I crawled into bed at 2:37 a.m. and did my best not to wake Brenton up. He grunted a half-awake, “good morning” in my direction.

“Brenton, I’m afraid I have a book problem,” I confessed to him quietly.

My bedtime didn’t start at 2:30 a.m. Actually it started at about 10 p.m. as we wound down the day, turned off the lights, and Brenton promptly fell asleep. I on the other hand, was wide awake. After tossing and turning in bed for an hour, I decide to sneak out to the couch and read a bit.

The book I picked up to start was Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness by Pete Fromm. It’s a wilderness adventure tale written by a man who spent an Idaho winter living in a canvas tent courtesy of the Idaho Fish and Game department.

Four hours later, I closed the cover on the last page of the book and forced myself to crawl back into bed. My head was swimming with visions of living in a tent in the Idaho wilderness.

We might do it too if I could just figure out the logistics of Brenton showering for work and getting power for my laptop computer. Brenton says they have showers at work (or at the gym), and a solar panel would do quite nicely to power my laptop. Hmmm…

But I digress.

“They” always say the first step to overcoming a problem is admitting that you have one, but what if I don’t want to overcome the problem? I guess I’ll worry about that later, I have a book calling me now.

Yesterday, I read one of the most pleasant books that I have read in a long time. The Spirit of Loveliness: Bringing Beauty, Creativity, and Order to Your Life by Emilie Barnes is inspiring and calming at the same time. The author encourages readers to create beauty without being condemning or judgemental.

Right now, our 3 room apartment (kitchen/livingroom, bedroom, and bathroom) is barely functional. When we moved in here, I had to give up beautiful for “just getting by.” Life here is no tea party, but it can be beautiful.

Even better, there are no “set rules” for beauty in Emilie Barnes book. Home is about sharing your life with others and creating a safe refuge from the world. For Emilie Barnes, that means tea cups and lace; for you it may mean pottery and mosaics. For me, its warm blankets, sunshine, my favorite book, and a pottery mug of something hot to drink.

For the most part, I get hung up on not living in my dream house with my dream life. The goal is to take bits and pieces of that dream and turn it into a reality, in my (your) own home. Today.

I have a notebook of ideas that I gleaned from reading this book. Check back next week to read about my inspiration from The Spirit of Loveliness.

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photos (in order of appearance) windy angels CC-BY-SA

A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg

By: Tim Cahill

Publisher: Vintage Departures

Have you ever lived in a gorilla research camp? watched a full solar eclipse in a snow covered field? Dove (or is it dived) for poison sea snakes? Hiked from the lowest point in the US (in death Valley) to the highest point? Tim Cahill has and in his book, A Wolverine is Eating My Leg, you will feel like you have been there.

I picked up this book from the library because I was wanting to read some travel writing. I dream of being a travel writer. What could be a better life than getting paid to go on worldwide adventures and then writing about it? Tim Cahill lives the life I dream of. All of those crazy things that I dreamed about doing as a kid but my mom wouldn’t let me, he has done.

The thing that strikes me the most about his writing style is that he is irreverent without being crass, and he travel writes without over philosophizing. The book is arranged in a series of short essays divided up by the type of adventure: Jungle, scuba, caving, etc. I think my favorite essay was the fish story about his adventures fishing for northern pike. The last sentence is, “This is a true fish story.” What does that mean? Does that mean it’s a true story or that it’s a true fish story and everybody knows fishermen are liars?

Whether Tim Cahill is writing a bunch of fish tales or not, this book is a thoroughly enjoyable read. He has done a bit of everything and lived to tell about it. Read it yourself and see.

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Thirteen books on my short-list to read:

1. North of The Narrows: men and women of the upper preist lake country, IDaho by Claude & Catherine Simpson
2. Pocket Girdles and other confessionsof a Northwest Farm Girl by Marianne Love
3. Becoming a WOman of Prayer by Cynthia Heald
4. The Writer’s Digest Handbook of Novel Writing
5. A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg by Tim Cahill
6. 48 Days to the Work You Love By Dan Miller
7. Roadless Area by Paul Brooks
8. Hypnotic Writing by Joe Vitale
9. Pass The Butterworks by Tim Cahill
10. The ArmChair Travler
11. Hold THe ENlightenment: More travel, Less Bliss by Tim Cahill
12. The Best American Travel Writing
13. Bad Trips: A sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious collection of writing on the perils of the road

and that’s just my short list!

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