What I’m Reading Now

This past year I made it a point to read more and lo and behold I have been! Below is what I’m currently reading. I never read one book at one time in its entirety; I’m always jumping back and forth between a couple of reads.

Me and the family have some digestive issues (who doesn’t these days) so I’ve been learning about different diets to help heal our guts. The Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) diet is very effective but strict. In fact, it’s the most rigorous diet I’ve ever come across. Then I stumbled upon the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and its accompanying book, Breaking the Viscous Cycle By Elaine Gottschall. It’s not as strict as GAPS but seems to be helping a lot of people overcome intestinal disease (and even autism) where conventional medicine has failed them.

The premise of the book is that sugar and starches (think milk, grains, beans) are hard if not impossible to properly digest in someone who has intestinal problems, and that these foods must be eliminated in order to heal. What I find awesome about this diet is that people who follow it for a minimum of one year can return to a normal diet with a complete disappearance of symptoms!

This book is an easy read and I’m learning so much about my digestive system. The plan is that on January 1st we will start this diet. I’ve never been on a diet before (besides just trying to eat clean and traditional) so I’m not sure how it’s going to go. Wish me luck.

Eating paleo is all the rage these days so when I got the chance to read this book for free I jumped on it. I’m comparing the Paleo diet to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and figuring out what would work best for me and my family’s situation. The Paleo diet does not allow you to eat dairy, grains, legumes, and sugar which is pretty similar to the SCD (actually the SCD is less strict than paleo as your allowed to eat certain cheeses, some type of beans, and homemade yogurt).

The Paleo Solution is a funny read. Robb Wolf has an in-your-face type of humor which makes it pretty entertaining. But it’s a thick book. I’ll probably end up skipping around reading the parts that interest me.

On the homeschooling front I started reading A Thomas Jefferson Education (TJed) by Oliver DeMille. So far, I’ve been following the classical education model and while I still think A Well-Trained Mind is the epitome of a solid education, I want to know about other ways of teaching and learning. In a nutshell, TJed is  ”leadership education by teaching students how to think (instead of what to think) and prepares them to be leaders in their homes and communities, entrepreneurs in business, and statesmen in government.”

While the book is pretty mute on exactly how to do this (which is the chief complaint among a lot people who read it), I do like some of the philosophies and ideas DeMille describes and plan on incorporating them into our own homeschooling adventure.

So far, I’m about a quarter of the way through this book and love it. Being a stay-at-home mom and somewhat of a perfectionist, I was having trouble keeping order in my home. I feel like a hamster spinning my wheel but getting no where in terms of cleaning and housekeeping. I’m an organized person by nature and not much a pack rat but I still find it pretty much impossible to stick to a routine and schedule. If anything this book has validated my feelings as it’s nice to know I’m not the only one struggling with this. Apparently, a lot of people do.

The beginning of the book is more about getting control of clutter (which I don’t have too much of) but the last half of the book seems to focus more on making evening and morning routines, weekly planning, creating a control journal, and holiday organizing. I can’t wait to finish reading it.  If you’re having trouble with any of these things, whether your a stay-at-home or not, I suggest you check out this book. It’s really that good.

I am not reading this book right now (’cause I don’t own it) but it’s on my Christmas wish list. Since I plan on going grain free I need to know what to cook and how to cook it. I mean, come on, if you’re not eating cookies, muffins, and spaghetti what the heck do you eat??

This book was on my 2013 reading list but I never got around to reading it. It’s on my Christmas wish list as well. I’m intrigued by the author (who actually survived an economic collapse in his home country of Argentina) and think ordinary “preppers” like myself could gain a ton of insight into what an economic collapse looks like and how to survive one.

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Are you reading any good books? Have any recommendations? Share in the comments below and thanks for visiting.