2019 - A Year in Books

Revisiting my blog today, December 31st, 2019, because I was trying to decide where I should write/keep my year in review. Apparently this was the right place, as I see now that I came back here a few times to write yearly reviews even if I haven't posted much since having kids. I don't think I wrote reviews for 2017 and 2018 anywhere because they were such difficult years -- everything was a blur. Well, not 2018 -- that was the year I started waking up. I went back to work in 2017 after two years of mat leave -- part time at my former training job as well as teaching at the U of O. I crashed and burned that fall, had surgery and thought that would fix everything (spoiler: it didn't) and then started therapy in the spring of 2018. I learned SO MUCH in 2018, and can say fairly confidently that I bounced back quickly, even though I learned that healing is not linear. And now this year, well, no wonder I feel like 2019 is the best year I have had in a long time.

I don't think I read any books in 2017. I think I may have started a few books in 2018. And here are the books I read in 2019, in the order that I read them.

I started keeping a journal this year, so that makes yearly reviews much easier!! I was also more diligent about tracking my books read on Goodreads.

JANUARY
Stories of Your Life and Others (Ted Chiang) #ebook #unfinished #fiction (I read the first two short stories only, Babylon and Understand.)
The Mindful Way Through Depression (Williams/Teasdale/Segal/Kabat-Zinn) #ebookandpaper #unfinished #startedin2018 #nonfiction

FEBRUARY
Goodbye, Things (Fumio Sasaki) #audiobook #nonfiction
Code Name Verity (Elizabeth Wein) #ebook #loved #fiction
The Happiness Trap (Russ Harris) #ebook #loved #startedin2018 #nonfiction
Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Madeleine Thien) #paper #unfinished #fiction
Ready for Anything (David Allen) #audiobook #loved #nonfiction
One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way #ebook #loved #nonfiction
Sitting Still Like a Frog (Eline Snel) #loved #nonfiction #paper

MARCH
Say What You Mean (Oren Jay Sofer) #ebookandpaper #nonfiction
The Happiness of Pursuit (Chris Guillebeau) (very meh) #nonfiction #ebook
Getting Things Done, Abridged Audio version #audiobook #loved #nonfiction
Presence: A Guide to Transforming Your Most Challenging Emotions (Ann Weiser Cornell) #ebook #nonfiction

APRIL
Superhuman by Habit (Tynan) #ebook #nonfiction
The Mind-Changing Habit of Journaling (Zoe McKay) #ebook (Started journaling daily after reading this one.) #nonfiction
Fun Home (Alison Bechdel) #graphicnovel #paper #nonfiction

MAY
A Velocity of Being #unfinished because I’m savouring it! #paper #nonfiction
Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe (Yumi Sakugawa) #graphicnovel #paper #nonfiction
Frida Kahlo: A Illustrated Life (Maria Hesse) #graphicnovel #paper #nonfiction
Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos (Lucy Knisley) #graphicnovel #paper #fiction
In the Sounds and Seas (Marnie Galloway) #graphicnovel #paper #fiction - beautiful art but unfortunately not much of a story
Zen Keys (Thich Nhat Hanh) #unfinished #paper #nonfiction

JUNE
Atomic Habits (James Clear) I’m adding this here because, while I didn’t actually read the book, I listened to a long interview with him on The One You Feed #podcast about his book, and then signed up for his newsletter. I actually listened to this podcast episode twice, and didn’t feel the need to read the actual book.
Découvrir la parentalité positive (Mitsiko Miller) #ebookandpaper #nonfiction
No Drama Discipline (Dan Siegel) #ebook #unfinished #nonfiction

JULY
Mindfulness in Plain English #unfinished #ebook #nonfiction
Vivre simplement (Elizabeth Simard) #paper #unfinished #nonfiction
Hold on to Your Kids (Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté) #audiobook #unfinished #nonfiction

AUGUST
Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi) #paper #nonfiction
Waking Up (Sam Harris) #paper #nonfiction
Birth of a Bookworm #unfinished #paper #fiction
Un ange cornu avec des ailes de tôle (Michel Tremblay) #unfinished #paper #fiction - have both the French and the English translation on the go at the same time

SEPTEMBER
Grit (Angela Duckworth) #audiobook #nonfiction
Wherever You Go, There You Are (Jon Kabat-Zinn) #bookclub #paper #nonfiction
*Next Step Dharma online course
*Self-Healers’ Circle online course/book club

OCTOBER
The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Magic (Emily Croy Barker) #paper #fiction

NOVEMBER
Tribe of Mentors (Tim Ferriss) #unfinished #ebook #nonfiction

DECEMBER
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Pema Chodron) #ebook #nonfiction
The Wanderers (Meg Howrey) #paper #fiction
The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Club #bookclub #ebook #fiction

Statistics:

38 books total
26 finished
12 unfinished
5 audiobooks
16 ebooks
17 paper books
3 books I bought two copies of - paper and ebook
10 fiction
28 non-fiction

My favourites from this year:

Say What You Mean is the most life-changing book I read this year.

Other books that had a big impact are The Kaizen Way, Resilient and The Happiness Trap.

I really enjoyed almost all the graphic novels I read and plan to read more again this year.

Some books already on the list for 2020:
Living Nonviolent Communication
Nonviolent Communication at Work
The Wisdom of Anxiety (Sheryl Paul) #bookclub
Heroes in my Head (Judy Kebick) #bookclub
The Handmaid’s Tale #bookclub
The Testaments #bookclub

Some of the unfinished books on my 2019 list I hope to get back to this year:
Vivre simplement
Birth of a Bookworm

Both A Velocity of Being and Tribe of Mentors are books that are better read in little pieces, so while I plan to continue reading them, I may not even finish them in 2020. (And that’s totally fine.)

I bought SO many more books this year than I read. I plan to assemble them on one shelf at home (maybe this coming weekend) and sort through them to decide which ones I want to prioritize.

My goal for this year was to spend more time reading -- and it worked. One of my strategies was to read whatever I felt like, which is why so many books are left unfinished this year. If I didn't feel like reading my current book, instead of turning to IG or FB, I started another book. So this was a successful strategy for reading more... but having so many books on the go at once also meant that I felt a bit confused/overwhelmed at times. I think some of the overwhelm also came from the guilt of abandoning books though. I would set books aside and start others, but still be thinking about the abandoned book and telling myself I "should" get back to it. So if this year, I decide to abandon a book, I need to do it consciously and be confident in my decision. I am allowed to read what I like, when I like. It's better to start something else than to turn to another source of entertainment (social media). A "mindless" read is still a better use of my time than mindless scrolling. I would rather spend my time reading. And better to read whatever I have on hand rather than use the excuse of "I don't have my current read with me". This year, there are books that remained unfinished because they "lived" in my living room bookshelf and I mostly only read them while sitting in my reading chair. Or they lived in my backpack, or my bedroom bookshelf. I read a lot more ebooks than paper books, just because it's so much more convenient for me to read in bed with a backlit e-reader than to turn on a light.

One thing I could do this year is to set some ground rules (that's actually what Z recommended I do when I told her how much I was reading, the online courses I was taking, etc.). I think it's totally fair to start a new book if my current read isn't accessible/available. I also think it’s important to balance “light” reads with heavier ones and to have at least one of those on the go at all times -- and to give myself permission to start one whenever I don’t currently have one started. So, ground rules:

Finish what you started OR make a conscious decision to set it aside for another time.

Avoid reading two similar books at once (e.g. books about mindfulness or meditation).

One online course at a time. I’m going to start by focusing on finishing the Next Step Dharma one. And I’m going to set aside time for it once a week (Friday mornings).

“[...] reading is a joy. It’s a touch of growth, it’s a beacon of inspiration, and it’s source of connection. We are how we spend our time, and we become what we consume. It only makes sense, then, that what we read informs how we see the world.” (from an article on medium.com by Zat Rana)

What Gentle Parenting Means To Me

I'm feeling inspired to write a little bit here after a conversation with an old friend yesterday. (Someone I did my undergrad with but who moved across the country after we graduated. We've only seen each other a few times since then but each time we do, there's no awkwardness, it's like we just saw each other the day before. I love friendships like that.) My friend, who has no children, was asking me questions about how I am raising my kids after I mentioned that I would have a hard time leaving them in a daycare that used time-outs. She was surprised, and I think I would have been, too, had I heard someone say that before I had children of my own. She said, "well, what do you do instead?" And I tried to summarize my parenting style succinctly but with difficulty. I said, well, time-outs are kind of an "easy solution" and a one-size-fits-all approach to solving problems, which isn't necessarily the most effective. What I do if my 3-year-old is "acting out" or having trouble dealing with his emotions (frustrations, anger, sadness, etc.) is to get down on his level and talk to him. I try to name his emotions for him since he's not quite able to do it himself yet. ("Reflection" is actually a communication skill that works well with adults, too!) And I ask him to try to come up with a solution to the problem himself. It's harder than just saying "go to your room!" It takes more time. It requires more involvement. It requires me stopping what I'm doing, which can be annoying. It doesn't give immediate "results." But it does foster a strong relationship between him and I, and that's my main goal. I told my friend I was just trying to parent in the best way I knew how. I told her that it turned out that there was a name for this gentle parenting style: "attachment parenting." She said the word "attachment" sounded negative to her - it made her think of clingy children! I was interested to learn that, and I value my friend's opinion enough to avoid using that term now. I think the best way of explaining how I try to parent is that I treat my kids as humans, like I would like to be treated. That means no belittling, shaming, punishing, etc. I often make parallels with how I react to my kids' cries with how I would like my husband/partner/friend to react. Just because, deep down, I think it's a ridiculous reason to be crying, doesn't mean that I can't empathize, and recognize that these are real emotions that they're feeling. They're not having a tantrum just to piss me off. They are having a tantrum because they are genuinely really upset about something, trivial though it may be. I can't imagine someone I love with all my heart ignoring me while I cry my heart out. I just can't. That's not ok. When people say "just ignore them when they're acting out" I feel like that's an awful thing to do. That does NOT mean that my kids get to do whatever they want, no rules, no consequences. The best analogy that I read was that I'm a fair, caring boss, and they are my employees. The fair, caring, boss listens to her employees, but when it comes down to it, she does make the final decision. But her employees know she always has their back, and they can always turn to her for help if they need it. That's the kind of relationship I want with my kids. I think that kids with a strong bond with their parents have more self-confidence later on. Knowing someone's always got your back does that. I may write more on this subject later...

2016 Intentions

The usual:

Ask more questions.

Drink more water.

And:

Be more mindful. (i.e. stop wasting time on Facebook and get stuff done.)

Read more. Real books. Even if it's only 10 minutes here and there. 

I also want to keep going on this decluttering journey I've started. I'm not konmari-ing to the extreme, but I do want to own fewer possessions and have a simpler life.

In 2016, I'd like to start giving babywearing workshops again. And keep leading LLL meetings, whether in O or in H.

2015 year in review

January 2015

- gave more babywearing workshops

- published a babywearing article on an American blog

- spent NYE at Lison's because MB worked at Christmas

- spent an extra week in Rimouski after the holidays because of a gas leak at the airport

- was busy busy busy at work

February 2015

- was still crazy busy at work trying to finish stuff up before leaving

- gave more babywearing workshops

- worked on my LLL leader application

- soooooooo tired!

March 2015

- spent time helping Emily breastfeed her new baby

- gave a few more babywearing workshops

- attended my boss's retirement party

- started my mat leave five weeks in advance 

April 2015

- nested and spent time with X

- had a baby

May 2015

- MB went back to work

- first outing with both kids alone (he Great Glebe Garage Sale!)

- we lost our tenants, and found new ones (who ended up canceling on us at the last minute, at the end of July)

June 2015

- gave a presentation at the OBG Big Meetup

- spent time at the park with Crystal and Isla

- flew to the Georgian Bay to spend a week with Syb and Gail

July 2015

- came back exhausted from our "vacation"

- stayed mostly home, and went to the park, for the three weeks that MB was away

- went to Jazmine's wedding anniversary party

- went to Rimouski at the end of the month (chalet), did NOT have a good time

August 2015

- Ashleigh and Meaghan visit from NL!

- had M's tongue and lip ties revised

- mentioned moving to H to MB

September 2015

- visited houses in H

- bought a new house!

- became a LLL leader

October 2015

- packed up and moved to a different city!

November 2015

- unpack and then leave for three weeks in Halifax

December 2015

- visit to Rimouski

- early Christmas in H with family, and then Christmas Eve in Warwick. Dropped MB off at the airport on Christmas Day!

What a year!

2014 Intentions

Projects for 2014

-drink a different decaf hot beverage every morning/day

(different coffees, London fog, different teas...)

-transfer recipes to Paprika app

-make my own breakfast cereal

-try rock climbing

-become a LLL leader? 

Goals

-drink more water

-read more books!

-ask more questions (same goal as last yr and the yr before)

-clean up/pick up after myself more consistently

-make eating junk food a *special* occasion

-stop buying sugary cereal (make my own)

-make weekly meal plans

-help moms breastfeed and wear their babies

Les mots.

"Il ne faudrait pas dire qu'on «se bat contre le cancer» puisque effectivement, ça donne l'impression que les gens qui en décèdent ne se sont pas assez battus. Ce n'est pas vrai, ce n'est qu'une illusion de pouvoir."

- tiré d'un commentaire sur le texte "Les mots" dans Urbania. Texte partagé par MF.

52 Lists: Week One

Prompts from here:

http://www.moorea-seal.com/p/52-lists.html?m=1

"Words That Touch Your Soul"

thébaïde
solitude
thé
randonnée
gemutlich
cozy
greenery
feuillage
hamac