My Blog Tour Continues

In week two of my blog tour please look out for the following interviews, excerpts and guest posts this week and don't forget to leave a comment at  CLP Book Tours  to be entered to win an Amazon gift card!  Thanks so much for supporting!

August 26 – The Modern Jane Austen – Excerpt 

August 27 – Little Miss Drama Queen – Review & Excerpt

August 28 – Relatively Yours – Guest Post (on lessons I learned from my dating life)
August 29- Being Mrs.Jones- guest post on dating do-overs and excerpt -http:/beingmrsjones.com

My Final Secret

So I finally finished reading The Secret. Took me a little longer than it should have but I am reading another book at the same time so my attention was divided. Here are my thoughts on it. For the mot part the novel's message was pretty good and I am well into the process of making my best attempts to give the logic a go. Towards the final two chapters they lost me a bit with the metaphysical energy, we-are-all-part-of-the-one talk. Too sciencey and new agey for my blood. But at it's very base concept the message behind the secret is one I think you can't go wrong following. I think our base nature is to go against the logic and shake our heads at people who try it. However, once you have read it and understood it, you might find yourself shaking your head at the people who don't follow it. The message is clear: think, be, act positive. Do what makes you happy. Think happy thoughts, desire happiness. Stop fighting against and strive for.

It actually takes a little more work than I thought. We can easily slide down a path of negative thought but the secret asks that you be conscience of that and stop it. Be in the moment and be aware of your feelings. Not just mentally but physically because negative feelings can affect our bodies. Since reading this book I have become more aware of how my negative feelings affect me physically and try my best to get out of any funk I'm in. Sometimes its just focusing on things I love to do or even watching a quick episode of Golden Girls (which always makes me happy) or just writing down how I'm feeling. Recently I felt bad about something and I sent a couple of friends an email about how I was feeling. Even before I got their responses I was already on the road to feeling better. What I didn't want to do, and what I have been prone to do, is obsess over things enough to keep me up at night. Very draining.

Every day is a work in progress for me but I see it working in small ways and I have absolute faith, to the point that I think some friends think I'm crazy, that the things that I want to come true will come true at the time I need them to. But in the meantime, the things I took from the secret to do are:

visualize my day each morning (I'm better at this during the weekday) down to my commute to and from work, being productive at work, planning social activities, exercising, what i'll eat (I could do better at the last one)

keep checking in on how I'm feeling and avoid negative thought

keep in mind all of the things i am thankful for

make a list of all the things that bring me joy (big and small)

feel and act as if I already have/am the things that I desire

Is this easy? Well if I said no, that would be going against the logic of the secret but well... you decide.

My Blog Tour is Coming

My first novel, The Mission, promotion is still in full effect. So, dear readers, join me in my very first blog tour from August 18th to September 8th. Check out the schedule full of reviews, interviews and guest posts and enter to win a gift card with Amazon!

Details:

August 18 – Chick Lit Club Connect – Guest Post

August 19 – Second Bookshelf on the Right – Q&A

August 21 – Fiction Dreams – Q&A

August 22 – Doorflower – Guest Post

August 26 – The Modern Jane Austen – Excerpt

August 27 – Little Miss Drama Queen – Review & Excerpt

August 28 – Relatively Yours – Guest Post

September 1 – Keep Calm and Blog On – Review

September 1 – Chick Lit Goddess – Guest Post

September 2 – Two Children and a Migraine – Review, Guest Post & Excerpt

September 3 – Karma For Life Chick – Review

September 4 – Ski-Wee’s Book Corner – Review

September 5 – Jersey Girl Book Reviews – Review, Guest Post & Excerpt

September 5 – Chicks That Reads – Guest Post & Excerpt

September 8 – Book Suburbia – Excerpt

September 8 – The East Village – Review

Back in My Day

I was just listening to the classic 80s song, If You Leave,  that played in Pretty in Pink and it made me think of Molly Ringwald which then made me think of teen movies and I just realized that the kids/teens of today don’t have a lot of fun options out. Unless you have cable and they are still kind of lame to me.  I mean there was Breakfast Club in the 80s then Clueless in the 90s. Those were epic teen movies of their time. I guess the early 2000s had High School Musical but that was only on the Disney Channel and it was still weak comparatively. It made me think of other things late Gen Xers/ early Millennials  had that I don’t think kids/teens fully have now:

1)     TRL- I’d come home in the afternoon and see the latest videos and interviews with stars, before that there was Dick Clark, Soul Train, now what?If you don't catch it on YouTube it's hard to keep up. It used to be the thing to catch the latest Micheal Jackson video on Thursday night and talk about it at school. 

2)     Saturday morning cartoons and teen sitcoms- Yes, I know there is cable now for all that but there was something special about having that Saturday morning line up till 12 then you go out to play. And Although Disney and Nickelodeon have many reincarnations of Saved By the Bell and the Boy Meets World Spin off (thumbs down), it’s not the same feeling when you watch it at random times.

3)     TGIF and Saturday night comedies- If you were a kid and of course weren’t partying it up on the weekend nights it was good to have some TV options everyone else watched. Do kids have that kind of line up now? I mean, it’s the reason I love the Golden Girls because it came on Saturday night and lasted 7 darn seasons. And everyone watched Family Matters. What Friday and Saturday night series are there now?

4)     Music- there was a lot more “teeny bopper” music back then. We had The Boys, ABC, a young Brandy and Monica, Tevin Campbell, Usher. And that’s just the R&B side (Hanson anyone)? Now you have Justin Beiber and some random Beiber like types whose names I don't know. Very limited.

5)     Toys, even those don’t seem as cool. Everything is computer based. If the power goes out, you better make sure you have some old school toys with you or that the battery is fully charged.When I saw a little child touch a book like it was touch screen I realized that things were changing and I wonder if its better, worse or just different.

Or maybe I'm just out of touch with kids and just have no idea what's cool. Do kids still even use the word cool. *cracks back and takes a seat*