what I'm reading.

Every morning, as all of you know, I journal.  These days I get the kids off to school then sit down on the sofa with my journal, scriptures, and a couple of books.  Right now it's "Boys Should Be Boys" and "What Got You Here Won't Get You There".  I usually read a chapter about how to be more in tune to my kids needs from "Boys" and then read about how I can be a better business person from "What Got You Here Won't Get You There".

It's important to me to get the parenting advice I need...and I need it every day.  I love the chance to see my kids from a different perspective and to also be educated on what is facing my children.  I want to know what they are up against and how I can help them to wade through both clear and mucky waters.  The thing I want most for my kids is for them to grow up to be nurturing, helpful, kind, to know how completely amazing they are and how incredible the person is standing next to them.  I want them to understand the value of work and the power of love.  So...I need some daily help with that from a variety of very inspirational sources.

I also know that I can always take steps to become better in my business.  I need it and if I don't get it I know that my business life will become pretty stagnant...not good.  I am loving "What Got You Here Won't Get You There".  It's the perfect book for me to be reading right now as I'm trying to take everything I've been doing to a new place.  It's exciting and perplexing at the same time and I'm grateful to have Marshall Goldsmith to give me some great counsel.

I love to read and without fail I get into a book and I don't want to put it down.  Now, though, I've decided that even a great book can stress me out, get me behind in things that matter, and make me waste away my day.  Sometimes it's the exact way I want to 'waste' my day...just not every day.

I read quite a while ago in "The 4-hour Work Week"  that it was important to read non-fiction...especially self-help (I'm addicted, I admit it) any time but  bedtime.  When you read non-fiction just before bed it typically fills your mind with all kinds of ideas...making it very difficult to fall asleep.  I was totally guilty.  I LOVE ideas.  I loved laying in bed at night with my book and having ideas just come to me like crazy.  I'd lay down and have my notebook by my bed and I'd keep turning the light on with another idea that I thought of and then turn the light off...and then I'd turn the light on again with another idea.  By some kind of miracle Mike didn't kick me out of bed.  I loved the ideas but I didn't love that I would have a hard time falling asleep because the ideas wouldn't stop.

So...now, I read only novels before I go to sleep.  A book as I lay in bed each night after a long day is one of the simple things that I really enjoy.  I love my 2 minutes...or my 20 minutes (depending on how tired I am) hanging out with Bud and Geri, Jack and Claire (the characters in Last Dance at Jitterbug Lounge").  Reading calms my mind and my thoughts before turning off the light and cuddling up with Mike before drifting off to sleep.  

Now I get all of my ideas when my mind is fresh in the morning and at a time when they don't keep me up way too late flipping the light on and off...on and off...on and off...

simple. LOVE.