Books, Professional Development

Book 264: Overcoming Passive-Aggression – Tim Murphy and Loriann Hoff Oberlin

Talk about a rough read. The entire time I was reading this, I kept thinking back to that phrase from the 2001 movie A Knight’s Tale: “You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.” Please don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t solely from this book or the last few that I’ve read that this thought process stems from, trust me. It’s something I’ve been struggling with for the past year and a half and as much as I’ve improved, I knew I was still struggling with myriad issues.

I mentioned when I wrote about Crucial Conversations that I’d had one recently and that the feedback I got hurt like hell but was something that I needed to hear. And honestly I can’t thank that person enough for having the candor to tell me what they did and spurring me to take a long look at myself. Again, don’t get me completely wrong I’ve not been hiding that I’m a horrible person, but I’ve definitely struggled for some time and after reading this I’m wondering how long I’ve been struggling and not knowing or, more than likely, not admitting it.

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Books, Professional Development

Book 258: Crucial Conversations – Patterson, Grenny, McMillan & Switzler

I’m going to start with an apology as I know part of this post won’t make sense and most of this post isn’t really a reflection of the book. Just keep in mind that it doesn’t have to make sense to you and it’s my blog so how I process the book is what you get. 🙂 A large portion of this blog is for self-reflection and for internal processing. Unfortunately things will stay pretty vague as the purpose of this isn’t to air dirty laundry in public, but to help me process things. So stick with me.

Crucial Conversations is the second book my journey in my 2014 mental health improvement plans. However, it probably should have been book one, but I didn’t know this at the time and to be fair the books are pretty interchangeable. I only mention this as this book closes with the same examples Duhigg’s The Power of Habit opens with and references multiple times.

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Random

Three Shopping Days Left…Wait a Second…

Why would that matter when clearly my Birthday (aka today) is MUCH more important than that 😀 This is mostly just to show I’m alive and busy enjoy the photos while I lounge around in my pajamas and do NOTHING for a few more hours and then spend time with my sister and friends!

Gallery One: Baby It’s Cold Outside…no seriously I refused to get out of bed twice in the last two weeks until it hit 10°F (-12°C).

Gallery Two: Because of the above snow storm my first 5k was postponed until tomorrow (12/22)! I’m totally excited and ready for it and have done a LOT of prep work.

Gallery Three: So far it’s been a very Star Wars and Literary Christmas/Birthday. The only thing missing is my dear Jane, but I can handle that since we share a birth month and can never be separated. Just goes to show my friends, family and coworkers know me WAY too well.

Updates

November 2013 Recap

And just like that November is gone. I’m still trying to figure out where September and October went, let alone November! I will say having a major event at work this month really helped to keep me distracted, but then all of a sudden I had so much free time I honestly got lost not knowing what to do with myself. As Heather pointed out I disappeared for a while. I skipped Culture Corner, Workout Wednesday and The Classics Club Monthly Meme and even let five reviews/responses back up. I clearly needed a break and it was great, but I’m slowly catching up, so sorry for the plethora of posts this past week!

Part of my relaxation and not knowing what to do with myself resulted in my learning how to crochet! I can only do one stitch but I’ve made a midget scarf, a real scarf (it’s a little short still, but I made it really wide…whoops) and have started a third scarf for a friend.

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