#15 Nonfiction: The Peacegiver

I've been reading a lot of these nonfiction-fiction books lately. And this one was just as exceptional as the rest of them.

The story is about a husband and wife that are not getting along at all, both blaming one another for the marriage issues. The husband is visited by his deceased grandfather in his dreams, who teaches him through gospel stories about how the atonement isn't just for sinners and how it can apply to the problems he is having in his life.

Although my marriage is just fine right now, there were plenty of applications I could make to my own life. The big one being upset (but upset isn't really the right word...some sort of combination between upset and jealous) that people who have hurt me haven't "gotten theirs" and actually are doing quite well for themselves and have certain blessings in their lives that I've been trying to achieve. Yeah, I know that's a bit of a big confession to make, that I harbor all of these bad feelings toward others, something of a grudge against them. But I didn't realize that I did it so much until I was sitting up thinking about it one night after Anthony fell asleep to me reading to him again. So now that I know I have the issue, I can start to work toward it, and find more happiness in my own life. I don't even remember anything in the book that particularly dealt with that subject, but the fact that it got me thinking and that I made that realization about myself has really changed my perspective. Isn't it crazy how books can do that - make you think about something completely unrelated and, in effect, change your life?

The book is easy to read, and captivating, and will definitely get you to think about things in your life, even if you think everything is all honky-dory right now. We all can learn more about the atonement and how we can apply it in our lives.

#52 1001 Things I'm Grateful For (#1-10)

In no particular order, but the first ones are always the easiest! LOL!

1. My amazing phenomenal husband. Sure, we've had our struggles and we don't always get along, but I can't get enough of this guy! He's my favorite! Really, I can't even express it. I love him so much. He's my bestest friend in the whole world and I'm so glad to be married to him forever.

2. My membership in the church. You know, even if it all were just the "opiate for the masses" as Karl Marx says (even though I know for sure that it isn't), I wouldn't mind. It makes my life so much more than just the day to day life that many people live. I know why I'm here. I know where I'm going. I know that I will be with my family for eternity. Life has meaning, pain serves a purpose, I have a reason to go through the day. And I know that someone is always watching out for me and guiding my life where I need to go.

3. My cat. Ok, this may sound so lame, but I really am grateful for him. He snuggles me every single night and greets me every morning when I wake up with some kisses on my nose. He comes when I call him, and he just knows when I need him to jump into my lap and lay there for a bit. And when he sits there and sucks his thumb (yes, he sucks his thumb!) and purrs, I feel so...perfect. I was told that cats do that when they were abandoned at too young of an age - I found him when he was maybe a week old - and it means that they are perfectly content. It is a way to mimic the nursing they were never able to do. I just love that little guy.

4. And if I say my cat, I need to say my dog too. She is the best dog anyone could ever ask for. She's so well behaved, and wants mor than anything to please us. She'll come and do anything, and loves nothing more than to lay by (on) our feet. She holds our feet with hers. It is so ridiculously cute! And she's always so excited when we get home, or wake up, or talk to her, or look at her, or do anything. She always makes me smile. I don't know what I'd do without her.

5. My house. We've put so much work into making this house beautiful, and I'm always just so happy to be at home. Everyone seems so much happier and healthier in this house - even the animals seem happier! We love living here, and I am so grateful to be blessed with our home. It is perfect for us, and I hope that we can stay here a really long time.

6. My sis-in-law Ambre. She's been living with us for a couple months now, and at first I wasn't sure what to expect because I'd only seen her a few times before she moved here, but I'm very glad she's here. It's great to have another source of estrogen here, and someone to talk to when I need a real source of reason (boys just don't get it sometimes!). Ambre is awesome, and I'm thrilled to have her as a sister!

7. Music. Music has always been a very big part of my life, and I love how much emotion it can express without having to necessarily use words, or how much more is conveyed through those words than just the words themselves. Music touches the very core of my being. When I listen, I can feel it in every cell of my body - the pain, the happiness, the strength, the sorrow, the peace. I've always said that I would rather be blind than deaf. I couldn't live without music.

8. The internet. I am always looking things up online. I love knowledge, and to know things - any random things. I couldn't survive without being able to look up answers to any crazy question that pops up into my mind. Google, IMDB, Wikipedia - these are all of my best friends.

9. Sundays. It just happens to be a Sunday as I write this, but I'm so glad to have a day to rest and relax and just be with the hubby all day. The day always starts out with some wonderful spiritual enlightenment, and is usually filled with yummy food, spending time with friends and family (or just the hubs), reading a good book or watching a fun movie, and, of course, a much needed nap. How could a day be any better?

10. My dad. We didn't get along very much growing up, and for a while I was pretty much convinced that he hated me and wished I was never born. It's only been in the last few months that I found out that wasn't true, and we've been really good friends. I see him at least every few weeks to go out to dinner, or have him over at the house, or go do something fun. I'm so glad for this new opportunity to get to know him. He's an amazing person and I'm so glad to have him as my daddy.

Mini Adventures

So I made a slight change in one of my goals.

I was thinking yesterday about how boring my life really is. Anthony and I really don't do much, unless you count renting movies and sitting at home watching them is super exciting.

It's not.

I mean, I love snuggling with my husband and watching good movies, but it really isn't exciting.

The thing is, we don't have a ton of money right now, so we can't do all that much. We can't travel a ton right now, or buy fun things, or do any of that. So I spent some time brainstorming yesterday, and came up with a list of 101 activities we can do that cost little to no money! Each one can be its own little adventure. The best part, is Anthony was actually kind of excited about it. Whenever I talk about my lists and plans and ideas, he rolls his eyes. But I showed him the list after he was home from work, and although he said a few times, "what, are we in high school again?!" he started saying other things like, "hey, that could be fun..." which basically means, "wow, my wife is the most creative person in the world but I really don't want to tell her that because that would be giving too much away, so instead I'll make an ambiguous comment that could possibly be perceived as a compliment and maybe she'll figure it out." Yeah, I got it! :)

So I'm going to print out the list and cut it up into little slips of paper, and for each date night that we have, we can pick one of the activities. Sometimes they're a bit longer than just a few hours, or need to be during the day, or require (or would work best with) more people, so if that is the case, then we can just snuggle and watch a movie, but we have to plan that activity out right then, schedule a time for it. If it is a typically "seasonal" activity, like dying eggs, then we still do it anyway, and decorate them for whatever season we're in. Haha!

Oh, and there were a couple things that he wasn't sure he wanted to do (he's too joe cool for that, I guess!) so the rule is, that if we pull out an activity and he doesn't want to do it, he has to plan something more fun instead. And there were only 2 or 3 that he said that about, so he only gets 3 chances to change the activity.

And so off we go, making memories and traditions in our family!

MINI ADVENTURES

1. Ice skating
2. Rock climbing
3. Boating at tempe town lake
4. Horseback riding
5. Play golf
6. Tandem bike riding
7. Drive in movie
8. Bumper cars
9. Roller skating
10. Climb a tree
11. Fossil Springs
12. Go to the zoo
13. Visit an art museum
14. Go-Kart Racing
15. Mini Golf
16. Visit a waterpark
17. Carousel at the mall
18. Laser tag
19. Bowling
20. Improv theatre
21. Sporting event
22. Dye eggs
23. Picnic in the park
24. Farmer’s market
25. Hike south mountain
26. Fly a kite
27. Take Polaroid pictures
28. Visit Santa/Easter Bunny at the mall
29. Ice blocking
30. Oracle caves
31. Sand castle at the park
32. Wish balloons
33. Visit a random themed museum
34. Open mic poetry reading
35. Test drive a very expensive car
36. Relive the first date
37. Make your own drive-in (and make your own “car”)
38. Play a game of pool
39. Make homemade ice cream
40. Swap meet
41. Wedding crashing (for the food) :)
42. Hopscotch at the park
43. Local band concert
44. Go to the arcade
45. Feed the ducks
46. Carve pumpkins
47. Roast marshmallows
48. Visit a fair or carnival
49. Watch the sun rise
50. Go to the public pool and jump off the high dive
51. Take Zilli to the dog park
52. Find a tire swing
53. Ride the light rail
54. Play tennis
55. Go fishing
56. Run through sprinklers
57. Read kids books at the bookstore
58. Make pottery
59. Play Frisbee
60. Make rock pets
61. Tie dye tshirts
62. Play croquet
63. Make a lip synch music video
64. Regressive dinner (backwards, different place for each course)
65. Paper airplane contest
66. Photo shoot
67. Jazz/Piano bar
68. Exchange love letters
69. Batting cages
70. Hike papago park
71. Ghost town
72. Tonto bridge
73. Dance club
74. Castles & Coasters
75. Salt River Tubing
76. Scenic drive
77. Stargazing with a star map
78. Indian ruins
79. Japanese friendship garden
80. Ugly night
81. Apache Trail Drive
82. Paint a picture together
83. Truth or dare (mostly just dare)
84. Visit a nursing home
85. Heart attack someone
86. Build a model rocket that flies!
87. Sneak into a ritzy hotel and swim in the pool
88. Learn a new card game
89. Play with legos (etc)
90. Photo scavenger hunt
91. Broom hockey
92. Go to the visitor’s center to watch the movies
93. Capture the flag
94. Play racquetball
95. Eat cereal and watch cartoons
96. Dollar theatre
97. Dress up and get fast food
98. Get a piñata
99. Homemade taffy
100. Remake something from a thrift store
101. Pizza slice tour of town

#65 New Restaurants: Pita Jungle

Anthony and I tried Pita Jungle yesterday.

It is on the SW corner of Val Vista and Williams Field.

It definitely wasn't quite what I expected. Just based on the name and everything, I guess I was thinking it was something like Chipotle style, or maybe Pei Wei - you know, the hybrid fast-food type place. But no, it was a sit-down-with-a-menu-and-a-real-waiter place. But the confusing part was, all of the waiters and waitresses were so uber casual, you would have thought it was a beach party. It didn't feel quite right. I mean, they could at least wear normal casual clothes - jeans and tshirts seemed dressed up compared to their attire.

Anyway, the food was pretty decent in my opinion. I ordered, of course, the most expensive thing on the menu (a whole $14!) - the mango shrimp and rice plate. The rice was great. brown rice, just slightly chewy (which I absolutely love) and the flavor of the sauce was really good. You only get 7 shrimps though, so even though it was plenty to fill me up and still have some leftovers, for $14, I think I could have gone to just about any cheap chinese food place and gotten nearly the same thing for half the price. I mean, it was definitely good, but a little expensive for what you got and the atmosphere and everything.

My husband thought otherwise. Since I ordered the most expensive thing, he got two pita sandwiches - the beef gyro and the philly cheesestake gyro. He thought both were decent, although, in his words, the philly was a "disgrace to philly cheesestakes everywhere." He said it was good, but definitely not a true philly cheesestake. Each of the sandwiches were about $6. He liked it, but again, for the price and the atmosphere, its just not really worth it.

Oh, and we also split a plate of hummus for an appetizer. Anth isn't a huge fan of hummus, so we tried the jalapeno cilantro type that they had on the menu. We both absolutely loved that. The big problem was that the entire plate only comes with 1 pita. There's enough hummus there for probably 4 pitas, but you only get one, and they charge you for any additional pitas. Ok, they only charge $0.39, but still! That's like a mexican restaurant charging for the tortilla chips!

Basically we decided that if we're in the mood for greek food, we may as well go to My Big Fat Greek Restaurant instead. It may cost a dollar or two more, and be a little further from home, but you get more food, better service, better atmosphere, and they don't charge you for extra pitas.

Overall rating:

#85 Start My Own Business IN PROGRESS

I turned in the paperwork to start my LLC yesterday. I won't consider this goal complete until I have my Fed ID# and everything all put together. It should only take a week or so though.

So I'm on my way to entrepreneurship! Yay!

#95 Make and Use Reusable Grocery Bags IN PROGRESS

So I realized I forgot to post some pictures of this super cool reusable grocery bag that Lizzie Thayn got me for my birthday! She is soooo sweet!

Check it out!

It starts as just a little bag, about the size of a small makeup bag, definitely small enough to even carry all the time in my purse:

With a zipper on the side:

Unzip, and it folds open like a book:

And then expands out into a full size grocery bag! So cool!

I'm going green! Er, teal.....

:)

#56 Complete a Year's Supply of Emergency Storage IN PROGRESS

I found a fantastic website for getting my emergency storage done. I have been feeling pretty overwhelmed with how much I have to get done, but at www.foodstoragemadeeasy.net, they have a biweekly checklist that they send you to remind you what you need to do. So you just have to purchase a few things every two weeks. Easy, right? And after a year of following their so-called babysteps, you will have "72 hour kits, water storage, 3 month supply of normal foods, and your entire one year supply of long-term foods as well as some critical non-food items."

Nifty!

I'm much more excited for food storage now. :)

#18 Recipe: Arancini

So I tried out this sicilian dish last night. It was more complex than most anything else I've ever tried - there are 3 different multi-step processes you have to go through, but it turned out pretty good. Anthony actually really liked it, despite the fact that somehow in my world of amazing intellect I mixed up the mozarella cheese with hash browns. Hash browns?! Are you kidding me?! Yeah, I didn't notice until afterwards. Hey, they're both shredded and white and my darling husband put them both in clear plastic bags right on top of eachother! How in the world would I have known different?! I mean, I guess I could have tasted it, but I wasn't thinking that it could be anything other than mozarella cheese. Hash browns come in a big red bag, I know, I've bought them before!

But, they still turned out pretty good. Fortunately, I made enough of the filling that I can try to make them again (with the cheese this time) later this week.

Anyway, here is the recipe, from Rachael Ray's website:

Rice Ingredients:
2 cups uncooked rice
1 quart chicken stock or bouillon
3 tablespoons softened butter
4 egg yolks
1 cup finely grated parmesan cheese

Filling Ingredients:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup chopped onions
1/4 cup chopped celery
1/2 pound ground veal, beef, chicken or pork
1/4 pound mozzarella cut into half-inch cubes
1 can tomato paste (6 ounces)
1 can water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/3 cup frozen peas

Frying Ingredients:
4 egg whites, slightly beaten
2 cups bread crumbs
Enough extra virgin olive oil to cover the pan 2 inches deep

Preparation

For Rice:Combine rice, chicken stock and butter in large pan. When chicken stock begins to boil, turn heat down low; stir rice once, then cover pan tightly and simmer until all liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Rice should be soft and slightly sticky so that it will hold together.Set aside rice to cool. Add egg yolks and parmesan cheese to cooled rice; stir well. Refrigerate while making the other parts of the recipe.

For Filling:In a saucepan, heat extra virgin olive oil and sauté onions and celery until golden, about five minutes. Add meat and brown. Stir in tomato paste, water, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer about 20 minutes. Add peas and cook for five minutes longer.

To Fry:Add enough extra virgin olive oil to a pan with high sides so that it is about two inches deep, then turn to medium-high heat. While extra virgin olive oil is heating, shape rice mixture into round balls, about 1/2 cup each. With your finger, make a hole in each rice ball. Add one tablespoon of the meat filling and the cheese cube and cover the holes with more rice. Dip rice balls in egg whites and roll in bread crumbs until thoroughly coated. Drop carefully into heated extra virgin olive oil, a few at a time, and fry until golden, turning around for about 3-4 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel. Serve warm or at room temperature and with a side dish of tomato sauce.

*Changes I made: I made the rice with my rice cooker, and used just a little bit of extra virgin olive oil instead of the butter. I also eliminated the salt from the filling (because I just don't need the extra sodium) and the peas as well (because I couldn't find any fresh peas - only frozen, which I can't stand). You also don't need to use a full 2 inches of olive oil to fry them (the stuff is expensive!) so I just went about a 1/3 inch deep and was more careful rolling the balls around. I just did one at a time.

Oh, and the rice balls ended up being pretty big - larger than my fist. There was enough to make maybe 5. I probably should have worked the rice a little bit more in my hands so that it wasn't so thick around the filling. Then I could have made them a little smaller as well. Either way, one rice ball each was enough to fill up both my husband and myself.

I'll update after I try it out again.

#42 Read all the Standard Works: 1 Nephi

I finished reading 1st Nephi for probably the 2 billionth time. I always start things from the beginning, so I've read and read and reread again this book! Mostly the 1st chapter! If I forget to read for a while (months? oops!) then I just start over.

It's a good thing there's a lot of really important stuff in this chapter, and that it is fairly easy to read and understand. If 2nd Nephi was first, I don't think anyone would make it through at all! (Not that there is anything wrong with 2nd Nephi, it is just a little bit more difficult. Someday I'll understand Isaiah stuff though...someday...).

Some of my favorite scriptures in this book are:

1 Nephi 3:7
We can always do anything and everything that the Lord asks of us. There WILL be a way.

1 Nephi 6:4-6
The whole purpose of the Book of Mormon is to bring us to Christ, so anything that we read is meant to do exactly that and it is all of worth to us today, even over 2000 years later.

1 Nephi 10:19
If we only ask and seek out the gospel, we can understand just as much as the ancient prophets and today's prophets. There is nothing hidden from us. This is very comforting to me as I often feel very overwhelmed with questions. It seems like when I study the gospel, I just uncover more questions, and very few answers overall. But I know that if I just keep at it, eventually I will understand everything.

1 Nephi 17:13
We are all in the wilderness of life, and the Lord will be our light in this wilderness. The funny thing about carrying a lantern in the woods is that it doesn't light up everything so we can see miles and miles away. All we need to see in order to stay on track is the few feet in front of us. The Lord does that for us, guiding us in the way we should go. We don't know what will happen a year or 10 years from now. We just need to follow him one step at a time and know that he will guide us to the right destination.

1 Nephi 18:3
The power of prayer. I need to do this more.

1 Nephi 18:16
I wish I could say this. I need to print this out and read it every day so I remember to stop complaining all the time!

1 Nephi 20:10
Reminds me of this story I heard a few years ago and have never forgotten:

In Malachi 3:3 it says:"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.

One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver."

She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire.

If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy, when I see my image in it."

Author Unknown

Scripture List

Since I so love to check things off as I accomplish them, I decided to expand out my scripture reading list, so I can mark off each book as I read it. That way it won't seem like absolutely forever before I can report something on it. I have a lot to read!

Here is the list:

Not read
In progress
Completed

BOOK OF MORMON

1. First Nephi
2. Second Nephi
3. Jacob
4. Enos
5. Jarom
6. Omni
7. Words of Mormon
8. Mosiah
9. Alma
10. Helaman
11. Third Nephi
12. Fourth Nephi
13. Mormon
14. Ether
15. Moroni

THE OLD TESTAMENT

16. Genesis
17. Exodus
18. Leviticus
19. Numbers
20. Deuteronomy
21. Joshua
22. Judges
23. Ruth
24. 1 Samuel
25. 2 Samuel
26. 1 Kings
27. 2 Kings
28. 1 Chronicles
29. 2 Chronicles
30. Ezra
31. Nehemiah
32. Esther
33. Job
34. Psalms
35. Proverbs
36. Ecclesiastes
37. Song of Solomon
38. Isaiah
39. Jeremiah
40. Lamentations
41. Ezekiel
42. Daniel
43. Hosea
44. Joel
45. Amos
46. Obadiah
47. Jonah
48. Micah
49. Nahum
50. Habakkuk
51. Zephaniah
52. Haggai
53. Zechariah
54. Malachi

THE NEW TESTAMENT

55. Matthew
56. Mark
57. Luke
58. John
59. Acts
60. Romans
61. 1 Corinthians
62. 2 Corinthians
63. Galatians
64. Ephesians
65. Philippians
66. Colossians
67. 1 Thessalonians
68. 2 Thessalonians
69. 1 Timothy
70. 2 Timothy
71. Titus
72. Philemon
73. Hebrews
74. James
75. 1 Peter
76. 2 Peter
77. 1 John
78. 2 John
79. 3 John
80. Jude
81. Revelation

DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS

82. 1
83. 2
84. 3
85. 4
86. 5
87. 6
88. 7
89. 8
90. 9
91. 10
92. 11
93. 12
94. 13
95. 14
96. 15
97. 16
98. 17
99. 18
100. 19
101. 20
102. 21
103. 22
104. 23
105. 24
106. 25
107. 26
108. 27
109. 28
110. 29
111. 30
112. 31
113. 32
114. 33
115. 34
116. 35
117. 36
118. 37
119. 38
120. 39
121. 40
122. 41
123. 42
124. 43
125. 44
126. 45
127. 46
128. 47
129. 48
130. 49
131. 50
132. 51
133. 52
134. 53
135. 54
136. 55
137. 56
138. 57
139. 58
140. 59
141. 60
142. 61
143. 62
144. 63
145. 64
146. 65
147. 66
148. 67
149. 68
150. 69
151. 70
152. 71
153. 72
154. 73
155. 74
156. 75
157. 76
158. 77
159. 78
160. 79
161. 80
162. 81
163. 82
164. 83
165. 84
166. 85
167. 86
168. 87
169. 88
170. 89
171. 90
172. 91
173. 92
174. 93
175. 94
176. 95
177. 96
178. 97
179. 98
180. 99
181. 100
182. 101
183. 102
184. 103
185. 104
186. 105
187. 106
188. 107
189. 108
190. 109
191. 110
192. 111
193. 112
194. 113
195. 114
196. 115
197. 116
198. 117
199. 118
200. 119
201. 120
202. 121
203. 122
204. 123
205. 124
206. 125
207. 126
208. 127
209. 128
210. 129
211. 130
212. 131
213. 132
214. 133
215. 134
216. 135
217. 136
218. 137
219. 138

PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

220. Moses
221. Abraham
222. Joseph Smith – Matthew
223. Joseph Smith – History
224. Articles of Faith

#94 Walk/Run for Charity IN PROGRESS: Breast Cancer 3 Day

This goal will be in progress for quite some time.

I just created my own team for the Susan G. Komen Walk For the Cure - a 3 day walk against breast cancer in November of this year. I am going to walk 60 miles in 3 days. Wow. But it is for a very good cause, and I should have some of my closest friends with me on the journey. I can't wait!

I also need to raise $2300 before I can participate. I have 5 months to do it, but I'll need to come up with some great fundraising ideas. If you have any, please let me know!

My team is the "Bra'd Squad" - superhero girls against breast cancer. It will be so freaking awesome. My amazing mother in law came up with this one. She's crazy - and that's one of the reasons I love her so much. I'm creative, but not in that way. I don't know what I'd do without her!

Also, if you are interested in making a donation or joining me, or know anyone else who might be, check out my website here: www.the3day.org/goto/bra-dsquad

I am so excited to do this! I've never done anything even remotely close.

I better get my little booty in shape!

#54 Develop a Budget IN PROGRESS

Inspired by my aunt and uncle's fantastic book, Debt Free on Any Income, I have started a budget.

I've tried doing this numerous times before, with very little luck. But I always just wanted to sit down for an hour or two, map it out, and then go to work. I never put much time into it. So this time, instead of just arbitrarily assigning numbers to the various categories (Um, I think I can get by on only $150 for groceries and then I can put $1500 in savings! Yeah, right!) I'm going to thoroughly research my spending habits for the last few months, and see where I can make the most changes. Then, since there have been several changes recently to our income, and hopefully a few more coming up very soon, I need to monitor spending over the next couple months as well. It doesn't help to budget a certain amount toward savings if we end up having twice the income, and even a percentage doesn't always vary quite the same way. 10% of $1000 per month may be all we could afford, but if we were bringing in $10,000 per month (I wish!) then we could afford a bit more than 10%.

So it will take a little while before I have the true budget fully in place. And then I have to stick to it...

But, there are a few things that I'm going to implement right off the bat, based on looking at just the last month's spending:

1. Limit eating out to once per week or less - we eat out all the time! We could save a lot of money by cooking at home. Did you know the average home-cooked meal is anywhere from $3-$5 per person? Good luck getting anything more than Taco Bell for that price! Gosh, is eating out really worth it to spend $15 or more per person? That's a week's worth of dinners in one sitting. I mean, leftovers usually make at least another meal for me, but still! We can definitely cut back here.

2. Plan meals in advance each week and then only buy what is necessary to use for those meals. One of our biggest bad habits is buying food that we don't really need and then forgetting about it. It is especially true in our new house, because we have a fridge in the garage as well, and I usually forget to look there. We're always going to costco and saying, "mmmm....check out those strawberries! They look so yummy!" So we buy the big giant tub of strawberries, get home and eat one or two, and then forget about it. Oops, there went all those strawberries. So I'm going to monitor that a lot more closely.

3. I downloaded Quicken to manage our finances, especially since I have my own business now, and we have ideas for a couple other side businesses to run. One of the great things I've found so far in the program is that it can link to all of your various bank accounts and show you all the transactions, and you have to accept each one individually. That means that you hold yourself accountable for every single transaction. You can't slip one in. Everything gets categorized. Plus, this helps eliminate identity theft, because you are on top of it all. And it only takes a couple minutes per day once you get it up and running. I feel very much more in control.

I'll keep updating my budgeting ideas as they come to me. :)

#15 Nonfiction books: Debt Free on Any Income by Tracy and Lyle Shamo

This book has special meaning to me because my Aunt and Uncle wrote it. Tracy is my mom's sister.

The book has been out for a while, and I've been wanting to read it since I knew they were writing it, but I just finally got around to doing so.

And I was not disappointed.

There is a lot of wonderful and practical advice for creating a budget and paying off debt. We have been very fortunate to not have a whole lot of debt. We had a little bit on a couple credit cards, but I was able to pay those off right away. The best thing is though, after performing a few of the calculations in the book (using their software), we realized that we could pay off our cars and the house in about 10 years! Isn't that amazing?! And we were planning on staying in this house at least that long anyway. To think, when we get to selling our house, 100% of the money could be cash towards a new house! That idea is just so energizing!

Anyway, this book is a pretty quick read - I finished it in only two days since there are a lot of charts and numberical data and the meat of the book is very concise with little to no fluff. It is great advice for everyone! I'm thrilled about the changes that we can make to our lives to save additional money and pay off all our debts. And it won't even change our standard of living hardly at all. It will just make it more organized!

I recommend this to everyone!

#91 Service: Cleaning

I spent an hour in service today and it felt amazing. I haven't really done any service in quite some time, because I've been "too busy". Partly that was true - most of the service projects that the relief society sets up occur during the day and I've always worked all day every day - but partially, I just didn't make time for it.

Well today I did. There are a couple single moms in our ward, and our bishop came from a single parent household, so he asked that we do a little bit extra to help them out. So the relief society organized cleaning house for a couple of the families. I helped out this morning. It is absolutely incredible how much cleaner a house can be in just an hour with those ladies working. I know I didn't help nearly as much as I should as far as overall contribution. I don't have years of experience coming up with creative solutions to everyday cleaning problems like many of these women do, but I definitely worked hard. And I must admit, cleaning someone else's house is a lot more enjoyable than cleaning my own house. Especially seeing her face when she came downstairs - she works two jobs, one during the day and one at night to support her family, so she sleeps really late in the morning. But when she came down, you could just see all of the gratitude on her face. It was worth every moment!

Hopefully my schedule will stay flexible enough that I can help out on a regular basis!

#15 Nonfiction books: Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute

Just finished listening to this book on CD. It was great!

Definitely not what I expected - the book is a dialogue between a high exec in a larger corporation and his newer lower exec, training him on dealing with people. I've been reading a lot of these fiction-non-fiction books lately, and I kind of like them. It's definitely a different experience than reading the standard textbook like approach. I do like the intellectual feel of standard nonfiction books, but this one had a great combination of both.

And the message was superb. I know I've heard similar things before, but not quite in this way. You know when you hear a message and sometimes, even though you dont mean to, you start to apply it to someone else that "really needs to hear this" and you sort of forget about yourself? I know, you probably have never done that, but I'm usually very guilty of it. Well, this book doesn't allow you to do that. It cuts it off right from the beginning, and reminds you not to do it all throughout. Nevertheless, everyone should read or listen to this. It's not just about "self-help" but about life skills in business, relationships, etc.

#15 Nonfiction books: SHIFT by Gary Keller

This book is mainly about real estate, and about 90% applies almost solely to real estate agents, but just about anyone in sales or their own business can use the principles toward their own success.

The premise of the book is how to succeed even when the market shifts and is a "bad market." This is all what we're hearing on the news every day in every single business. The book teaches several principles and habits for taking your business to the next level, whether the market is good or bad.

Since I'm doing a lot in real estate right now, there were several specific things that I can apply directly to my own work, but I think the underlying principles will help me in anything that I try to to.

#32 Movies: Benjamin Button

Wow.

This was an amazing movie.

I'm not going to say much about it, because everyone should go see it. It was so unusual, so creative, and just so good! It was very well done, and really draws you in to all of the emotions.

I think my favorite thing is just how the movie makes you think. Its not just the fact that you've never seen a movie at all like it, but all the little proverbial quotes in it as well that just make you stop and think.

Here are some of my favorites: (don't worry, none will ruin the movie) (oh, and by no means is this a complete list...there are so many more!)

"We are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss."

"Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward."

"We were meant to lose people. How else would we know how important they are?"

"You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went, you can curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go."

"It's funny how sometimes the people we remember the least make the greatest impression on us. "

"Don't let anyone tell you different! You got to do what you're meant to do!"

"Sometimes we’re on a collision course, and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it."

"Have I ever told you I've been struck by lightning seven times? Blinded in one eye; can't hardly hear. I get twitches and shakes out of nowhere; always losing my line of thought. But you know what? God keeps reminding me I'm lucky to be alive."

"Along the way you bump into people who make a dent on your life. Some people get struck by lightning. Some are born to sit by a river. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim the English Channel. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people dance."

"For what it’s worth, it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit... start whenever you want... you can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that stop you. I hope you feel things that you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

#24...Almost...

One of my goals is to fix something in the house all by myself.

So when the toilet started running, I was actually pretty dang excited!

Anthony had mentioned something about needing a red rubber ring and just having to replace it. Super easy, right?

So while he was at work on Friday, I thought I'd surprise him!

Well I went to home depot and went to the plumbing section and there were 2 different kinds of red rubber rings and some other red rubber things. So I asked a guy working there (I don't think he was normally working in that section, but he seemed to know what he was talking about). He told me to get the other red rubber things - toilet flappers. However, I got home, took the lid off the toilet, and my toilet doesn't even have that part in it!

So I went back to home depot again, returned the toilet flappers, and bought the red rubber rings. Then I went back home, and switched it out. Easy.

Unfortunately, after turning the water back on, it didn't fix the problem.

Now, I got smart. I took a video of what the toilet was doing and the sounds it was making and took it back to home depot (for the 3rd time) and showed it to the actual plumbing specialist. He said that I had a little bit bigger problem than I thought. See, home builders like to skimp on little things like quality toilet parts, so even though the toilets have only been in use for about 6 months, their parts were already wearing out. So I had to replace the entire flushing mechanism.

He said it wasn't too difficult, so I went home, pulled out the instructions, and got to work!

I actually got pretty far, but then I realized that I needed a plumber's wrench and I knew we had one somewhere from installing the sink in the house, I just couldn't find it.

I was looking for that thing for at least a half hour. I knew what it looked like, but it was no where to be found!

That's when Anthony came home. And he walked over to right where I was looking, and pulled it right out.

Then he walked to the bathroom to see what I had done...

...And this is what he found:

And so, since it would have hurt his manhood or something to have his wife fix the toilet, he took over.

And finished it in like 10 minutes.

So I almost completed the goal.

I'm sure something else will break in the next 2 1/2 years though. So I should start earlier in the day so my husband doesn't come home in the middle. :)

#18 Recipe: Egg Noodle Casserole

My first recipe.

And it didn't really turn out very well. I mean, the flavor was good, and my husband will tell you that, but I attempted to make my own noodles, and apparently they don't cook quite the same way as the storebought kind. Meaning, I kind of didn't cook them enough. At all.

Ok, and it took me nearly two hours to complete a simple recipe. (Part of that was running to Fresh & Easy to get the ingredients that I thought we already had...)

Overall, I definitely want to try the recipe again. I'll just make sure I cook the noodles longer!


Egg Noodles

2 1/4 c Flour
1 teaspoon Salt
3 Eggs

Combine ingredients in mixer until clumpy. Then hand mix to form a large ball of dough (add flour if too sticky or water if too dry). After you have a ball of dough, attach it to the dough hook on the mixer and mix on level 2 for about 2 minutes.

(This is where my love for my mixer comes in - I put the dough in the mixer, walked away for 2 minutes, came back and it was magically done! I love this thing!)

Let dough sit for 20 minutes before rolling out, then cut into desired shape and let dry for at least another 20 minutes. Boil noodles until cooked thoroughly. (Takes a bit longer than you might expect, at least for me).


Chicken & Noodles

1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup chicken broth (more or less, depending on thickness)
1/2 teaspoon crushed garlic
4 chicken breasts
Seasoning salt to taste (I used Laury's)
Onion salt to taste (not too much or else it is just too salty!)
Crushed black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon (ish) extra virgin olive oil

Sautee the garlic with the olive oil and add diced chicken breast. Cook thoroughly.

Add the cream of mushroom soup and cream of chicken soup, then the chicken broth until you get the desired consistency. Season with the seasoning salt, pepper, and onion salt, but again, not too much or else it will be really salty (and there is already plenty of sodium in the soups).

Add the egg noodles from above when it is all done and voila! Easy yummy food!

I think if I were to do it again though, I would add a little bit of sour cream, and maybe some fresh chopped green onions instead of onion salt, but I always try recipes as close to verbatim as possible before improvising.

#48 Write in my journal

Yeah, I wrote in my journal today.

For the first time since September.

I'm not very good at that. Let's hope this goal thing helps me keep it up!

#15 Nonfiction books: Burying our Swords by Kevin Hinckley

Anthony and I read this book together. He loves it when I read to him before bed time.

It was a great book. Short and simple, but with a pretty powerful message about a man struggling to cope with a wayward son who learns to examine himself first.

I've read a few stories like this before - extended parables, so to speak - and I really enjoy them. The whole book is centered around a single verse of scripture, and the few chapters before and after it. It has so many deep insights out of so little initial information!

I love how the scriptures work like that. Take a single statement, and you could study it for hours on end! Entire reference works could be written about each and every chapter in the scriptures, I'm sure. It wouldn't be hard.

That is what makes the book so thought provoking. And even though it is a really short read, I've found that the book affected me in more ways than one. It wasn't just the message of the book, but more the content. I've found that in my own personal scripture study now I'm thinking a little bit more outside the box and applying the same principles toward other scriptures. It makes it so much more meaningful and enlightening.

It was so funny while I read, because a certain insight would hit me and I'd pause for a moment to think about it, which of course would make Anthony quickly exclaim, "hey, don't stop, I'm awake, I promise!"

Great book. And a big THANK YOU to my MIL for recommending it and buying it for us for Easter!

Mini Challenges

Its kinda difficult to keep up with all of the different goals that I have and make sure I'm sufficiently working on them every day.

So I have a new idea to help myself stay on top of everything: mini-challenges.

These mini-challenges I'm creating are designed to help build the habits that will allow me to accomplish my goals. Most of them do not directly meet my goals, but ultimately help me work toward them.

Research shows that it takes approximately 21 days to form a habit.

One of my biggest problems is taking on too much too quickly, so in this way I'm going to somewhat limit myself, but also help to create a more manageable foundation to work with.

So I'll start with 6 daily disciplines that I want to work on, and focus on only those 6 things (along with some of my other one-time goals or goals that don't require daily practice) at a time. I will track each of the goals and work on them until I have practiced them every day for 21 days straight. If I miss a day, I have to start over. So I could likely accomplish the goals in just 21 days, or it may take a few months before they really set in and become habits. Once I accomplish a goal, I will continue to work on it, but shouldn't need to track it or really focus on it (it should be a natural daily thing for me now) and I can replace it with a new daily goal.

The tracking will be as follows: 1 2 3 X 1 2 3 4 5 6 X 1 2 etc. Numbers as I count up the days in sequence and an X any time I miss a day. Some activities, like going to the gym, are not things I really do on Sunday, so if I am skipping Sunday, I will put an S there instead and it won't count against the running tally.

So here I start!

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
					1	2
x	x	1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	x	1	x	1
x	1	2	x	1

1. Read at least 10 pages from a good book

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
					x	1
x	x	x	1	2	x	1
2	3	4	x	1	x	x
x	1	x	x	x

2. Say my morning prayers

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
					1	2
x	x	1	2	3	4	5
6	7	x	1	x	x	x
x	x	x	x	1

3. Take my daily vitamins

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
					x	1
S	x	x	1	2	3	4
S	5	6	x	x	x	x
S	1	2	3	x

4. Cardio workout

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
					1	2
x	1	2	3	x	1	2
3	4	5	6	x	x	1
x	1	2	3

5. Read scriptures

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
					x	1
x	x	1	x	x	1	x
x	1	2	x	x	x	x
x	x	1	x	x

6. Wake up by 5:30AM!

Movie List

STATUS: 1 of 100
Previously Watched: 32 of 250


Haven't watched yet
Previously watched
Watched


The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather: Part II (1974)
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo. (1966)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Schindler's List (1993)
The Dark Knight (2008)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Casablanca (1942)
Star Wars (1977)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Shichinin no samurai (1954)
Goodfellas (1990)
Rear Window (1954)
Cidade de Deus (2002)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Up (2009)
C'era una volta il West (1968)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Fight Club (1999)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Psycho (1960)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
The Matrix (1999)
Memento (2000)
North by Northwest (1959)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Se7en (1995)
Citizen Kane (1941)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Léon (1994)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
American Beauty (1999)
Taxi Driver (1976)
American History X (1998)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Vertigo (1958)
WALL·E (2008)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Paths of Glory (1957)
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001)
M (1931)
Double Indemnity (1944)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Alien (1979)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
The Departed (2006)
The Shining (1980)
Das Leben der Anderen (2006)
The Third Man (1949)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
The Pianist (2002)
Chinatown (1974)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
City Lights (1931)
Aliens (1986)
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Das Boot (1981)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
El laberinto del fauno (2006)
Rashômon (1950)
Raging Bull (1980)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
All About Eve (1950)
Modern Times (1936)
Gran Torino (2008)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Rebecca (1940)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Der Untergang (2004)
Metropolis (1927)
The Prestige (2006)
Amadeus (1984)
The Elephant Man (1980)
The Apartment (1960)
La vita è bella (1997)
Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Star Trek (2009)
The Great Dictator (1940)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
The Great Escape (1963)
The Wrestler (2008)
The Sting (1973)
Sin City (2005)
Back to the Future (1985)
Ladri di biciclette (1948)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Braveheart (1995)
Det sjunde inseglet (1957)
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Batman Begins (2005)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Jaws (1975)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Blade Runner (1982)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
The Green Mile (1999)
Unforgiven (1992)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Gladiator (2000)
Notorious (1946)
High Noon (1952)
Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)
Oldboy (2003)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Fargo (1996)
Die Hard (1988)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Mononoke-hime (1997)
The General (1926)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Smultronstället (1957)
Yojimbo (1961)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Heat (1995)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Annie Hall (1977)
Ran (1985)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Into the Wild (2007)
Platoon (1986)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Les diaboliques (1955)
Le notti di Cabiria (1957)
Le salaire de la peur (1953)
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Life of Brian (1979)
8½ (1963)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Snatch. (2000)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
The Gold Rush (1925)
The Graduate (1967)
The Killing (1956)
Stand by Me (1986)
Ratatouille (2007)
Finding Nemo (2003)
Amores perros (2000)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Gandhi (1982)
Brief Encounter (1945)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Trainspotting (1996)
The Lion King (1994)
Scarface (1983)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
V for Vendetta (2005)
The Thing (1982)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Sleuth (1972)
Harvey (1950)
The Princess Bride (1987)
The Terminator (1984)
Toy Story (1995)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
The Kid (1921)
The Hustler (1961)
Umberto D. (1952)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
The Incredibles (2004)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Children of Men (2006)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
Låt den rätte komma in (2008)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
La battaglia di Algeri (1966)
Stalag 17 (1953)
Duck Soup (1933)
Hotaru no haka (1988)
The African Queen (1951)
Casino (1995)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
In Bruges (2008)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
The Conversation (1974)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
King Kong (1933)
The Exorcist (1973)
Ed Wood (1994)
The Lost Weekend (1945)
Le scaphandre et le papillon (2007)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
La strada (1954)
Rope (1948)
His Girl Friday (1940)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Changeling (2008)
Crash (2004/I)
Safety Last! (1923)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Frankenstein (1931)
Network (1976)
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
Patton (1970)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Manhattan (1979)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Magnolia (1999)
Wo hu cang long (2000)
Big Fish (2003)
Great Expectations (1946)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Glory (1989)
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
Mystic River (2003)
Roman Holiday (1953)
Laura (1944)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
La dolce vita (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Rocky (1976)
Harold and Maude (1971)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Les quatre cents coups (1959)
Barry Lyndon (1975)

Non-Fiction List

STATUS: 4 of 100

Unread
Currently Reading
Currently Listening
Completed Reading
Completed Listening

GENERAL SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Napoleon Hill’s Keys to Success by Napoleon Hill
Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude by Napoleon Hill
As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
First Things First by Stephen Covey
Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz
Thinkertoys by Michael Micalko
Art of Exceptional Living by Jim Rohn
Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale
All Things are Possible by Glenn Turner
Cultivating an Unshakeable Character by Jim Rohn
Empires of the Mind by Denis Waitley
The Flex Brain Method by Nightingale Conant Systems
Seeds of Greatness by Denis Waitley
Psychology of Achievement by Brian Tracy
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
The Aladdin Factor by Jack Canfield
Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell
The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson
Maximum Achievement by Brian Tracy
Dare to Win by Jack Canfield
The 8th Habit by Stephen Covey
Failing Forward by John Maxwell
The Challenge to Succeed by Jim Rohn
The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz
Breaking the Rules by Kurt Wright
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
The 60 Second Procrastinator by Jeffrey Davidson
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
Principle Centered Leadership by Stephen Covey
Bonds that Make us Free by C. Terry Warner

FINANCIAL
Debt Free on Any Income by Lyle and Tracy Shamo
Richest Man in Babylon by George S Clason
Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
Shift by Gary Keller
Smart Women Finish Rich by David Bach
The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach
21 Secrets of Self Made Millionaires by Brian Tracy
Millionaire Real Estate Investory by Gary Keller
FLIP by Gary Keller
The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
Rule #1 by Phil Town

SALES/MANAGEMENT RELATED
Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino
Swim with the Sharks by Harvey Mackay
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Sales Bible by Jeffrey Gittomer
Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Loyalty is Priceless by Jeffrey Gittomer
The Oz Principle by Craig Hickman
Ziglar on Selling by Zig Ziglar
Leadership Secrets of Atilla the Hun by Wess Roberts
The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard
21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell
Good to Great by Jim Collins
First, Break all the Rules by Marcus Buckingham
The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker
Discovering the Leader within You by John Maxwell
The 360 Degree Leader by John Maxwell
Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute
The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy

RELATIONAL
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray
The Art of Mingling by Jeanne Martinet
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura
Behind Every Good Man by John Bytheway
Without Offense by John L. Lund
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
Between Husband and Wife by Douglas Brinley
For All Eternity by John L. Lund
Strangling Your Husband is Not an Option by Merrilee Brown Boyack

SPIRITUAL
To Draw Closer to God by Henry B. Eyring
Daughers of God by M. Russell Ballard
The Continuous Atonement by Brad Wilcox
Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage
A Marvelous Work and A Wonder by LeGrand Richards
The Holy Temple by Boyd K. Packer
The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball
Moving in His Majesty and Power by Neal A. Maxwell
6 Events By Stephen Covey
Infinite Atonement by Tad Callister
Believing Christy by Stephen E. Robinson
Be Your Best Self by Thomas S. Monson
Burying our Swords by Kevin Hinckley
The Peace Giver by James L. Ferrell
The Holy Secret by James L. Ferrell
21 Days Closer to Christ by Emily Freeman
If Life Were Easy it Wouldn’t be Hard by Sheri Dew
Better than You Think You Are by Ardeth G. Kapp
No Doubt About it by Sheri Dew
Being Enough by Chieko N. Okazaki
Simplify by Carolyn J. Rasmus
Mere Christianity by CS Lewis

EDUCATIONAL
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
YOU: The Owner’s Manual by Mehmet C. Oz
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman

Fiction List

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Already read: 19 of 100

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1984 by George Orwell *
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger *
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald *
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller *
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Animal Farm by George Orwell *
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck *
Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
Ulysses by James Joyce
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley *
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury *
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Stranger by Albert Camus
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Stand by Stephen King
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Dune by Frank Herbert
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Trial by Franz Kafka
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Persuasion by Jane Austen
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Emma by Jane Austen
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
Siddharta by Hermann Hesse
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Light in August by William Faulkner