INVINCIBLE LIVING: The Power of Yoga by guru Jagat

"According to current scientific theory, we waste 97% of our DNA.  Most of our DNA is essentially trash, scientists argue, because we never turn it on, or even try to use it.  These scientists honestly believe, through scientific reasoning, that we fail to tap into 97 percent of our DNA, literally 97 percent of our entire being- mind, body, and soul.  Leave it to modern science to throw out the stuff that we don't understand.  As a yogic scientist, I believe that the 97 percent of our unused DNA is actually our human potential we have yet to turn on....and that is what Kundalini Yoga does, efficiently and effectively."

I grabbed this book off the library shelf on impulse.  Life is difficult right now.  We're still mourning my mother-in-law, and my husband and father-in-law are stressed and difficult to be around.  Jake's still battling a mystery illness that leaves him constantly feeling unwell, and Katie and Nick are facing challenges at college.  Anyway, the book was appealing because the cover promises to give you tools for a 'radiant life'.

"Kundalini means energy."  I'm not sure if I have a radiant life yet, but the breathing exercises are relaxing and help me deal with stress.

The book is lovely to look at as well.  Water color washes and artistic touches give it a journal-like appearance.  The only problem that I have with the book is that every time I read a section, I feel so sleepy....

...it's been a while....but I'm going to try again.

I've still been reading of course, but life got super busy and blogging anything went to the wayside.  Now, for 2014, I've decided to try again. 

Currently, I've got a new approach to choosing books.  I walk into the library, randomly walk to a shelf, reach and grab the first five books that I touch.  This has definitely broadened my reading topics and genres.  Currently, the books are all on the topic of art.  You wouldn't think there would be much to read in them, but you'd be wrong...but more on that to follow!

The Sugar Queen

by Sarah Addison Allen



Josey Cirrini is twenty-seven years old and still living at home with a very overbearing mother. She loves winter, she's a sorry excuse for a southern belle, and she hides sweets in a hidden compartment in her closet. Then one day she finds her closet inhabited by local waitress Della Lee Baker. Josey's not sure why, although she assumes some kind of domestic dispute. Della won't leave willingly and when Josey tries to force her out, Della threatens to tell Josey's mom about the stock piled sweets. Soon an "odd" relationship has developed between the two.





This was a really good book. I really enjoy this author. My favorite part was the books that magically appear to give advice or support by their titles to sandwich shop girl, Chloe Finley. That's a magical gift I'd appreciate!



Quotes I Liked:



"She wanted to run into his arms. He'd hug her and they would kiss and the water in the coffeemaker would start to boil and everything would go back to the way it was. Everything would fit in the too tight way it did before, but that was all right. Wasn't that better than her life falling off of her altogether? But she stopped herself. That wouldn't make it right. You didn't forgive because it was the only choice you thought you had. That didn't make it forgiveness, that made it desperation. She'd always been too desperate about Jake. Always."



"Della Lee, you're living in my closet, you're blackmailing me over candy, and you are currently wearing sixteen articles of clothing. It's amazing to me that you think I have problems. You need to form a plan for yourself."



"You're pointing things out in my life like I don't know what's wrong. I know what's wrong, so stop assuming that I want to change. I'm fine the way things are."

"You're dying with the way things are. You're going to lose yourself in this. It's going to happen if you don't change. I know. I lost myself trying to find happiness in things that didn't love me back."

"I hate to break this to you, but I don't think you're the best person to be giving advice on relationships. I'm not listening to you anymore. "

"Oh, but I am the best person. You have to understand the wrong way to have a relationship to be able to do it right. I'm a bona fide expert in the wrong way."

"She stopped pacing. The familiar heaviness settling back into her body, weighing down her limbs. It wasn't working. The tea wasn't going to tell her what to do."

"She'd always known he didn't love her. But it was easier to bear when he didn't know she loved him. That way they were even. Now he knew he had all the power. It wasn't fair. She wasn't going to pine for him like a silly girl with a heart as soft as summer fruit."

"He had never understood how anyone could withhold approval. If someone did something good, what was the harm in acknowledging it? Especially when they were fast enough with their comments when you screwed up. He'd done far more things right than wrong. But you're never going to see it that way are you?"

"She felt something on an elemental level. She felt genuine, profound unhappiness, like it was her own. It felt so familiar that belief that nothing was ever going to change so why try anymore.

Books with Graphic Organizers

Great books to use with kids. Teaches them key concepts and the use of graphic organizers.

All by Power Kids Press.

Books available:

Water Cycle
Learning with Simple Machines
America's Colonial Period
American Revolution
Weather
Rocks, Weathering, & Erosion
Movement of the Sun and other Stars
Learning about Plant Growth
Settlment of the Americas
Life in the New American Nation

Salem Falls

by

Jodi Picoult

I love Jodi Piocoult and have read many of her books. This one is scary though because it shows how kids can cause problems with adults by lying because many people will believe them anyway. This book made me think of the Salem Witch Trials, and I think it was supposed to since the author chose the title Salem Falls.

Jack St. Bride teaches at an all girls' school and is the soccer coach. Then the father of his star player accuses him of sexual misconduct. He is sure that it is a mistake and that he will be cleared, but he is sentenced and goes to jail.

Now released from jail, he has no where to go. He wanders until he sees a job as a dish washer in Salem Falls. He takes the job and is rebuilding his life. Until a coven of witches targets him, and the lies begin.

Quotes I like:

"It came over Gilly so quick sometimes: the feeling that she was going to explode, that she was too big for her own skin, as if anger had swelled so far and fast inside her that it choked the back of her throat. Sometimes it made her want to put her fist through glass; other times, it made her cry a river. It was not something she could talk about with her friends, because she might be the only freak that felt that way."

"Words were like eggs dropped from great heights: you could no more call them back then ignore the mess they left when they fell."

"He could drink an ocean and never dissolve the pride that was stuck in his throat."

Meet Carrie Before Sex and the City

by Candace Bushnell

The story of Carrie Bradshaw as a small town girl who ends up as the confident woman portrayed in Sex in the City.

Quotes I liked:

"I try no to give him much thought, but alphabetically, my last name comes right before Tommy's, so I'm stuck with the locker next to his, stuck sitting next to him in class and at assembly, and therefore basically stuck seeing him- every day." (They may end up married. Chilson and Fenton did, and they started for basically the same reason.)

"There could be an actual person inside Cynthia, but if there is, I've never seen it."

"Changing. It's hard to pull off in this little town." (aint that the truth!)

"A little kid, so ugly she was cute, asked me once: What if I'm a princess on another planet? And no one on this planet knows it? That question still kind of blows me away. I mean, isn't it the truth? Whoever we are here, we might be princesses, somewhere else. Or writers. Or scientists. Or Presidents. Or whateer the hell we want to be that everyone else says we can't."

"Rule number 1: Why is it that the one time a cute guy talks to you, you have a friend who is in crisis? Ruler number 2: Humiliated best friend always takes precedence over cute guys."

"Magwitch, you can't let what other people say affect you so much." I know this isn't helpful, but my father says it all the time and it's the only thing I can think of at the moment."

The Mother Daughter Book Club

Heather Vogel Frederick

This was a very cute book. A group of mothers at yoga decide to start a book club for their daughters and selves. The girls don't really get along that well, but there's no stopping determined mothers. The group is reading Little Women, so eventually they all begin to wonder: 'What would Jo March do?'

Quotes I liked:

'Once upon a time, there were four girls, who had enough to eat and drink and wear, a good many comforts and pleasures, kind friends and parents, who loved them dearly, and yet they were not contented."- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"Preserve your memories, keep them well;what you forget, you can never retell."

"Mothers may differ in their management, but the hope is the same in all- the desire to see their children happy."