Sometimes the right book comes into your life at the right time.  It has the answers you’re searching for.  It solves the problem.  It addresses the pain.

I love it when that happens.

Here’s a few that fit the bill in my life.

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child 

by Marc Weissbluth

Our first baby was not a good sleeper.  I don’t know how much was personality, how much was parenting.  But, it wasn’t till his little sister came along more than two and half years later that I stumbled on this book.

Applying the principles to help her sleep better changed the whole game.  A good sleeper doesn’t just make a happy child, it makes a happy family.

Buy now from Amazon

Five Dysfunctions of a Team

by Patrick Lencioni

This quick read packs a punch.  Told as a parable, the story rings all too true.  Once you know the five dysfunctions, you see them everywhere.

This book dropped into our lives at a time understanding team proved to be critical to our work.

Time after time, this book hits home for people, making it a well-deserved modern classic.

Buy now from Amazon

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

by Stephen Covey

 So many of the principles in Stephen Covey’s classic work were revolutionary for me.  Begin with the end in mind.  Organize your time around your roles.  Take time to sharpen the saw.  Seek first to understand.

I think they resonated with me because I believed them to be true intrinsically, but had never heard them articulated before.

Buy now from Amazon

One Thousand Gifts

by Ann Voskamp

 Every person in the world knows pain and heartache.  And every person can number their blessings.

Ann Voskamp’s challenges us to be mindful and intentional about looking for and expressing gratitude.  It colors my thinking to this day.

I understand that her poetic prose doesn’t appeal to everyone.  Grammar Nazis beware.  But the message is universal and important.

Buy now from Amazon

The Gift of Dyslexia

by Ronald D.Davis

 I scoured the web looking for resources after one of our kids finished a dyslexia evaluation.  Obviously, there’s countless directions you can go for help.  I’m forever thankful I stumbled on to the Davis approach for the simple reason that it worked for us.

The book and the program were worth many times over what we invested.

Aside from the practical help, I loved learning more about dyslexia and the distinct advantages the dyslexic carries in his toolbox.

Buy now from Amazon

Hashimoto’s Protocol

by Izabella Wentz

I’m grateful for the wealth of information Izabella Wentz has made available through her books and articles on the internet about thyroid disease, and, specifically, about Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.

Some on her approaches are unconventional.  It’s taken me years to absorb the firehose of information she produced.  I’ve implemented her suggestions slowly, but it’s made a dramatic difference in my health.  It’s hard to argue with success.

Buy now from Amazon

What books have been game changers for you?

Last Sunday evening, Pete and I were watching Netflix when we smelled smoke.  After figuring out the smell was coming from the hallway between the house and the garage and determining that it was a bigger blaze than we could handle, we called 911.

We grabbed the laptops and Pete’s class notes and headed outside without our shoes.

It’s a weird feeling to be standing in the dark, barefoot in your yard listening for approaching sirens.

As house fires goes, it was relatively small.  It was contained and extinguished in a few minutes after the professionals got set up.  But, it does make you think.

So many of life’s events are a mixed bag of emotions.  In this case, there was some apprehension about how bad the situation could be, some grief for the losses, some relief that it wasn’t that bad and some gratitude for what was preserved.

The challenge, after it was over, was to focus on gratitude. We weren’t hurt. We caught it early. No structural damage to the house. Loss of stuff was minimal.

All that was left was the mess and the smell.

But, that’s the challenge, isn’t it? To choose gratitude, to choose contentment when you’re still sitting in the middle of the mess.

Yes, it’s a choice, yes it’s unnatural. Actually, it’s supernatural.

Because it’s easier to focus on the negative. On what’s wrong instead of on what’s right.

And maybe that’s the lesson of the fire.

Grief and gratitude existing together.

What’s more, it’s the challenge of life. So many days are a mixed bag. You can consciously choose which emotion to indulge in, which one to express. You can choose gratitude without denying the grief.

I am grateful. I choose to be grateful.

P.S.  There’s some lessons you just have to keep re-learning.  Read   Why I Find it Hard to be Grateful

There’s a box in my closet that’s been virtually untouched for ten years.

It holds framed pictures of my kids’ grandparents and aunts and uncles.  They used to hang on the wall of our house in Mexico when we lived far away from our blood relatives.

Since we moved back to our home state and we see family on a regular basis (and our kids have grown) there’s no reason to have them displayed.

But there was a time when I wanted my kids to know and remember their family.

Long distance family relationships are a constant in my life.  Good-byes are normal.  Homesickness is, generally, a non-issue.

But keeping up with long distance relationships is a challenge.  There’s time differences.  There’s time pressure of the here and now and juggling schedules.  There’s also more options than there used to be.  Skype.  Internet phones.  FaceTime.

There are more ways than ever to stay connected and more distractions than ever to keep us from connecting.

Here’s a few ideas for keeping in touch with faraway family:

Send pictures via email.

Post pictures on social media of special events or everyday life.

Set up a private facebook group to share with the select what you don’t want to share with the world.

Make a recording of you reading a favorite book and send it with the book as a gift.

Send book recommendations including links to library ebooks that can be checked out.

Go for a visit.

Start the rhythm of writing weekly family news.

Send gifts for special occasions.

What have you done to keep in touch with far away family?

Annie Dillard said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

How do you spend your days?

I find managing my schedule is like trying to wrangle hippos.

In my ongoing quest to manage my life, here’s what I’ve learned:

Better planning makes better days. Better days makes a better life.

How can you plan your days better? Identify your true priorities. When you say yes to something, that means saying no to other things. Decide ahead of time what you can’t accomplish. This eliminates the frustration of beating yourself up for unrealistic expectations that weren’t accomplished.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by work and not prioritize relationships. It’s easy to be tyrannized by the to do list and not rest and refresh.

It’s easy to think that you have so much to do that you don’t have time to plan your days.

The investment you put into planning pays off.

One thing I like about really planning your day is deciding ahead of time that you can’t get something done. Like clean the fridge yesterday. I just moved it off my list. That helps you avoid the disappointment of getting to the end of the day and not accomplishing it.

You already knew you weren’t going to be able to get it done.

After a few days, you become more realistic about what you can accomplish in a day. The lists become manageable.

Prioritizing your to do list is a critical element in planning better days.

There’s always too much to do, isn’t there?  So every day there are decisions about what to do, but, also, what not do.

I’ve worked harder lately to prioritize my to do list.  It isn’t easy.  For one thing, we don’t always know which is the most important.  Sometimes a little, insignificant task results in a chance encounter that changes our lives.  But, we can’t predict that or prioritize that.

So, here’s what helps:  Choosing from the to do list which items are the most important.  Focus on getting those done first.  Let the rest go.

Also, you know if you don’t get very far down your list at least you did the most important things. You’ve spent some time thinking about what was most important. It gives you more focus.

It helps with that feeling of being overwhelmed. Of having too much to do and never being able to get to all of it.

Determining prioritities isn’t easy. It isn’t always easy to know which is more important. And when something unexpected comes up in your day, you have to make a judgment call about your list of things to do.

It comes back to juggling the glass balls and the rubber balls. Thinking through what are the consequences if I drop this ball?  Will it bounce back?  Or will it shatter?

Be willing to flex as circumstances change.

You have to plan some flexibility into your days. You have to have some margin to handle the unexpected.

That’s part of the planning. To be able to recognize when you need to flex and when to stick to the plan.

Here’s the other thing: Life is full of people.

People are unpredictable and impossible to schedule.

And, yet, we have to have some order in our lives.

So, we need a life management plan with enough flexibility to handle life’s unexpected turns.

Having unrealistic expectations is disappointing. Not following through on something you said you were going to do is an integrity problem, unless you make the decision to make something else priority instead. There has to be some flexibility for that.

You also have to have down time planned, so you don’t feel guilty when you need to rest and you are able to stay productive on the other days.

Prioritizing your to do list is the critical element in planning better days, with the caveat that you’re willing to flex when you need to. 

What have you learned lately that helps you manage life better?

As I type this, the outside temperature is -17 degrees F and wind chill is -42.

That’s insane.

Schools and businesses are closed.  Even mail delivery is suspended.

I’m hunkered down at home, thankful for a reliable furnace.

Overall, we’ve had a mild winter.  Today is an unusual extreme.

But winter in northern Indiana is no joke.

I scour all the winter survival strategies I can find to add to my bag of tricks. Modern Mrs Darcy makes it easy, by collecting lots of great advice in one place.

Here’s what’s working for me this year:

Email letters to my mom and dad

From August through April every year, my parents live and work in India.  For four months of the year, they live close by.

Long-distance relationships are an accepted part of my life.  Maybe too accepted.

In the natural rhythm of life, there’s no obvious time gaps to invest in long distance relationships.  For me, I found I had to be intentional.

My mom and dad both like to read, but their tastes in reading material differs. Fortunately, a lot of what they like overlaps with I like.

I decided every month I’d send them links to books I thought they’d enjoy.  Since they have a membership to our local library, I can send them the link to the ebook and they can check it out.

Game changer.

I like sharing books.  I love sharing free books.  And, twice a month I have an easy excuse to catch them up on family news.  It’s been so fun.

Who knew such a little tweak to my monthly rhythms could bring such joy?

Protein smoothies in the morning

I started drinking protein smoothies in the morning on the advice of Izabella Wentz, the thyroid pharmacist.   Her nutrition advice impacts my health in huge ways since I found out I have Hashimoto’s.

I still eat breakfast, but after a protein smoothie, morning cravings disappear.

I always put homemade kefir in my smoothies– until the day we accidentally ate the grain and couldn’t make more.

Then I stumbled onto my favorite smoothie hack.  Pour boiling water on frozen strawberries so they blend easily.  Now I do half boiling water and half homemade kefir for the liquid.

I buy my Pea Protein from Thrive Market, which seems to have the best price. I’m new to Thrive Market, but I’m pretty excited about the automatic shipments. I still need to work out a few bugs and get it tweaked to work for

Another favorite is adding Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder.  Chocolate strawberry smoothies for breakfast?  Yes, please.

Note:  Frozen fruit, boiling water and glass could be a hazardous combination.  Use caution. 

Jesus Always and 20 minutes a day focusing on a loving God

Non-religious studies have found that decision making is positively impacted when you spend 20 minutes a day focusing on a loving God.

It’s easy to believe that there’s so much to do you can’t spare 20 minutes, especially on rushed mornings.

But think for a minute about the returns on investing in eternity.  Taking time to Be still and know that I am God helps the rest of the day to fall in place.  There’s enough time for everything.  At least everything God has planned.

This winter, I’m reading both Jesus Calling and Jesus Always large print editions and I don’t limit myself to the daily selections.

Intentional Gratitude

Maybe because I’m  glass-half-empty sorta girl, I have a hard time seeing the positives.

I have to regularly remind myself of the blessings.

Top of the list these days is our first grandchild, Caroline.  I might be biased, but I think she’s the sweetest baby ever.

What’s saving your life this winter?

PS Just for fun, I’m adding links to past posts.

What’s saving my life 2018

What’s saving my life 2017

What’s saving my life 2016