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MizHufflepuff
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Name: Cheri
Country: United States
State: Virginia
Metro: Fairfax County
Birthday: 8/26/1955
Gender: Female
Interests: Worship of God, helping people, care and feeding of 3 teenagers (2 in public HS and 1 now attending college), reading, LOTR, HP, sleeping, stamping, sewing, shopping.
Expertise: Mocha frappuccino making. Taking care of my family. SAHM:)
Message: message me
Member Since:
8/16/2005
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| I think I am about the only person that looks at this so I will put notes to myself here. If I'm wrong, leave a comment.
I read "Leading with a Limp" by Dan Allender. It is very opposite of John Maxwell's approach to leadership. Below are two thoughts from the book that really helped me.
Leaders choose daily, but the real weight on their shoulders lies in the need to decide. And there are no easy decisions. To decide requires a death, a dying to a thousand options, the putting aside of a legion of possibilities in order to choose just one. De-cides. Homo-cide. Sui-side. Partri-cide. the root word decidere means "to cut off." All decisions cut us off, separate us from nearly infinite options as we select just one single path. And every decision we make earns us the favor of some and the disfavor of others.
A good leader (or parent) will, in time, disappoint everyone. Leadership requires a willingness to not be liked, in fact, a willingness to be hated. But it is impossible to lead people who doubt you and hate you.
I applied this "death to a thousand options" to my kitchen update. For fear of making a wrong decision, nothing was ever done to update the 25 year old kitchen. The stove wouldn't completely die so I had to keep using it. The drawers mostly work, so I lived with it. We finally had the money to do something about it, so I had to make DECISIONS. The kitchen guy kept reminding me that I have a small kitchen and there aren't a lot of options or upgrades available. (Rub it in, already.) Still, I know it will be a vast improvement and with the help of a very style-conscience daughter, it should look good. Hubby can replace the ceiling light and ceiling fan (currently a very 80's globe light).
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| I just finished reading this story about a boy that went to Woodson High School. I believe Sean Penn's film of this story comes out this Friday. Talk about timing. Anyway, I had made some initial judgments about Chris McCandless, which were completely off base after reading the book. I'm still mulling over Proverbs 18:1 in relation to the choices he made. I think wisdom caught up to Chris by the end. I think he found a place for people in his life, but there was no time left to live it out.
This is an Amazon review:
This is a poignant, compelling narrative about Chris McCandless, an
intelligent, intense, and idealistic young man, who cut off all ties to
his upper middle class family. He then reinvented himself as Alexander
Supertramp, a drifter living out of a backpack, eking out a marginal
existence as he wandered throughout the United States. A modern day
King of the Road, McCandless ended his journey in 1992 in Alaska, when
he walked alone into the wilderness north of Denali. He never returned.
Krakauer investigates this young man's short life in an attempt to
explain why someone who has everything going for him would have chosen
this lifestyle, only to end up dead in one of the most remote, rugged
areas of the Alaskan wilderness. Whether one views McCandless as a fool
or as a modern day Thoreau is a question ripe for discussion. It is
clear, however, from Krakauer's writing that his investigation led him
to feel a strong, spiritual kinship with McCandless. It is this kindred
spirit approach to his understanding of this young man that makes
Krakauer's writing so absorbing and moving.
Krakauer retraced McCandless' journey, interviewing many of those
with whom he came into contact. What metamorphosed is a haunting,
riveting account of McCandless' travels and travails, and the impact he
had on those with whom he came into contact. Krakauer followed
McCandless' last steps into the Alaskan wilderness, so that he could
see for himself how McCandless had lived, and how he had died. This
book is his epitaph.
Of course, I've read many other books since my last post, but I wouldn't recommend any of them.
I go for acupuncture treatment number 7 on Friday. The latest studies show that many people get a benefit from 'fake' acupuncture. Hey, relief from pain can come any way it wants to. So far I can't tell any great difference. When the needles go 5" in, my Doctor now hooks electric current up to them. A very weird feeling. Next month will be 18 months since I injured my hip. I think I felt the need to say that in the light of having read so many books. My physical activity is somewhat limited.
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| The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey
After reading a friend's comments I had to read this.
Here are some of the highlights I got out of the book.
The moment there is
suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes
tainted.
Mahatma Gandi.
Few things can help an
individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him
know you trust him. Booker T. Washington The only way to build
trust is to be trustworthy.
Whoever is careless with
the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important
matters.
Albert Einstein
Integrity means there is
no gap between intent and behavior.
Intent matters. We judge
others intent based on our experiences.
You trust someone who
genuinely cares.
Never ascribe to an
opponent motives meaner thatn your own. J.M. Barrie
Behave your way into the
person you want to be.
Behavior comes out of
motive and intent.
The measure of your life
will not be in what you accumulate but in what you give away. Wayne
Dyer
I am always learning
and working at the margin of my ignorance. Harvey Golub
It's no use saying, 'We
are doing our best'. You have got to succeed in doing what is
necessary.
Winston Churchill.
We tend to get what we
expect, both from ourselves and from others.
What you do has far
greater impact than what you say.
What upsets me is not
that you lied to me, but that I can no longer believe you.
Friedrich Nietzshe
You can judge a person's
character by the way he treats people who can't help him or hurt him.
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| I know it sounds strange, but this was a really good book. I had the opportunity to see the Body exhibit in Arlington. The bodies on display were plastinated. That is the process of taking organic tissue and replacing the water in it with a liquid silicone polymer, turning the organism into a permanently preserved version of itself. I think seeing the bodies made it easier to read about the history of cadevers.
Adult/High School-Those curious or brave enough to find out what really
happens to a body that is donated to the scientific community can do so
with this book. Dissection in medical anatomy classes is about the
least bizarre of the purposes that science has devised. Mostly dealing
with such contemporary uses such as stand-ins for crash-test dummies,
Roach also pulls together considerable historical and background
information. Bodies are divided into types, including "beating-heart"
cadavers for organ transplants, and individual parts-leg and foot
segments, for example, are used to test footwear for the effects of
exploding land mines. Just as the nonemotional, fact-by-fact
descriptions may be getting to be a bit too much, Roach swings into
macabre humor. In some cases, it is needed to restore perspective or
aid in understanding both what the procedures are accomplishing and
what it is hoped will be learned. In all cases, the comic relief
welcomes readers back to the world of the living. For those who are
interested in the fields of medicine or forensics and are aware of some
of the procedures, this book makes excellent reading.
Pam Johnson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
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| The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.
This book is a fascinating take on what makes people
behave in a certain way en masse. Tying together Paul Revere, Hush
Puppies and many other very accessible ideas makes this book, that is
in some ways very academic, read like a thriller. It didn't flow coherently for me but then I read elsewhere that it was originally written as magazine articles. It makes sense to study sociology after this.
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