I think I will evaluate the whole week in my Examen. I just did a "Discovering Hidden Truths" Examen in Reimagining the Exam, but I am not sure it was very meaningful to me.
I pray for LIGHT on my week.
I am GRATEFUL for . . . (in no particular order)
- Self Preservation goals being accomplished (wash, cleaning, etc)
- Good interactions with all my students
- Good interactions with all my coworkers (even though I had to tell Dee and Drew what a mess my room has been for most of the term - They drew it out of me, but I hate to be a tattle-tail)
- Good spiritual direction time that really gave the enemy a good kick
- Everything worked out for G in the showdown at work
REVIEW of the Week
The start of my day throughout the week has been so calm and peaceful. There is nothing like the discipline of starting my day out connecting with God! I am ahead in the Spiritual Exercises. So I decided to go through a book called Moment by Moment: A Retreat in Everyday Life. When I first got this book, I liked most of the questions, but I thought it was too light. There are 32 "moments" of about 45 minutes each. I really do not think that anymore. There was a woman in my Renovare Cohort who said it was really profound when she took a group of ladies through it the previous year, and I can totally see why now. I have loved it. I have been doing one in the morning and sometimes one in the afternoon or evening, and it has been a good time with God!
Monday - George stayed home, and I worked on my talk. Then we went to dinner at the Laughing Planet in Portland and the Type One Narrative Panel in Portland. Amy has been so encouraging for me when it comes to understanding the Type One. She is a healthy one, but she can explain to me about the Unhealthy One because she has been there.
Tuesday - My classes went really well. I think I did bands with the Pilates I and an Advanced Class with Pilates II. I decided not to go to weight lifting because of all the bodywork of both classes.
Wednesday - I had another free day to work on my talk. I had a whole list of things to do, and I got through all but TWO of the things. It was very good to do! Self-Preservation goals really are life-giving, even though it is my "blindspot"! I also took a walk and listened to my book. I did a last-minute three and a half hour direction session that was so rewarding and life-giving. I love working with directees who love to pray through and listen to God. I went to Matthew's Eagle Scout Court of Honor that was so sweet.
Thursday - Bender Balls for Pilates I and Big Balls for Pilates II. It was good. I had a nice talk with one of my students too. I continued to have another moment with God in the afternoon. I prayed for G throughout the day as work was tough. I had a big session of praying against the enemy. Love that. Book Babes at Carol's was great.
Friday - Finished up my visuals for the instinctual variants teaching. When George came home, I practiced on him. I also spent three hours working on the finishing touches for my final times with M in the Spiritual Exercises. Adapting this to the 18th Annotation has been very time consuming but helped me develop some convictions about who should take the Exercises.
MOST MEANINGFUL THING (LIFE-GIVING) The spiritual direction session was so good.
Thank you, God!
Saturday, February 29, 2020
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Thursday Examen Freewrite
I pray for light on my day. Help me to see it through your eyes.
Things I am grateful for:
YESTERDAY I got all these things on my list done:
2) Upload Summary Reflection and Contemplative Reflection Form to Box for Boise Cohort
3) Have another "Moment" in Moment by Moment: A Retreat in Everyday Life.
4) Do wash
5) Read Proust while on a walk
6) Eat responsibly and not compulsively. It is Lent of no sweets. (just forgot about the sweets)
7) Go to Matthew's Court of Honor for Scouts
8) Watch Survivor
10) Correct Extra Credit Papers
11) Prepare Marge's next Spiritual Exercises
12) Schedule (and maybe see) Cammie for Spiritual Direction
13) Keep house picked up and clean (wipe down bathrooms and sweep kitchen floor)
14) Read Interior Castle (maybe even finish it)
15) Finish this freewrite FIFTEEN at #15 on my list. The timer is going off!
Not done:
1) Finish prep for the Instinctual Variant teaching
9) Prepare for Bender Ball class teaching (Big Balls for Pilates II)
Things I am grateful for:
- Warmer temperatures for a nice walk
- Getting through many things I needed to do
- Sitting with a directee and seeing her load lightened on this journey
- Matthew's Court of Honor - Boy Scouts have a beautiful ceremony.
Morning - I meditated in Moment 8 BLINDED BY SIN. Sin is never a fun subject, but it was so life-giving. When we realize our blindness, then Jesus can come and heal that. I started a load of wash. Ate responsibly. Did my Summary Reflection and chose my Contempletative Reflection and Dialogue for the Boise Cohort. Went to print out the copies for my observers, and I was out of ink. So I went to the store and then stopped and got a quick pedicure as I read Interior Castle and You Are What You Love notes in preparation for Boise Cohort. Printed dialogue and CRFs for Boise. Scheduled impromptu spiritual direction appointment for 2:30pm. Folded wash load and went for a walk listening to The Guermantes Way. I wrote Cammie about spiritual direction, but she could not meet so I scheduled something with Sister Joan for Monday.
Mid-day - Graded extra credit papers. Picked up the house, swept kitchen, cleaned bathrooms. Put in another load of laundry Worked on Marge's weeks of the 18th annotation.
Afternoon - 3 1/2 hour spiritual direction/listening prayer session. I watched part of The Five evaluation of the debate. Paul finished up the second load, and it was waiting for me when I got out of direction. Folded it and got dressed for . . .
Evening - I went to Matthew Court of Honor and ate dessert (forgetting I was giving up sweets for Lent - oh my). Paul had taken my car to work. So I dropped it back off at his work and walked 12 minutes back home and closed my Exercise Ring. Watched Survivor. Moment 9 - The Lesson of Death. Worked a bit on Marge's remaining exercises.
Bed at 11:15pm
Regret - Not keeping a reign on my eating in the evening with dessert. Sarah and I shared a slice of cheesecake so it was small. I just forgot to skip it.
Life-giving - It was good to drop everything and have a session. I did not get to my Bender Ball prep and finishing up my Instinctual Variants talk, but this was way more important, and it is life-giving to me and most meaningful to sit soul-to-soul with someone. Much more important than tasks, but I realize I need to balance that because I have tasks that need to get done. Actually, I think I am pretty good at balancing those things. It was a life-giving day of integrated my instincts! :) So I may not have gotten the talk done, I lived the talk, and that is very life-giving!
Today I will do a Bender Ball class for the first hour (so I will prepare this morning since I did not get to it last night) and Big Ball class for the second hour. Then I will bike home and finish that class! I also have Book Babes and can walk to that since it is two streets up from me!
YESTERDAY I got all these things on my list done:
2) Upload Summary Reflection and Contemplative Reflection Form to Box for Boise Cohort
3) Have another "Moment" in Moment by Moment: A Retreat in Everyday Life.
4) Do wash
5) Read Proust while on a walk
6) Eat responsibly and not compulsively. It is Lent of no sweets. (just forgot about the sweets)
7) Go to Matthew's Court of Honor for Scouts
8) Watch Survivor
10) Correct Extra Credit Papers
11) Prepare Marge's next Spiritual Exercises
12) Schedule (and maybe see) Cammie for Spiritual Direction
13) Keep house picked up and clean (wipe down bathrooms and sweep kitchen floor)
14) Read Interior Castle (maybe even finish it)
15) Finish this freewrite FIFTEEN at #15 on my list. The timer is going off!
Not done:
1) Finish prep for the Instinctual Variant teaching
9) Prepare for Bender Ball class teaching (Big Balls for Pilates II)
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Wednesday Freewrite
Monday was so nice because I got an extra day with George. YAY! I was sad that he was sick, but it was so nice, and it makes us both realize that he needs to come back home. I cannot believe it has been seven years in May. He has loved his job until this recent change. So we are praying for a miracle job close by.
He rested all day, and we went up to Portland for our Type One Enneagram panel. It was amazing how the energy went down after the energy of the Type Three panel two weeks ago! He still wasn't feeling very well. So that also was another reason why it was possibly more subdued.
I really have loved sitting next to Amy these last two weeks. She is quieter, but she is a Type One, and it has been helpful to get her healthier insights. Her husband will be on the panel for the Type Seven. That will be so nice to hear. Overall, I think this class has been so helpful for me.
Tuesday in class was a quick class with bands and the other one was an advanced class where we did the high scissors, bicycle, boomerang, compound back exercises, front support, sidekicks to teasers flow, etc. I am even a little sore today! That is very good for me to be sore. I am sure my students were worked harder because of it.
I am almost ready to teach my Instinctual Variants class. I decided to bring flat page visuals instead of props since I am coming over on a plane and do not want the extra weight. I might bring a few small things. Today will be my day to get all my visuals in order. Then I will practice it.
I am back to reading Proust. After reading Dickens, I realize that classical literature is really where it is at for me. Proust is more difficult than Dickens. So, I broke down and got the next two volumes on audiobook. Audible had a free trial for Prime Members where I got two books. I will probably cancel after 30 days or I may buy the other books (I think there are two more after this) to finish out the whole 3000+ page tome! I had a survey of 125 authors who listed the top 10 books they love, and Proust was the only one I had not finished reading. So, here I go! I made homemade lemon curd (found the perfect Martha Stewart stovetop recipe - tried the microwave one, and it failed every time) and listened to Proust yesterday.
Today
1) Finish prep for the Instinctual Variant teaching
2) Upload Summary Reflection and Contemplative Reflection Form to Box for Boise Cohort
3) Have another "Moment" in Moment by Moment: A Retreat in Everyday Life.
4) Do wash
5) Read Proust while on a walk
6) Eat responsibly and not compulsively. It is Lent of no sweets.
7) Go to Matthew's Court of Honor for Scouts
8) Watch Survivor
9) Prepare for Bender Ball class teaching (Big Balls for Pilates II)
10) Correct Extra Credit Papers
11) Prepare Marge's next Spiritual Exercises
12) Schedule (and maybe see) Cammie for Spiritual Direction
13) Keep house picked up and clean (wipe down bathrooms and sweep kitchen floor)
14) Read Interior Castle (maybe even finish it)
15) Finish this freewrite FIFTEEN at #15 on my list. The timer is going off!
He rested all day, and we went up to Portland for our Type One Enneagram panel. It was amazing how the energy went down after the energy of the Type Three panel two weeks ago! He still wasn't feeling very well. So that also was another reason why it was possibly more subdued.
I really have loved sitting next to Amy these last two weeks. She is quieter, but she is a Type One, and it has been helpful to get her healthier insights. Her husband will be on the panel for the Type Seven. That will be so nice to hear. Overall, I think this class has been so helpful for me.
Tuesday in class was a quick class with bands and the other one was an advanced class where we did the high scissors, bicycle, boomerang, compound back exercises, front support, sidekicks to teasers flow, etc. I am even a little sore today! That is very good for me to be sore. I am sure my students were worked harder because of it.
I am almost ready to teach my Instinctual Variants class. I decided to bring flat page visuals instead of props since I am coming over on a plane and do not want the extra weight. I might bring a few small things. Today will be my day to get all my visuals in order. Then I will practice it.
I am back to reading Proust. After reading Dickens, I realize that classical literature is really where it is at for me. Proust is more difficult than Dickens. So, I broke down and got the next two volumes on audiobook. Audible had a free trial for Prime Members where I got two books. I will probably cancel after 30 days or I may buy the other books (I think there are two more after this) to finish out the whole 3000+ page tome! I had a survey of 125 authors who listed the top 10 books they love, and Proust was the only one I had not finished reading. So, here I go! I made homemade lemon curd (found the perfect Martha Stewart stovetop recipe - tried the microwave one, and it failed every time) and listened to Proust yesterday.
Today
1) Finish prep for the Instinctual Variant teaching
2) Upload Summary Reflection and Contemplative Reflection Form to Box for Boise Cohort
3) Have another "Moment" in Moment by Moment: A Retreat in Everyday Life.
4) Do wash
5) Read Proust while on a walk
6) Eat responsibly and not compulsively. It is Lent of no sweets.
7) Go to Matthew's Court of Honor for Scouts
8) Watch Survivor
9) Prepare for Bender Ball class teaching (Big Balls for Pilates II)
10) Correct Extra Credit Papers
11) Prepare Marge's next Spiritual Exercises
12) Schedule (and maybe see) Cammie for Spiritual Direction
13) Keep house picked up and clean (wipe down bathrooms and sweep kitchen floor)
14) Read Interior Castle (maybe even finish it)
15) Finish this freewrite FIFTEEN at #15 on my list. The timer is going off!
Monday, February 24, 2020
6. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
Once I could fully focus, I really see the beauty of this book and why it would be on the 1000 Books to Read Before You Die List. It is a first-person narrative about a Canadian woman who comes of age in the 40s. She is an artist who has come back to her home town of Toronto for her artist's retrospective so she does a retrospective of her life. There are some female dynamics that I could relate to. As for all of us, much of her adult life is a response to what she experienced as a child.
This book is written by the author of The Handmaid's Tale, but this one isn't creepy! So you get a good idea of why she is such a lauded author. Her writing really is wonderful. Once I had the head-space for this book, I was swept away in it.
Monday Freewrite Examen
The message on my Examen app for this week is about being grateful for ordinary things. :)
Ordinary things I am grateful for from yesterday:
1) A warm and comfortable bed to sleep in
2) Moment by Moment book. I am so glad I am doing this in the interim between "ordinary time" and Lent.
3) Warm and delicious chai tea freshly brewed in the morning. An Indian grocery store three minutes from my house to buy fresh cardamon pods and Red Label Orange Pekoe tea
4) An iPhone to listen to books, podcasts on Examen prayer, Pray as You Go morning prayer
5) A fantastic library system that lets me check out almost any audiobook I want for FREE
6) Books - many people in the world do not have libraries and cannot afford to buy books
7) Bibles galore in many different translations
8) A candle burning and giving me light in the morning
9) Electricity to see what I am studying
10) A stove and oven that works properly
11) A car
12) A grocery store 10 minutes away that has everything we would ever want or need for sustenance.
Review of the Day
Beginning - God was in the meditation in Scripture in Moment by Moment #5 "Free to Respond" About being interiorly free. I am so grateful for the freedom I have in Christ. I am grateful the truth sets me free. I am grateful for this Examen that helps me to be more grateful!
Rest of the Morning - George is sick. So we decided to stay home from church. We had a little discussion about things that were life-giving and deadening from the week. Then I decided to make him chicken soup, French rolls, and banana bread. That took a while! Oh, I did go for a little walk, but it started to rain on me. I finished listening to Cat's Eye as I worked in the kitchen.
Middle of the Day - We all sat down and ate the result of my labors. I am so grateful to sit down with such delightful people. We always have such good family times around the table. I am also so happy that all my men are working now. I am just grateful that they are kind and polite men.
Afternoon - I watched a Sunday morning news show that I had recorded and listened to my new audiobook Jude, the Obscure.
Evening - I watched a little news and a documentary on the Windsors and was fast asleep by 9:30pm!
Regret - I regret not recording my food. I must get back to doing that today because I always feel so much better keeping track of what I eat so I don't overdo it on the eating.
Most meaningful - Making lunch for my family and sitting down to enjoy it together.
Ordinary things I am grateful for from yesterday:
1) A warm and comfortable bed to sleep in
2) Moment by Moment book. I am so glad I am doing this in the interim between "ordinary time" and Lent.
3) Warm and delicious chai tea freshly brewed in the morning. An Indian grocery store three minutes from my house to buy fresh cardamon pods and Red Label Orange Pekoe tea
4) An iPhone to listen to books, podcasts on Examen prayer, Pray as You Go morning prayer
5) A fantastic library system that lets me check out almost any audiobook I want for FREE
6) Books - many people in the world do not have libraries and cannot afford to buy books
7) Bibles galore in many different translations
8) A candle burning and giving me light in the morning
9) Electricity to see what I am studying
10) A stove and oven that works properly
11) A car
12) A grocery store 10 minutes away that has everything we would ever want or need for sustenance.
Review of the Day
Beginning - God was in the meditation in Scripture in Moment by Moment #5 "Free to Respond" About being interiorly free. I am so grateful for the freedom I have in Christ. I am grateful the truth sets me free. I am grateful for this Examen that helps me to be more grateful!
Rest of the Morning - George is sick. So we decided to stay home from church. We had a little discussion about things that were life-giving and deadening from the week. Then I decided to make him chicken soup, French rolls, and banana bread. That took a while! Oh, I did go for a little walk, but it started to rain on me. I finished listening to Cat's Eye as I worked in the kitchen.
Middle of the Day - We all sat down and ate the result of my labors. I am so grateful to sit down with such delightful people. We always have such good family times around the table. I am also so happy that all my men are working now. I am just grateful that they are kind and polite men.
Afternoon - I watched a Sunday morning news show that I had recorded and listened to my new audiobook Jude, the Obscure.
Evening - I watched a little news and a documentary on the Windsors and was fast asleep by 9:30pm!
Regret - I regret not recording my food. I must get back to doing that today because I always feel so much better keeping track of what I eat so I don't overdo it on the eating.
Most meaningful - Making lunch for my family and sitting down to enjoy it together.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
Saturday Freewrite Examen
Yesterday was really nice. I had a totally free day and woke up at 3:15am! I had a long and luxuriant time with God. It was lovely. I spent time in
MOMENT 3: To recognize and claim my longing for God.
"Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I give them will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." (Jn 4)
After this, I went for a walk in the 28-degree sunshine. BURR! But so nice. I walked in the schoolyard and listened to Dombey and Son.
After this, I had a phone call with one of my directees. Yes, it was a free day, but she had asked me to pray for a situation, and I had asked for more specifics. She has had a wonderful time of discerning in a decision, and she has decided to leave a ministry she has been in for many years. She would be telling the leaders in a couple of hours. We prayed, and she texted later to say it went really well. I cannot wait to see where God has her next!
After this, I did some house puttering - cleaning out my "travel toiletries" drawer. It has been a LONG time!
I also worked on the specific instinctual variants for Type One and Type Two and part of Type Three. It has been good to review each of these. The editing is taking a very long time because I am converting Russ's spoken words into a more concise handout. That is taking some time. It will be nice to have it for the future though. So I don't mind the extra work this is causing.
I finished Dickens and wrote a review. After this, I started Cat's Eye and went on another walk. It was MUCH warmer a few hours later.
George came home, and I finished Downton Abbey and then we watched a Frontline story on the rise of Amazon and Jeff Besos. Fascinating!
The most meaningful thing about yesterday was probably learning more about the instinctual variants. I also loved praying with my directee.
Today I will be subbing in a Timberhill class at 10:30. I am so afraid I am going to forget because I often get going on a project in the morning! I have to set a reminder on my phone. I am going to try to sub once a week if they need me. I have not been able to do it lately or someone else has taken the subbing before I could respond. This is the first subbing there since March! (Although I subbed twice at G3 in June last year.)
I think George has woken up. I am amazed. It is Saturday, and it is before 7 am! The door is opening. I am shocked.
I have a little bit more time on my timer. I think. I will spend the rest of the day on the Instinctual Variants Type 3 1/2 - 9. Then I think we will take George out for his birthday that was on Tuesday. I wasn't able to see him on his day, but we talked a lot.
I have 3:10 left on my timer. What else? Oh maybe that since I meditated on the 1 Peter passages about overlooking and DISREGARDING the offenses of others, it has been really good to just not let the trauma of what happened even enter my mind. It was a trauma, no doubt. I have never had anyone speak to me like that, ever. But I can disregard it. That can be my choice. So it has been a good "catch yourself in the act" check for me since I can churn things over and over in my mind. It is unfair and unjust, but what is, is. I have moved on. It does come up periodically, and this is the little thing I can do to get me back on track of the right thinking.
Well, the man is up, and my timer is going off.
MOMENT 3: To recognize and claim my longing for God.
"Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I give them will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." (Jn 4)
After this, I went for a walk in the 28-degree sunshine. BURR! But so nice. I walked in the schoolyard and listened to Dombey and Son.
After this, I had a phone call with one of my directees. Yes, it was a free day, but she had asked me to pray for a situation, and I had asked for more specifics. She has had a wonderful time of discerning in a decision, and she has decided to leave a ministry she has been in for many years. She would be telling the leaders in a couple of hours. We prayed, and she texted later to say it went really well. I cannot wait to see where God has her next!
After this, I did some house puttering - cleaning out my "travel toiletries" drawer. It has been a LONG time!
I also worked on the specific instinctual variants for Type One and Type Two and part of Type Three. It has been good to review each of these. The editing is taking a very long time because I am converting Russ's spoken words into a more concise handout. That is taking some time. It will be nice to have it for the future though. So I don't mind the extra work this is causing.
I finished Dickens and wrote a review. After this, I started Cat's Eye and went on another walk. It was MUCH warmer a few hours later.
George came home, and I finished Downton Abbey and then we watched a Frontline story on the rise of Amazon and Jeff Besos. Fascinating!
The most meaningful thing about yesterday was probably learning more about the instinctual variants. I also loved praying with my directee.
Today I will be subbing in a Timberhill class at 10:30. I am so afraid I am going to forget because I often get going on a project in the morning! I have to set a reminder on my phone. I am going to try to sub once a week if they need me. I have not been able to do it lately or someone else has taken the subbing before I could respond. This is the first subbing there since March! (Although I subbed twice at G3 in June last year.)
I think George has woken up. I am amazed. It is Saturday, and it is before 7 am! The door is opening. I am shocked.
I have a little bit more time on my timer. I think. I will spend the rest of the day on the Instinctual Variants Type 3 1/2 - 9. Then I think we will take George out for his birthday that was on Tuesday. I wasn't able to see him on his day, but we talked a lot.
I have 3:10 left on my timer. What else? Oh maybe that since I meditated on the 1 Peter passages about overlooking and DISREGARDING the offenses of others, it has been really good to just not let the trauma of what happened even enter my mind. It was a trauma, no doubt. I have never had anyone speak to me like that, ever. But I can disregard it. That can be my choice. So it has been a good "catch yourself in the act" check for me since I can churn things over and over in my mind. It is unfair and unjust, but what is, is. I have moved on. It does come up periodically, and this is the little thing I can do to get me back on track of the right thinking.
Well, the man is up, and my timer is going off.
Friday, February 21, 2020
5. Chronically Hurtful People: How to Identify and Deal with the Difficult, Destructive, and Disconnected
My spiritual director, Joan, recommended I read this years ago. I bought it but never read it. She reminded me about it recently. It is helpful, and I was able to talk on the phone with the author, and that was great. She said, "We empaths can get sucked into toxic people's webs." This was helpful on many levels. I can see I have grown in dealing with difficult people, but I can always grow more. This was hard to read, but it was good.
4. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
After reading many contemporary novels lately, it was nice to go back to Dickens with a story I knew nothing about. It is a story about family and forgiveness, and it has all the familiar charm that we all know and love about Dickens. He has such a great way of combining tragedy and humor. I love his use of alliteration through the book: "Bunsby's Boys Bearing umBrellas" is just one of numerous examples.
There are evil characters and perfect characters and all the delightful minor characters that make one laugh.
It is a 37-hour audiobook. The award-winning narrator, Frederick Davidson, does such a good job. He makes the characters come alive.
Now I am off to watch the mini-series I found on Amazon Prime!
Friday Freewrite Examen
I ask for your light to be shed on my day. Let me be aware of your presence with me as I reflect on the past day.
Two to Three Things that I am grateful (not necessarily big things, anything that blessed my day):
1) Moment by Moment 18th Annotation - I am a bit ahead in my 19th and thought I should do it to see if I can recommend it or not.
2) Dombey and Son - I love the writing of Charles Dickens!
3) My students - love love love my students this term. Full of life and laughter. So life-giving!
Review of Day from Start to Finish: Where did you accept God's invitation to be loving, grateful, to be yourself? Where did you turn away from it?
Getting Up - It was calm and I ate breakfast. I had time in Moment 1: To become more attentive to God's presence and action in my daily routine. I loved praying and journaling and having some aha moments as I looked at a quote above the desk I don't usually use: "Love forgives and disregards the offenses of others" (1 Peter 4:8 in the Amplified - I think). Disregard just hit me. Read Interior Castle and Dickens. Prepared for class.
Morning - Rode bike in the sunshine and loved teaching my classes. The weight class went well. I am usually insecure about teaching that, but I spent a good hour preparing.
Mid-Day - On bike ride back, I had a memory in which I could have chosen to not forgive or to DISREGARD. I actually heard that word! My time from the morning. I remembered! DISREGARD. So I disregarded that memory of an offense. Good lunch and shower. I went in the sunshine of my spiritual direction room and had Moment 2: To be more open to the word which God speaks in my daily life (Listening to God). Yummy time in the sunshine. Then, I listened to my book for a couple of hours.
Afternoon - Did a bit of work on my Instinctual Variants class. Registered for Spring term Cardio Weight Training class. Watched Downton Abbey! My body was very tired from the quick work out and the weights workout.
Evening - George came home, and we made banana bread together for missional community. Only Sandy came. J and J did not show up. Everyone else could not come. We had a good talk about leadership and managing a team and our friends. We prayed. Then David showed up very late and we talked about the mobilization of people and casting a vision.
End of Day - Watched Downton Abbey and drifted off to sleep.
Regret - I can think of one thing. I said something I wish I had not said. I acknowledge this. I caught myself in the act and instead of continuing to listen I said that maybe we should pray about the situation.
Most meaningful - Moment II in the sunshine. I just love when you direct me toward you in my "low" part of the day where I am tempted to disengage from your presence. I chose engagement, and you blessed me with a yummy "sunshine through the window" basking in your presence moment. Just the grace I was asking for!
I ask for the grace to see you today!
Two to Three Things that I am grateful (not necessarily big things, anything that blessed my day):
1) Moment by Moment 18th Annotation - I am a bit ahead in my 19th and thought I should do it to see if I can recommend it or not.
2) Dombey and Son - I love the writing of Charles Dickens!
3) My students - love love love my students this term. Full of life and laughter. So life-giving!
Review of Day from Start to Finish: Where did you accept God's invitation to be loving, grateful, to be yourself? Where did you turn away from it?
Getting Up - It was calm and I ate breakfast. I had time in Moment 1: To become more attentive to God's presence and action in my daily routine. I loved praying and journaling and having some aha moments as I looked at a quote above the desk I don't usually use: "Love forgives and disregards the offenses of others" (1 Peter 4:8 in the Amplified - I think). Disregard just hit me. Read Interior Castle and Dickens. Prepared for class.
Morning - Rode bike in the sunshine and loved teaching my classes. The weight class went well. I am usually insecure about teaching that, but I spent a good hour preparing.
Mid-Day - On bike ride back, I had a memory in which I could have chosen to not forgive or to DISREGARD. I actually heard that word! My time from the morning. I remembered! DISREGARD. So I disregarded that memory of an offense. Good lunch and shower. I went in the sunshine of my spiritual direction room and had Moment 2: To be more open to the word which God speaks in my daily life (Listening to God). Yummy time in the sunshine. Then, I listened to my book for a couple of hours.
Afternoon - Did a bit of work on my Instinctual Variants class. Registered for Spring term Cardio Weight Training class. Watched Downton Abbey! My body was very tired from the quick work out and the weights workout.
Evening - George came home, and we made banana bread together for missional community. Only Sandy came. J and J did not show up. Everyone else could not come. We had a good talk about leadership and managing a team and our friends. We prayed. Then David showed up very late and we talked about the mobilization of people and casting a vision.
End of Day - Watched Downton Abbey and drifted off to sleep.
Regret - I can think of one thing. I said something I wish I had not said. I acknowledge this. I caught myself in the act and instead of continuing to listen I said that maybe we should pray about the situation.
Most meaningful - Moment II in the sunshine. I just love when you direct me toward you in my "low" part of the day where I am tempted to disengage from your presence. I chose engagement, and you blessed me with a yummy "sunshine through the window" basking in your presence moment. Just the grace I was asking for!
I ask for the grace to see you today!
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Wednesday Freewrite
Oh, what a difference a day makes. I am much better today than I was yesterday. I will leave at 10:15 to go and do Dial-A-Book deliveries. I think having Valentina and Peter here for the morning was very life-giving for me. I like people interaction. I don't have to have a lot of it, but I like it. Yesterday morning was just harder, but once I went to teach my two classes, I was fine. I was almost not going to go to my Cardio Weight Training, but it was good for me. My back was a little hurt from a vigorous ride into work. I should have warmed up my body a bit before I hopped on my bike and went full-out. I wanted to beat my record, and I made it in 15 minutes. My past record was 16 minutes. It was great to get there earlier so I could warm up the room for my students. They didn't seem to mind the silent class, and I know I really like it. Thursday will be weights for the Pilates II and a quick class for the Pilates I with a nice rollout on the rollers.
Today, it is Dial-A-Book. I am very proud of myself because they wanted to add another person to my route that was WAY OUT THERE and take away the person who is on the way to somewhere else. I said no. I am already spending almost twice as much time doing deliveries as I did for the first fifteen years of my service (I will be 18 years in September). I don't think the new people running it really think through the routes very well. They have me going all over the place. Before, I was in certain regions of the city (except maybe the first year where I went quite a ways out on Highway 20 to Judy's house, but the rest of the deliveries were close together in the center of town). Anywho, I was happy that I could set a boundary and say that that would be too many clients going all over the place.
After Dial-A-Book, I will practice my talk and read the Interior Castle. I am in the Fourth Mansion. It has been so interesting and not intimidating at all. It helped yesterday as part of my not dwelling on some unhealthy things, I listened to Mimi Dixon's podcast with Carolyn. That was really beneficial, and I think that Carolyn asks really good questions, and Mimi is so thorough and has thought out her answers so well. It has been really stimulating for me to think about what Clinton calls the "doing to being" boundary that I think Teresa is talking about in the Fourth Mansion. I need to think about it more this afternoon. I was challenged as I was listening to the book this morning to stop doing some things that have been occupying my mind. I have gotten much better in my evenings. I tend to "veg," and I have been going out and reading and journaling by candlelight. I think I feel freer to do that when Paul is not home, but I can always go into the spiritual direction room when he is off of work. It doesn't have to be weird. I more hunker in my room when he is home. We can both occupy the space of the rest of the house.
I have also read my Theory of Personality book from the 80s. Karen Horney and ways of coping are in there. That is what I am relearning as I study the "Hornevian" types in the Enneagram. So funny that I had been exposed to her before (moving toward, moving, against, moving away)! This adds such a good layer of understanding to the Enneagram and helps me see how I cope sometimes. I can do something different. I think that was really clear at the memorial service a few weeks ago when I moved toward hoping for a connection, and it went terribly wrong. George can detach and move away so much more easily than me.
There is the timer. So good to get thoughts out.
Today, it is Dial-A-Book. I am very proud of myself because they wanted to add another person to my route that was WAY OUT THERE and take away the person who is on the way to somewhere else. I said no. I am already spending almost twice as much time doing deliveries as I did for the first fifteen years of my service (I will be 18 years in September). I don't think the new people running it really think through the routes very well. They have me going all over the place. Before, I was in certain regions of the city (except maybe the first year where I went quite a ways out on Highway 20 to Judy's house, but the rest of the deliveries were close together in the center of town). Anywho, I was happy that I could set a boundary and say that that would be too many clients going all over the place.
After Dial-A-Book, I will practice my talk and read the Interior Castle. I am in the Fourth Mansion. It has been so interesting and not intimidating at all. It helped yesterday as part of my not dwelling on some unhealthy things, I listened to Mimi Dixon's podcast with Carolyn. That was really beneficial, and I think that Carolyn asks really good questions, and Mimi is so thorough and has thought out her answers so well. It has been really stimulating for me to think about what Clinton calls the "doing to being" boundary that I think Teresa is talking about in the Fourth Mansion. I need to think about it more this afternoon. I was challenged as I was listening to the book this morning to stop doing some things that have been occupying my mind. I have gotten much better in my evenings. I tend to "veg," and I have been going out and reading and journaling by candlelight. I think I feel freer to do that when Paul is not home, but I can always go into the spiritual direction room when he is off of work. It doesn't have to be weird. I more hunker in my room when he is home. We can both occupy the space of the rest of the house.
I have also read my Theory of Personality book from the 80s. Karen Horney and ways of coping are in there. That is what I am relearning as I study the "Hornevian" types in the Enneagram. So funny that I had been exposed to her before (moving toward, moving, against, moving away)! This adds such a good layer of understanding to the Enneagram and helps me see how I cope sometimes. I can do something different. I think that was really clear at the memorial service a few weeks ago when I moved toward hoping for a connection, and it went terribly wrong. George can detach and move away so much more easily than me.
There is the timer. So good to get thoughts out.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Tuesday Freewrite
Yesterday was a great day. I woke up this morning so different from how I went to bed. I miss George this morning. It is his birthday, and I was hoping to go up to see him but I realized that 1) Paul will not have a car to get to work, and 2) I have Valentina and Peter coming in the morning. So, it won't work out.
I am also going to do a silent class this morning for both classes, and I am always tentative to do this. It doesn't always please people, and you know how I love to please "all the people all the time." :) HAHAHAHAHAHA.
It really is fine. I will figure it out. A part of me just wants to go back to bed. So maybe I am not feeling well. I cannot tell.
I had such a productive day yesterday getting my handouts and exercises ready for the little workshop I am going to do on March 7. I don't know what my problem is right now. So I will just go with the feeling.
A part of it is that little monsters of doubt came back about all the junk spewed at me in December. What if it is true? I know I had laid that to rest because no one believes it is true. It was a broken mirror. Really probably more true about the other person than me. I have heard the psychological term "projection" thrown out a lot by friends and family who know me well. It still hurt so deeply. I am feeling like this is good to just keep writing about it. I know my personality type tends to "edit feelings" and "positively reframe" things so often. So if the feelings come back, even in smaller doses, I am going to not fight them and express them honestly.
My meditation this morning was on sending out the disciples in Matthew 10. They would be persecuted. The Spirit of the Father would give them the words to say at the proper time, and I need to know that I will have the right words to say at the right time. A part of me just wants to be with George. I just want my hubby home. I am so grateful that we are so solid. We are so supportive of each other. I am so praying for the third Weaver man to get a job. Michael got one last week. Paul got one at the end of December. Now it is George's turn. He has a job, but I would like him to have a new one that has him home every night. There was one where he would telecommute once a week. It would be great if it were a Monday. Then I could go up with him every Monday and then we could come back together every Monday night. That would be so very cool. I know there is that one job that offers that, but he has not heard a thing. He is wondering because he is too old.
I am just rambling, but that is what a freewrite is supposed to do. This is part of my healing.
The workshop I am doing will look at the three instinctual variants:
1) Self-Preservation (Zone 1: Personal maintenance, Zone 2: Practical wisdom, Zone 3: Domesticity)
2) Sexual (Zone 1: Arousal, Zone 2: Attraction, Zone 3:Fushion) - this is not only sexual this is about what ignites a fire in you.
3) Social (Zone 1: Reading people and Situations, Zone 2: Creating and Maintaining Connections and Bonds, Zone 3: Contribution and Participation)
Reviewing Russ Hudson's class has been SO GOOD! I love it. I think he has a better handle on defining these three variants than most people. With his definition, I am definitely a Social who loves one on one relationships. One on One is mistakenly how people describe the sexual, but Russ gives a good case where this is not necessarily what that means. I am so glad I can review these lectures. Now, I am going to edit my Type descriptions for people to look at AFTER I explain this. I do not want people to get hung up on the Type descriptions and not see that the transformational work comes from working on their blind spot.
Fifteen minutes are done. Now to get ready for classes. Silent classes await.
I am also going to do a silent class this morning for both classes, and I am always tentative to do this. It doesn't always please people, and you know how I love to please "all the people all the time." :) HAHAHAHAHAHA.
It really is fine. I will figure it out. A part of me just wants to go back to bed. So maybe I am not feeling well. I cannot tell.
I had such a productive day yesterday getting my handouts and exercises ready for the little workshop I am going to do on March 7. I don't know what my problem is right now. So I will just go with the feeling.
A part of it is that little monsters of doubt came back about all the junk spewed at me in December. What if it is true? I know I had laid that to rest because no one believes it is true. It was a broken mirror. Really probably more true about the other person than me. I have heard the psychological term "projection" thrown out a lot by friends and family who know me well. It still hurt so deeply. I am feeling like this is good to just keep writing about it. I know my personality type tends to "edit feelings" and "positively reframe" things so often. So if the feelings come back, even in smaller doses, I am going to not fight them and express them honestly.
My meditation this morning was on sending out the disciples in Matthew 10. They would be persecuted. The Spirit of the Father would give them the words to say at the proper time, and I need to know that I will have the right words to say at the right time. A part of me just wants to be with George. I just want my hubby home. I am so grateful that we are so solid. We are so supportive of each other. I am so praying for the third Weaver man to get a job. Michael got one last week. Paul got one at the end of December. Now it is George's turn. He has a job, but I would like him to have a new one that has him home every night. There was one where he would telecommute once a week. It would be great if it were a Monday. Then I could go up with him every Monday and then we could come back together every Monday night. That would be so very cool. I know there is that one job that offers that, but he has not heard a thing. He is wondering because he is too old.
I am just rambling, but that is what a freewrite is supposed to do. This is part of my healing.
The workshop I am doing will look at the three instinctual variants:
1) Self-Preservation (Zone 1: Personal maintenance, Zone 2: Practical wisdom, Zone 3: Domesticity)
2) Sexual (Zone 1: Arousal, Zone 2: Attraction, Zone 3:Fushion) - this is not only sexual this is about what ignites a fire in you.
3) Social (Zone 1: Reading people and Situations, Zone 2: Creating and Maintaining Connections and Bonds, Zone 3: Contribution and Participation)
Reviewing Russ Hudson's class has been SO GOOD! I love it. I think he has a better handle on defining these three variants than most people. With his definition, I am definitely a Social who loves one on one relationships. One on One is mistakenly how people describe the sexual, but Russ gives a good case where this is not necessarily what that means. I am so glad I can review these lectures. Now, I am going to edit my Type descriptions for people to look at AFTER I explain this. I do not want people to get hung up on the Type descriptions and not see that the transformational work comes from working on their blind spot.
Fifteen minutes are done. Now to get ready for classes. Silent classes await.
Monday, February 17, 2020
Monday Fifteen Minute Freewrite
I am in my bedroom in the afternoon. I decided to go straight to working on the workshop I will be teaching instead of doing this in the mornings after my prayer and scripture time. I have the handout completed but not edited. I also went through how I would teach it. This is good, and I have 19 more days to get this all together. :)
Today, I meditated on Jesus Calming the Storm in the Spiritual Exercises. I walked around the track at the elementary school a couple of times in the pretty early morning, not realizing that there is no school today because of President's Day. So I can walk anytime today. It was 33 degrees. So I was pretty bundled up.
After this, I worked on my handouts. I think it will be really good. The second walk I took was a break to listen to Dombey and Son. I think this book is 37 hours long. So, I am slowly making my way through it. I love Dickens though. As I am going through the Instinctual Variants, I realize how much books give me a vacation from my dominant variant of social where I am thinking about others and how this thing will affect them! I get lost in the book. I love it. I was bundled up like the morning, but I should not have been. I got REALLY hot about halfway through my walk! I had my thermal underwear, Nike long-sleeved shirt, polar fleece jacket, big coat, and hat, and gloves! Too much.
The good news is that I met my exercise goal for the day and my move goal was met about fifteen minutes ago. I went back to my handout and added the exercises that I will have the group do on their own. I think I will teach for 1/2 hour, give them alone time to do the exercise 1/2 hour, come back together and discuss what they learned for a 1/2 hour. That will be good enough for me. I need to get the teaching down. I timed myself at 20 minutes, but I needed to look at my handout a LOT. I want to just have it in my head. But I have a lot of time to do that.
I listened to the video that they used to use for this, and it is SO CONFUSING. I also think that so many people get mixed up and limit the Sexual instinct to mean only one to one relationships, and it is not only about that. It is about creative energy. It can be that "zing" you get in adventure or going beyond boundaries. I love how Russ teaches it, and it makes so much more sense when he teaches it, and it is so much more applicable when he teaches it that way.
So, I got a little bit overloaded working on this. I have put a good 3-4 hours. So I am going to ruminate until Wednesday and take another stab at it. In the meantime, I am writing this freewrite.
Oh, I also had a nice little chat with Julie of my "Tribe"! I love the girl (the one who first told me about Freewrites and BHAGs). She had surgery, and I didn't even know it. Shows you how out of touch I have been with her. She is a self-preservation Type Four which totally shows how she can run a business! She rocks. So good to catch up with her.
I also had an exchange back and forth with Meredith by voice texts about spending time in solitude for a Type Two. That was meaningful and lovely. Also, texted back and forth with Nan.
I think I will go up to Newberg to celebrate George's birthday with him and see his mom since I have not seen her since Christmas!
I am doing so well. I told Julie what happened to me in December, and she was great. I think I am doing really well with all that. I think I have moved on. She said it is a blessing really. I agree.
Now, for the rest of the afternoon, I will get ready for my spiritual direction time with M. I need to get her hand out ready. I hope she was able to do something with what I gave her last time. :) I think it is better to give others the option of doing this on their own, with a director, or not at all. I don't like that it is forced on them. Ignatius would not have liked that. He said some people are just not ready for it, and I agree!
I am having an apophatic moment. It is that transmitting (sexual is not the word for it when it comes to God) instinct between me and God. I love it. Looking out the window at the clouds and the blue sky and God is right here. He is the spring from within and not going through the channels that Teresa of Avila talks about in the Interior Castle (oh, I also read a bit of that this morning too - I love that Ph.D. thesis that parallels it with The Critical Journey and The Making of a Leader - yummy)
The timer went off. Back to work.
Today, I meditated on Jesus Calming the Storm in the Spiritual Exercises. I walked around the track at the elementary school a couple of times in the pretty early morning, not realizing that there is no school today because of President's Day. So I can walk anytime today. It was 33 degrees. So I was pretty bundled up.
After this, I worked on my handouts. I think it will be really good. The second walk I took was a break to listen to Dombey and Son. I think this book is 37 hours long. So, I am slowly making my way through it. I love Dickens though. As I am going through the Instinctual Variants, I realize how much books give me a vacation from my dominant variant of social where I am thinking about others and how this thing will affect them! I get lost in the book. I love it. I was bundled up like the morning, but I should not have been. I got REALLY hot about halfway through my walk! I had my thermal underwear, Nike long-sleeved shirt, polar fleece jacket, big coat, and hat, and gloves! Too much.
The good news is that I met my exercise goal for the day and my move goal was met about fifteen minutes ago. I went back to my handout and added the exercises that I will have the group do on their own. I think I will teach for 1/2 hour, give them alone time to do the exercise 1/2 hour, come back together and discuss what they learned for a 1/2 hour. That will be good enough for me. I need to get the teaching down. I timed myself at 20 minutes, but I needed to look at my handout a LOT. I want to just have it in my head. But I have a lot of time to do that.
I listened to the video that they used to use for this, and it is SO CONFUSING. I also think that so many people get mixed up and limit the Sexual instinct to mean only one to one relationships, and it is not only about that. It is about creative energy. It can be that "zing" you get in adventure or going beyond boundaries. I love how Russ teaches it, and it makes so much more sense when he teaches it, and it is so much more applicable when he teaches it that way.
So, I got a little bit overloaded working on this. I have put a good 3-4 hours. So I am going to ruminate until Wednesday and take another stab at it. In the meantime, I am writing this freewrite.
Oh, I also had a nice little chat with Julie of my "Tribe"! I love the girl (the one who first told me about Freewrites and BHAGs). She had surgery, and I didn't even know it. Shows you how out of touch I have been with her. She is a self-preservation Type Four which totally shows how she can run a business! She rocks. So good to catch up with her.
I also had an exchange back and forth with Meredith by voice texts about spending time in solitude for a Type Two. That was meaningful and lovely. Also, texted back and forth with Nan.
I think I will go up to Newberg to celebrate George's birthday with him and see his mom since I have not seen her since Christmas!
I am doing so well. I told Julie what happened to me in December, and she was great. I think I am doing really well with all that. I think I have moved on. She said it is a blessing really. I agree.
Now, for the rest of the afternoon, I will get ready for my spiritual direction time with M. I need to get her hand out ready. I hope she was able to do something with what I gave her last time. :) I think it is better to give others the option of doing this on their own, with a director, or not at all. I don't like that it is forced on them. Ignatius would not have liked that. He said some people are just not ready for it, and I agree!
I am having an apophatic moment. It is that transmitting (sexual is not the word for it when it comes to God) instinct between me and God. I love it. Looking out the window at the clouds and the blue sky and God is right here. He is the spring from within and not going through the channels that Teresa of Avila talks about in the Interior Castle (oh, I also read a bit of that this morning too - I love that Ph.D. thesis that parallels it with The Critical Journey and The Making of a Leader - yummy)
The timer went off. Back to work.
Friday, February 14, 2020
Revisiting Rory Gilmore's Reading Challenge - 144 Books
I posted about this in 2012. My friend sent me the link so I could check off all that I had read. I had never even heard of Rory Gilmore prior to this. Here is the list with the new books added in BLUE.
I have read 17 since I first posted 127. So I am up to 144. :)
I have read 17 since I first posted 127. So I am up to 144. :)
Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge
1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll – read – July 2010
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - multiple movies and play
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire – read – June 2010
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White - and movie
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – all movie versions known to man
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare - multiple plays though
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père - and multiple movie versions
Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber – started and not finished
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daisy Miller by Henry James
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - and multiple movie versions
The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes - and musical
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe - many
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen – and multiple movie versions
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton - and movie
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves - parts
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien - and movie
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein - and movie
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom – and movie
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - andm movie
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – started and not finished
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell – and movie
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - and movie
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – and movie
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - and multiple movie versions
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare - and multiple movie versions
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the (Philosopher's) Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry - and movie
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg - disgusting!
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer - and movie Troy
I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – and multiple movie versions
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan - and movie
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - and movie
Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - and movie versions
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott – two movie versions too
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold – read
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare (saw it in Ashland)
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin - and movie version
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen – two movie versions
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - and muliple movie versions
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey - and movie
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby – read
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – and multiple movie versions
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (August 2019)
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – and two movie versions
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Fever by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster - and multiple movie versions
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin - started but TOO SCARY to finish!
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - and multiple movie versions
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy – on my book pile
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov (August 2019)
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust - (August 2019)
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber - saw it when I was young and SCARY!
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – read
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - and the mini-series
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire – started and not finished
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum - and the movie
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - and multiple movie versions
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (July 2019)
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll – read – July 2010
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - multiple movies and play
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire – read – June 2010
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White - and movie
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – all movie versions known to man
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare - multiple plays though
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père - and multiple movie versions
Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber – started and not finished
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daisy Miller by Henry James
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - and multiple movie versions
The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes - and musical
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe - many
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen – and multiple movie versions
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton - and movie
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves - parts
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien - and movie
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein - and movie
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom – and movie
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - andm movie
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – started and not finished
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell – and movie
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - and movie
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – and movie
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - and multiple movie versions
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare - and multiple movie versions
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the (Philosopher's) Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry - and movie
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg - disgusting!
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer - and movie Troy
I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – and multiple movie versions
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan - and movie
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - and movie
Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - and movie versions
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott – two movie versions too
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold – read
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare (saw it in Ashland)
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin - and movie version
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen – two movie versions
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - and muliple movie versions
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey - and movie
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby – read
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – and multiple movie versions
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (August 2019)
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – and two movie versions
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Fever by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster - and multiple movie versions
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin - started but TOO SCARY to finish!
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - and multiple movie versions
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy – on my book pile
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov (August 2019)
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust - (August 2019)
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber - saw it when I was young and SCARY!
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – read
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - and the mini-series
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire – started and not finished
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum - and the movie
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - and multiple movie versions
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (July 2019)
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Friday Freewrite Fifteen
Friday Freewrite Fifteen is so alliterative. I have a DAY with nothing on my calendar except Valentine's date dinner of some kind when George gets home. YAY!
It was a great week. I really and truly believe that I am over that hump of grief and processing that I went through recently. God has lifted me up over The Wall. It was meant for my good. It was extremely painful, but I can look back at it with joy and love. I continue to pray for the healing of the paralytic. I am free though. This is a Friday freewrite of freedom.
I am reading Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, and so far, I don't find it difficult to read at all. I almost think there could be LESS commentary in it and just a straight reading of it. What is great (and I might have already mentioned it here) is that I found a Ph.D. thesis that compares Interior Castle with The Critical Journey (a book we read in spiritual direction training and will return to again in the next two modules) and The Making of a Leader by Clinton! The other two books I have read on this subject. It is a really interesting thesis, and he lives in Portland. What a small world!
Spiritually, it has been a good week meditating through the Lord's Prayer. I remember to pray over my work and weight lifting class. I think I handled a couple of things on Monday that would have sent me reeling emotionally and did not as I sought George's Type Nine opinion of both situations and sought Kim's prayer support because she is so similar. I could let it go.
What is so great is that I had a long talk with God about the anxiety I felt about Michael still not having a job, and I gave it over in the best way. Now, Michael has a job!
So I am going to apply that same thing for George. He has had a good, almost seven-year run up there in Hillsboro, but I think it is time to have him come home. We miss each other. We have gotten so close through the separation (but we have always been pretty close). We just have not felt the need to move up there permanently. So I am asking for a great job down here and leaving it in God's hands like I did for Michael. I love my men. I love that they are hard and disciplined workers.
Physically, I am doing so great. I have realized more and more that some of my issue has been how I carry stress in my muscles. I catch myself in the act of not breathing, tightening my muscles in the pelvic and root of my spine. So I am being more conscious of not carrying the stress, doing awareness exercises, and something I learned long ago, do not sit longer than an hour at a time. I can get so focused and in my head sometimes that I don't listen to my body. So I am listening to the feedback of my body a lot more.
Pilates class has also whipped me back into shape, big time. I was sore from class this last week. So I am still not up to the same strength I was before my injury, but I am really close and can feel my muscles responding really well.
I am also on my eleventh day of disciplined eating and recording. I don't have time to be part of the LoseIt! community anymore, but I realized I was not going there for recording because I felt bad for not responding to others. I want to be reciprocal in my encouragement, but the goal is to be healthy. I do comment when I can, but I cannot spend that much time there since I already spend so much time at the computer for other things. I think I have lost four pounds. I think I gained fifteen altogether in the broken leg. I remember having to let all of that go, and I wish I had not done it, but so much of my maintenance is my activity level. Medications also make me eat more. But that is all over now. So I am on the road back down. Only eleven more to go until I am back to what I would like to be (and I should add the even with the fifteen pound gain, I was still in my weight range, I just hate being at the top of that range).
It was a great week. I really and truly believe that I am over that hump of grief and processing that I went through recently. God has lifted me up over The Wall. It was meant for my good. It was extremely painful, but I can look back at it with joy and love. I continue to pray for the healing of the paralytic. I am free though. This is a Friday freewrite of freedom.
I am reading Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, and so far, I don't find it difficult to read at all. I almost think there could be LESS commentary in it and just a straight reading of it. What is great (and I might have already mentioned it here) is that I found a Ph.D. thesis that compares Interior Castle with The Critical Journey (a book we read in spiritual direction training and will return to again in the next two modules) and The Making of a Leader by Clinton! The other two books I have read on this subject. It is a really interesting thesis, and he lives in Portland. What a small world!
Spiritually, it has been a good week meditating through the Lord's Prayer. I remember to pray over my work and weight lifting class. I think I handled a couple of things on Monday that would have sent me reeling emotionally and did not as I sought George's Type Nine opinion of both situations and sought Kim's prayer support because she is so similar. I could let it go.
What is so great is that I had a long talk with God about the anxiety I felt about Michael still not having a job, and I gave it over in the best way. Now, Michael has a job!
So I am going to apply that same thing for George. He has had a good, almost seven-year run up there in Hillsboro, but I think it is time to have him come home. We miss each other. We have gotten so close through the separation (but we have always been pretty close). We just have not felt the need to move up there permanently. So I am asking for a great job down here and leaving it in God's hands like I did for Michael. I love my men. I love that they are hard and disciplined workers.
Physically, I am doing so great. I have realized more and more that some of my issue has been how I carry stress in my muscles. I catch myself in the act of not breathing, tightening my muscles in the pelvic and root of my spine. So I am being more conscious of not carrying the stress, doing awareness exercises, and something I learned long ago, do not sit longer than an hour at a time. I can get so focused and in my head sometimes that I don't listen to my body. So I am listening to the feedback of my body a lot more.
Pilates class has also whipped me back into shape, big time. I was sore from class this last week. So I am still not up to the same strength I was before my injury, but I am really close and can feel my muscles responding really well.
I am also on my eleventh day of disciplined eating and recording. I don't have time to be part of the LoseIt! community anymore, but I realized I was not going there for recording because I felt bad for not responding to others. I want to be reciprocal in my encouragement, but the goal is to be healthy. I do comment when I can, but I cannot spend that much time there since I already spend so much time at the computer for other things. I think I have lost four pounds. I think I gained fifteen altogether in the broken leg. I remember having to let all of that go, and I wish I had not done it, but so much of my maintenance is my activity level. Medications also make me eat more. But that is all over now. So I am on the road back down. Only eleven more to go until I am back to what I would like to be (and I should add the even with the fifteen pound gain, I was still in my weight range, I just hate being at the top of that range).
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Wednesday Morning Freewrite Examen
Review of Tuesday
Three things I a Grateful For:
1) Teaching at OSU - I know I keep on saying this, but I LOVE my job. I LOVE my students. I LOVE my coworkers. It is just a positive and uplifting environment all the way around.
2) Exercising and getting paid for it - I love taking care of my body and also helping people. The soreness feels so good this morning.
3) Reading the Interior Castle last night instead of just vegging in front of the TV
4) Not overeating!
Where did you see God?
At the beginning of the day - I saw him in my meditation in Scripture. I was focusing again on "Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Later morning - Riding my bike. It is so fun to not have to stop at Stop signs anymore :). It was crisp but fun to ride. Fun to teach students that laugh at my jokes (at least Pilates I students do).
Middle of the day - Remembered to pray "Thy Kingdom come" in the middle of my weight lifting class instead of focusing on my leg feeling weird and "tweaking." Entered into his presence in the midst of that. Rode my bike back.
Afternoon - Really tired! Tuesdays are the biggest day, but I did not overeat! That is where I was protected by the power of God. I did watch a bit of mindless TV and rested. I also read Cat's Eyes and Dombey and Son.
Evening - Read Interior Castle and read the study guide and article by Dallas Willard that goes along with it. Connected with his presence in the midst of it. I really like the book so far, and this was God's prompting when I first got up Tuesday morning. I watch some New Hampshire primary news and George came home and we debriefed his council meeting.
End of the Day - I tried to watch Downton Abbey but could not keep my eyes open. I was asleep before 10pm (and had fun dreams of being on a cruise with all the fun people on cruises in the past).
Regret - Watching more mindless TV than I would like to. Also, I had a negative thought about someone who hurt me (want to nip these in the bud since I am so OVER that situation that happened - dealt with the hurt, had surgery, now in rehabilitation). I acknowledge this, ask for forgiveness, and ask for the grace to do better in the future.
The most meaningful part of the day - Probably reading Interior Castle and having another overwhelming connection with the presence of God at my dining room table. It felt so good to 1) not watch TV and 2) to not overeat!
What do you want me to know about this?
Three things I a Grateful For:
1) Teaching at OSU - I know I keep on saying this, but I LOVE my job. I LOVE my students. I LOVE my coworkers. It is just a positive and uplifting environment all the way around.
2) Exercising and getting paid for it - I love taking care of my body and also helping people. The soreness feels so good this morning.
3) Reading the Interior Castle last night instead of just vegging in front of the TV
4) Not overeating!
Where did you see God?
At the beginning of the day - I saw him in my meditation in Scripture. I was focusing again on "Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Later morning - Riding my bike. It is so fun to not have to stop at Stop signs anymore :). It was crisp but fun to ride. Fun to teach students that laugh at my jokes (at least Pilates I students do).
Middle of the day - Remembered to pray "Thy Kingdom come" in the middle of my weight lifting class instead of focusing on my leg feeling weird and "tweaking." Entered into his presence in the midst of that. Rode my bike back.
Afternoon - Really tired! Tuesdays are the biggest day, but I did not overeat! That is where I was protected by the power of God. I did watch a bit of mindless TV and rested. I also read Cat's Eyes and Dombey and Son.
Evening - Read Interior Castle and read the study guide and article by Dallas Willard that goes along with it. Connected with his presence in the midst of it. I really like the book so far, and this was God's prompting when I first got up Tuesday morning. I watch some New Hampshire primary news and George came home and we debriefed his council meeting.
End of the Day - I tried to watch Downton Abbey but could not keep my eyes open. I was asleep before 10pm (and had fun dreams of being on a cruise with all the fun people on cruises in the past).
Regret - Watching more mindless TV than I would like to. Also, I had a negative thought about someone who hurt me (want to nip these in the bud since I am so OVER that situation that happened - dealt with the hurt, had surgery, now in rehabilitation). I acknowledge this, ask for forgiveness, and ask for the grace to do better in the future.
The most meaningful part of the day - Probably reading Interior Castle and having another overwhelming connection with the presence of God at my dining room table. It felt so good to 1) not watch TV and 2) to not overeat!
What do you want me to know about this?
Come to Me all who are weary and heavy-laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart,
And you will find rest for your souls.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Tuesday Morning Freewrite
The last week or so has been a whirlwind. At least for me, it has been a whirlwind. After hearing the Type Three panel, I realize that my life is not a whirlwind. LOL! How helpful to have this panel. The last panel was the hardest for me to understand and relate to as they discussed being a Type Six. I learned so much, but there was so much I could identify with the Type Three because they are in the same "heart" triad as me. Also, one of my wings is a Type Three.
This morning, I will finish grading up my papers, ride my bike to work, teach two classes, lift weights, and ride my bike back. Then I am going to veg for the rest of the day. Last week was two spiritual direction appointments, teaching four Pilates classes, one weight lifting class, grading numerous papers, a dinner and information night with Nessa, Women's Basketball Alumni Weekend, Renovare Book Club on Doors into Prayer, hair cut and color, Dial A Book volunteering, instinctual variant teaching preparation, going up to Hillsboro to be with George, missional community at the Gs, kicking off planning for the PUMP Party, talk with Marty about teaching, talk with Dale about answering questions about Type Six, panel discussion, and meditating through the Lord's prayer.
All that said, is that it is time for a little downtime. In many ways, it was a balance between body, mind, and spirit!
I have been meditating this morning, and I feel like I need to delve more deeply into the whole issue of SHAME. This is at the heart of the heart triad. I realize if I were to boil emotions down to three kinds: I feel . . . mad . . . sad . . . bad, BAD is definitely the one I feel more than the other two. I think the last time I was truly mad was January of 2018. It is not that I have tried not to be mad or that I have repressed my feelings of anger, that is not my "go-to" emotion, and I think that is OK. Even though my accuser accused me of this in December, I just don't see any evidence of this in my life, overtly or repressed. But I feel SHAME and bad. Like yesterday, when I politely asked a man if he wouldn't mind switching study rooms since he was only going to get to be in the room for an hour because I had reserved it once the library opened, and there was another room totally empty. Instead of me setting up in that room and then having to move, would he mind going there so I could set up? He was ticked at me for asking. He left in a huff and did not take the other room as an option. I felt HORRIBLE for about an hour until something else came up that I felt bad about. LOL! I do want to break the cycle of SHAME. I do know that I asked my objective husband what he thinks of the scenario, and I ask my Type Two Twin, Kim, to pray (because she can totally relate with how I feel). This has helped, but I want to get to the bottom of why I feel that way. I want to know how to deal with my shame in constructive ways.
There is the timer. Now I am off to grade those final papers and get ready to go and teach my class. TTFN.
(P.S. I will say that these Freewrites really do help me go to that Type Four self-nurturing place and to get my feelings out there.)
This morning, I will finish grading up my papers, ride my bike to work, teach two classes, lift weights, and ride my bike back. Then I am going to veg for the rest of the day. Last week was two spiritual direction appointments, teaching four Pilates classes, one weight lifting class, grading numerous papers, a dinner and information night with Nessa, Women's Basketball Alumni Weekend, Renovare Book Club on Doors into Prayer, hair cut and color, Dial A Book volunteering, instinctual variant teaching preparation, going up to Hillsboro to be with George, missional community at the Gs, kicking off planning for the PUMP Party, talk with Marty about teaching, talk with Dale about answering questions about Type Six, panel discussion, and meditating through the Lord's prayer.
All that said, is that it is time for a little downtime. In many ways, it was a balance between body, mind, and spirit!
I have been meditating this morning, and I feel like I need to delve more deeply into the whole issue of SHAME. This is at the heart of the heart triad. I realize if I were to boil emotions down to three kinds: I feel . . . mad . . . sad . . . bad, BAD is definitely the one I feel more than the other two. I think the last time I was truly mad was January of 2018. It is not that I have tried not to be mad or that I have repressed my feelings of anger, that is not my "go-to" emotion, and I think that is OK. Even though my accuser accused me of this in December, I just don't see any evidence of this in my life, overtly or repressed. But I feel SHAME and bad. Like yesterday, when I politely asked a man if he wouldn't mind switching study rooms since he was only going to get to be in the room for an hour because I had reserved it once the library opened, and there was another room totally empty. Instead of me setting up in that room and then having to move, would he mind going there so I could set up? He was ticked at me for asking. He left in a huff and did not take the other room as an option. I felt HORRIBLE for about an hour until something else came up that I felt bad about. LOL! I do want to break the cycle of SHAME. I do know that I asked my objective husband what he thinks of the scenario, and I ask my Type Two Twin, Kim, to pray (because she can totally relate with how I feel). This has helped, but I want to get to the bottom of why I feel that way. I want to know how to deal with my shame in constructive ways.
There is the timer. Now I am off to grade those final papers and get ready to go and teach my class. TTFN.
(P.S. I will say that these Freewrites really do help me go to that Type Four self-nurturing place and to get my feelings out there.)
Monday, February 10, 2020
Monday Morning Freewrite
I will be leaving for Hillsboro in 45 minutes, but I will just have a quick freewrite this morning. Then I will be ready to get to work at the library up there. I have the room for most of the day with a 1-hour break that I will use to walk to Costco and back and get a salad for our dinner. We have the Type 3 panel at PSU tonight. So that should be good since it is one of my wings and George's heart connection point. I need to print off the Type 3 sheet. I don't remember getting it, but I am sure that I did.
This morning, my meditation was on "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." I have quoted Prompts for Prayerwalkers in the manual I wrote Exercises for Everyone. (If you are reading this and want a copy, I am always looking for people who would like to test drive this manual. Contact me.) I am looking forward to prayer walking during the Seek God for the City time between February 23 and Palm Sunday. I am not sure I will go to the prayer times with the pastors though.
Yesterday was eye-opening for me. I spent a good chunk of the weekend going down memory lane at my university with other basketball alumni. It was lovely, but I have to say that the most life-giving part of my weekend was missing the game on Friday to go to N's dinner and talk about her work in Central Asia (praying over her and then talking with her aunt about spiritual direction afterward), doing bible study with T in Central Asia over WhatsApp on both Saturday and Sunday, and talking via WhatsApp with J about his desires to see God's kingdom come to his city in Asia. That is where my heartbeat lies and what has been most life-giving to me throughout my life. Sometimes I feel so funny when I am in that world of sports. I always have, but I feel so "in the groove" when it comes to kingdom things. So that was helpful to do an examen this morning to figure that out.
Speaking of the Examen, Carey gave a talk on confession, and she gave an example of the Examen to the whole congregation. Come to think of it, that was life-giving too. :)
I love my old coach and teammates (only one was there this time as compared to many more last year - I guess the ones I know better were there on Friday night, and I was at N's thing) though. I pray for your kingdom to come to OSU WBB!
What I am looking forward to today:
1) Drive up to Hillsboro with George
2) Working on my workshop on the instincts
3) Talking with Marty
4) Walking in Dawson Creek
5) Listening to Dombey and Sons
6) Going to the Type Three panel
7) Finishing up correcting the Cognitive Learning Assignments
8) Organizing my Pilates Props notes.
This morning, my meditation was on "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." I have quoted Prompts for Prayerwalkers in the manual I wrote Exercises for Everyone. (If you are reading this and want a copy, I am always looking for people who would like to test drive this manual. Contact me.) I am looking forward to prayer walking during the Seek God for the City time between February 23 and Palm Sunday. I am not sure I will go to the prayer times with the pastors though.
Yesterday was eye-opening for me. I spent a good chunk of the weekend going down memory lane at my university with other basketball alumni. It was lovely, but I have to say that the most life-giving part of my weekend was missing the game on Friday to go to N's dinner and talk about her work in Central Asia (praying over her and then talking with her aunt about spiritual direction afterward), doing bible study with T in Central Asia over WhatsApp on both Saturday and Sunday, and talking via WhatsApp with J about his desires to see God's kingdom come to his city in Asia. That is where my heartbeat lies and what has been most life-giving to me throughout my life. Sometimes I feel so funny when I am in that world of sports. I always have, but I feel so "in the groove" when it comes to kingdom things. So that was helpful to do an examen this morning to figure that out.
Speaking of the Examen, Carey gave a talk on confession, and she gave an example of the Examen to the whole congregation. Come to think of it, that was life-giving too. :)
I love my old coach and teammates (only one was there this time as compared to many more last year - I guess the ones I know better were there on Friday night, and I was at N's thing) though. I pray for your kingdom to come to OSU WBB!
What I am looking forward to today:
1) Drive up to Hillsboro with George
2) Working on my workshop on the instincts
3) Talking with Marty
4) Walking in Dawson Creek
5) Listening to Dombey and Sons
6) Going to the Type Three panel
7) Finishing up correcting the Cognitive Learning Assignments
8) Organizing my Pilates Props notes.
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