Self-Help Books

It was the tagline "Letting go of bad habits, guilt, and anxiety around food" that led me to request the book Food Freedom Forever by Melissa Hartwig.

Like many people, I respond to life's stresses by eating. When I'm happy, I want to celebrate with a hot fudge sundae; when I'm upset, I want to console myself with a box of chocolates. And when I'm eating something that tastes good, I don't want to stop, even when I'm no longer hungry. Though I've been better in recent years, food cravings can be an issue for me.

I'm not sure I'm ready to undertake the Whole30 eating plan, but reading this book gave me a lot of insight and many ideas about approaching eating. On the Whole30 program, for 30 days you "reset" your metabolism by totally eliminating grains, legumes, soy, alcohol, dairy and added sugar. "Added sugar" includes honey, maple syrup, steevia, etc. but the sugar that is naturally included in fruit is okay. After 30 days (there is some flexibility in this plan; if you feel like you need 35 or 40 days, do it), you re-introduce one of the food groups (e.g. non-gluten grains) for a few days and observe how you feel. Did your skin break out? Do you have gas? A headache? More energy? If so, your body is reacting to this food. Take notes. Stop that food and re-introduce another, perhaps dairy, and observe your body and mood again. Keep doing this with all of the individual food groups - which will take another 30 days or so. Now you have a good idea of how your body reacts to different foods and to different amounts of a food. The author has a gluten sensitivity, but has found she can eat ONE cupcake. More than one does terrible things to her gut. Other foods may have no effect one way or another.

Once you know the effect different foods have on your body and mood, you can make wise decisions on what to eat and how much to eat because you know what will happen. And because you're eating mostly natural foods with no additives, food tastes different, tends to be more satisfying and there are fewer cravings for sugar. Sounds good, but does require at least a two month commitment.

As I said in the beginning of this post, I'm not ready for this program yet, but the book itself has a lot of good information and is actually fun to read!

I don't usually read two self-improvement books in a row, but I was caught off guard and the only other book in my "to read" pile was Spark Joy by Marie Kondo. There are several books at the library waiting for me, but given the limited library hours during the holidays, I haven't had a chance to pick them up.

I'm a pretty neat person and don't have a lot of clutter, but I'm always interested in other ideas to keep order in my life. Like Whole30, the KonMari method uses a specific approach. Most people start de-cluttering one room at a time. KonMari says to de-clutter by type of item and begin with clothes.

Bring all of your clothes into one place; then you can see exactly what you have. That makes sense. Most of my clothes are in the closet next to my bedroom, but I have off-season clothes in the closet in the spare bedroom and outer wear in the closet near the front door. Instead of looking for things to eliminate, focus on what you want to keep - which is anything that "brings joy". Take each piece of clothing (she recommends starting with tops), hold it, hug it if necessary, and feel if it brings you joy. If so, keep it. Maybe the article of clothing is worn, it brought you joy once but no longer. In that case, thank it for it's excellent service and let it go. I can truly say that most of my clothes bring me joy.

Like Whole30, there is flexibility in KonMari's program. She recommends hanging clothes in your closet going up from left to right (long stuff on the left, shorter stuff towards the right). I have found a way of hanging my clothes that works well for me. Certain types of clothes are hung together (e.g. long sleeved blouses, short sleeved blouses). When I wear an item and rehang it, or wash an item and rehang it, I put it on the left. That way I know I wore that item most recently. The next time I go to choose a short sleeve blouse, I first go to the right-hand side as that is the item that has been hanging there the longest. If I don't want to wear it, I work my my leftwards. The result is that if something stays on the right hand side and I keep passing it by, it no longer "brings joy" and I seriously consider finding a new home for it.

While Spark Joy was not quite as much fun to read as Food Freedom Forever, I found lots in both books to incorporate into my life. And I actually found the motivation to do a few things I've been putting off.

I think what I like best about both of these books is that 2 young women have found success doing something they like. Both are consultants or coaches of the methods they've developed and both have now written more than one book. I am not an entrepreneur, but I'm so happy when I learn what others have been able to accomplish.

Shopping in Provincetown

M. and I just returned from a week in Provincetown where we attended the Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. This was our 7th TW Festival and the 5th year in a row. We may take a break next year.

The festival organizers are looking for new ways to present TW's plays. Having organized plenty of conferences, I understand this completely. 2016 marks 100 years since Eugene O'Neill's first play was performed in Provincetown and half of the plays were his. The theme was "Beyond Success" because after both Williams and O'Neill were big hits, they tried experimenting, not always to great acclaim. These plays were the ones written later in their careers.

Next year's theme is "Shakespeare" so perhaps I don't want to skip that.

One of the things I like the best about going to Provincetown at this time of year is the shopping. It's post "season" when there are far fewer tourists and many store are winding down, some closing for the winter. There are LOTS OF SALES. As I look through my wardrobe, much of my clothing is from Provincetown.

This year's purchases include: Rubber sandals, a white tunic top with floral design, a white blouse with white embroidery, 4 pairs of earrings (M. bought 2 of them in the Turkish store that he likes so much), water shoes, a bandana (which I donated to the Hatfield Senior Center to use for stretching during exercise class), postcards, and a box of note cards.

M. bought another mermaid statue. He's beginning to develop a collection of them. He didn't buy any clothes for himself, though he has in the past.

I've just finished my morning tea and bagel and it's time to get dressed for exercise and work. I'm looking forward to wearing my new tunic. But which earrings to choose?

The Changing of the Hats

According to the calendar, it's been spring for over a month. Last Sunday was Easter and now one can officially wear straw hats and white shoes. The temperature has warmed up (well, maybe not today, but in general) so today I put away all of my winter hats and brought out the summer ones.

I wear a hat whenever I'm outside; I have a lot of them. They're actually part of the décor in my front foyer.

Then I went even further and pulled all of my warm weather clothes out of the off-season closet. Cold weather clothes went to one of several places: the off-season closet, the laundry bin, or the dry-cleaning pile. It'll take a few days to get them all settled, but they're on their way.

Some of the warm weather clothes needed ironing, but not any more. I pulled out the ironing board, iron, spray bottle of water and went to work. This is a semi-annual ritual which I perform every spring and fall. Fortunately I have enough clothes that don't need ironing to get me through the season.

Now I'm all ready for spring except for one thing: There are flannel sheets on the bed and there will be flannel sheets there for at least another few weeks.

Another book

My local public library subscribes to something called Wowbrary. Every week I receive an email listing the books and other items that have just been added to the collection.

A recent Wowbrary posting included Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 stylish secrets I learned while living in Paris. Since I like to take breaks from reading murder mysteries and I'm always interested in fashion tips, I clicked on the "Reserve" button.

This book was not quite what I expected, but still pretty interesting.

Jennifer Scott spent 6 months in Paris as an exchange student. Life in Paris was very different from her native southern California and she learned a lot, only some of which was about fashion. Jennifer has one chapter in Part 2 (Style and beauty) called "Liberate yourself with the ten-item wardrobe". She claims that French women, even in well-to-do families like the one she lived with, have very few clothes. They buy good quality clothes that they can mix and match and don't wear something entirely different every single day. This wardrobe is not as restrictive as you might imagine. There are ten different items for summer and winter and many things are excluded from the basic 10 such as outer wear, underwear, jewelry, scarves, shoes and other accessories.

Ten items are fewer than I'd like to own, even with the exclutions. It feels a little like being a vegan. I can totally understand having a couple of basic pairs of pants and a couple of skirts, but I find variety in tops, of which I have several (although much fewer than I used to). Tops that really catch my attention are some of the few things I have bought during the last couple of years. I really enjoy wearing them. My wardrobe is more like being a vegetarian.

While I don't expect to whittle my wardrobe down to 10 items, it will definitely continue to get smaller. There are several things that have been on on the borderline and this book is tipping them out of the closet and into the donation bin.

Another chapter that struck my fancy was entitled "Look presentable always". The Parisian family with whom Jennifer lived always wore their good clothes, even at home. While I take care when I go out in public and when having guests in, at home alone, I usually wear what I call "play clothes." These are the sweat pants, t-shirts, old socks, etc. that are old and worn but still (in my opinion) wearable. They're great for working in the house or yard because I never have to worry about ruining them. Madame Chic supposedly wore good clothes when she did her housecleaning (she did all her own housecleaning, one way she was able to stay trim) and simply wore an apron over them to keep them clean. I don't know if my house is dirtier to start with or I clean differently, but an apron - even a large one - would not suffice.

While many of the "secrets" in Lessons from Madame Chic are things I already do and others are things I know about but have not incorporated into my life for whatever reason, I draw the line at giving up my play clothes.

Play Clothes

When I was a kid, my siblings and I had three distinct wardrobes: church clothes, school clothes and play clothes. When we came home from school or church, we were instructed immediately to change into our play clothes. Those were the stained and/or torn clothes that might also be a little too small. Playing in our good clothes soon turned them into play clothes.

I still have play clothes. They are still the stained and/or torn clothes that are sometimes a little too small. However, they are perfect for gardening, house cleaning, and generally hanging around the house. I have lots of play clothes because after a while things just wear out or I spill something. Wearning my play clothes means my other casual clothes stay stain-free and tear-free longer. When they get really bad, I cut them up into rags and use them for dusting, cleaning and polishing. I have a very large basket of rags.

When I was working, I'd come home at the end of the day and change into my play clothes before cooking dinner or even just relaxing. Many evenings I had a meeting, so when I came home I skipped the play clothes and just went to bed. Since I didn't wear them a lot (a few evenings a week; one day, maybe two on weekends) they didn't wear out very fast.

Now I spend most of my time in my play clothes and I'm getting sick of them. And they're still not wearing out very fast. What's going on here? How come a nice new pair of sweatpants gets a tear or gets stained after a short period of time, but once it become play clothes, it seems to last forever? I was hoping that all these ratty sweat shirts and sweat pants and turtle neck jerseys would all disintegrate and I could buy lots of new ones.

Right now I'm actually wearing a turtle neck that is about 25 years old. It has a few holes in it, but it's still quite warm and the holes are easily covered with a sweatshirt. How can I cut it up into rags when it's still useful? The curse of the native New Englander.

If my current life style continues, I'll have ample opportunity to wear out my play clothes. But probably by that time, my newer casual clothes will be old enough and stained enough to be play clothes, too.

Keeping My Spirits Up

It's been over 2 weeks since I had to go to work. While I was still working, I had great plans for all the things I was going to do while I was unemployed. I've done almost none of them.

Partly, it's because the weather has been so hot and humid it's hard to do anything but sit. I'm still trying to find a schedule that will keep me moving but allow for a lot of flexibility. I've decided that Yoga first thing every morning is a good way to get started. I tried a walk a few days ago and even with a light-weight hooded sweatshirt and long pants, the bugs were too bad. And even in the early morning the clothes were too hot. The walk is a good, strenuous one. I live on a dead end street so I only have one option: Walk to the end of the street (about a mile) and back. It's all downhill from where I live which means it's all uphill on the way back. It's a pretty walk and a really good aerobic workout.


Yoga will keep me moving until we've past bug season.


While I was still working, I ordered a book via C/W MARS which I just received this week. I'm not certain why I ordered it. It was probably an impulse order while I was reading a review. The book is What to Wear for the Rest of Your Life: Ageless Secrets of Style. For the first few pages, I thought it was silly and frivolous and why was I reading it. But I kept going. The author talks about how our bodies change as we get older and the clothes we once wore and looked great on us no longer work. It's not just weight-gain; even at the same weight, the shape of our bodies shifts.


Being the frugal person I am, I have clothes that are over 20 years old. I find I like them less and wear them less often. As a result, I have a closet full of clothes that don't inspire me. It's kind of depressing. Kim Johnson Gross, the author of the book, found the same thing. She offers really good tips for selecting the clothes to keep, how to update them, discarding those you no longer want, and things to look for when buying new clothes. I feel as if I've found a new friend. While I'm not going about the process exactly the way she recommends, I've adapted it in a way that's been working for me.


I'm finally be able to say good-bye to some lovely clothes that for the last few years I've been thinking I might one day be able to fit into again. It's not going to happen. They will find a good home.


And I will have one less thing weighing me down and that is good.