Monday, January 30, 2017

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4 Books for Beginning a Healthy and Nutritious Lifestyle


Many people would like to begin eating healthy and nutritiously, but they are not sure where to start. There are a lot of good books out there to help in that endeavor! You can make it fun and delicious to start eating a healthier diet (and you can get the kids in on it too!), and these books will show you how.

Nutrition Healthy Diet: The Power of Healthy and Nutritious Eating


This book by Edwin Garret is a must! It explains in simple and easy-to-understand terms, a lot of those things that so many of us struggle to grasp. Understanding saturated, unsaturated, monounsaturated, and all of those fats is a huge step in the right direction. It also talks about how food interacts with your body, how to improve your gut health, and even includes six steps to maintain healthy living for long term results. This book will be a good place to begin, and get you started down the healthy living path!

Body Shout: A Kids Health Book About Why Eating Nutritious Food, Fitness, and Fun, Works Best for Everyone!


Would you like to get the kids involved in your quest to a nutritious and healthy lifestyle? This book is fantastic for just that! It’s written by P.C Butler and it’s entertaining and educational. It’s a quirky short story about those things you do everyday, and how they affect the body. The book shows kids the importance of making healthy food choices in a fun-for-kids style. Parents find this book amusing as well, so it makes a great beginning to your children’s nutrition!

Simple Clean Eating: 50 Favorite Whole Foods Recipes to Start Your Healthy & Nutritious Meals


Now that you understand some of those terms and ideas behind healthy eating, and your kids have learned more about it, you need some help in making the food, right? Look no further! This book by Emma Rose gives you a lot of recipes for some healthy cooking, and includes tips to help you create your own nutritious meals! It has a lot of vegan-based recipes in it that, even though I’m not a vegan, I love!

Make-Ahead Meals Made Healthy: Exceptionally Delicious and Nutritious Freezer-Friendly Recipes You Can Prepare in Advance and Enjoy at a Moment’s Notice



Something I love to do is to make sauces and parts of my meal in advance, so I can just put them together and prepare in a short time. This book can certainly help you with that! You can make very nutritious meals ahead of time, and simply reheat them, and serve! One of my favorite things to do in (that sneaks in so many veggies) is create a large amount of my own spaghetti sauce, and freeze a lot in jars. Tomatoes, onions, bell peppers in abundance, but without all those preservatives and extras that you don’t need in your food. You can even enlist the help of family to make dinner! Check this book by Michele Borboa out when you can, and begin your journey to healthier, more nutritious meals!


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Tuesday, January 24, 2017

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5 More Books to Spike Your Creativity

5 More Books to Spike Your Creativity


Creativity Inc. Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration


This book by Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Studios is a book for anyone who strives for originality. In it, he says the book is “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.” It is a book designed more for managers to help their teams strive for creative and new ideas, but it holds great ideas to spark your creativity, as well. The book also talks about Pixar’s rise, and how they started from humble beginnings. It’s a great book to get inspiration and ideas to tap into your creative side!


Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative



Austin Kleon says that you don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself. This book has illustrations, examples, and exercises to put you directly in touch with your artistic and creative side. This book is filled with new ideas about creativity: Nothing is original, so embrace influence, collect ideas and remix and re-imagine to discover your path. “Steal like an artist” just means that nothing is completely original. “All creative work builds on what came before.” One of my favorite quotes from the book is “Remember: even the Beatles started as a cover band.”


The Little Spark - 30 Ways to Ignite Your Creativity


This great book by Carrie Bloomston has some great ways to ignite your inner fire with engaging exercises, activities, images, and ideas! In it, you will find how to find your creative “Little Spark” and capture it. You can use this book as a spare-time reader, read it cover to cover, or even as a 30-day creative map! You can even use the book as a guide for creative activities, just to get those “sparks” going to a full fire of creativity! It’s filled with all sorts of nuggets of spark-fuel, so read it and go out and create!


Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind


This book by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire is based on Kaufman’s groundbreaking research and Gregoire’s famous article in the Huffington Post. It takes a glimpse into the “messy minds” of highly creative people. The book shows how embracing our own contradictions (mindfulness and daydreaming, seriousness and play), we can tap into our deepest creativity! With insights from Picasso, Proust, David Foster Wallace, Thomas Edison, John Lennon, and more, this book is a must-read!


Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All


Sometimes, we all assume that creativity and invention are only in the “creative type” domain, but that is incorrect! Each and every one of us has that creativity inside, and Tom Kelley and David Kelley show us how in this book. The founder and partner brothers talk about how to unleash the creativity that lies within all of us that is just waiting to be tapped! If you struggle with creativity and innovation, this may be just the book you need to read.


In case you need more inspiration, be sure to check out the first post we wrote on this topic, about the first 5 titles that can assist you in growing your creativity: 5 Books to Spike Your Creativity.


Image credits: Pixabay
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Saturday, January 7, 2017

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8 Celebrities and Their Favorite Books



8 Celebrities and Their Favorite Books


We all love to watch the celebrities and keep up with all the gossip about them. One of my favorite actresses loves a book called “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” by David Foster Wallace. Zooey Deschanel loves the book because it talks about a cruise in the Caribbean and the irony of the lack of fun Wallace had on the cruise. So, I wondered what some other celebrities enjoy reading.

Anna Kendrick’s favorite books are “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque, which talk about German soldiers stresses in WW1, and how they felt detached from civilian life upon their return home. Another is “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, a satirical novel about the experiences of WW2. The book describes living through the bombing of Dresden by the Allies during the war and surviving that event as a prisoner of war.

Jamie Chung’s favorite book is “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson. The book was written in 2012 and talks about identity and propaganda in North Korea. It’s written in two parts, The Biography of Jun Do and the Confessions of General Ga.

Jessica Biel loves the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Tender is the Night.” It’s the final book that Fitzgerald would complete. Biel says “It’s tragic, and I think tragedies might be good for you.” The book talks about a glamorous couple and a villa in southern France, and the troubles the couple has, and an affair with a movie star.

James Franco's favorite book


For those that love James Franco, his favorite book is “As I Lay Dying” by William Faulkner. His father gave him the book when he was in High School during a period that Franco was getting into trouble. He says the book is what caused him to love reading. The book describes the death of Addie Bundren and her family’s journey to take the body back to Addie’s hometown.

What does Daniel Radcliffe read?


Daniel Radcliffe was on Amazon.com and saw this book in a recommended section. “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov tells the story of the Devil visiting the very Atheist Soviet Union. The book is set in 1930’s Moscow, and the Jerusalem of Pontius Pilate. It is widely considered to be one of the best novels of the 20th century!

A 5th-grade teacher and long-time friend of Halle Berry suggested that Berry read “Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime” by J. California Cooper for advice. It became one of her favorite books. The book is a collection of fictions written by one of America’s most respected women writers.

I always wonder what actors and actresses like to read in their spare time when I watch them acting on the big screen. The story Franco tells of a time of trouble in his life, and how a book helped him through it is inspiring to me! I know for sure that I will be reading a few of these in the coming months.
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