I read one to two books a week, in addition to my writing, so I’ve decided to start posting the books I finish. I will select some of my favorites and talk more in depth about them.

I read two books this month that, as a writer, made me ache because they were so good. It was one of those times that what I was reading is so amazing, I wondered if my writing will ever compare.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Genre: YA Fantasy

I originally bought this on Audible, but I started it and realized I need to read this book. It needed all my attention so it could settle into my bones.

It is YA Fantasy that takes place in a historic version of Russia. It is totally engrossing, one of those stories that you fall into, and have a hard time surfacing from.  It is definitely one of the best fantasies I have read lately.

Leviathan by Scot Westfield

Genre: YA Historic, Sci-fi, Steam-punkish

I also bought this one from Audible, and I can’t decide which to recommend, the print or the audio-book. Leviathan is illustrated beautifully by Keith Thompson. Seriously, the illustrations are stunning. But Alan Cumming does such an AWESOME job of the narration in the audio-book. So it is a win-win with whichever you choose.

This book is so mind-blowingly creative. Westerfield uses Darwin’s theories to create machine/animal hybrids, like something out of science fiction to create a futuristic feeling, steam-punkish historical fiction. It is an alternate history that whose beginning coincides with the beginning of World War I. It has alternating points of view, a female and a male protagonist.  Seriously fabulous!

Murder on Astor Place- Victoria Thompson

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Historic mystery that takes place in New York City. Fabulous in-depth world-building.

How to Write Dazzling Dialogue: The Fastest Way to Improve Any Manuscript- James Scott Bell

Genre: Non-Fiction, Writing Craft Book

Great, short craft book focused on Dialogue. Great addition to any writing craft library.

I try not to go overboard for my kids at Christmas time, but I do like to make them something. Maybe by giving the time it takes to make something, it feels more valuable than money. But this doesn’t always go over well. Like the batman/superman cape of 2012. Pure disaster… anyway.

So this year, I decided that I would make them hooded towels, because hooded towels.

I didn’t tell them what I was doing, and had them pick out towel colors while at Walmart.  Of course my seven year old walked in while I was cutting it up. “Mom! That was my towel and you ruined it.”

“Was it? I had no idea!”

I was half way through when I thought, “Dino hood!” Of course it had to be.

Most of the time, people are making these for babies and so they use half a hand towel, but since this is for my older children, I used a full hand towel for each.

So let’s get to it!

Supplies for one:

Towel

Hand-towel

12 x 12 square of felt

Sewing supplies: thread, pins, scissors, sewing machine.

Fold your hand towel in half. Cut from the fold at about a 45 degree angle. Then cut the rest of the fold so the hand towel is now in half.

On my second one for my younger child, I cut a little strip off the back so the hood wasn’t quite so big. They are pretty much the same, but here is a pic.

Next, cut your felt to make the dino-spikes. So I used a cheater method of measuring here. I cut the 12 x 12 square in half to make a 6 x 12 inch rectangle. On one of the long sides, I measured every 3 inches and cut a slit with my scissors. On the other side, I made the first cut at 1.5 inches, and the rest 3 inches apart. Then I was just able to eye-ball the cuts with the scissors. I made a diagram. Of course you can measure out each triangle if you would like. The end 1.5 inch spaces are the only waste.

So this next step is the trickies part, because the spikes go the opposite way than I thought it should. Everywhere the towel was cut, line the area with the spikes TO THE INSIDE. I overlapped them slightly because I had plenty of spikes and when the hood is turned right-side out they spread.

Put the other section of the towel face-down covering the spikes. Pin.

Sew along the area, making sure all the the spikes are in place, and the hood put back together. Then flip the spikes to the outside!

Fold the large towel in half and mark the middle. Pin the middle of the hood to correspond with the center of the large towel.

Sew the hood to the towel, and your done! Let me know if you have any questions! Have fun!

So the other day, I was folding laundry and of course that doesn’t take any thought, so my brain though up new lyrics to the Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. I recorded them for a friend for a joke. So enjoy! Lyrics posted below!

Sound of Laundry

Hello laundry my old friend,
I’ve come to fold you again
Because your never ending growing,
Attacked me while I was writing
And although I wash you every day
You still remain
The sound of Laundry

On hectic days I leave you be,
And you pile higher than a tree
yet you taunt me without rest
And I can’t help but think that you jest,
When almost die lifting you down the stairs
I do not care
For the sound of laundry

“Fools”, said I, “You do not know

Laundry like a cancer grows

Spring-fresh clothing so soft and fresh

Masks a hidden monster in the flesh

But my tears, the endless abyss fell

So far below

In the pails, of laundry

And I’d go naked if I could
Not to deal with you again
No more hangers, no more soap
No more washing, I wouldn’t mope
But people would all stare, I think I would care
And wouldn’t dare.
To go without laundry.

I have had an overwhelming and unexpected response to my recent post Dear New Girl at the Gym. My next several blog posts I will be responding to many of the questions and statements people have posted in the comments section below that post.

A few of the commenters said they had had such a negative experience with people making rude comments to them at the gym that they had a hard time going back. This infuriates me. I am shocked and appalled that any person would treat another human being in such a fashion, especially when someone is making an effort to find their healthiest self. It makes me so angry and so sad. I could make all sort so disparaging comments about these men/women who feel they can treat others so poorly, but I won’t. I don’t want to focus on them. I can’t help them.

I want to focus on us. You and me.

We can’t let others decide our future or our happiness. When we take their inhuman comments and believe them we are not only giving someone else power over us, but we are letting their negativity decide what we will become. We are letting them win.

One of my favorite quotes is from Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice. Lady Catherine DeBourgh asks the incredibly witty and intelligent Elizabeth Bennet to promise she will never marry Lady Catherine’s nephew Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy is above Elizabeth in rank and fortune, and Lady Catherine has wealth and prestige above many in the country. But Elizabeth responds—

“I am only resolved to act in the manner, which will, in my opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.” (Austen, 346)

Those people that would tear us down have nothing to do with you and me. Absolutely nothing. NOTHING! I didn’t go up to that girl and ask her what I should study at college or whether I should marry my husband or whether I should have my babies. I didn’t ask that guy his opinion on my hair cut or what car I should drive or what house I should live in. Why? Because it is none of their business. I wouldn’t have listened to them in these matters, so I can’t let their opinions and comments change my efforts to treat my body well.

This goes way beyond working out at the gym. This applies to every part of our lives. Often when we decide we want something more, that we deserve something better, there is someone there to tell us that we don’t deserve it or that it is too hard. But we can’t listen to them.

We have to choose our own happiness and our own future. We deserve to be our happy and healthy.

Works Cited—Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003. Print

Dear New Girl at the Gym,

You stand across from me in boot camp or on the treadmill next to me or a few bikes over in spin. I have never seen you before, but here you are. I can tell by the look on your face you are embarrassed. Embarrassed that you can’t do a pushup or don’t know how to adjust your bike or that you walk on the treadmill when the girl on the other side of you runs for a full hour at the speed of a cheetah. You look around and wonder what on earth you are doing here. You glance at me and I smile, but you look away pretending you didn’t see, because that would mean I noticed you. Maybe you are discouraged. Maybe you tell yourself this was a huge mistake and you’re going to ask for your money back. Maybe you wonder if I’m judging you.

I am not.

I want you to know how proud I am of you. You see, even though it might not seem like it, none of us are judging you. Why? Because so many of us were just like you. We know what it is like. We know how hard it is, especially in the beginning. Really we do. Maybe you woke up one day weighing forty pounds more than you did five years ago. I have been there. Maybe you stepped on the scale at the doctor’s office, had the nurse cluck her tongue, and then had the doctor say something like, “Now let’s talk about your weight.” I have been there. Maybe you recently had a baby, and you wonder if there will ever be a time when you don’t have to tuck your stomach into your pants. I have been there. Maybe you get half way through the warm up in a group fitness class and wonder if you are this out of breath now, is a full hour going to kill you? I have been there. Maybe money and time are tight and the idea of spending $30-$70 a month and an hour a day on yourself feels awfully selfish. I have been there. So many of us have.

You see us running or biking or lifting weights, and may feel discouraged or that we are judging you. Please, please, PLEASE know that we are not, because so many of us have been in your same shoes. You see us for what we are now, but many of us started out just like you, on a journey to find our best selves.

Please come back. I know it is hard, but it will get better, I promise.

And then you will wake up one day and wonder when you became that person. You know that person who can jog a few miles or do a whole spin class or even do boot camp without being sore the next day. And you will be the one, standing across the room, smiling at the new girl hoping she knows how lovely and wonderful and brave she is. Hoping she knows she is worth all the work. Because you are. You are so worth it. You deserve to be your healthiest self.

Now there might come a time and a place where someone will judge you, even someone at the gym. Maybe they make rude comments or give you that look. Maybe they have never known what it feels like to struggle with their weight. Maybe they have low self-esteem. Maybe they have never eaten an entire pan of brownies by themselves (I have) or an entire bag of Halloween candy before a single trick or treater came to their door (I have). Maybe they forgot what it was like to be the new girl. Please, don’t waste your time on them. You are on a journey to be your best self, and they don’t belong on your journey. Find people and a place where you can begin where you are.

Come back. You are so worth it.

Dear New Girl at the Gym has been a popular post, and I don’t mind having it shared as long as my website is linked back on online articles and my name and website is referenced when printed.

You might also like- Our Future is Our Choice -My response to those who would tear us down.

I love Halloween. I love the dressing up and taking my kids to see all the neighbors.  It’s just plain fun. There is only one drawback. All that blasted candy.

A few years ago, we bought our first house. It was the first time neighborhood kids would come to our house trick or treating. I went all out, buying two huge bags of candy. This was the good stuff: Snickers, Reese’s, Almond Joys, everything. It was a week or two before Halloween and I stashed the candy in my pantry. A few days later, ahem, or that same day, I opened the bag, you know, to have one or two. Yeah, before I knew it both bags (BOTH BAGS!) were gone. How on earth did that happen? I had to go buy more candy to give out. The problem? My child went trick or treating and back into my house came another big bag’s worth of candy.  I wish I could say that we savored that candy, and ate it over a few months’ time, but no.

That was the last time I ever gave out candy at Halloween.

Since then I have read how sugar negatively affects our body. No one should be eating the amount of sugar that we all do.

So now I give out stuff that isn’t candy. Guess what! The kids love it. I did an experiment this year at a trunk or treat. I gave the kids a choice between sticky hands or candy (the good stuff). By the end of the night, I went through 140 sticky hands and only 8 pieces of candy.

Another positive about giving out non-food items is they don’t go bad. No one has to eat the leftovers, and I keep mine to give out the next year.

The hit this year was the finger lights. The kids LOVED them. I would turn the lights on and put them on their fingers. It made them easy to see in the dark.

People are also concerned that not giving out candy might be lame, but really the kids love it. I got this text the day after Halloween. That same day, I had two separate groups of kids come to my door cause they had heard I gave out cool stuff.

Getting non-candy items takes a few days planning because I order mine online, but I am sure a party store would have the same stuff. People ask me if it is expensive. It is about the same price as the fun size candy bars and it is way longer lasting. Kids only expect to get one item this way. I am never tempted to give out handfuls, and you can save the extra until year.  Some items are more expensive than others, so you just have to decide what you want to do.

1.       Finger Lights- By far the biggest hit of the night! 17¢ a piece

2.       Sticky Hands 9¢ a piece

3.       Bouncy balls 7¢ a piece

4.       Play Dough - A more expensive option 46¢ a piece

5.       Flying Frogs 33¢ a piece

6.       Pencils 10¢ a piece- Bought at Walmart

7.       Spider Rings Left over from last year. Bought at Walmart. I think they were about 3¢ a piece

8.       Bracelets- Also bought at Walmart last year. I think 5¢ a piece

9.       Foam Gliders 17¢ a piece

10.   Slap Bracelets 26¢ a piece

11.    Book Marks  27¢ a piece

As a comparison, chocolate fun size candy can average between 14 to 25¢ a piece.

Let me know if you have any other ideas on what it give out for Halloween. Enjoy!