A Tea Reader: Living Life One Cup at a Time

Enjoying this sampler of writings about tea, given to me by dear friend and fellow blogger Steph who, along with Sweetcakes,  introduced me to the beauty and mystery of the age old custom of a cup of tea.

The editor, Katrina Avila Munichiello, has compiled an incredible array of contemporary essays on tea and tea culture as well as pulling poems and stories from historical writings.

Its a perfect rainy day read, perfect with my own cup of tea, and made all the more special as my good friend has a piece included in the collection.

A great gift for lovers of tea everywhere.  Pick it up at your favorite tea shop or of course, on Amazon.

Blogs become Books

These days many of my early review selections are books by bloggers.  Someone starts a blog about a particlar topic, in this case diet and nutrition, and attracts a lot of followers and uses that poplarity to launch a book of the same name.  I am impressed.  This method of getting yourself published seems to level the playing field a bit and give me hope that its not just literary writers who get to have a piece of the publishing pie. 

To be fair, there was a lot of useful advice in this book regarding how to approach dieting and weight loss with the many temptations that bombard us day after day.  I also came across many good recipes that I will try:  pumpkin muffins and tomato zuchini fritatta to name just two.  So if you are looking for good low fat, high health recipes to try this is a good source (as her blog probably is too).

The only drawback to this book is that Ms Haupert's writing is not very interesting or engaging, and I had a hard time geting through each chapter.  I am not sure it was possible to make it more lively.  She spent a lot of time explaining her schedule each day and her calorie counts.  Some people might find this fascinating, but I found it dry.  (I am also a tad over weight so maybe she does have something!)

I do want to give her credit for inventing a life for herself that is interesting and varied and sings to exactly what she wants to do.  This I envy and admire.  I guess that is another good reason to read this book:  she gives good advice on living a creative life and breaking the mold from the standard 8-5 drudgery. 

I can offer this book to anyone who would like it.

And the winner is...

For those of you who missed it, I was running a contest for Fiction February. I was asking for favorite fiction reads and all suggesters of fiction would get their names thrown in a hat and I would choose someone to win a favorite book. This took a very small hat. One entrant, one work of fiction, one winner. So, the person who suggested a work of fiction on my blog, the one and only Scott Semester from the blog All I'm Saying (41st most popular blog in Indiana, by the way), will win a book of my choosing from my vast library. Scott suggested I read The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. This appears to be a children's mystery story along the lines of Ellen Raskin. It looks fun and I hope you'll post here and let me know how it was, Scott.

An interesting tidbit for readers. Scott was, I believe, a sophomore at IU when he sat on a hiring committee that hired me to come to IU to run a student fitness/wellness center. (Don't laugh. It's true!) Isn't that right, Scott? We lost touch for many years until someone referred me to his blog which I read faithfully. He's quite funny and often posts humorous videos and articles. He inspired me (among others) to start my blog.

I have not quite chosen what I will send Scott. But it will be something funny.

Cocktail Play Dates

Mommy Doesn't Drink Here Anymore by Rachel Brownell is my early review for the month of July. A forty something woman from Seattle who writes and blogs for a living, Ms Brownell told her story of recovery from alcohol addiction.

Lately, I have been interested in the idea of addiction. As I get older I discover that most of us do have an addiction of some form or another. Some people's addictions land them in jail, some just overweight, some strapped for cash and others are simply in a sorry mental state.

Whatever the addiction, if yours is one, like Rachel's, that beats up your psyche, your marriage and ultimately your relationship with your kids, getting help is imperative. Rachel sought out Alcoholics Anonymous and was able to beat her addiction to alcohol. She writes her story of how she got addicted to wine and her first year in recovery.

This very short memoir read like a series of blog posts combined with being a self help manual for recovering addicts. The entire story was a quick read and each entry--representing a chunk of time on the road to gaining her 1 year chip at the AA meetings--felt like something from a blog. Each entry left me wanting more. For example, one of the first people she called after she left her first AA meeting was her mother, who was also a recovering alcoholic. She did not recount any of the conversation or let us know what her mother said. As a reader, I missed this conversation. This is actually a testament to how good the writing was. It felt original and very raw. Her story was incredibly honest... for example, at one point she writes, "I'm proud to call myself an alcoholic, because I'd rather be something real than hide away any longer and pretend everything is just fine when it isn't..."

She successfully built suspense around whether her marriage would survive or not, and she really helped me to understand what it was like to be addicted to alcohol. I loved that for the first 90 days of recovery she wasn't even sure she was an alcoholic and how she came to the conclusion that she had a problem and the pain and grieving she went through as she said good-bye to her former best friend (wine).

In addition to the thought provoking testament to the hardships of addiction and recovery, some of her entries were about things you can do as a family besides cocktail play dates and how to know if you have a problem with alcohol. They seemed sweet to me because if you are not an alcoholic, they were self evident. Also, these entries and her revelations about the sweetness of motherhood were really lovely.

Ultimately I would recommend this to anyone who has an interest in addiction and recovery. It is a great road map for success or could be a great support to someone struggling with the same issues. Mommy can be read in an evening.

The Luck Factor

Several friends have been blogging about luck in the past few days. Steph writes of a formula to partially explain her luck. (Luck=opportunity + preparedness) Quite serendipitously, I was reading a book about luck. Richard Wiseman, a scholar from the UK, has spent his career studying the luck phenomenon and all things paranormal. In his work, he takes a hard look at serendipity, and one of the many conclusions that he reaches, that I love, is that serendipity is really not so serendipitous--it is really quite ordinary. We may not recognize it, but luck/karma/serendipity happens all the time. He teaches us to attune ourselves to it.

He asks readers to write down the memory of how they met their partner or spouse, how they found their current career, and how they met their closest friend. Was there some chance encounter at play in founding that relationship or causing the spark that made that decision for you? Most people begin to realize how lucky they are when they imagine how they met their best friend and realize that they wouldn't know this person if they had taken a different class or their car hadn't broken down in front of that store. When you take the long view of luck, you begin to see how lucky you really are.

Wiseman concludes that improving your luck is a factor of several things: 1) Opening yourself up to as many experiences as possible. Doing things, going places, meeting people, trying new foods. 2) Following your instincts and hunches. 3) Knowing what you want and going after it. 4) (My number one) Learning to recognize and appreciate how lucky you are. Becoming a glass half full kind of person goes a long way in making yourself feel more lucky.

So Steph and Dr. Wiseman and the Lucky girl seemed to have stumbled upon some great wisdom. I wish you all much luck and the wisdom to know when you have it. Please let me know about your lucky encounters. Or better yet, open up your journal and write about them.