When we started geocaching, I was constantly googling to see what another acronym meant. When I read the Activity log in the geocaching app, I would have to stop and check what something meant. GZ, FTF, TFTC, CO, P&G, SL. WHAT?!? So what do all those geocaching acronyms mean? IDK: I don’t know! This is a beginner’s guide to geocaching acronyms.
Every hobby has its own lingo. Every sport has its own vocabulary. Geocaching is no different.
Do you have the desire to create something? Is there a novel, short story, poem, play, or script on your mind and in your heart but not on paper? Would you like to make a quilt, a painting, a clay pot, or a pair of mittens? If something is holding you back, you have come to the right place. This is a review of Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Maybe I should correct that. This is less of a review of Big Magic and more of a recommendation to read Big Magic. I LOVED this book. It was entertaining, enlightening, and encouraging. Gilbert introduced me to ideas so far out of my realm of experience that I could feel my brain stretching. For example:
We are relatively new to the geocaching game (or hobby, or sport). The basic concept is that, when you find a hidden cache, you use the geocaching app to log it as a find. But what do you do when you look for a cache but don’t find it? The other option on the app is to log it as a DNF (Did Not Find). So that brings up the question, should we log a DNF when geocaching?
As beginners, we frequently did not find the cache we were searching for. Our searching skills were still pretty raw. Face it, until we gained some experience, we didn’t know what we were looking for!
Every time we found a new style of cache, we learned more about what to look for the next time. The truth is, when you are new to geocaching, your search skills are still unrefined.
We already felt bad enough that we couldn’t find what should have been an easy cache. We didn’t want to add to our humiliation by making it public knowledge! If we logged each cache we didn’t find as a DNF, we were publicizing our failures, right? Well, that is how we felt when we started geocaching so we didn’t log DNF’s at first.
For the past few months, I have been reading books about the empty nest. I have to STOP! These books are getting me down!
It is my current stage of life and I want to be prepared for it. Also, I have been reviewing these books for my blog so I can give recommendations to you about the best ones to read. That means I have really dug into them to be able to share the pros and cons with you.
You know what I have found? I have found that reading books about the empty nest is very depressing!
Since my own nest emptied recently, I have been reading books about the empty nest. This is a review of The Empty Nest by Karen Stabiner.
The full title of the book is The Empty Nest, 31 Parents Tell the Truth About Relationships, Love, And Freedom After the Kids Fly the Coop. This book is a collection of 31 essays by a very diverse group.
I enjoyed the diversity of the authors. All are professional writers so the quality of writing is very good. Included are essays by traditional couples, single moms, single dads, gay parents, and one man who is not a parent but a very involved godparent.
Not all gained empty nest status by their child going to college. One son joined the army. One girl left for boarding school at 14. Death claimed one couple’s son.
This is a review of From Mom To Me Again, How I survived My First Empty Nest Year And Reinvented The Rest Of My Life by Melissa T. Schultz.
I was prepared to not enjoy this book. After LOVING Going Gypsy and enjoying My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space, I didn’t plan to enjoy From Mom To Me Again.
Even the title didn’t really grab me. From Mom To Me Again implies that ME got lost in being MOM, which sounds so depressing to me.
Then I started reading the book. And sentences I read started resonating with me. For example,
For obvious reasons (my own nest just emptied) I have been reading books about the empty nest. This is a review of My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space: The Amazing Adventures Of An Ordinary Woman by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Scottoline Serritella.
It is very obvious that Lisa is a professional writer and that this is not her first book. She is very good with words. Her sentences are crisp and she often employs a play on words which made reading this book enjoyable. I love her writing. What I don’t love as much is that the book is a collection of essays. I guess I prefer a more cohesive story. Yes, it’s all about Lisa, or her daughter, or her mother. But it just didn’t flow very easily for me, which made it too easy to put down and forget.
A few weeks ago I got a new cleaning job. It was for an older lady who needed help to be able to stay in her own home. She was 85 years old. I know this since she told me several times. When I went to her house for the interview, she was sitting on the couch reading. I also noticed a pile of books on the table beside her bed. This lady loved to read!
Since she was quite elderly, she would be there while I was cleaning. That’s not my favorite situation, but in this case it was necessary.
Well, when I arrived at her house to clean the first time, she was sitting on the couch reading a book. She was actually reading The Lipstick Jungle! Of course I cleaned every other room first so as not to disturb her, but eventually I ended up in the living room. She was still on the couch reading. I dusted the whole room. I shook out the rugs. Then all that remained was vacuuming the carpet.
Have you ever looked down at the bathroom scale or down at your body and wondered, how did I get here? How did I end up so overweight?
I’m not going to blame my mom for being overweight even though she made me clean my plate. It didn’t matter if I didn’t like what she made or if I was full. I think the parenting handbook at the time must have included a section called “Mention the starving children in Africa when your kids didn’t want to eat what is in front of them.” I never understood how the starving children in Africa were going to benefit by chubby children in the Midwest cleaning up their mashed potatoes and roast beef, but I learned to clean up my plate.
I read The Happiness Project a few months ago. A couple of weeks later I went back to the library to check it out again. It made such a big impact on me, I wanted to read it again.
The Happiness Project is not a novel. It is not a biography. It is not a self-help book. The Happiness Project is a journal of sorts of Gretchen’s year-long commitment to increasing her happiness.
As she put it, “I wasn’t as happy as I could be, and my life wasn’t going to change unless I made it change. And that single moment, with that realization, I had decided to dedicate a year to trying to be happier.”
