Mental health is just as important as physical fitness. There are two sides to mental health, and both are equally important: what weighs heavily on your mind and what puts wind in your sails.

Many of us share common mental stressors – time, money, work, emotions, and relationships. Ironically it can be too little or too much of each of these that causes stress. While we are never going to eliminate stress, we can address what do we do to manage it and its affect on our health.

As many humans as exist in the world, there exists as many combinations of answers to mental health concerns. For most diagnosis, medication and talk therapy has been proven to be the best practice. I am not trained as a mental health professional in any way. The information provided here is simply to be a resource for conversations about what has worked to help manage the stressors above to bring joy and lightness to my life and to hear what works for other. To make the daily grind something not just palatable, but something we can look forward too. Some of these ideas might be meditation, learning, or hobbies.

True Blue – David Baldacci

Rating: 3 stars

Cliff Notes: Quick Beach Week read

Full Summary: I liked the sisters and plan to go to Baldacci’s backlist to see if there is a book that covers Mace’s kidnapping, etc. I could have done without about 100 pages of Psycho, Tyler, Razor, etc. I don’t think it would have spoiled the plot at all.

David Baldacci True Blue
By |2019-12-12T19:26:39-05:00July 1st, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

The Girls in the Picture – Melanie Benjamin

Rating: 3 stars

Cliff Notes: It was fine. I got bogged down in name dropping and movie titles. I do want to look up the movie Fran did about women in WW1.

Full Summary: I liked the theme woven throughout this book – that women need to band together and support each other. I believe that a high tide raises all boats. But it also showed how hard we are on each other at times and how we let men waylay our goals, relationships with other women, and / or both.

By |2019-12-12T19:27:12-05:00June 30th, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

The Fallen – David Baldacci

Rating: 3 stars

Cliff Notes: I really like the Amos Decker character, but I could have used this book to be shorter by about 75 pages and less of a skip off into the sunset.

Full Summary: Not much more to add to the review, really. I don’t need much personality woven into my Amos Decker stories. It was sweet how he connected with Zoe, but it did not change the rating for me. I will continue to read the Memory Man series!

The Fallen David Baldacci
By |2019-12-12T19:27:27-05:00June 29th, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

Odd Apocalypse – Dean Koontz

Rating: 2 stars

Cliff Notes: Omg I should have quit this damn book. I threw this one when I finished it. I may never read another Odd Thomas.

Full Summary: It usually does take a bit to get into the action in an Odd Thomas book, but this was extraordinarily long. Then when the action hit, it was effing time travel!? No thank you. Don’t muck up my Beach Week reading with science fiction. Blergh. I spent 512 pages on this puppy so you better believe I threw it when I was done. I generally don’t believe in book abuse, but when I get tricked into not abandoning stuff like this – BYYYYYEEEE!!!

Dean Koontz Odd Apocalypse
By |2019-12-12T19:27:53-05:00June 28th, 2019|Mental Well-being|1 Comment

Lucky – Alice Sebold

Rating: 4 stars

Cliff Notes: I am not sure how I missed that this was a memoir of her rape as a Syracuse freshman. Perhaps not a great choice for a Beach Week read, but I am glad I did.

Lucky Alice Sebold

Full Summary: I am glad this was relatively short because I could not put it down, and it was intense. I picked it up because The Lovely Bones is a favorite of mine – a book I kept even after reading it. I kept waiting for the twist where the rapist would go free on a technicality and was so grateful how it all turned out.

Then I was confused when there were still about 50 pages of the book left but her trial was over. THEN OH MY GOSH. I do not pretend this is a spoiler-free blog, but on this one I am going to leave this as just an OH MY GOSH. I truly think that last part of the book is the lesson that we are supposed to learn from this memoir. How we all come to – and leave from – each situation differently.

After I finished reading this book, I also spent time thinking about Sebold’s current relationship with her mother. It is not a spoiler to say her mom was unhelpful almost to the point of harmful, then there was such a heartfelt message to her mother in the acknowledgments. Was there a reckoning that happened? What does her mom think about how she was portrayed in the book? I plan to do a deep dive on this the next time I cannot sleep in the middle of the night. I shall report back.

By |2019-12-12T19:28:25-05:00June 27th, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

My Reading Life – Pat Conroy

Rating: 3 stars

Cliff Notes: There is no better place to read Pat Conroy than on the beach in South Carolina. This had to be a Beach Week read.

Full Summary: Although this is not the book I rated highest of those I read during Beach Week, it is my favorite from the week. I love Pat Conroy, and I love reading. So to read about Pat Conroy’s reading life on the beaches of South Carolina (where he was raised and where most of his books seem to be set), was just too good to pass up.

Pat Conroy My Reading Life

I did not love every book that Conroy wrote about (many I have not even read – I am not the Brainy Smurf I pretend to be), but it really gave insight into his writing style. For example, the chapter on Tom Wolfe was so revealing because Conroy talks about how he has modeled his super wordy style after his love of all of Wolfe’s writing. Of course he says it much more eloquently, verbosely and humorously. You kind of have to read it to get it. Sort of like hearing how he describes, Gone with the Wind:

To Southerners like my mother, Gone with the Wind was not just a book; it was an answer, a clenched first raise to the North, an anthem of defiance.

By |2019-12-12T19:28:40-05:00June 26th, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

Inheritance – Dani Shapiro

Rating: 4 stars

Cliff Notes: I have lots of mixed feelings about this book, but they are all strong. I am not doing 23 and Me anytime soon.

Full Summary: The tag line on this book is “A memoir of genealogy, paternity, and love,” but for me it really struck a nerve about motherhood. As I have mentioned before, there can be all kinds of feelings wrapped up in being a mother. Or not being a mother. Or being a childless step-mother, as it were.

Inheritance Dani Shapiro

I read this book around the same time as some other books that struck a motherhood chord with me. I do not think there are coincidences. I think the universe brings different things to our awareness to learn lessens. Often those lessons are presented different ways or through different mediums. Once something is Brough tot our awareness, it seems to come up everywhere.

What are the recurring lessons or topics that are showing up for you?

By |2019-12-12T19:28:51-05:00June 25th, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

Rating: 3 stars

Cliff Notes: I have heard great things about this book for years and was excited to pick it up at a recent book sale.

Full Summary: It took me a little longer to get through because of the foreign names of geography and culture (food, clothing, celebrations, etc). I also got bogged down at times with the in depth details of the conflict in the region.

But the stories of these women. Holy cow. The resilience and courage these women showed throughout the novel is humbling, especially knowing that the situations that these women endured are probably taken from actual events. And are probably still happening today.

A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini
By |2019-12-12T19:29:07-05:00June 24th, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

Secret Daughter – Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Rating: I would rate it 3.5 stars if I could.

Cliff Notes: I loved all of the Indian culture present in this book. The author did a great job describing it in great detail. The themes of motherhood and what that means for women really struck a chord with me, making it hard to read at times.

Full Summary: I don’t think this is spoiler-ish at all, but read the review at your own risk. Somer could not have kids and struggled with that infertility and what it meant about her as a woman. It really struck a chord with me as I have had these same thoughts. Not that I struggled with infertility, but as a woman who does not have biological children of her own.

Shilpi Somaya Gowda Secret Daughter

Throughout evolution, one of the main “purposes” for women is to procreate, to carry children, nurture them, work with other women to foster a community in which to raise the children. This is not my jam. I am about as nurturing as a porcupine, although it has gotten a bit “easier” as the kids have gotten older. Teenagers don’t really want to cuddle – they actually don’t even want to be on the same level of the house with us. I put “easier” in quotes because let’s be honest – the bigger the kid the bigger the problems. We certainly have had our fair share. But I am specifically talking about my ability to be maternal and nurturing. Or not be maternal and nurturing, as it were.

When I first became a step mother and we made the choice to not have children of our own, I did struggle with the idea that I had no purpose as a woman if I was not going to have my own kids. What was broken in me that I did not long for that? Over time I have come to see different ways. I can make a difference in the lives of kids – my nieces or my step kids. Friends’ kids and such. Not everyone needs to birth kids in order to make an impact in their lives. Nurturing can look many different ways.

By |2019-12-12T19:29:22-05:00June 22nd, 2019|Mental Well-being|0 Comments
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