I found bed raisers on Amazon, where I have some money left from a gift certificate! These will be used to raise my cutting table in my quilt room.
• My grandson is spending the day with me tomorrow. I have a present for him. I took a picture of Joey (the killer cat) on the "quilt" Brayden made for him (see my other blog ) and have framed it for his room. I know he will love it! Picture to the right shows Joey on his "quilt".
• I woke up this morning 5 minutes before the alarm went off.
• My not having a car right now is a blessing in disguise -- I save money by not shopping, not running to the grocery store during the week, not buying gas. It's all good.
• I'm back in touch with my friend, Karen, from New Hampshire. She's been a friend for more than 20 years and I'm so delighted to hear from her again!
• I'm back in touch with my sister, Sarah. She actually hand writes and mails letters. It's such a joy these days to get a hand written letter!
• I love my life.

It's just the way I'm feeling today -- it's all good.