I haven't been very good at writing, so on the spur of the moment, I have decided to at least list books I am currently reading (or have recently read).  This will give a good idea of my activities at any given snapshot in time and maybe I'll be inspired to write more about those activities.

My recent reads:
Isaac's Storm by Erik Larsen
The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman
The Naturally Clean Home by Karyn Siegel-Maier
Clean House Clean Planet by Karen Logan (only people with the name Karen can write about green cleaning)

I enjoyed all of these books.  Allegra Goodman is a good writer.  I also enjoyed Isaac's Storm for making the Galveston Hurricane very real.  The books on green cleaning is one of those areas of interest that I spoke of.  I am making my own all-natural, great-smelling, and economical cleaning products and loving the results.  More on this to come, no doubt.

Current books:
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland
God is not One by Stephen Prothero
The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga by Sage Rountree

I just finished running my first Half Marathon, so I am really pumped about running.  I keep hearing what a great book Born to Run is, so I picked it up and keep trying to start reading it!  Forest Lover just speaks to my inner independent woman artist wanting so much to come out of the shadows!  I am reading God is not One for a book group that I belong to.  And I love Yoga but haven't been able to get to a class in a long time.  So I picked up this book with great illustrations to help me with my own Yoga practice here at home as cross-training for my running.  I'm planning to do some swimming this winter too.

Books recently started and ditched:
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay

This is not to say these books are bad, or that I won't decide to read them later.  For now, they have taken a backseat to these others.  I was a bit put off by Labyrinth.  The writing is just not very good.

Just writing about something....anything, is my point to jumping off with what I am reading (because I am always reading something!)  I'll try to write some about the books and what I'm doing with the information in coming posts.

Well, its been more than 8 months since I last wrote in this blog...more like 3 years. But as I read my previous entries, they struck a chord with me (probably because its my life I was talking about!) and pulled me back in again. I have been on a journey since last I wrote, but not one that I traveled with my body, but one that I am on mentally.

I am still in the midst of a gazillion distractions and while many of them involve my now 10 and 4 year olds, most of them are completely self-inflicted. I don't seem to want to focus on one thing at a time and that has left things here in a bit of disarray (thats a nice way of saying that I cannot reach my sink in my bathroom because when we got the carpets stretched a week ago I moved all of the cr*p off the floor in the bedroom into the middle of my bathroom. Ugh!)

Today I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, made dinner which left the kitchen a mess which is how it currently appears, spent a few minutes in the car learning french, spent way too much time on the internet (my biggest time waster and distractor extraordinaire), searched houses on the internet because we are hoping to buy one and move in the next few months, made 3 corn bags (all-natural heating pads), made dinner, helped my youngster get a shower, went grocery shopping and bought a trash can for the kitchen from a specialty store across town. Now I am writing a boring blog about it all.

But what I really want to do is to keep a few things in mind that I have learned recently. So I'll just put them down here to keep a record of them.

#1 - To be at peace and to be happy, stop trying to figure everything out. Let God do it.

#2 - Let this moment be the end of me and the beginning of God. Said by Bishop Benke in a wonderful article here.

#3 - Live this Bible passage daily: "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening."

#4 - Realize that right where I am, regardless of how well I do it, "I am able to impart truth, health and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing." (Written by Mary Baker Eddy.)

#5 - And gosh darnit--be Mary not Martha! (A Bible story found in Luke. Jesus visited his friends' home and Martha was very burdened with the serving while her sister Mary sat with Jesus and was taught by him. Martha thought that Mary should get up and help her! Who wouldn't?! But Jesus told Martha that she was too consumed by all that and that Mary had put God first and that was the best thing to do. Perhaps if Martha had put learning more about God first too, they all would have pitched in together and had a simple meal without all the fuss.)

So at this moment I am open to Love's divine adventure! What has God got in store for me next? I'm looking forward to finding out.