Merry Post-Christmas!  First off, I hope you all enjoyed my cookie recipes and that at least one of them was a hit at your holiday parties.  At least for right now I’m going to give recipes a rest, but they’ll be peppered into my future posts for sure.

Since not listening to my all-knowing parents about going to the doctor and relaxing more during Christmas, I am now sick!  However, despite the obvious down-sides of illness, I was able to catch up on some pleasure-reading that I had no time for during my super-busy semester (I get an A+ for optimism).

Instead of tackling some of the epic novels and works of classic literature I’ve been meaning to get around to, I picked up a little book that someone left on my coffee table.  It was called The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz.   It’s a super-easy read — I breezed right through it in a few hours (not including my snack break).  It’s one of those life-perspective, spirituality, and happiness books that read like obvious information but it seems like it would really work if you actually apply the concepts in day-to-day life… I really enjoyed it so I’m going to give it a try.  After all, the turn of the New Year is the time for promises of self improvement.

Since I still get a rush from reading whole books in single days, I think I’m going to try a few more later.  I have Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson which is less than 100 pages but can give your perspective a boost.  My good friend loaned it to me over a year ago (perhaps 2 years) and I think I read a page but then got distracted by something shiny  but then never picked it back up.  It’s a best-seller that’s really supposed to be a game-changer.

I know that The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a must-read.  A friend of mine listened to the audio version while driving back-and-forth to work; I think I may give that a shot.

I also want to borrow The Happiness Advantage when my mom’s done with it – I think I’m going to be all about that.  It’s been highly recommended to me and I can’t wait to review it for you all.

I starting reading Discover the Power Within You when it was gifted to me a few years ago, but I lost the book without quite making it to the end (I know, I’m the worst) so I’d really like to finish that one – but I probably ought to just restart the whole thing after all this time.

Lastly, my cousins swear by Think and Grow Rich, so I want to check that out some time soon.

If anyone has any positive, uplifting, life changing books, please post comments to share!

Photo credit: I have more books than friends