Tag: books

reading list

Books Read in June 2021

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Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Y’all. Y’ALL. I FINALLY read ten books in one month! That was my initial goal, but I fell short every month. It feels good to hit my target. Here are the books I read this past month:

Dr Joseph Murphy, How to Attract Money (YouTube audiobook)

W. D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich (YouTube audiobook)

Neville Goddard, Prayer: The Art of Believing (YouTube audiobook)

Florence Scovel Shinn, The Power of the Spoken Word (YouTube audiobook)

Dr. Joseph Murphy, Riches Are Your Right (YouTube audiobook)

Robert Collier, Be Rich! (YouTube audiobook)

Aromatherapy: A Comprehensive Guide to Get Started with Essential Oils by Jessica Thompson

Wicca Herbal Magic: The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Wiccan Herbal Magic (with Magical Oils, Baths, Teas and Spells) by Sophia Silvervine

Wicca Magic: Your Complete Guide to Wicca Herbal Magic and Wicca Spells That Will Fulfill Your Life by Vivienne Grant

The Hidden Power of Herbs: A Basic Guide to Herbal Magick  by Holy Santo

If you noticed the last few books I mentioned, you’re probably wondering,

Girl, are you a witch/Wiccan?

No, I’m not. But, I’m an aspiring medicine woman (AKA herbalist). In my experience, no one has a better grasp of the multifaceted power of herbs than people who use them in their spiritual practices. Beyond the instruction related to herbs, I didn’t focus on the other information (though there were a few passages here and there that I found useful).

The majority of my reading focused on upleveling my mindset and remembering the power of creating the world I want through intention, powerful affirmations and afformations, and believing that I deserve to live my best life. Believe it or not, I still have to work on my mindset as regards entitlement. I logically know that I deserve a wonderful life, but I’m still unpacking the programming that many of us have received when it comes to having financial abundance.

So many of us have been running a script in our minds, both denouncing “too much” money while simultaneously longing for MORE money to live more comfortably. It’s not impossible to have lots of money yet feel undeserving, but those emotions make it difficult to be comfortable with abundance. For that reason, I’m continuing to work on my mindset and increase my comfort level with the amount of money I want in my reality.

Have you all read any of these books? I’d love to hear your thoughts below!

*this post contains affiliate links*

writing

Writers Wednesdays – Three Books Published!

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Happy Writers Wednesday! I’m really excited to share this post, as a follow up to Monday’s goal update post.

As the title says, I published three books this year so far. I mentioned briefly in this post that I had churned out two children’s books, and now I have added a new book to the collection. The newest book, Let’s Go to Japan, is my way of introducing children to the incredible world of Japanese culture, history and nature. I’m as proud of this book as I am of Let’s Go to China and Let’s Go to Vietnam.

Initially, I was on the fence about including these children’s books in my publishing goal. I think it’s because I don’t feel that these books are “serious enough” or have enough words to count as a publishing accomplishment. But, as usual, this is criticism that I have launched against myself (better known as self sabotage) and it has served me well to reconsider whether this perspective serves me.

I decided that these books, which take time for research, selecting appropriate pictures, and keeping the language simple enough for children, are just as valid as my novels or self-help works-in-progress. So I decided to count these books as part of my 5 published books goal. As a result, I am now more than halfway to reaching my book publishing goal for the year.

That being said, I still want to publish some of the other works in progress that I’ve had on my desk for a while (in the case of one of my books, more than 7 years!) and that are yearning to be in the hands of readers that will appreciate them. In that respect, my writing work truly doesn’t stop, even after I publish 5 books. I won’t feel truly “caught up” until all of my current works in progress are published. I actually haven’t done a count of how many WIPs I currently have, but I know that there are more than 5. In short, I have my work cut out for me.

I hope you all are having a terrific Wednesday! If you have any works in progress that you’re concentrating your energies onto right now, I’d love to hear all about it in the comments below!

goals · health · life curation

June Goal Updates

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Happy Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I accidentally posted this last week (before I finished collecting my thoughts), so I had to pull the post and reschedule it. It was one of those weeks, folks . . . Anyhoo, here’s my June goal update post.

As a quick recap, here are the goals I have for 2021:

  • Publish 5 books
  • Lose 15 lbs
  • Manifest 3 international trips
  • Earn 6 figures in my businesses
  • Read 100+ books
  • Luxury purchases – Hermes, Christian Louboutin, Sophia Webster, Ralph & Russo
  • Cure my fibromyalgia

The Wednesday and Thursday posts will cover the first two points (weight loss discussion on Thursday, and publishing post on Writers’ Wednesdays, as normal). I’m really excited to discuss the (unorthodox) way I utilized to lose weight. I may even do a video on it (I’m still undecided about whether I’ll publish and attach a video related to the topic). Along with that, my Wednesday post will cover how I published 3 books in the past 6 months, and how I intend to publish 3 more before the end of the summer.

Onto the next point. . . While I very much desire to take 3 international trips (and I also intend to manifest the money to make those trips happen!), I haven’t been putting a lot of my energy toward that goal. To be honest, I have only decided on one international trip for sure, to happen at the end of December. I haven’t the faintest where else I want to go, or when I want to go there. I have a couple of ideas of how that can unfold for me, but for now, a lot of this is still undecided. I’m okay with the uncertainty: I don’t have to micromanage the details. So long as the perfect trips for ME come my way, I’m pleased.

So, I’m nowhere near my 6-figure business income goal. However, I’ve completely withdrawn my energy from my businesses in the past few months, so that doesn’t surprise me. Now, if I want to reach that goal, I’ll have to amp up the activity during this second half of the year. This actually works perfect for me, as I’ve built quite a bit of momentum over the past few months (by publishing my books at a comfortable pace, learning more about herbs and oils, nurturing my body so that I have more energy, etc.,). With the energy I’ve conserved, I have a lot more time available to pour into my businesses, so that I can see a drastic increase in my sales and so that I can knock out my goal of 6 figures in 2021!

I had to put my book-reading goals on hold during the month of May, since I was completing my Cornell University program. However, I resumed the reading challenge this month, and I’m excited to share which books I read during the month of June (also, I finally hit my monthly goal of 10+ books, which puts me on target for reaching 100+ before the end of the year!) The reading goal post will be available sometime next week.

I haven’t made any more luxury purchases in the past few months. I look forward to adding more goodies from luxury retailers sometime during August (my birthday month). I’m sure I’ll be eager to give myself a “treat” by then.

Finally, I’m still working on reversing my fibromyalgia. I think I’m getting close to a permanent solution, but I’m still testing a few things. Of course, you can simply peruse any of my Fibro Friday posts to see what I’m learning and trying on this journey.

Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing an amazing tool that I think will help tremendously with accomplishing my remaining goals. I can’t wait to share it with you! Until then, take care, and I’ll talk to you all soon!

writing

Writers Wednesdays – Redoing My Daily Schedule

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It’s my first Writers’ Wednesday since my mini-hiatus, and the first order of business is getting back to the original summer writing plan. It’s been a lovely-ish break, now it’s time for me to get back to my goals.

As you may recall from my “New Cycle” post, I had four different challenges to address, as related to my writing:

Now that I’ve finally finished my Cornell classes, I can better assess how much free time I have in my daily schedule. And, as it turns out, I don’t have much free time at all! After finishing my classes, I suddenly got a surge in tutoring students (I also teach English as a second language) and I took on roughly 5 more teaching hours per week. This may not sound like a lot of additional work, but for someone that already had a minimal amount of free time, five hours is the difference between finishing a book in a few weeks or a few months.

So I had to take a closer look at my weekend free time. Now, I usually sleep in late on Saturdays and Sundays, but if I want to finish writing at least one more book before the end of summer, I’ll have to sacrifice a little bit of snooze time to reach my goal. This wouldn’t ordinarily be a huge issue, but as someone with fibromyalgia (and a persistent case of chronic fatigue), it’s hard to sleep less on the weekend and still feel functional. I’m going to try sacrificing 30 minutes on both Saturday and Sunday, at least for the next few weeks, just to see how it goes. If I find that I still need the rest, then I’ll figure out something else. In the meantime, I can’t worry too much about it: I just have to experiment with different routines until I find something that works.

In the weeks to come, I’ll experiment with my 30 minute blocks of time, and tell you all how that works for me. Wish me luck!

This weekend, I’ll try

writing

Writers Wednesdays: Finding The Best Beta Readers

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Happy Writers Wednesday! Today’s post will be short, because there isn’t a lot to say about this topic.

Good beta readers (who are willing to read your book before you publish it) are invaluable, but also hard to find. Everyone will accept a free book, but few are willing to give substantive feedback on what they read. So, for that reason, it’s challenging to have a good, reliable group of beta readers.

However, finding willing readers is the first step to getting a group of good beta readers. And that part is pretty easy. I always start with family and friends. Then, I start scouring my social media. I look for people that follow certain hashtags, and see if I can connect with them. After engaging in a few conversations, I can offer them my unpublished work, and see if they’re willing to read it.

As I get a group of devoted beta readers, I’ll keep you all posted on how things are going. I look forward to telling you all more about in the future!

reading list

Book Review: The Magic Path of Intuition

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I have another book review for you all, and this time, it’s a FREE audiobook that I found on YouTube!

The book I’m reviewing today is The Magic Path of Intuition by Florence Scovel Shinn. I’ve been familiar with Florence for several years, and I initially read The Game of Life and How to Play It about seven years ago. However, I recently decided that the best way for me to reach my 100 books in 2021 goal is to supplement my normal reading routine with audiobooks (I first mentioned this approach in a recent post). That way, I can listen to the text (auditory methods are my favorite mode of learning) while I do repetitive tasks, like folding clothes, sweeping, and all manner of general tidying.

In my recent post, I named a couple of Florence Scovel Shinn’s books that I read during the month of March. I wanted to finish reading all of her work before the end of April, and I’m excited to announce that I’ve met my goal! So, in this post, I’m reviewing one of the books that really impressed me.

So, one of the things that stands out to me is Florence’s consistent use of anecdotal examples to make her point. However, what is really special about this is that the examples she uses are both dated (she did write these books more than 80 years ago) and yet, completely timeless. It’s easy to envision ourselves as one of the characters in her stories, even if the story that she’s relaying isn’t at all possible in today’s world.

She impresses upon the reader the importance of following intuition in order to reveal, to ourselves, the best path for us to take. She indicates that listening to our intuition is part of communicating directly with God (or our highest, wisest self, if you prefer to describe it that way). After making a particular request, or setting an intention, it’s important to follow whatever inspired action comes next. Sometimes, that action may seem nonsensical, but, in my experience, the more nonsensical the action, the more likely it is that the action is truly inspired and will be crucial to whatever request you’ve made.

I enjoyed listening to this book which. on YouTube, is less than two hours long. I highly recommend it for all of my “woo-woo” friends that want to hear original law of attraction (LOA) teachings!

That’s it for today. I’ll talk to you all tomorrow!

reading list

Book Review: Double Your Business

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I’ve mentioned Cassie Parks in previous posts. She is one of my favorite law of attraction (LOA) coaches, and her simple, practical approach to crafting your dream life is refreshing. In a world full of coaches that make LOA complicated and inaccessible, it’s wonderful to have someone that breaks away from the pack and does it her own way. So, in my quest to learn more ways to create a stronger, more lucrative business, I turned to Cassie’s book, Double Your Business.

The full title of the book is, Double Your Business: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Double Your Profits Without Doubling Your Hours So You Can Actually Enjoy Your Life. But, as you can see, I’ll be using the abbreviated title. In this book, Cassie reveals her step-by-step strategy for increasing your revenue without requiring additional time or extraordinary effort. Her approach involves using clear intentions and embracing your future lifestyle in order to align with your desired reality.

What I appreciate about this book is that it doesn’t give you a quick fix for business growth. As Cassie explains, “quick” strategies are rarely effective over the long term. We have to dive in the day-to-day reality of the lifestyle we desire in order to co-create our best lives. The exercises are easy to follow, Cassie’s writing style is engaging, and, if you follow her advice, you will absolutely double your business without having to work harder or increase your hours.

Additionally, I can see how this would support my goals for 2021. Cassie is careful to avoid the word “goal”, as it implies something very limited, as opposed to an “intention”, which is far broader and more flexible. I love that her approach is so much more wholistic/holistic than some LOA coaches. Instead of focusing on something finite (like a singular goal), she expands your focus so that you can design a business that easily accomplishes all of the goals that you desire to achieve.

I cannot recommend this book enough! If you have it, or would consider buying it, let me know in the comments. Talk to you all soon!

*This post contains affiliate links

writing

Writers Wednesdays – A New Cycle

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Happy Writers Wednesday! I hope you all are having a great day or evening. I mentioned my writing, editing and publishing lessons learned in last week’s Writers Wednesday post. Now that I’ve churned out a few children’s books (like this one that teaches children about China, and this one that teaches kids about Vietnam), I’m getting back onto schedule.

The book I was working on (prior to working on the children’s books) is basically complete, so it’s time to move on. Starting next week, I’m entering a new writing cycle. However, instead of starting a new project from scratch, this cycle will focus on finishing some of my older, neglected manuscripts. I have quite a few unfinished books that I’ve wanted to complete for the past few years, and these next few weeks feel like a good time to do so.

The way I’m planning it in my mind will mean that I won’t stick to one manuscript, complete it, then move to the next. I’ll likely bounce between three or four works, doing writing and editing tasks until they’re all finished. For me, the challenges lie in four different things:

  • Refusing to start a brand new book (given my short attention span, this will be my biggest challenge)
  • Creating a practical daily schedule (as my schedule has been busier recently, this may be a bit harder to do)
  • Finding enough willing beta readers for my books (not a major challenge, but something to keep in mind as I get closer to completing my edits)
  • Setting a reasonable end date for these writing and editing tasks (my second biggest challenge, since I tend to underestimate the time needed for tasks)

As I look forward, I can see where my weaknesses are, and, by seeing them, I can prepare. In the next few days, I’ll be concentrating on how to avoid or mitigate each of the challenges I listed above. And, more than likely, I’ll share about my strategies, tactics and more lessons learned during the next few Writers Wednesdays posts.

That’s my writing update for this week. Have a great day!

*This post contains affiliate links

reading list

Books Read in March 2021

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Happy Tuesday! I posted this yesterday, before it was completed. So today, I’m finally completing this post.

This year, one of my goals is to read 100+ books. For March, I did way better than I did in January and February! That’s really remarkable, considering the fact that I actually took on extra activities during this month (coursework, increased working hours, etc.,).

Want to know my secret for reading more books? It’s easy: audiobooks! I’m pressing play and doing tasks (like folding clothes and beauty treatments) while I listen. Here are the books that I read:

Anne Barone, Chic and Slim

Anne Barone, Chic and Slim Encore

Florence Scovel Shinn, Your Word is Your Wand

Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It

Florence Scovel Shinn, The Secret Door to Success

Annette Larkins – Journey to Health 1

Annette Larkins – Journey to Health 2

So this month, I read 7 books. Not too bad for someone that’s busier than ever LOL! I’m already done with one book for the month of April, and it’s still the first week. It’s looking like I’ll be able to knock out at least 8 more books this month.

That’s today’s brief post! I’ll talk to you all tomorrow, and I’ll have more details about what’s been happening lately. Talk ot you all soon!

(This post contains affiliate links.)

March Goal Updates – Finally!
culture · fitness · goals · health · life curation

March Goal Updates – Finally!

MstldelanoLeave a comment

Happy first day of April, friends!

I know that you all saw some post notifications yesterday, but those posts aren’t ready just yet. Bear with me: the past few weeks have been busy. Between my job, my side job, my family, and my school coursework, I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. I will be getting a much needed break this weekend, but that’s a couple of days away. In any case, I am ready to chat about my March goal update.

So, my goal list for 2021 is as follows:

  • Publish 5 books
  • Lose 15 lbs
  • Manifest 3 international trips
  • Earn 6 figures in my businesses
  • Read 100+ books
  • Luxury purchases – Hermes, Christian Louboutin, Sophia Webster, Ralph & Russo
  • Cure my fibromyalgia

I always discuss my book reading goal in a separate post, so I won’t talk about that until next week. However, I’m really excited to confirm that I’ve made progress on several of my goals for the year!

  • Publish 5 books

In the midst of the tragic shootings in Atlanta several days ago, I was moved to do my part in supporting the Stop Asian Hate movement. I stayed up late several nights, and I ended up writing and publishing two books to inspire children to learn more about Asian countries. I believe that hate is rooted in ignorance, and the cure for ignorance is knowledge. I plan to eventually write books on each of the countries of the world, but I decided to start with China and Vietnam, in hopes that what I publish will help educate children on the many ways that we are wonderfully different and surprisingly alike. My books are Let’s Go to China and Let’s Go to Vietnam, and they are filled with beautiful pictures and fun facts about these two Asian countries.

Now, these books were not planned at all, but I believe in working with inspiration as it strikes. Inspiration led me to write them, and I’ve done this sort of thing enough to know that I should never ignore a hunch. These two books bring my closer to my publishing goals for the year and, as a plus, I’m on target to meet this goal before summer begins!

  • Lose 15 lbs

A recent trip to the doctor confirmed that I have gained weight (more about this in tomorrow’s post). So I’m amping up my physical activity and revising my diet. I feel pretty good about the changes I’m making, and I’m confident that I’ll be able to shed the weight easily – so long as I stick to my plan. I’ll spill more of those details tomorrow.

  • Manifest 3 international trips

Part of manifesting my three international trips including allowing inspiration to point me in the direction of the right trips for me. Well, with some inspired conversations with my friends, as well as some fantastic evidence from the Universe, I’ve decided on one of the countries that I will visit this year! I’ll share more about this as I plan my trip, but I’m really excited that one of those international trips is in the works.

  • Earn 6 figures in my businesses

I’ve gotten several opportunities to earn additional money doing the things that I already do (like vlogging). I also have been selling some of my books (so exciting!) and having several people interested in a few of my little businesses. I’m not sure how much money I’ve made so far in my businesses, but I think I’ll calculate it next month and share it in my April goal update post.

  • Read 100+ books

This will be in a separate post, but I’m excited to let you all know that I read more books in March than I did in January or February. I’m so happy that I’m making progress toward my goal!

  • Luxury purchases – Hermes, Christian Louboutin, Sophia Webster, Ralph & Russo

I’m still floating off of the happiness of my Sophia Webster purchase. I haven’t recently checked the Hermes, Louboutin, or Ralph & Russo websites to decide on what items I want, but I’m sure I’ll have made some more progress toward this before I do my April update.

  • Cure my fibromyalgia

I’ve been feeling great recently! My medication seems to be at an optimal dosage, which makes me really happy. I’ve been dealing with fatigue, but other than that, everything has been good. I’ll discuss this more in tomorrow’s post, too.

So that’s it for my updates. I’ll be back tomorrow with my Fibro Friday post. Take care, and I’ll talk to you all soon!

*This post contains affiliate links.