Review: Two Old Broads: Stuff You Need to Know That You Didn’t Know You Needed to Know by Dr. M. E. Hecht

Two Old Broads: Stuff You Need to Know That You Didn’t Know You Needed to Know by Dr. M. E. Hecht
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had high hopes for this book. After all, Whoopi. Need I say more? I hoped for sassy and smart. And I hoped she’d do her own narration. Instead, listed for narration are Devon O’Day and Jackie Schlicher. I don’t know that I heard two different people. They both sounded like teens to thirty years old and spoke without a feeling of relating to the information given.

About that information. We old broads already know most of the suggestions given. We’ve lived long enough to figure it out. The author didn’t get how those with disabilities and low income can follow much of that advice.

Okay, there might be a thing or two to learn, but I wish there were far more discussions about aging while female.

I can remember reading everything about menstruation at twelve. I couldn’t get enough of pregnancy and giving birth. We did have Our Bodies Ourselves to learn about our biology and psychology. But then we are left in a desert of drying parts. Try figuring out what your private bits should look or feel like after a certain age. Go ahead Google it! All you find is a bunch of porn. Not helpful!

So I guess I’m happy someone has done something. Please more. And if Whoopi, please let it be Whoopi!!!!

View all my reviews

Review: The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Miguel Ruiz

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Miguel Ruiz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Our church is using this book for discussion. I was happy it was a quick, easy read. I picked up the Audible version. I liked it very much, and I am sure after listening to the discussions, I will have learned so much more than my quick read. I will be listening to it a few more times and maybe have a notebook ready as I think I glossed over some parts. If I do pick up a lot more, I will come back and revise my review.

View all my reviews

Review: Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity by Felicia Day

Embrace 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.

View all my reviews

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, Way to Go!

Way to Go, Linda. Eight years of Streaming Consciousness Saturday!

Sometimes in a person’s life they need more ‘atta girl’s. Not always. Sometimes just everyday keeps us going. But I have found that when I feel least alive and I can’t find motivation for even breathing, I need to stop and take stock of my day, week, life. While it is nice when others congratulate me. I find my own boost in saying, “Look at that! Look what you survived, created, loved!”

This blog has been that for me. Day-to-day can be dull. Downright angsty. Especially these last two years. So I am learning to see small accomplishments. Not earth-shattering wins. But things that make me smile and feel alive.

Today’s win is I ran out of Haven 2 to edit. There were 52,053 words altogether. There was no ‘the end’ and quite a few undeveloped characters, scenes, and plot bunnies to work on. I have a better working title: Haven, Above, Beneath, Beyond. My next step is to work toward 60k a full story, minus stuff that needs to be deleted.

Review: Life in the Fasting Lane: The Essential Guide to Making Intermittent Fasting Simple, Sustainable, and Enjoyable by Jason Fung

Life in the Fasting Lane: The Essential Guide to Making Intermittent Fasting Simple, Sustainable, and Enjoyable by Jason Fung
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I borrowed this audio copy from the e-library on Libby. I have had a lot of fun listening to this book. Even though it is non-fiction, I found it hugely entertaining.

The narrators, Brian Nishii, Courtney Patterson, Piper Goodeve, had me fooled as I truly thought they were the authors. Their voices were energetic and friendly. I have heard Doctor Jason Fung on YouTubes. By the way, look him up; fascinating and informative videos.

The three authors give you different views of Intermittent Fasting. The Doctor gives scientific, medical information. Megan Ramos gives the advice she gives to her clients, and Eve Mayer talks about her weight loss journey. I like having the book broke up that way. It’s nice not getting overwhelmed by the medical data, or too much advice told in one spot, or too much of a person’s journey without knowing the science of why certain things happened.

Okay, maybe I didn’t explain this well enough. This might show how much I enjoyed this audiobook. I plan to buy this so I can revisit it from time to time. Glad I got to borrow it from the library first.

View all my reviews

Review: Intermittent Fasting for Women Over 50 by Jason Watchers

Intermittent Fasting for Women Over 50: The Essential Guide to Get a Healthy Life and Lose Weight. Learn How to Detox Your Body, Support Your Hormones, and Increase Your Energy with Great Meal Prep. by Jason Watchers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My son (45) was told his cholesterol was high. He is thin and seemingly strong and healthy. He decided to go on an Intermittent Fasting diet. It seems to be helping him get even healthier. So I have thought I could do this kind of lifestyle change without too much trouble.

I found this book was Kindle Unlimited, so I picked it up. I read it in a day. Well, not all the recipes. I don’t cook, so I will have to wing a lot of this. But I have found that rescheduling when I eat and when I fast to be the easiest thing. I make sure not to eat after 8 PM and then start eating again after noon. During the eating parts, I try to eat as healthy as I can and watch my portions. Seems easy so far. The hardest is that my body is used to eating breakfast after years of hearing that it was my main meal, etc. But two days in and I don’t miss it. I know. There is a lot more to it. But this book is a start. I will be referring back to it again and again.

View all my reviews

Review: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love books that make you think. This one certainly does that! It took a while to get through it. As you probably know, my reading is done at bedtime. This was not that kind of book. Though it was nonfiction, a lot of it kept me up at night.

There were eye-opening statistics that one might not have thought of before. Predictive statistics that the book talked about were even more eye-opening. One of the most striking was made clear to me, showed that like the chart of a newborn baby can’t predict with the same growth later in life. We don’t expect a baby to continue to grow as much or as fast as a school child as the newborn. If a person kept that same growth rate we’d all be giants. So predictive charts need to look at other aspects during different times, incomes, health and wealth influences. I know I’m not saying this the way the author did. But the points he made similar to the example I tried to put forth, were equally stunning.

My friend recommended this book and I am glad I followed through. On the other hand, I must admit that I would have gotten a lot more out of the book had I had the paper book. Since I have trouble reading tree-books for the eye-sight and font issue, I listen to the text-to-speech. The problem was that I didn’t take the moment to read the charts and graphs presented to help the reader understand how things really are as opposed to how we think they are.

Even so, I found this a super interesting book that in the future I might just try to find the paper book just for the illustrations. Maybe I don’t agree with all his perspectives, it seems I have read somewhere that statistics are rarely pure. Most are bent to reflect the person’s paid position to research to the paid end. Still closing one’s eyes to the possibilities presented in this book are so much more destructive than paying attention and learning what we can from it all.

Give it a try. I picked my copy from the local e-library.

View all my reviews

Review: Changing Your Pain Pathways: Ways to cope with pain in daily life by Bronwen Moore

Changing Your Pain Pathways: Ways to cope with pain in daily life by Bronwen Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been doing chair-yoga for a while. It is one of the things I do to help become healthier in spite of the pain. One of the YouTube tutorials I follow features the authors of this book. Cara, Sarah, and Bronwen. As they are introduced I tried to decide who was who. Here is the link to the lesson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMps5…

Now what I had thought was the one in the middle and the one on the right of the screen looked like sisters. Then I thought they might be twins. Thereby I named them Cara and Sarah. The one on the left didn’t look related so I figured she was Bronwen. I went online to see if I could find these teachers’ pictures. Nothing that helped my curiosity. But then I discovered their book. With fibromyalgia and arthritis competing for my full attention, I thought maybe I could find something that would help me become healthier and have less pain. I found the Kindle version was cheaper so bought it. I would suggest if you have the money get the paper book as it is a workbook with pages to fill out as you move along.

The workbook idea is a good one to help you realize your points of pain increases and decreases. It helps you see how your mind can steer you to better health. And even more important how you can help others to see what you are going through and how they can help you. People caught in chronic pain cycles find themselves bullied in every direction.

As it happened I was in the middle of a flare and reading this by text-to-speech helped me reflect on my pain and my methods of relief. I don’t take many drugs for it as I found they made me sicker. The occasional Advil and CBD for sleep. The rest of the time I use distraction therapy. Keep my mind working on interesting projects.

I will be picking up this book again in the near future to do the exercises and journal what I learn as I go. Thank you for the tutorials and this book to all of you involved in it.

View all my reviews

Review: 1000 Japanese Flash Cards by Kevin Marx

1000 Japanese Flash Cards: For Smart Phones and E-Readers by Kevin Marx

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is no a book you read straight through. As the name implies it is flash cards. I played with a few pages but since I need more progress in my DuoLingo Japanese program, I can’t blame the book for my lack.

Still, for the sake of my goal of 100 books read in 2017, I needed to get it off my currently reading shelf. It will remain on my tablet to play with on a daily basis. I like the idea of flash cards and in the shape of a Kindle book. It is well laid out to play with often.

View all my reviews

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

Tiny 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.

View all my reviews