diy mama

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Page Turners Book Selection: February

Hi friends! We’re so happy to announce our book selection for February! We wanted to give you plenty of time to get your hands on a copy. So, without further ado, our book selection for February is:

february_book

 The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Dissapeared by Jonas Jonasson

It’s about a 100 year old man who decides he’s not going live in a nursing home anymore and starts a new adventure. Maybe I’ll be inspired by it!
I’ve seen this cover all over the place and was curious. Like most books, I see it on an endcap somewhere, read the back, check out it’s ratings on Amazon and usually end up getting it from the library. This book was no exception, other than I got it on Kindle because it looked so good!

February_book2

Remember that there are only 28 days in February, so start reading as soon as you’re done with January’s book selection, Eat Pray Love! We’ll be discussing Eat Pray Love on January 30th. Lisa and I will have separate questions on each of our blogs so you can participate in either or both discussions.

PS. Seriously loving Eat Pray Love. In search of japa mala beads and she’s not even to India yet! Also, I’ve started meditating.
page-turners2

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Book Club Announcement

Hey everyone! The time has finally come for us to announce our ‘super secret project’ I’d mentioned here! book-shelf
I’ve always had a spot in my heart for reading. I was read to extensively as a child (Dr Seuss and Richard Scarry were my favorites) and started really getting into reading when I got to college. It was necessary, in college, with all the required text book reading. Now, I have the desire to read, but don’t make it a priority over dancing with Sophie, snuggling with Jeffrey, house keeping and crafting.

For the past few months, my friend Lisa, has been sharing tweetviews, which are short and sweet reviews of books she’s recently read. We’d been reading some of the same books and I loved having little chats with her of our thoughts. She suggested starting a book club, of which I couldn’t refuse!

Lisa and I are excited today to finally reveal the idea we’ve been working on for months — a book club. Obviously, a book club isn’t a new idea to the internet but it’s certainly new to our blogs. While it’s great to share a summary of what we’ve read from month to month, we’re looking forward to having more in-depth discussion of a single book. So here’s how we think it’s going to work.

  • We’ll announce a book in the middle of the month. So, today we’ll announce January’s book since it’s mid-December.
  • At the end of the following month, Lisa and I will post separate discussion questions on our blogs. We can discuss them in the comment section, and or there will be a link-up for those who want to share their own reviews. So, we’ll be discussing January’s book at the end of January.
  • Feel free to visit both blogs (Expandng and DIY Mama) for two different discussions of the book.

We decided to call our book club Page Turners. Here’s our graphic in case you want to share it on a post or your blog.
page-turners2

So without further ado, here’s our first book: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Eat-Pray-Love

Hope you’ll be joining us while we read Eat, Pray, Love and discussing it January 30th!

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Stress Sucks

Hi Friends. I’m writing this with my hair, wet, piled on top of my head, smelling like Sponge Bob watermelon bubble bath and listening to the top 50 songs of the 90’s. Sometimes life is so exciting and fun that it stresses me out. Silliest thing ever. I wish I could just be happy for the awesomeness that is my life and be nothing but grateful for who I am. But sometimes I cry for no reason at all. I literally can not think of what is making me cry or even what triggered the tears. This is why I’m thankful that I always have my understanding husband near by to rub my back, draw a bath and tell me ‘it’s ok.’ It’s ok to cry, life is ok, everything is ok. I know, as a woman, as a mom, as a sister, daughter and friend, we put on our best face when we see friends and family. We get to see our friends and family such a small amount that I don’t ever want to waste time not being happy while I’m with them. Sometimes I just need a distraction from…well life I guess. I need to make my brain stop thinking about the laundry I need to do or the mulch I need to spread or the bottles that need to be made (all of these things were pushed aside for my bath tonight.) Stress sucks and sometimes you just need to do something else.

Camera 360My all-time best stress reliever is to color. I could color for an entire day. I especially love coloring with someone. You have to find something that you enjoy coloring though. My favorite medium is Crayola crayons and I like coloring design books. My newest coloring book is Secret Garden because it takes so long to complete a page (of which I have yet to do) and the pictures are beautiful! Doing my nails and painting also helps to focus my mind towards creativity. secret gardenBubble baths are another way I relax. I force myself to not think, which is basically meditation. I have a hard time meditating, so to block out thoughts, I have a mantra I like to say. As I inhale through my nose, I say ‘Thank you’ and as I exhale I say ‘I love you.’ It helps refocus my mindset to a positive place. helperPlaying a game also helps me snap out of a funk. We have a TON of board games but I also really like Dance Central and Rock Band. I enjoy our board games because I have to strategize while playing and I just plain LOVE singing and dancing so DC and RB are an obvious fit for me. Again, for me, these things are better when there’s a lot of people but I also really like when it’s just Jeffrey and I playing. CarcassonneBeing outside is a great way to help me relieve stress. The sun really affects my mood, so if it’s sunny, being outside automatically helps me feel better. For me, planting flowers is my favorite hobby while outside but a lot of people find walking, reading or playing sports to be the best way to relieve stress. flower Another great way to calm my mind is to escape in a book. I’m a teen nerd girl at heart and love reading YA books. I’m usually reading a few books at a time so I can choose based on my mood. I’ll switch it up between a YA/beach read and something educational/motivational.

readI really want to go do all of these things right now! What are some of the methods you use to help relieve stress? I’m always up for trying something new!

Shelly

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