Thinking about the cover of this book

Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers ~ by Adriana Trigiani, 2010, memoir, xiii + 204 pages

Bestselling author Adriana Trigiani shares a treasure trove of insight and guidance from her two grandmothers:  time-tested, common sense advice on the most important aspects of a woman’s life, from childhood to the golden years.  Seamlessly blending anecdote with life lesson, Don’t Sing at the Table tells the two vibrant women’s real-life stories — how they fell in love, nurtured their marriages, balanced raising children with being savvy businesswomen, and reinvented themselves with each new decade.

By the way, when I picked up this book, I missed the actual title and thought it was Life Lessons from My Grandmothers, which is only the subtitle.  Look at that cover; what do you notice first?  The author's name and the subtitle are in bold red capital letters, but the actual title is lost in small white lower case print almost hidden in the middle of shiny gold.

Gratitude journal

I decided to buy a daily journal to keep track of my WORD for this year, which is GRATITUDE.  Look what I found.  There's actually a Daily Gratitude Journal, so I decided to get it to keep track of all the things I'm grateful for each day.  Amazon says:

Start each day with positivity and gratitude! Our Gratitude Journal Notebook is crafted to guide you in reflecting on life’s blessings and setting a joyful tone for the day. Inside, you'll find dedicated sections to capture daily gratitude, reflect on yesterday’s wins, establish self-care goals, set your intentions, and declare powerful affirmations. Let this journal be your sanctuary for mindful growth and inspiration. Reclaim your joy, one day at a time, and share it with the world!

And notice the truly amazing thing about the cover:  It also has my "favorite word," which is JOY.  It says, "Embracing each day with Joy and Gratitude."

Star words for a new year

Some people choose a word for the New Year, something to consider each day all year long.  Here are some examples:

Attentiveness, Authenticity, Awareness, Becoming, Breakthroughs, Capacity, Catalyst, Connection, Continue, Courage, Creativity, Cultivate, Dedication, Depth, Development, Discovery, Emergence, Endeavor, Enriching, Enthusiasm, Flourishing, Gentleness, Growth, Harmonizing, Imagination, Journeying, Learning, Nurturing, Observation, Open-heartedness, Potential, Possibility, Preparation, Process, Readiness, Reimagining, Reflection, Renewal, Transformation, Wonderment.

Some people even choose three words to represent their aspirations for the New Year, like these two illustrations I found online.  The words are often alliterative, meaning they start with the same letter.  Here are some examples:

• Compassion, Courage, and Curiosity
• Purpose, Passion, and Pluralism
• Gratitude, Graciousness, and Generosity

To choose a word for the New Year, you can:

1. Create a list of words (or use those above that I shared).
2. Select the word that resonates the most with you.
3. Try it out, and make adjustments if needed.
4. Display the word somewhere visible, to remind you each day.

A new plan for a new year

It's a new year, so what (if anything) will I do differently?  I've decided to copy some other book bloggers, who include a summary of the week's posts and/or activities.  So today, I'm showing links to some of what I wrote in this week's posts, as well as telling you about a book I'm about to read.

On the first day of this new year, I posted some "gentle goals" I found online (HERE).  I immediately noticed "Read for pleasure" on the list.  Well, sure, I do a lot of that already.  "Practice gratitude every day" sounds like what I already mentioned I would try to to when I wrote about a Gratitude Journal (HERE).  I posted a snippet from a Book Beginning (HERE), and I mused about a book and a word (HERE).  That's all I posted this week.

The English Major ~ by Jim Harrison, 2008, literary fiction (USA), 255 pages

Folks online say this is a book "for a male audience" and "Cliff’s on-the-road adventures are full of great characters [and] lusty encounters."  So I'm a little hesitant as I begin to read this.  But I majored in English (among other studies) and once had a jigsaw puzzle of the United States.  So I got this book thinking it was a sort of adventure as the main character travels throughout the country.  The dust jacket says:

"It used to be Cliff and Vivian and now it isn't."  With these words, Jim Harrison sends his sixty-something protagonist, divorced and robbed of his farm by a late-blooming real estate shark of an ex-wife, on a road trip across America, armed with a childhood puzzle of the United States and a mission to rename all the states and state birds to overcome the banal names men have given them.  Cliff's adventures take him through a whirlwind affair with a former student from his high school-teacher days twenty-some years before, to a "snake farm" in Arizona owned by an old classmate; and to the high-octane existence of his son, a big-time movie producer in San Francisco.

and Sunday Salon

Beginning ~ with hard candy

Beginning

When she recalls that period of her life, she likens it to a piece of the hard candy she'd often enjoyed as a child.  Round, colorful, tangy, sweet on the outside, and bitter at the center.

Loving Donovan: A Novel in Three Stories ~ by Bernice L. McFadden, 2003, fiction, 227 pages

Three stories?  Yeah, called Her, Him, and Them.  That let me know that this is a love story of some kind.  Campbell and Donovan live in the same neighbor-hood, but they don't know each other.

• Her is Campbell, who clings to her ideals about love despite the unhappy example set by her parents.
• Him is Donovan, who dreams of having a family and playing for the NBA in the face of difficult personal challenges.

The book is from her point of view, so the beginning I shared above is hers.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Gratitude and kindness

Words of the day = GRATITUDE and KINDNESS

Musing about a book ~ and a word

Abide with Me ~ by Elizabeth Strout, 2006, literary fiction, 320 pages

In the late 1950s, in a small New England town, Reverend Tyler Caskey has suffered a terrible loss and finds it hard to be the person he once was.  He struggles to find the right words in his sermons and in his conversations with those facing crises of their own, and to bring his five-year-old daughter, Katherine, out of the silence she has observed in the wake of the family’s tragedy.  Tyler’s usually patient and kind congregation now questions his leadership and propriety, and accusations are born out of anger and gossip.  Then, in Tyler’s darkest hour, a startling discovery will test the humanity of his parish — and his own will to endure the trials that sooner or later test us all.  (I had a hard time finding a picture online of the old paperback version in my hands, so thanks to whoever posted the one above.)

Musing

The book itself seems to be musing about the life of this preacher and his little daughter.  So let's define the word, at least in its verb form:

muse / myo͞oz / verb = to be absorbed in thought.  Example:  "He was musing on the problems he faced."  Similar words are:  ponder, consider, think about, mull over, reflect on, contemplate, meditate on, give some thought.