Carrie Bartkowiak v. 5.0

Normally my method of reading books can best be described as “devouring”. I normally read a book in one long sitting and always finish a book within 24 hours of opening it. I LOVE to read. I’m also a one-book-at-a-time person; I never could get into slowly reading parts of several different books at once.

Well, lately my reading has taken a serious dive. I’ve been so busy decluttering the house (yes, this is STILL going on - told you we had way too much stuff) that I just haven’t had made time to read. Which is not good, as I have a bookshelf full of library books that I can’t keep forever! (I’ve become best friends with the library’s online renewal feature.) And let’s just say that it’s a dangerous thing for me to step inside my favorite thrift store. Their book selection is unbeatable (especially kids’ books for homeschooling).

Hence, I’m joining the Spring Reading Thing from Callapidder Days. I’ll be using this post as a way to keep track of what I’ve read, what I intend to read, and what I don’t get to in time to beat the library due date. You’ll notice that I’ve become a non-fiction hog; it used to be that I slurped up as many fantasy (as in dragons, not Fabio) novels as possible, but once you fall out of that for a couple of years the to-read list of your favorite authors seems to expand exponentially! Merely looking at the offerings from authors like R.A. Salvatore and Margaret Weiss that are available now makes my head spin. Never mind trying to figure out in which order to read a series of books - why don’t they list this simply inside the cover? (”Massive Trilogy: Book 1 - This one Book 2 - This other one Book 3 - this last one”) Anywho, this wasn’t meant to turn into a rant.

On with the list! Note: I’m including books I’ve read lately, and audiobooks, just because it’s my blog and I can, lol. It’ll help me keep track and that’s the whole point of this for me.

Parenting, Homeschooling, Marriage, House/Garden

• The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas - Linda Dobson
• All New Square Foot Gardening - Mel Bartholomew
• It’s All Too Much - Peter Walsh
• America’s Cheapest Family - Steve & Annette Economides
• Parenting with Love and Logic - Foster Cline & Jim Fay
• Boundaries - Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend
• Boundaries with Kids - Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend
• The Learning Coach Approach - Linda Dobson
• The Proper Care & Feeding of Marriage - Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Law of Attraction, Business, Money

• Women & Money : Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny - Suze Orman
• The Millionaire Next Door - Thomas Stanley
• Your Money or Your Life - Joe Dominguez
• Something More (Excavating Your Authentic Self) - Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Quantum Success - Sandra Anne Taylor
• The Science of Success - James Arthur Ray
• The Success Principles - Jack Canfield
• Napoleon Hill’s Keys To Success - Napoleon Hill
• How to Get What You Want (and Want What You Have) - John Gray
• The Power of Intention - Dr. Wayne Dyer
• The Secret (Audiobook) - Rhonda Byrne

Politics, History

• Godless - Ann Coulter
• Treason - Ann Coulter

Fiction

• American Gods - Neil Gaiman

And can you believe that the library just called to let me know another book from my interlibrary list has arrived and is waiting for me? And that I’m thinking of swinging by the thrift store when I go to pick up the book from the library? I’m insane.

Some interesting book statistics:

• Women buy 68% of all books. (Not surprising.)
• 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school. (Can we say “public school crushes the love of reading and learning”? I knew you could.)
• 42% of college graduates never read another book. (Sigh.)
• 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year. (Unthinkable.)

(The above cited from ParaPublishing.)

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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For eons, doctors have told us that stress brings on illness.  It’s been proven in studies, and it’s just plain common sense.  We’ve all experienced it in some form or another (hopefully nothing serious); and often the illness causes us to take a long-deserved “break” that forces us to take it easy for a while and get the rest we need.

Let’s look at the timeline of two figures currently in the news announcing that they have cancer:

- September 16 2003: John Edwards announces his campaign for President
- November 5 2004: Elizabeth Edwards announces she’s developed cancer in her breast.
- Dec. 28 2006: John Edwards starts another Presidential campaign
- March 22 2007: Elizabeth agains develops cancer; this time an uncurable Stage 4 variety of breast cancer that is spreading through her body.

- Late 2003: Popular news journalist Tony Snow, who has spent nearly 25 years writing news columns in various papers (including my own Virginian Pilot!) and doing occassional stand-ins for popular radio and talk show hosts along with regular (but not daily) appearances on television news shows, is given his own daily radio talk show on Fox News Radio.
- February 2005: Mr. Snow announces that he has colon cancer, and undergoes treatment to have his colon removed.
- April 26, 2006: Mr. Snow is picked to be the new White House Press Secretary
- March 27, 2007: Mr. Snow announces that he’s developed cancer in his abdomen, which has spread to his liver.

See an underlying theme here?
Once both of these individuals entered into a daily routine of ongoing stress, they developed cancer.  Their bodies were trying to tell them something.  Both received treatments which successfully dealt with the cancer and rid them of it in the first round.

Now, in the second round, they have again entered into stressful activities, and their cancers have returned in a much more aggressive and deadly form.

It is heartbreaking to see how clearly a person’s body will try to communicate with them; and how their own subconscious minds will manifest a physical rejection of what their conscious minds have chosen to do… and yet they ignore these blatant signposts and continue on with these activites.

If John Edwards had any sense of mind, any blip on his radar that didn’t consist of his own selfish ambitions, he’d stop his campaign immediately and ease his wife’s torture.  Obviously the daily stress is too much for her - but no matter, the White House is within reach! Ugh.

As for Tony Snow, he too should take a clue from his body and step down from his post.  He still has a vibrant career awaiting him as a popular journalist and radio/television talk show host, without the enormous stresses and pressures of being the White House’s mouthpiece.

Both of these people have young children and thriving families to think about, yet in both cases a career is being chosen over life and family.  Again I find myself lamenting the loss of  common sense.  And I see clearly how “Law of Attraction” teachers such as Joe Vitale get their basis to say that you definitely do manifest your own illnesses and attract them to you. (See how Joe openly admits that he manifested his own appendicitis here.)

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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Being a geek at heart, I occasionally run across stuff that is pretty cool, and I like to share it in a non-geekspeak way with other people. Here are four cool things I found (or was reminded of) tonight:

• Map My Run - This site uses Google Maps to pull up a map of any location you want.  Then you can click on the map to build a route that you’d like to run/walk/bike and it will measure it out for you. No more wondering if the pedometer got every single step!  I found out that walking around my neighborhood in a figure-eight pattern would net me 7/10ths of a mile. Neat, eh?
  If you keep track of your starting and ending times, and put in your weight and height, it will also tell you how many calories you burned. No registration required!  If you *do* register though (free) and use the beta version of the site, you can keep track of your total mileage and (I think) post it on your blog.
• Want to go for a walk, or exercise on your treadmill or elliptical, and share it with others? (C’mon, “sharing” is an essential part of blogging; sometimes too much so!)  Nancy over at The Ultimate Creator is hosting a virtual walk from Yorktown, Virginia to Florence, Oregon.  Each week she tabulates the miles walked from the participating group members and lets them know where they are on the map. This would be a great little exercise (no pun intended) for homeschooling mamas - take the kids with you, then at the end of the week go online and check out the “spot” that the group made it to!  Check pictures, Wikipedia, the town’s website, plot the route on a map at home… all kinds of fun stuff you could do with this. I’ve joined up just because it’s finally gotten pretty out and I want to get back into shape. No, no weight loss goals here, and forget dieting - I don’t do it (I don’t put any stock in a number on a scale, being that muscle weighs more than fat so a 150lb couch potato will look completely different than a 150lb jogger of the same age and height).  I just feel guilty that I don’t get out and walk or work out in any way.  So come walk with me!
• Paperback Swap - okay, so this site isn’t new and I actually registered for it a loooooong time ago (and forgot that I did); but I figured I’d introduce it to anyone who hadn’t found it yet.  Make a list of your books that you no longer want to keep, and offer them up online.  Someone looking for one of those books will contact you; you send the book to them and get credits through the site. You can then use those credits to request books from other members and have them sent to you.  It’s great if your book collection has gotten too large, or if there are things you’d really like to read but can’t afford them or don’t have a library close by that has those titles (something I’ve been running into a lot lately!).
• Pando Channels - the popular file-sharing program Pando has added a new feature called Channels.  It’s basically a video podcasting feature, and it’s free.  You can currently subscribe to channels such as National Geographic, NBC Nightly News, CNN’s “In Case You Missed It” news wrap-up, and a bunch of other offerings from media outlets from Mtv and E! to what looks like average people looking for a bit of fame.  Subscribe to a channel and Pando will automatically check for new videos, download them when they’re available, and you watch them at your leisure.  I recommend the Nat’l Geographic ones, and of course the news videos are a nice way to catch-up if you’re looking for a bit of current events depression.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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