Jenny's Book Bag

Review coming soon.

Review coming soon.

A friend of mine handed me this book and said, "You have to read this." It was published in the mid-80's and won the Newbery Medal. I can't believe I never read this! It's such a perfect little story. Patricia MacLachlan brings the characters to life very quickly and you instantly fall in love with them. It'll take you less than an hour to read, but it's well worth it.

Review to come.

I love this book. I wasn’t expecting to get as much out of this as I did. I thought I’d learn the latest method for organizing my house from a book with a catchy title. I wasn’t really expecting it to be anything life-changing, until I read it. It’s so much more than a book on how to declutter and organize. In many ways it read like a psychology book and I mean that in a great way.

By the time you finish reading this book, you’ll have clearly identified your goal for tidying, deeper than “I want to live clutter-free.” You’ll know exactly in what sequence you should go through your possessions. You’ll be discarding everything in your home that doesn’t spark joy, so be prepared. She’ll even tell you how to arrange the clothes in your closet, how to fold the clothes in your drawers and how to find a proper home for everything in your house. You’ll also learn a lot about yourself and the decisions you made that got you to a cluttered state in the first place.

Marie Kondo talks about how using her method (The KonMari Method) can dramatically change your mindset. She gets inside your head and discusses how to recognize your ownership patterns. She discusses in detail what it means when you have difficulties getting rid of certain possessions. You’ll ask yourself whether you have an attachment to the past or if you have anxieties about the future.

These are some of my favorite quotes:

“Success is 90% dependent on our mindset.”

“When you are choosing what to keep, ask your heart; when you are choosing where to store something, ask your house.”

“People cannot change their habits without first changing their way of thinking.”

I was pleasantly surprised to read her words of wisdom about success and how to improve just about any area of my life. I’m actually excited about starting my own decluttering project. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. Now I have a specific plan to follow and the project doesn’t feel so daunting. Before I had no idea where to begin, so occasionally I’d go through my file cabinet, the stuff under my bed, or my closet, but my home still wasn’t organized the way that I wanted. I hadn’t reached my “just right click point.”

My dream is to become a published author, but I find it difficult to write daily when I come home to a cluttered home. Having a cluttered home is stressful, distracting and doesn’t inspire creativity. It drains your energy, both physically and emotionally. It’s a constant reminder of all of the bad decisions I’ve made and my constant indecisiveness. How can I possibly sit down and write a fiction novel if I have to remove a mountain of mail off of the top of my laptop every time I want to use it? As the saying goes, cluttered house, cluttered mind.

I’ve made a promise to myself that I will completely declutter my home by 12/31/2015. I have 9 days off during Thanksgiving and 16 days off during Christmas, so I have two big chunks of free time to complete this project. Let's see if I can accomplish this in 25 days. Wish me luck!

“When you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too.”

“Life truly begins after you have put your house in order.”

I could have easily given this 2 stars, but as a J. K. Rowling fan, I can't give her less than 3. This book starts out strong - very entertaining and it grabs you, but the middle was boring, boring, boring. By page 300, I was so bored, I thought about stopping. Instead I skipped ahead and read the last two chapters, which is where they answer the whodunit question. The ending was partly predictable and part of it made me roll my eyes.

My favorite out of the three novels was The Cuckoo's Calling and the series just went downhill after that. The series has become very formulaic, which leaves me feeling very disappointed. I wish Mrs. Rowling would go back to writing YA Fantasy because that's where her talent shines.

This story almost made me cry. I was both sad and happy for Marianne.

I first heard this story on an episode of Little House on the Prairie, but until today I had never read the book. Cute story and a good lesson.

This is a sad little story. I tell my pets every day that I love them and they know it.

This book is packed full of information and honestly, it was too much information for me to fact check. I didn’t take it as gospel because it’s obvious that it’s a biased opinion, but it did get me to rethink what I’m eating and how it affects me in mind and body. That’s the real point of the book anyway.

The book gets scientific, which I like and it’s organized well with diagrams, charts and recipes thrown into the mix. There are even some color photos of some delicious healthy meals.

The Whole30 program sounds extreme since you can’t consume sugar, dairy, grains or legumes for up to 40 days (10 days is part of the reintroduction phase), but it’s only for 40 days. It’s not a permanent lifestyle change; it’s a nutritional reset. I personally would love to do a reset. I was eating very clean for a while and feeling great, but then I fell off the wagon as they say and now I physically and emotionally feel like crap. I’m tired a lot and I have more mood swings than I ever did while eating clean. I’m tired of feeling blah, so I’m hoping this program will help me get back on track.

By the way, if you decide to try the program, be prepared to hear a lot of negativity from the people around you. People will try to talk you out of it and they’ll give you a thousand reasons why they’re right and you’re wrong, but decide for yourself. It’s your body.

Anyway, there are many great quotes in the book, but this is one of my favorites:

“Genetics loads the gun, but environment pulls the trigger.”

I love this quote because I want it to be true, but I keep wondering if this is just another nutrition “expert” who’s just playing the blame game a little differently. Or, maybe they’re trying to teach us accountability.

I’ve decided that I’m not going to get hung up on the minutiae of this book, but to focus on how I can use the program to help me feel better. I want to have full control over my health, both mentally and physically, and not feel like it’s some sort of health lottery. It’ll be a challenge giving up certain food groups for 40 days, but I’m up for it. I’m considering it a personal experiment to test the validity of their theories. No harm in that. I’ll still get all of my nutrients.

I’m just going to listen to my body. If my body starts asking me, “Hey, what the heck are you doing to me?” then I’ll just stop and resume my old eating habits. But there’s a good chance that I'll feel incredibly awesome afterwards and realize that my so-called healthy eating wasn’t as healthy as I thought. Bon Appetit!

This is one of Stephen King's less popular novels, but I found it very entertaining. His storytelling and character development was still amazing. His novels always take me on an incredible journey and lift me out of a reading rut when I need it.

The summary of this book sounded so intriguing, but after seven chapters I called it quits. The execution and the characters were just so boring. I'm not sure if I was too impatient or if it just wasn't my cup of tea.

I won this book in a giveaway. Thank you!

I love psychological thrillers, so I was super excited to win this book. The storyline and characters are interesting, but the story dragged at times. It took me a while to get through this book because I kept putting the book down every time I got to a boring part. The ending had a nice twist and that made me glad that I finished it.

The summary of this book sounded so intriguing, but after seven chapters I called it quits. The execution and the characters were just so boring. I'm not sure if I was too impatient or if it just wasn't my cup of tea.

This is one of Stephen King's less popular novels, but I found it very entertaining. His storytelling and character development was still amazing. His novels always take me on an incredible journey and lift me out of a reading rut when I need it.

I was looking forward to reading this after seeing that it was on the bestseller list and two people highly recommended it. There were a couple of things that I didn't like about this book. One, there wasn't enough of a plot or character development to move the story forward, so it relied heavily on backstories that were presented through long dialog. There was also a lot of trash talking about the coal mining companies.

Two, Samantha's character was unbelievable. We're supposed to believe that she's a highly intelligent Manhattan lawyer, but she's very insecure, indecisive and needed a lot of hand-holding because she didn't know what she's doing. She constantly needed the other lawyers to give her step-by-step instructions. Other characters mention how smart she is, but I thought their claim was unfounded. I found it hard to believe that she not only survived law school, but also three years at a Manhattan law firm making a six-digit salary.

I skimmed the last 70 pages, so if anything spectacular happened to make up for 300 pages of boredom, then I missed it.

This could have been a great story about the coal mining industry and coal mining families.