Why I Feel Bad Today - A Workbook for Teens and Adults

I recently published the opposing workbook, called "Why I Feel Good Today." 

This workbook, "Why I Feel Bad Today," is designed to help teens or adults isolate their daily experiences and triggers contributing to a less-than-positive day.

Why Do We Need Workbooks

The stresses of this interconnected world can be overwhelming, and a workbook to write down and track our moods, triggers, and good and bad experiences help us to sort out life's continuing fog.

Now more than ever, people can feel submerged in an endless vortex of one problem after another.

This prompt workbook was written with love and is meant to be a fun self-care tool to aid in sorting out the good, the bad, and the ugly.

With This Workbook, You'll Track What Made You Feel Bad During a Particular Month

The workbook is not meant to be a negative book!

On the contrary, this workbook is designed to help you figure out repeating trends that make you feel bad, so you know more clearly where to make changes. 

Even making a small change daily can make a difference in our lives. 

However, how can we change toward a happier life unless we actively track our negative triggers.

What This Workbook Includes:

13 Color Coded Months with Four Monthly Prompt Pages:

• Each month is color coded
• Each month includes a positive quote
• You'll have a spot to record daily quick notes
• There's a place to track specifics about the month, with prompt questions
• Each month has a place to expand on what has affected your life
• The monthly summary page includes four prompt questions to help you better analyze your month
• Included is a 365-day chart to color in your mood daily. When the year is up, look at which mood color is most prominent to determine, with just a glance, what your overall mood was for that year.

Track your months when you want; you don't have to track the months in order. If you'd rather only track the months you feel are your worst, you can also do that.

Here's the "Why I Feel Bad Today" Workbook 

Available on Amazon

You can preview the book's interior via StumpedRiddles here or, of course, on Amazon here.

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ICED by Felix Francis – Book Review

ICED is the latest horseracing mystery by Felix Francis, son of the British crime writer Dick Francis.

Synopsis

Miles Pussett grew up wanting more than anything to be a championship steeplechase jockey like his father. He loved riding horses and dreamed of following in his father's footsteps.

When his dad is killed in an automobile accident when Miles is 12, he devotes himself to learning to ride like his famous father. He is given his first opportunity while still in his teens to compete in a point-to-point event, his first horse race, albeit as an amateur. When his mother dies, he becomes a jockey for a training stable.

Although Miles tries his best, he endures many setbacks as he pursues his dream. He is treated badly by fellow jockeys as they all think he is only given rides in horse races because of who is father was. Therefore he has no friends. He wins a few races, but 'being the best' eludes him as there are more losses than wins and his confidence level gets lower and lower.

Miles ends up drinking as a way to 'forget' his failures and eventually he hits rock-bottom. With the help of the trainer's wife, who sees the problem and wants to help Miles, he ends up seeing a psychiatrist. Turns out that Miles has been suffering from PTSD going back to his childhood. He always thought that PTSD was only a veteran's condition. Not so. Anyone can suffer from it given enough trauma that has gone unrecognized. 

Until the psychiatrist explains it to him, Miles had no idea that his dad's death had affected him so strongly (because 12-year-old Miles was in the car with his dad the day of the accident). And his mother's death when he was only 17 was due to suicide and Miles blamed himself. All this trauma before he ever grew up with no one helping him understand it led to his PTSD. 

Now it is 7 years later and Miles has left the horse racing world and is doing fine. Instead, he enjoys riding headfirst down the Cresta Run, a three-quarter-mile Swiss ice chute, reaching speeds of up to eighty miles per hour. 

While at St. Moritz for the Cresta Run, Miles discovers it is the same weekend as the White Turf – an event featuring high-class horseracing taking place on a frozen lake.  Against his better judgment, he gets talked into helping out with the horses. But then he discovers something suspicious going on at the races.

Miles begins to search for answers, because the 'something suspicious' many have a profound impact on his future. But someone is adamant about stopping him – and they will go to any lengths to do it.

Summary

The horseracing mystery involved in ICED is, as always, an interesting read for fans of the Dick Frances and Felix Francis stories. But it is also a look into how Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) can affect not only those who have fought in wars, but anyone who has had to endure a series of traumas in their life.  

Available on Amazon

Related Links:

• Crisis by Felix Francis
• Straight - a Horseracing Mystery by Dick Francis

*Iced, a horseracing mystery by Felix Francis reviewed by Wednesday Elf

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Movie Review of Gaslight (1944) Starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman & Joseph Cotten

The term "Gaslight" has become commonly used to describe a form of deceptive and cruel mental manipulation. A vunerable victim won't recognize what the other person is doing to them as they challenge their memory. It is not as simple as having a different perception of an event, or even a different opinion. It is a much more sinister, intentional manipulation of someone's memory or perception causing them to question their own sanity.

I'm not sure if I ever actually watched the movie "Gaslight" in the past, or if I am simply familiar with the movie plot from trailers.  Some of my favorite movies are classics (pre-1950).  When I was much younger, I often stayed up late watching old movies on the original AMC movie channel. I may well have seen the movie back then.

My husband & I recently decided to watch the 1944 version of the movie Gaslight, starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman & Joseph Cotten.  I was reminded of how much I loved the old classics where actors really had to carry the entire movie.  There were no special effects or colorful scenes to help captivate an audience.  It was all up to the writers and actors to entertain us.

I had not realized how much I missed the classics, or that fabulous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer logo lion, until we watched "Gaslight".  We cut the cable cord nearly a decade ago and I no longer pull out our old vhs tapes to watch movies.  

Wow!  It has been so long that it is like rediscovering cinematic brilliance.  I plan to go in search of a new way to watch those old classics again.  If there is no channel available, I'll dust off my old vhs tapes and hope my player still works, but for now, I want to tell you about the movie "Gaslight".

Gaslight (1944)

 Gaslight
Available on Prime Video, DVD, Blu-ray, or VHSCheck PriceWhen the renowned singer, Alice Alquist is murdered, her niece and ward, Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is sent to live in Italy with her aunt's best friend, Maestro Guardi who spends years training her to sing professionally.  When Paula confides in Signore Guardi that she has fallen in love, he encourages her to embrace happiness, even take a break from her singing for a while.  He has no way of knowing that he is throwing her into the arms of an insidious predator with ulterior motives.

Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) is lying in wait for her to come to him after she speaks to the maestro. He is thrilled to find that everything is going as he wishes and he pressures Paula to marry him even though she hasn't known him for very long.

After Gregory & Paula are married, he masterfully manipulates her into moving back to London, and back into her aunt's home.  That is when he fully commits himself to "gaslighting" her and she is very nearly convinced that she is insane until Joseph Cotten appears on the scene.

Now, you must watch the movie yourself to see what happens!

Interesting Facts About Gaslight

• Ingrid Bergman was actually singing in this movie
  
• Ingrid Bergman won the Academy Award Best Actress for this film
• Charles Boyer did not play the piano, but he did study psychology before he became an actor. 
• It is also worth mentioning that 17 year old, Angela Lansbury, was also in this movie.

To "gaslight" someone was not a psychological term prior to 2010.  The title of the movie actually refers to the gas lights in a home that would dim when additional lights were lit and demanded a share of the gas supply.  One of the things that made Paula think she was going insane was that the gas lights would dim even when no one else was home lighting more lights.   

The movie "Gaslight" provides an excellent example of the act of gaslighting someone.  After all, the movie/play is the origin of the term.

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Movie Review of Gaslight (1944) Starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman & Joseph Cotten by:

 

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Review of Favorite Christmas Decoration

 I love decorating for Christmas and after over 50 years of marriage, needless to say, I certainly have more than enough Christmas decorations.  I have gotten to the point where I rotate some of my decorations, so I don't end up with too many for our house.  But still, I enjoy getting a new decoration or two each year.  Last year some friends gave us the delightful snow globe lantern pictured in the photo above.  It can be used with batteries or plugged into any USB port, so I have it sitting on my desk in our family room plugged into my computer.  I love the silver snowflakes shimmering around the Santa, snowman and tree. When it is turned on the light catches the snowflakes, and they glisten as they twirl around inside the lantern.

A Variety of Christmas Lanterns Available

I enjoy my lantern so much that I have purchased several for gifts this year.  They can be found in a variety of styles and different features.

In searching Amazon, I found ones with angels, Santas, trees, snowman, trains, toy and a wide variety of Christmas subjects and scenes.  Here is one similar to mine.

Here is one with snowmen around a tree.  It is a different shape and also plays music.

I love birds so this one with a bright red Cardinal looking through a window is really appealing to me.

Features of Christmas Snow Globes

Some of the features of the snow globes that I find appealing are:

• Runs on either battery or USB plug in
• A timer that lets you set the snow globe to be on for 6 hours and off for 18 hours
• Music that can be turned on or off.  These usually include 8-12 different Christmas themed tunes.
• A subject or Christmas scene available for every taste.

Because of these great features there is some type of snow globe available for most everyone on your Christmas list.

Enjoy!  Merry Christmas!

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Air Fryer Italian Style Roasted Potatoes

 These Italian-style potatoes are a perfect complement to any main dish. I'm calling these roasted potatoes, but they were really air fried in our Ninja Foodi Grill and Air Fryer.

Air Fryer Italian Style Roasted Potatoes Reviewed

Fran picked up a nice rump roast last week and cooked it in our Instant pot. While it was cooking I remembered the days when my mother would cook a roast in the oven for hours with these delicious roasted potatoes. So, I thought why not try to duplicate these potatoes in the air fryer. 

Air Fried Italian Style Roasted Potatoes:

4 or 5 medium potatoes (washed and peeled)

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 clove of garlic (minced)

2 tablespoons of Italian seasoning 

1 teaspoon of garlic powder

Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. I washed and peeled the potatoes and cut them into quarters. 
2. Placed them in a one-gallon plastic freezer or storage bag.
3. Add the olive oil close the bag, shake and mix.
4. Open the bag and add the remaining seasoning, close and mix again.
5. Preheat the air fryer to 390 degrees and set the time to 20 minutes.
6. After 10 minutes I turned them over.

Although I set the timer for 20 minutes, I checked them again at 15 minutes and they were done. It's always a good idea to check the food when you're making it for the first time. Different brands of air fryers may vary with temperature and time.

Needless to say, these potatoes were a perfect side dish for the rump roast. They were crispy on the outside, tender and soft on the inside, and full of flavor.

Find More Recipes from our contributors here: ReviewThisRecipes.comNinja Foodi 5-in-1 Indoor Grill with Integrated Smart Probe, 3.9 L (4 qt.) Air Fryer

 

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Reviewing Popover Recipes - Easy and Delicious Baked Treats

Once I was served warm popovers at a brunch I was obsessed. I had to have more. I had to be able to bake my own. These small baked treats are great with soups, stews, quiches, roasts, and so much more. They are surprisingly easy to throw together and throw into the oven. And they only require 6 ingredients: flour, eggs, salt, butter, milk, and eggs. There is a good chance you've heard of popovers. But just in case you haven't I want to make sure to spread the word.

photo: Fox Run Popover Pan

Earlier this year I was invited to a neighbors home for brunch. She served quiche and popovers. I had no idea what popovers were and when she shared what was on the menu I had a brief thought of "did she say PopTarts?".  It turns out that she did not say PopTarts. She was serving the most delicious quiche with these funny-looking biscuits called popovers. 

It is easiest for me to say that popovers are biscuits. They can be served in place of biscuits with breakfasts, roasts, soups, and stews. But for some reason, I want to call them a pastry. I don't know if baking experts would call them a pastry. But they are crispy on the outside while light and flaky on the inside. In fact, if you bake them on the shorter end of the recommended time, they are a bit like custard on the inside. 

The 6 Popover Ingredients

Popover recipes are all over the internet. They are basically equal (or almost equal) amounts of flour and milk. Added to 3 - 4 eggs, 2-3 tablespoons of butter, and a pinch of salt. The recipe I use is:

• 1 c flour
• 1 c milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp butter

Beat the ingredients until smooth. The batter is similar to pancake batter. You may think you've made a mistake and added too many wet ingredients. You haven't.

Martha Stewart uses 1 1/2 cup flour and 1 1/2 cup milk in her recipe. She also gives step-by-step instructions. Her recipe is here if you'd like to use that recipe. 

Popover Tips for Better Results

The same neighbor who served the popovers at the brunch also gave me a popovers pan. Popovers can be made in muffin tins but they do much better in a specific popover pan.

Spray just a small bit of cooking spray in the bottoms of the cups. 

Fill the popover pan cups only 1/2 full. They will rise and pop over the tops of the pans. If you are prone to overfill things, place the popover pan on a cookie sheet to catch any spillage. 

Hot oven. Popovers like 400 degrees or more. Some recipes call for a hotter over to begin with and lowering the temperature part way through. I don't mess with that. I do 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Remove the popovers from the pan as soon as they come out of the oven. 

The recipe I use makes almost 12 popovers. I tend to fill my popover cups slightly more than half. If I only filled them halfway the recipe would make 12 popovers. I also found that it makes it much easier to fill the cups using a glass measuring cup with a spout.

On the popover episode on America's Test Kitchen, they recommend bread flour and warming the milk and butter for better results.  I agree. When I remember to use bread flour and warm both the butter and milk (with the eggs at room temperature) I do have slightly better results. However, the recipe is forgiving. My neighbor sometimes uses almond milk and uses all purpose flour. I prefer whole milk and bread flour. 

Popovers are an excellent part of your daily menu and a wonderful item to serve to guests.

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Word Scramble for Teens, Adults, and Brainiac Kids - A Fun Word Jumble for the Family

This latest published word scramble is written explicitly for seniors, teens, and brainiac kids.

Designed with large print inside an 8.5" by 11" book, this word scramble is easy to hold and easy to read.

Nearly all of my 24 published activity books are designed with larger print and include various levels or challenges.

Why You Would Enjoy this Word Scramble:

It's not just a word scramble for self-challenge; it can also be played as a simple game. There's a place on each page to mark your start and finish times. Each person completes a puzzle page to see who can solve the puzzle the fastest.

There's also a place for working notes.

Here's a sample of each puzzle page:

What's Inside this Word Scramble Book

• 500 jumbled words to unscramble
• 10 words per page per topic
• There are 50 different, broad-ranging topics
• Each page is large and easy to read
• The answers are included at the back, with two answer bundles per page, making the solutions easy to read as well
• Record your start and finish times to compete with yourself or others
• Some scrambles are easier than others making it a fun activity for the whole family
• As you can see above, there's a place for notes in case you have to do further evaluations

This scramble book is ideal for:

• Personal use
• Stocking stuffers
• An affordable hostess gift for the family
• A significant loot-bag gift for teen parties
• An around-the-table game for family gatherings
• To take on trips for something to do when you're traveling
• For seniors to encourage mind exercise challenges
• For brainiac kids to keep their minds fresh, challenged, and growing

You Can Find This Word Scramble Book on Amazon or Via StumpedRiddles.com:

You can find all Stumped Activity Books on Amazon here.

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Gifts for Festive Affairs - Gift Review

If your holiday plans include an invitation to a holiday dinner or as a house guest at a relative's home, than a gift specific to the home and the host is perfect. 

Cutting Board Gifts 

Since almost all invitations to a holiday gathering involves food, a special cutting board makes a thoughtful and useful gift.

There is a wide range of cutting board sizes and styles, many even in animal shapes, or personalized, to choose from. My favorites are the handmade boards I found on Etsy. 

Handmade in Walnut, Cherry or Maple wood, in a variety of sizes, the personalized cutting boards at WallThingsCo on Etsy have just the one you want to match the person you are gifting. 

If you are going to 'grandma's house' for the holidays, this Nana's Kitchen board is a popular choice. But this Etsy Shop offers a wide variety of choices, or you can choose your own name, saying or design. A  lovely choice for your favorite cook.

Coffee Mugs

In town for an overnight or several days visit over the holidays? Then you will be having coffee in the morning with your hostess. Therefore a coffee (or Tea) mug makes the perfect hostess gift. With so many designs and 'sayings' available, it is easy to match one to the person it is for.

To get into, or stay, in the Christmas spirit, consider a coffee mug from this group of vintage Waechtersbach cups made in West Germany.

Six such pretty designs to choose from ~ a Christmas tree, white terrier dogs, a white cat, a 2000 Christmas tree, white snowman, and a shorter Christmas tree mug. They can be found in the Etsy Shop of TheRustyJewels. 

Or choose the cutest hostess mug I have ever seen. The ever-popular Yoda on an adorable coffee mug.

Found in the Etsy Shop of Expression Prints, a shop filled with a large variety of mugs with sayings which help you express your thoughts to those you love.

Special Glassware  

Glassware makes a lovely gift for your host or hostess. With so many choices, such as a beer steins for HIM or pretty glassware for HER, the choices are endless. 

These hand-painted vintage songbird glasses would be a lovely hostess gift to someone who enjoys birdwatching or who enjoys the bird feeders in their back yard.

Available in the Etsy Shop of 'Shop the Leo Collective'. 

And as a dandy gift for HIM, choose this handmade frosted glass Christmas beer mug from the North Pole Brewing Company. 

It's available in the Etsy Shop of Hippie Radio Boutique.

Summary

Hopefully, this gift guide will allow you to be prepared for that host/hostess gift for those holiday invitations.

Happy Holidays! 

For more Gift Reviews, check out ReviewThisGifts.com

*Festive Gifts review by Wednesday Elf

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A Fall from Grace (Clavering Chronicles Book 1) Book Review

Before we ever read the first word in the book, the title tells us what to expect.  What the title doesn't reveal is how and why Selena loses her position in society.

This historical fiction is set in Hertfordshire, England in 1817 and paints a vivid picture of how easy it was for a young woman, or even a whole family, to have the ton (high society) shun them.  

Imagine having everything you have ever known or expected your life to be, stripped from you because someone else made a mistake. By no fault of your own, you have to learn how to make a living for yourself while watching the world you once knew carry on without you. Becoming an employee in a house where you would previously have been received as a desired guest and ushered into the drawing room for tea with the countess.  Instead, you will now be expected to use the servants entrance and consider yourself fortunate that the countess has favored you enough to even allow you to be her companion.

That is what happened to Selena Lockhart in "A Fall from Grace" by Jennie Goutet.

"A Fall from Grace" Plot Synopsis

 A Fall from Grace
(Clavering Chronicles Book 1)Check Price

The first few chapters of the book are somewhat humorous.  We are immediately introduced to Sir Lucius Clavering, sixth Baronet of Mardley.  As a wealthy landowner, he is accustomed to having "young maidens" devise reasons to be in his company alone in order to force a marriage.  A snowy night is the perfect opportunity for "accidents" to strand fair maidens who would require refuge in a nearby home.  On this particular night, two such woman separately appeared at his door.  One was intentionally planned, the other truly was in dire straits.  Both are greeted with suspicion.

___

As the lone female occupant of a broken down stagecoach, Selena needs shelter from the snow storm and other danger.  She believes her salvation must lie within the walls of a nearby home which is lit well enough for her to see in the distance. Dispute her lack of warm clothing, she sets out for the house and has plenty of time to recount the events that put her in this frightening situation.  Her father's extreme gambling problems followed by his subsequent death; her fiance's recindment of his offer of marriage;  insufficient funds to sustain her mother & sisters;  all combined to create this life she was so ill-prepared to live.  She was equally unprepared to be greeted by the cynical landowner who did not readily welcome her in out of the cold.

_____

Following Selena's story of becoming a companion to a bitter and unhappy widowed countess, caused me to consider what a truly difficult situation this would have been for a young lady who was raised in a wealthy home with the expectations of a prosperous marriage and continued position in high society.  It would require a strong and determined individual to make this unwanted transition in life status.

Since this is a Regency Romance novel, the reader can rest assured there will be a developing romantic relationship throughout the book. However, I was equally interested in watching the other relationships develop in this book.

I highly recommend this book, and series, to anyone who enjoys clean & wholesome romance novels.

 

 

At publishing time of this review, "A Fall from Grace" is available for free with a Kindle Unlimited Subscription. Or, you can purchase it with the link below.

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A Fall from Grace (Clavering Chronicles Book 1) by Jennie Goutet by:

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Gabby - A Story of Courage and Hope - Book Review

Those who come to know Gabrielle Giffords are said to become Gabbified. It certainly happened to me and I would be very surprised if you did not experience being taken in by the immensity of her spirit as revealed in Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope. 

Giffords, a United States Congresswoman at the time, was the victim of an assassination attempt, and deadly mass shooting, on January 8, 2011. Shot in the head at point-blank range, her chances of surviving were less than one percent. The bullet that traveled through the left hemisphere of her brain should have killed her. Yet, despite the astronomical odds against it, Giffords survived.

This is the true story of an astonishing woman who is the epitome of extreme service, deep humanity, and extraordinary fortitude. Way beyond survival, Gabrielle Giffords, through sheer grit and an unmatched work ethic, demonstrates what it means to live out your life's calling with undying passion, radical optimism, and the kind of genuine care for others that transcends political divisions.

Despite years of a grueling rehabilitation regimen that would likely defeat the toughest among us, Gabrielle has never quit when it comes to taking on the most challenging issues of our times. Her nonprofit Giffords organization has stepped up to address the ongoing rampage of gun violence in our nation. 

I picked up this book, and Giffords' new documentary (Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down), because I have been feeling deeply shaken (horrified) by the escalating anger and violence that is destroying lives and ripping apart the fabric of our world.  I knew that I would draw strength, and a new commitment to doing something of substance, by opening myself up to Gabbification.  

As I have reflected on the impact Gabrielle Giffords has had on her constituents, her community, her family, and on everyone who has crossed her path, the thought crossed my mind that I want to be like Gabby Giffords when I grow up.  Then, I realized that she would most likely want me to be the very epitome of me.  I can't be Gabby, but by following her example, I can use my own inner power and determination to proactively be a force for good in my corner of the world.

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