What Do You Love to Do?

One of my favorite writers, Patti Digh, recently published the book What I Wish for You and its advice has such a powerful impact on me.  It's a collection of short pieces from other women giving advice to Patti's daughter who's going off to college, but it's advice all of us women can learn from.  I must say I wish I had this great wisdom given to me as a teenager, but it's just as relevant now as a 39-year-old still trying to find my way.

One of the contributors, Lisa Evans, discusses the dreaded question of people asking, "What do you do?"  She states that instead of that question, we should ask people, "What do you LOVE to do?"  I like this one much better.  This question can fill us up with joy just thinking of the things we love to do.

I love to...

* take early morning walks all by myself when the sun is just creeping up and no noise is around except the birds singing and the crickets chirping

* go out to dinner with my best girlfriends in the whole world and laugh too loud and probably annoy everyone around us

* close my eyes while we're on our boat and just feel the breeze

* arrange flowers from my garden into vases around the house

* watch hilarious movies like Dumb and Dumber and Something about Mary over and over

* read a super good book in my sunroom with all the windows open



Taken on my morning walk today--the sun peeking through the trees.

Those are just a few of the things I love to do.  What about you?  What do you really love to do?  I'd love to hear about it!

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Love this Book

I'm reading The Story of Beautiful Girl right now and I'm loving it (especially since I'm off for the summer and have more time to read). 

It takes place in the south during the late 1960s and much of it is in a mental institution--it's disturbing how they treat these residents--some of them should never have been placed there.  I could go on forever about the injustices of that situation, but that's not the only focus at all.  It is the story of two residents who fell in love there and escaped for one night--one of them a deaf African American man and one a beautiful white girl with some cognitive disabilities (basically put there by her father who didn't want the embarassment of her). 

The young girl gives birth to a baby (father unknown--raped by another resident) and they hide for one night with an old woman out in the woods.  The police and institution authorities come and take the girl back, the man runs and the old woman is left to hide and take care of the baby since the authorities no nothing of this new little one YET.

It's interesting to see how the two of them got to this place in time, what they're thinking and feeling as they hope to reunite and find a better place in this world.

Good Book - The Neighbors are Watching

I just finished The Neighbors are Watching by Debra Ginsberg and, whew, was it interesting.  It is the story of a suburban neighborhood that gets turned upside down after a pregnant seventeen year old moves in with the dad she never knew and his wife who can't handle this surprise.  The chapters jump from household to household and each of them has quite a few skeletons in their closets which really make for some shocking revelations.  Eventually the book turns into a murder mystery and so much is revealed.  It was definitely worth the read, especially if you enjoy drama, mystery and reading about people's little hidden secrets.

Good Book - Every Last One

I've been reading the book Every Last One by Anna Quindlen for a few days now.  I thought it was pretty good, kept my attention, but no major suspense.  Family with three kids, one son a bit depressed, one son a big jock, the daughter a funky writer about to go to college.  Daughter breaks up with long-time boyfriend and he gets really upset.  Well, just in today's reading so MUCH has changed.  I truly feel like I got the wind knocked out of me with something that happened.  Obviously I don't want to give it away, but wow, the grief in this story now.  I almost feel numb like one of the characters does.  My husband says, "why don't you stop reading it then?"  I told him I guess I like books that make me feel.  Is that normal?  I have a friend who just won't read books that upsetting.  Is there something wrong with me?  I guess when they make me really feel, almost physically, they are memorable and they are more meaningful.  They are worth my time.  Maybe they help me become more compassionate to get a slight peek into someone elses world, someone that could be me.  Have feelings for the grief others do go through, even though this book is only fiction.  I just had to write an entry because it really took my breath away today.  I'm not done yet, but I'll say I know it will leave me with quite an impression.

Good Book

I just finished the book Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin.  Near the end I couldn't put it down.  It had some mystery, suspense, murder and some big surprises throughout.  It took place in Mississippi and it was a story of an unlikely friendship in the south in the early 1970s between a white boy with a cruel father and a very poor black boy with no father.  The white boy was accused of kidnappinig and murdering a girl after a date with her but her body was never found so he was never convicted; however, he was an outcast in his small town his whole life afterwards.  Years later another girl went missing and he was blamed again.  Some shocking truths slowly come out and it turns into a page turner for sure.