Thursday Thoughts: Food Obsession

I sometimes feel like I’ve obsessed about food my whole life. I have a tendency to enjoy eating. I love flavors. Textures. Food. Even as a child, I read cookbooks, looking for recipes to make. I’ve always enjoyed cooking.

Here’s the thing. I tend to be overweight. I’ve tried cutting calories, I’ve done Weight Watchers and became a lifetime member. And yet I’m still overweight.

I. Like. To. Eat. So I’ve changed my relationship with food.

I’m through apologizing for being hungry. If eating a bowl of ice cream makes me happy, then I’m going to be happy.

I know people who talk about good food and bad food. “Oh, I was bad and ate a crumb of fudge, so now I can’t eat anything except lettuce for a week.” Did the fudge make you happy? Does lettuce make you happy?

My categories are different. Do I like it? Then it’s a good food. Do I hate it? Then it’s a bad food.

 

MJ Monday-Music: Instrumental Jazz

Jazz triggers theta waves – inducing states of artistic and spiritual insight – which can assist dealing with complex issues.

I own several instrumental jazz CDs because lyrics can be distracting and jazz is very . . . fluid. The music is moody. Best of all, it’s depends on improvisation. The music demands the musician be swept into playing what is in her soul. Creative reservoirs are tapped and set free.  Just like when an author is in the flow of writing.

Book Review-Linda Howard: Son of the Morning

Image credit: tieury / 123RF Stock Photo

I once listened to an RWA workshop in which the presenter, an editor, said just once she’d like to read a submission where time travel was voluntary. My immediate thought  was you’ve never read Linda Howard’s Son of the Morning.

I love this book. It has time travel, a Scottish hero, a modern day (circa 1997) heroine on the run from some “deep state” thugs, murder, Knights of the Templar, instructions on how to live off the grid, and a true battle between good and evil.

The scenes in the beginning of the book alternate between 20th century USA and 14th century Scotland. The heroine is seeking; the hero senses someone is watching him, but doesn’t understand how. Of course, he knows why.

The heroine is a scholar who must develop other attributes to survive. The hero is a warrior with a secret.

Five stars.

MJ Monday-Movies: We’re the Millers

My husband and I watched We’re the Millers one night, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I bought my own copy of the flick and took it with me on my next writing retreat. My crit partners couldn’t stop laughing. At least one of them borrowed the DVD from me so she could show it to her husband.

Four disparate people come together to form a fake family on holiday in Mexico in order to smuggle marijuana into the US.  Their misadventures are hilarious. In the end, we learn that blood doesn’t necessarily make family.

5 stars.

Thursday Thought-Self Help: Deep Work

Deep Work by Cal Newport was recommended in a recent class I took. A bunch of fellow like-minded people started a book club and chose this title as the first to be read.

Okay, maybe I’m not as deep a thinker as the others. Or maybe I’ve read too many “self-help for productivity” books over the course of my life. This book didn’t do anything for me, except annoy me. I liked the first part of the book, and thought perhaps I’d found something useful, but once again, the author is more into delegating crap work so they con focus on the “important” work.

As if the “crap” work isn’t important. What happens when you don’t have staff or a wife? You’d have to order in your own damn sandwich. Oh. I forgot. You’re too important.

The author totally lost me when he complimented himself for doing “deep work” while helping his wife out around the house. After all, he does walk the dog every night.

To be fair, he did have good suggestions. The best was saying, “no.” Some of us do need to be more protective of our valuable time. Example: RWA and how its current issues are impacting my local chapter requires a lot more energy from the local board (although I am far from the person doing 98% of the heavy lifting) than I had anticipated; it is draining my energy. I would hate to be a chapter president right now dealing with that time suck. (Shout out to Kerrie of CNYRW!)

Women, especially, need to practice saying NO more often.