Category: books

Amy Wood at Kennebooks

by Karen, posted in books, education, local fun, writing

Amy Wood spoke at Kennebooks on Saturday, February 19. Her talk was part discussion and part reading (from her new book Life Your Way), followed by a question and answer period and then book signing.

Despite it being the beginning of a school vacation week, the little upstairs room filled with people eager to hear Amy tell us how to live “life your way”.

She tells us right off the bat that “I do everything according to my intuition, ” which generated many questions from the audience about the definition of “intuition” and how it shows up in one’s every day life.  Amy considered each question  thoughtfully and answered thoroughly.

Amy generously mentions books by other authors related to intuition and recommends them for further reading on the topic. Here are a few:

  1. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
  2. Compass of the Soul (and others) by Lynn Robinson
  3. How Not to Marry the Wrong Guy by Anne Milford (coauthored with Jennifer Gauvain)

As Amy began reading aloud the chapter on “Optimism” from her book, my tween daughter grabbed my copy, found the right chapter, and began reading along, suggesting that this book can appeal to any age group. She focused on optimism because it can become a tool in your life, an “enviable skill” that can make your life easier, just as listening to your intuition, which (unlike Mapquest directions or ads from the high fructose corn syrup mongers) will never steer you wrong.

There is so much more information to sift through at any given time now that it can be helpful to just know when to stop. Joan Rivers? She is an excellent example of a person who does not know when (or how?) to stop. Seinfeld? He did.

The book is formatted so that it’s easy to read, a boon for busy, overscheduled people. Each chapter includes an “Apply the Wisdom” section at the end with a few bulleted strategies for using the points made in your everyday life right now (very user-friendly). You can start at the beginning, or let your intuition guide you to the best chapter(s) for you. 🙂 Read more about Amy’s book on my raisingmaine.com bookblog  here.

Kennebooks offered the audience the option of purchasing a bag lunch from Cheri’s in Kennebunk. For $10 you got a sandwich (choose one of three), chips, a cookie, and a bottled water. My daughter and I took advantage of this offer and split the meal. It was plenty for the two of us (we had some left over!) and it was excellent. We (my daughter and I) highly recommend that you take advantage of this offer if you ever get the chance.

Amy gives talks at different sites in Kennebunk and Portland. She will be at the Kennebunk Free Library for her workshop (which she gives quarterly) next on Tuesday, April 12 from 12:00P-1:00Pm. The presentation is enticingly titled: “Your Way and How to Find it”.  No commitment of time or money is involved. Just show up!

She will also be at the Portland Public Library on Wednesday, February 23 from 12:00PM to 1:00PM. Consider going to this (also free) event. You’ll be so glad that you did!

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Whoopie!!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, books, family, quest for the best

Maybe you’ve heard this news already, but just in case you missed it: The Great State of Maine is considering making the Whoopie Pie its official state dessert.

It wasn’t already? There are lots of places to get a great wh0opie pie, including your very own kitchen. If you take this route, here are two excellent cookbooks to consult:

  1. Whoopie Pies By Sarah Billingsley, Amy Treadwell
  2. Making Whoopies by Nancy Griffin

Did you know that there’s a Maine Whoopie Pie Association? Me neither!(Although a Google search of this phrase got me zero hits). I read about it in a Portland Press Herald Article on 2/1/11.

Did you know that there’s a whoopie pie song? Me neither!  It’s by John Linscott (see link to above article, right side of the page for the lyrics).

Want to buy your whoopies?

  1. Cranberry Island Kitchen
  2. Two Fat Cats Bakery
  3. Wicked Whoopies

No decisions were made at the first meeting. They will reconvene on February 9th.

Here’s hoping the whoopies win!

🙂

Water torture? Not!

by Karen, posted in books, health

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” ~Wayne Dyer

Last night I was trying to shut off my (monkey) mind long enough to fall asleep when I became aware of a noise that at first I couldn’t place.

What was it? Oh no…drip, drip, drip….It was water. Dripping water, like of the water torture variety.  A little more investigation gleaned some annoying information: it was from somewhere outside. You know, so that it couldn’t be shut off. OMG. I could feel my blood pressure inching up as I was freaking out about my coming sure-to-be-sleepless night of listening to the drip-drip-dripping water (icicles melting from the roof) when I suddenly had another thought. This time though, it was a useful thought.

It was Wayne Dyer’s quote (above) that popped into my head. I had heard it earlier that day in an audiobook.  There was not a thing on God’s green earth that I could do at 10 o’clock at night to stop the dripping water outside, but hey, maybe I could change how I was thinking about the dripping water?

I gave it a try:

  1. I’m grateful for the roof over my head.
  2. I’m happy to be in my own bed in my own home.
  3. Maybe the dripping is not so bad?
  4. What if I try to meditate? I could say the “So Hum” meditation (the one that I know I can do without thinking too much about it).
  5. What if every time I notice a drip, I (mentally) say the word “So”, then the next drip, I say the word “Hum”, and so on?  Which at least gave me something constructive to do and actually might coax my blood pressure back down to an acceptable level?

Well…guess what! It worked! I still heard it, but it didn’t make me anxious or mad anymore. In an odd sort of way, it felt comforting. So here’s a corollary to Wayne’s quote: If you change the way you listen to things, the things you listen to change.

🙂

The Universe’s ‘to-do’ list

by Karen, posted in books, education
My water tote!

I was rereading the book Ask and It Is Given by Jerry and Esther Hicks (which happened to be a book that I already owned) after my friend Stacey Brooks of Mainely You Massage recommended it.  In it, the authors describe 22 processes that anyone can practice to improve their life.

One of them is a twist on a ‘to-do’ list. Here’s what you do: get a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On one side at the top of the column write “My ‘to-do’ list” and put down the things that you want to get done today. No writing down a hundred things; just the things that you really will do that day.

On the other side of the paper, write “The Universe’s ‘to-do’ list” and put down all of those other things that you want to get done, but don’t know how to get them done (or just don’t feel like actually doing).

I had been looking for something I had misplaced for a week with no luck, so I figured, What the heck? I got dutifully got out my paper, made my two columns, and on the left (my) side, I wrote: write, read, work, have fun and feel good. On the right (Universe’s) side I wrote  (among other things) : return my water cup in the black tote to me.

Then I forgot about it. An hour later, I had located my lost item! I didn’t even remember writing the list until several hours after that when I was gathering up my papers to get ready to leave work.

Maybe it was a coincidence?

Kate Braestrup’s new book

by Karen, posted in books, family

Kate Braestrup’s new book is Beginner’s Grace and is a book about prayer: learning about it, thinking about it, finding occasions to engage in it. Kate talks about occasions of prayer that are present in one’s everyday life, and offers some simple words that people can use if they don’t already have their own. She describes prayer as a “practice”, like yoga, or medicine.

For people who want to pray but aren’t sure how to begin, or can’t remember to pray, or don’t know what to say, she firsts suggests that you try linking praying to another activity that you are unlikely to forget to do on any given day: eating, toothbrushing. She also shares some small prayers that you can say if you don’t already have one in mind. My favorite is the all-purpose, universal, emergency prayer that Kate says everyone already knows:             “OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod!!!”

Other prayer-worthy occasions: bedtime, plane rides, loved ones leaving the house for the day (“threshold” prayers), illnesses and accidents. Kate also shares stories from her job as the chaplain to the Maine Game Warden Service, which are always interesting. What I love about Kate’s writing is that she delivers her message with such warmth and humor that you almost don’t realize that you are actually learning from her writing.

My only other comment is this: I listened to this book on audio CD, and was disappointed that it was not read by the author, as were Marriage and Other Acts of Charity, and Here if You Need Me. I think reading it was a “lesser” experience than it would have been if Kate’s voice had delivered her own words. (Oh, and that whole part about “feet?”  Whaaaa….?)

My new year’s word: Part 2

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, Holidays, Karen's Kitchen, Pantry Project, writing

I finally did choose my one word for 2011; my word is:  EDIT. I’m loving this word for many reasons.

  1. I can actually remember it! It works its way up from my unconscious with very little effort on my part. Bam! It’s there, remember to ‘edit’!
  2. It applies to my Pantry Project: use the food I have already before going out to buy more food. I’m editing my pantry (and freezer and fridge) contents by using up what’s there already. Today: Chicken Orzo Soup in the crock pot; all ingredients already here in the pantry (orzo, bay leaf, parsley, chicken broth, onions, garlic) and freezer (chicken thighs, end of a block of parm cheese) and fridge (tomato paste, carrots).
  3. It applies to my book: I finished the book and now am working on the editing.
  4. It applies to my (and everyone else’s too, actually) closet. I’m working on whittling the contents of all of them (hint: do the tween’s closet when she’s not at home) so that we have more space. 🙂
  5. It applies to my diet: I’m trying to eat less. Editing the choices that are readily available makes eating better more likely (hel-lo….can’t eat the cookies at 10pm if there aren’t any in the house). Full disclosure: this one is one of those obvious things that my husband pointed out to me.

How’s it going for the rest of you with your new year’s word/resolutions?

A room with a view

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, writing
The view from my room this morning

I got to have an entire room of my own (with a view!) in which to work on editing my book.

This is big; you see, I’ve never had my own room before.

My husband, after realizing that I had an extra day off this week said, “Hey, get a room!”…Well, even though he didn’t mean what I thought he meant…it still turned out to be a great thing.

Here’s what he proposed: I get a room, pack up my laptop, book draft, notebooks, and anything else I thought I’d need, go there and work on my book. Alone. Away from the laundry. Away from the dishes. Away from the fam (I love them all, but I always stop what I’m doing because I want to do things for them, as my husband pointed out, instead of doing things for me).

I arrived at the (cheap! off-season! weekday rate!) room around 1:45pm, worked until 6pm, when my husband and daughter arrived with supper. It was one of my favorite meals:  sausage pizza from Spiller Farm (Jeannine Spiller makes an awesome pizza!) and a bottle of Diet Coke. We ate together, balancing pizza on napkins on our laps as we perched on the edge of the bed (Izzy got the chair). Life was good. Then they went home and I continued working until 10pm.

Having a great excuse (for the second week in a row) to skip the gym, I picked up some pre-dawn breakfast and got back to work by 6:45am. I worked until noon and managed to finish the first round of edits on my manuscript. While I was working, I set a timer, and every thirty  minutes I took a break, jumped up to do a minute or two of yoga, then got back to work.

Structure…it’s a beautiful thing. 🙂

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New Year’s Eve, tween style

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, friends, Holidays, local fun, movies, tweens, writing

Today was a “Girl’s only” day for me and my tween. We had originally planned to go shopping to spend gift cards received for Christmas (both for her and for me) but then changed the plan to include a movie with a friend. (We never did go shopping with the gift cards, come to think of it…)

She and her friend went back and forth for a few days about which movie to see, Yogi Bear or Gulliver’s Travels.  Neither movie received great reviews, from the critics nor from her older brother, so as far as I was concerned, it was a toss-up. In the end, they chose Gulliver. I braced myself and we settled in for the show.

Well, from a parental standpoint, it wasn’t too terrible (except for when Jack Black was showing his “plumber’s crack” in the beginning. Eeew.). There were a few laughs, and the cast was likeable. The tweens gave it “two thumbs up!”  however, and those are the opinions that really matter, right?

After that, we did a quick food shopping (hey, Hannaford’s was right next door; why  make a second trip?), then back to the house. The girls had a few laughs playing Wii sports, Zsu Zsu pets, and listening to CD’s while I put away the groceries, paid the bills that came in today’s mail (ugh), and wrote quick book blog post.

Then we brought her friend home and came back to make supper: linguini, turkey, roasted red peppers in garlic, butter, and olive oil…pea pods added to Mom’s. After supper, we played a quick building game with magnets, thenwe finished the day with a little couch time, watching iCarly. I promised to wake her up if I am awake at midnight, but the odds of that are VERY SLIM. 🙂

Linguini with roased red peppers and turkey
...and pea pods added for Mom

Fun with tweens on the weekend

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, friends, local fun, shopping, tweens

My tween daughter invited a friend to spend the day, and as the 7 hours loomed ominously unfilled ahead of us, I wondered:  What the heck should we do?  

First, I decided to do something for me: I had a 20% coupon to Kennebooks in Kennebunk so that was our first stop. A quick check of the local paper told me that they were having an Open House that started at 10:30am, so it was just me and my tween for this. When we arrived, there was a kids “author event” so we headed down for that, but it turned out to be for littler kids, so we did some browsing for an hour. I bought a book for a friend for Christmas.

Sigh. I love to be with the books. But I digress…

Next, we picked up the friend and headed for the library. They browsed the shelves, and checked out some books, and then harassed me until I gave up and said, “Okay, yes! I’m ready to leave too!”.  While we were there, we found a new cookbook called Betty Crocker’s Just the two of us, and they spied a recipe while flipping through it that they wanted to make. Since we had all of the ingredients already, I agreed.

Lunch was next, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I took the easy way out: McDonald’s was right nearby, and since it was almost 1pm and they were “starving”, we headed there next. In my defense, we haven’t eaten McD’s food in months, so here’s hoping that it didn’t do us too much damage. We drove through and brought it home to eat it (their choice).

Then we made the Double Chocolate Snack Cake.

Izzy and Ivy, the bakers

They did a great job! I helped a little but they were really in charge of the recipe (I was in charge of the oven) and it turned out really great. We ate most of it fairly quickly.

After that, they hula hooped and played on the swing in the yard, fed bread to the chickens, and played a few hands of cards: Uno, War.

Then, they actually read the books that they checked out of the library for a little while.
I had to run to Hannaford’s and they were thrilled to come with me. They got free cookies at the bakery, and free samples of cheese and turkey at the deli. They even watched the cart full of groceries after I realized that the most important thing that I went there to buy, I had forgotten, so I had to go back and get it and run through the cashier’s line again. (Hey, at least I remembered before I got back home; I figured that I was ahead of the game!)

When we got back, I made them spaghetti for supper, and after we finished eating they had another little bit of time to play.

They watched a little TV: one episode of iCarly, and one episode of Drake and Josh. Then they played some songs on the electric keyboard for a while.

When it was time for her friend to go home, they had even picked up after themselves!

It was a great day; I even was able to get my 2,000 words written in between everything else. Life is good!

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What I didn’t do today

by Karen, posted in books, writing

These are all of the things I didn’t do today on my day off from nursing, wife-ing, and  mothering.

  1. Read. Well, okay I did read a little, but only the local newspaper, briefly, while I was eating my minestrone soup, with a cup of coffee and a gingerbread muffin chaser.
  2. Knit. I have a hat that’s 3/4 of the way finished, calling to me from the jumble of bags in the Sterlite storage bucket in the entry.
  3. Visit the ocean. I didn’t go. I wanted to go, but every time the thought presented itself, I had to push it away, and concentrate on what I was doing.
  4. Bake. I have a perfectly good recipe for whoopie pies right there on my kitchen island; I can see it from where I’m sitting. “No! Focus! You can bake later!!”
  5. Shop. I have a (large) pile of newspaper clippings, coupons, flyers, and circulars for amazing, limited time only sales on the presents that I need for upcoming birthdays, not to mention Christmas. 

What did I do instead? I wrote 2,243 more words of my book.

(Okay, full disclosure: I didn’t have the day off from houseworking. Does anyone, ever? I did four loads of wash, made butternut squash soup and baked a loaf of bread to go with it, took care of the chickens, and boiled potatoes for home fries).

My book in progress!

Last year, I read about National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano) coming up in November, and thought, What a great idea! Maybe I’ll do that! Of course, I did not. Instead, I thought, next year…I’ll do it next year. Well, next year is now this year.

Oh-oh. Time to walk the talk. If I was going to do this, I needed a plan. NaNoWriMo waits for no woman. The premise is that you write a 50,000 word book during the month of November, beginning at 12:00AM November 1 and ending at 12 midnight on November 30. Somewhere in the world, the writing powers that be decided that 50,000 is the minimum number of words in a book for it to be considered a novel.

I figured out that if I wrote at least 2.000 words every day, I would finish my novel by month’s end (or at least 50,000 words of it). November would come and go either way. Last November came and went and I had no book to show for it.

This year will be different.

As of right this minute, I have written 42,139 words of my 50,000. I can see the finish line.

Since I’ve hit my 2,000 words for today already, hmmmm…maybe I’ll do a little shopping after all… 🙂