While growing up a lot of my life in Southern California one thing I always felt was missing was the changing of the season. Since living in Northern California I have been pleasantly surprised with the distinct seasonal changes. We have Fall here in the Central Valley too.
Fall at the Ranch
I'm 65 years old and last weekend I went to my first corn maze. It was interesting, we were given a map and checkpoints that we had to find. When we found them we had to use a hole punch to punch the appropriate location on the map. I was surprised at how long it actually took to do the maze that was shaped like the San Francisco 49ers Quarterback. My niece, a grand nephew and I went. The good news is that we were all smart enough to carry water.
I've said before how much I love reading and I am fortunate that I have a lot of time to read. I really had a lot of time on planes and in airports when I traveled to and from to New Jersey. Here are the most recent books that I've read.
I found Crichton's book at a used book store in Modesto when I was killing time just looking around or as my father-in-law Sam Stout used to say, "pinging". I have read many of Crichton's novels and I enjoy reading about travel so it seemed like a good fit; as it turned out I did enjoy it for the most part. I finished it in New Jersey and needed another book and bought Running the Rift at the book store in Clinton on the visit I blogged about earlier. I finished it in an airport and had to buy something else to read for the remainder of the trip. While I enjoyed the book very much, it dealt with a dark subject so I decided that I wanted something "light" to read next. I found The Happiness Project in an airport bookstore. Books are one of the few things that they can't inflate the prices of in airports where you find yourself a captive consumer. If you don't believe it just price a bottle of water at an airport after they don't allow you to bring any through security.
I digress. I really enjoyed reading, The Happiness Project and would recommend it to anyone looking to generally improve their outlook on life. Lord knows we have all the help we need making our lives less happy if we allow others to influence the way we think or act. This book is the authors blueprint of how she tried to focus for one year on being more happy. Everything didn't work and she wasn't always successful but overall the project had a positive effect on her and others in her life.
One thing that she wrote on page 97 of the book really struck a cord with me because my daughter and I had just been discussing how fast the kids are growing up. "The days are long but the years are short". That pretty much summarizes in a nutshell why I want to continue doing this and possibly other blogs so that I can share what I can, while I can. Some other things that I she wrote that I made note of are:
page 108 - "I realized, happiness has four stages. To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory".
page 112 - "...the absence of feeling bad isn't enough to make you happy; you must strive to find sources of feeling good".
page 128 - "...I could probably make myself like it better if I tried, but I don't like having to try to make myself like things. I want to spend more time on the things that I already like".
I could do an entire post on each of those quotes and may someday but that is for another time; I just wanted to share enough of the book to give you an idea of what it's about.
The other two books in the collage are novels, one a novel about Vietnam and the other a quick read by Stuart Woods. It is only in the past year or two that I have been able to bring myself to read about Vietnam in either fiction or nonfiction but that is also a subject for future posts.
I hope that anyone who is reading this is enjoying Fall as much as I am.
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