Kristin Bennett

This book is one I picked up about a month ago when I saw it at Barnes and Noble, I don’t recall which one but I remember seeing it featured, the author was going to be at an event in Seattle! University Village is where the signing was and though I didn’t make it there as I was in the midst of my Flare I was there soon after and was able to pick up an Autographed copy.

It caught my interest of course because I had JUST been at the symposium which talks about a lot of the same issues and how to deal with them. I immediately scanned the table of contents and the index and was VERY happy to not see much/any attention being given to the option of sending ones child away. There is a lot of great tips and examples about how specifically to and NOT to interact with ones child when there is a difficult emotional situation.

I’m just over halfway done and I absolutely recommend the book! I really like that it is more modern and relevant than the ones I have seen from my parent’s old collection from when I was a tween…which of course I felt were gross over-simplifications. This book is good general advice for dealing with anyone who is loved and going through a hard time.

I started reading this book about a week ago, I’m not done yet but really want to talk about it anyway. I picked it up as the sole book I purchased on a day that I wrote down about 20 titles of books that I ‘want’ to read at some point…I’m recently obsessed with psychology, self help, normal (I’ll explain in another review), parenting, Multiple Sclerosis and Alternative Healing. I ended up losing that list of books that I so wanted to read but at least I bought this one, to remember that day by. Sleepless In America.

So far I’ve learned that YES…my family and definitely I am lacking sleep…personally I know that I am because that was a HUGE part of what led to my recent flare-up that I am still getting over. It was interesting though because I could see some examples of my daughters in there as well and I think what I’m most grateful for is the healing ‘what to do now’ kind of information and stories that are being shared. I don’t think we give the girls adequate time to sleep. I think for me it was a lazy/being ‘cool’ about it hing where I sympathized with my daughter (4) who wanted to stay up with me, and she is so persistent that I figured I might as well let her stay up and just go to bed with me (yes we co-sleep) and so life happens, she’s still with me and most nights staying up late enough that I fall asleep or at least get too tired to get back up by the time she falls asleep.

I’m absolutely always up for doing what is best though, for me and for her, at least when I am SURE that it is the right thing… I have been a nag for a while about how we need a routine evening schedule for the girls, but now I MEAN it. I think a huge part of what I love about this book is that a lot of it gives me back up to things I either learned and forgot the source of or just intuitively knew that I had a hard time rationalizing to both my husband and myself.

So now we’re on the journey to us all sleeping better, tonight is the first night that both girls were asleep AND both adults emerged awake (hence me writing this at almost 11pm). It was very sweet, I got her to let me leave by letting her wear one of my socks and promising I’d be back to snuggle after I finished some work. I haven’t gotten to the baby part yet, that’s hard, she’s on me sleeping now so hopefully I’ll learn some insightful tricks on this one…

Hope you have a lovely restful night!!!

I am convinced that it is what I need to do. I am working on a book that will touch on a variety of my life experiences that I occasionally ramble about that consistently lead people to look me dead in the eye and tell me that I need to tell my story. I’ve been told this by “Intuitives” who read this in my Chakras, friends, strangers, and many many more. I have held back in part because the sheer amount of intense stories I have intimidate me.

Anyway, I have gotten started and already had to stop, at least for today because I got to a part of my life that I do not have clear memory of. I have lots of random ‘scenes’ that pop up but don’t clearly fit together in my head. It is an interesting challenge to make a story out of the past with this kind of memory. At this point I am going to be digging for some of the old journals, though I know these do not tell the whole story, this part of my life I had no privacy and my journals were being read by other people daily and so were written in a way that they would be reading what I interpreted as content that would get me out of the situation. It had nothing to do with what I was really thinking and feeling in other words but I am hoping that it will still trigger some kind of memory so I can tell the story.

If the journals don’t help then I plan to write all those little excerpts and maybe that is how I will write them, it will be a kind of random set of memories that can be read as I remember them and maybe writing them like that I will find some kind of structure, I figure if I don’t then it just means they are meant to be communicated like this though.

I will also soon be writing some other ebooks with my husband for our other new site “A Niche To Scratch” as we are working together to help people to do what they are driven to do, and monetize their niche in life through the internet in ways that make sense.

Back to the life stuff though, I am thinking I might have to scan parts of the journal to put into the book as well as pictures.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, I sure did. I was home with my girls and my husband who did ALL of the cooking in a wonderful couldn’t be better way. We did a little video of what we are grateful for and everything. Loved it as it was the best Thanksgiving ever, no pressure, no drama, all love. We spent the rest of the weekend having fun visiting family and running errands, it ended too soon.

Organization is a word that I have never been comfortable with.

Occasionally, I will get motivated and get REALLY organized…however soon that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the picture and either meshes with another area in the house or my husband tries to help and confusion follows etc.

Part of the problem, for sure, is being ‘into’ SO many things at once. What can I say, life is interesting to me!! I have bills out so I can pay them soon as I have enough money, I have pictures out so when I get a chance I can put them up on the wall, clothes on their way to the laundry (actually that shirt’s clean I think, maybe I’ll wear it!), toys of course, bags I’ve used that have various books in them I need to keep track of. Books, ahhh the books. Between me and my husband we’ve seriously considered opening up our apartment as a library for friends to come borrow from, huge variety of business, self help, atlantis, ancient history, technology, tarot/supernatural, and so much more. Oh, then there’s my businesses! I have my Arbonne of course, then there is the Trump Network, and also I am a rep for the Passion Parties. Then there is the groups I’m involved in…a daycare board, trying to get on a non-profit board to protect the rights of children, there’s the MS Society where I’m trying to fit in but haven’t yet, there’s my “Moms with MS” site that just launched and is doing well, my blogging for Working Mother website, which I haven’t touched much since getting laid off, meetups for the local Moms with MS and Seattle Hip Mamas groups and believe it or not much more…right now I’m distracted because munch is telling me she just spilled a ‘little bit’ of tea on the floor…hmm…

My mental health specialist I’ve seen a few times recently recommended I explore finding a sort of grant of some sort for getting organized, apparently this is something that other people with MS have trouble with as well. If you ask my husband, he is straight up convinced that it is because I (like him) have ADD but that I (unlike him) cannot take the medications because I’m nursing Hazel.

Now that I wrote all that I’d like to go try and clean up…actually packing is something I should do as well considering we are trying to be in the house being renovated right now within a month. Which is a whole other can of worms I’m not even going to touch right now. I’ll just say it’s going however it’s meant to and I have faith it’ll all happen.

Maybe if I do one of my simpleology exercises now…maybe that’ll organize my brain…