Two Book Reviews

A couple months ago halo-haired Ashley Thalman gave me a book called The War of Art. I put it on my night stand and looked forward to reading it--maybe when I was 72. I was just sure there was never ever going to be time to do that thing called" reading" in the foreseeable future for me.

But over Christmas (which was the best most wonderful Christmas I think I've ever known) there suddenly became space and time in my life to think and read. I picked up not The War of Art, but Essentialism and started to read it first. Essentially (if you will) that book is about pairing down your life to the simple simple simple. And while I cannot imagine a more first world problem, the book really helped me take a hard look at my life. After reading, I made a comprehensive list of what I really wanted to do in my life and at the top was writing and reading. Looking at Instagram and Facebook, while a delicious pastimes I have always enjoyed, did not make the cut.

So they had to go.

But if Essentialism shook me awake, The War of Art was the bossy parent who made me actually get out of bed and pull on my ass-kicking boots which I somehow used to kick my own ass down stairs to the den where my laptop was waiting for me like a dog at the window. If that book has one job to do it's to make you feel like a clown for even conjuring up the first part of an excuse for not doing the work you were meant to do. So I am writing more these days. Reading too.

One of the first things you learn in TWoA is that you will always always always encounter resistance when you start any endeavor and today I sat down to write and the internet instantly went down and Iris' alphabet website (that I make her do while I write--screen-time with value!) froze and I discovered a terribly painful hangnail on my middle finger and there were only VERY LARGE bandaids in the medicine drawer which were more appropriate for...I don't know...if your head was falling off your neck...and Christopher wanted to chat about our taxes because 'tis the freaking season.

But here I am writing anyway with a bandaid I fashioned to fit my middle finger (and to be honest I flipped off a group of men this morning who were all watching as I jogged my mombod past their unwanted male gazes and I grew up thinking that every time you flip someone off you will get an open sore on the very finger you used and it turns out I WAS RIGHT) and Iris' obnoxious website is blaring behind me reminding me that no more monkey's should be jumping on the bed, and Christopher has been put off until 8:15pm but here I am. 

Here I am.

But now I honestly don't know which is more "art" this post or the bandage I re-purposed out of a bandaid meant for a bleeding t-rex using pair of dull kitchen scissors. 

Either way...have a nice day.
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