Group by Christie Tate
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Continue reading “Group by Christie Tate | Avid Reader Press {Book Review}”
Tag: book mail
Fair Play by Eve Rodsky | G.P. Putnam’s Sons {Book Review}
Fair Play by Eve Rodsky
Book Summary:
It started with the Sh*t I Do List. Tired of being the “shefault” parent responsible for all aspects of her busy household, Eve Rodsky counted up all the unpaid, invisible work she was doing for her family — and then sent that list to her husband, asking for things to change. His response was… underwhelming. Rodsky realized that simply identifying the issue of unequal labor on the home front wasn’t enough: She needed a solution to this universal problem. Her sanity, identity, career, and marriage depended on it.
The result is Fair Play: a time- and anxiety-saving system that offers couples a completely new way to divvy up domestic responsibilities. Rodsky interviewed more than five hundred men and women from all walks of life to figure out what the invisible work in a family actually entails and how to get it all done efficiently. With four easy-to-follow rules, 100 household tasks, and a figurative card game you play with your partner, Fair Play helps you prioritize what’s important to your family and who should take the lead on every chore from laundry to homework to dinner.
“Winning” this game means rebalancing your home life, reigniting your relationship with your significant other, and reclaiming your Unicorn Space — as in, the time to develop the skills and passions that keep you interested and interesting. Are you ready to try Fair Play? Let’s deal you in.
Publication Date:
October 1st, 2019
Genre:
Time Management, Gender Studies, Parenting & Family Life
My Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My Review:
(LINK to Fair Play by Eve Rodsky)
If you follow me on social media, you know I have been going on and on about Fair Play but I am just so excited about it. I love parenting books, I love self-help and relationship books and as soon as I saw the premise of this I knew I needed to read it ASAP!
The Adjustment to The Roles in Parenthood…
The adjustment to parenthood did not happen super easily for us both personally and in our relationship together. It was a huge transition and we struggled in many ways as we navigated our new roles and expectations of one another.
“On many days, feeling the full weight of exhaustion that would seize me the moment my baby was down and I was finally offline, I’d wonder What did I do all day? When even I couldn’t answer the question, there was no doubt in my mind that I’d lost all control of my time. Sound familiar?”
While we have learned a lot as the years have gone by, figuring out the daily logistics of life with work, marriage, kids and household tasks is a constant juggling act. Fair Play both takes on and tackles the topics of the mental load, second shift, emotional labor and invisible work that in the 21st century still cause a great imbalance in many families ‘ home lives.
Relatable and Proactive!
Not only is Eve Rodsky’s writing accessible and totally relatable, but it is also helpful! I love a good plan. I feel the absolute worst when life feels tough and I don’t know what my next steps are going to be. Even when things are still rocky, when I am moving forward, things always feel more manageable.
Rodsky created a simple and straightforward approach to help equitably restructuring the balance of domestic “duties” while also factoring in time to focus on creative and personal growth so that everyone feels fulfilled and happy.
While our relationship does follow a similar path as Rodsky’s (heterosexual married couple with kids) she has also done her due diligence. Rodsky worked with 500+ couples to include a wide variety of multiple social constructs that can alter perspectives, challenges, and accessibility so this book really is for everyone!
More Information…
Eve Rodsky’s Q&A on her own website is super informative if you are looking to learn more about why she took on this project. Resources like this are so awesome to help raise awareness of these important conversations that are so important to navigating family life.
Thank you to Putnam for sending this amazing book mail and to Edelweiss for an ARC ebook edition.
***On October 1st, 2019 Reese’s Book Club Hello Sunshine chose Fair Play for their October 2019 book club selection!! You can read more HERE on their Instagram page and this article is a great summary of what Fair Play is all about! Congratulations Eve, what a well deserved accomplishment! <3
Happy Money by Ken Honda | Gallery Books | Book Review
Happy Money by Ken Honda
Book Summary:
“Too often, money is a source of fear, stress, and anger, often breaking apart relationships and even ruining lives. We like to think money is just a number or a piece of paper, but it is so much more than that. Money has the ability to smile, it changes when it is given with a certain feeling, and the energy with which it imbues us impacts not only ourselves but others as well.
Although Ken Honda is often called a “money guru,” his real job over the past decade has been to help others discover the tools they already possess to heal their own lives and relationships with money. Learn how to treat money as a welcome guest, allowing it to come and go with respect and without resentment; understand and improve your money EQ; unpack the myth of scarcity; and embrace the process of giving money, not just receiving it.
This book isn’t to fix you, because as Ken Honda says, you’re already okay!”
Genre:
Self-help & Personal Finance
My Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My Review:
Happy Money is not a self-help book about how to manage your money but more about your actual relationship with money. It covered some really thought-provoking topics including how many of us have deeply ingrained thoughts and beliefs about finances that we adopted from our experiences with money as young children.
Honda’s theory is that your relationship with life will mirror what your relationship is like with money. I appreciated his dialogue about being grateful about money going out and coming in and the power of having a healthy and positive mindset about money.
I didn’t think there was anything earth-shattering in this book but I liked the proactive approach he shared while also being aware of how our foundations and histories with money are a huge part of the relationship we have with it now. Sometimes the biggest thing we need to make a change is having the awareness of how we became the way we are today, so this in itself was very insightful.
*I was given a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.
Coffee Talk | Currently Loving…| Book Mail, Listening at Work, Book Besties & Thoughts on Natural Deodorant |
Checking-in:
Hello! How is your week going? I can’t believe it is Thursday already! Holiday weeks always throw me off and they also tend to be more hectic with 5 days of work fitting into 4 days. This is my busy work season now that it is nice out (Vermont photography season is in full swing) and I am trying to fit in as much as possible before school gets out in mid-June when our childcare will be pretty limited.
Currently listening to…
With the increase in photo editing, it means I have officially entered “audiobook” season! I am lucky to have a job that is in the creative field, which enables to listen to things while I edit photos. For weddings, I tend to choose audio books since they often are about the same amount of time it takes to edit a whole wedding…and regular sessions I tend to listen to a podcast episode or two.
I haven’t made it that far yet but I am just loving The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates. It is so powerful and she is a wonderful orator. The news had been hard lately and as important as I think it is to know what is going on around us, I also love something that motivates to be more proactive and supportive of others in our own daily lives.
I know I mentioned the docu-drama Chernobyl last week, but this week I learned that there is also a podcast that goes along with of the episodes. I talk about this more on my IG stories earlier today but it is amazing to hear the thoughts behind the making of the series and the choices that went into doing a show about this real event that affected thousands and thousands of people. If you haven’t checked it out I highly recommend it!
Currently loving…
Book Mail!
There is NOTHING better than book mail! This week I was excited to receive packages from Berkley Publishing and St. Martin’s Press. Kristan Higgins is one of my favorite summer authors and Life and Other Inconveniences was just amazing! I have included it on my summer reading lists and think it would be a great one to toss in your beach bag. Higgin’s writing is funny and relatable but her characters are also relatable and multidimensional. Have you read any of her books before?
Friends who read together stay together:
Speaking of Kristan Higgins, I happened to show up to work on Tuesday with the same book as Kristy and we were wearing the same color sweatshirt. We obviously had to take a selfie to document this.
In addition to being my co-worker, Kristy is also my wonderful friend and reading buddy. We love discussing our current books at lunchtime but we normally aren’t reading the same one at the same time because we share most of our hard copy books…so this was really exciting! Do you have friends that you share books with? It’s the best!
If You Only Knew came highly recommended from my Bookstagram friends and Kristy already finished it and I am almost done and am loving it. It’s the perfect book for this more hectic time of year. <3
Back to book mail & a Diane Chamberlain update!!
St. Martin’s Press was kind enough to send me the paperback release of Dream Daughter which is being published next week on 6/4! If you haven’t read this yet, this will be the perfect summer book to add to your reading list. Dream Daughter was in my top 10 books of 2018 and it might be my favorites Diane book ever and I have read A LOT of them.
I will have to do a whole post about my favorite Diane Chamberlain books but she rarely lets me down and her books are always unique and super engrossing, while also being total page-turners. I have read a lot of them while on vacation and they are the perfect books to just get lost in.
AND the most amazing exciting news of all, they announced that Diane will have another novel published in early 2020 (January 24th to be exact!) Big Lies In A Small Town!
Currently using…
Lavanila deodorant in Vanilla Coconut
While I would like to say that I have parted ways with antiperspirant deodorant, I have tried and I just can’t do it. I think it has come from a lifetime of having that feeling of “dry” armpits but I just can’t get used to that “sweaty feeling”, especially while I work out.
I am all about compromise, so I have decided to use my “regular” Tom of Maine antiperspirant in the mornings and then putting on a more “natural” one, specifically Lavanila, when I get dressed for the day after class.
I don’t like to recommend things until I have really given them a fair shot but this stuff is pretty amazing! I have very sensitive skin and in addition to not cutting the sweat(deodorant just masks the smell of sweat but it doesn’t stop it like antiperspirant), it would make my underarms break out in a painful rash.
A lot of “natural” deodorants have baking soda in them which I think was the culprit. Lavanila is super gentle, smells amazing and really keeps you smelling quite fresh! And it lasts a long time. I first ordered it last May and each stick lasts 3+ months for me of daily use.
Have you made the deodorant switch?! Or are you meeting in the middle like me? 😉
Alright, that is all for this morning! I hope you have a wonderful rest of your Thursday. <3
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase, it helps support this blog. Thank you!