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It happens to every family. Things are humming along smoothly when suddenly they realize that life is not just a bowl of cherries. An unlooked for event, crisis, or trial threatens to upset the balance of all they consider normal. How will they ever survive and how will they ever get things to return to normal? Is it even possible? What if constant change and adaptation is what “normal” really looks like? In Life Happens Taralyn and Teresa Clark explore life realities and provide much-needed information gained from decades of experience to survive and ultimately thrive in spite of life challenges.

Christy Monson, a retired family therapist, provides in concrete examples and clear language the keys to family success through family councils.While families are diverse and their needs are unique, a family council provides a safe and strong environment for every family to discuss issues and explore the best ways to have the family succeed. A family council is not just any meeting. It’s a special event that provides a background and foundation to create healthy family synergy. Monson teaches families what a family council is and what it is not, why it’s a perfect environment for teaching, for exploring difficult issues, learning how to play, and how best to solve problems at home, school, or work. Monson also includes information for families with special needs.Family councils are a great way to bring children and parents together in a positive environment where they can discuss and solve problems.

Throughout our lives we tend to build up armor that inhibits our growth. Our armor comes in many disguises: depression, self-deprecation, or the inability to act. We often create our own armor, our own protection, unique to us, but this protection actually stops our growth and the abundant live we each seek. An abundant and happier life can be yours, but you must identify and release the obstructions that keep you from the wisdom and wealth you want. Christy Monson, a successful family therapist for over thirty years, has written Becoming Free to help you achieve your goals and find deeper happiness in your life.Becoming Free is a step-by-step book to help you to shed your armor, expand your optimistic thinking, and enhance your ability to give and receive. Once you become free of the armor you’ve built around you to protect yourself, you’ll find the abundant life you have always sought.

Coupon Crazy examines the phenomena of avid coupon use and the socio-cultural and socioeconomic factors that construct it. By delving into the history of couponing, refunding, the science of shopping, and the dark underbelly of a coupon world the average American doesn’t even know existed, author Mary Potter Kenyon manages to both fascinate and educate the reader. Readers will meet today’s “Coupon Queens” (and Kings) and learn about an era when trash really was cash. Not just an observer of this ethnographic research, Mary lived it for over 30 years.

The outstanding authors of Deliberate Motherhood have let the trials and hardships of motherhood mold them into better people. Whether the change includes learning patience when the two-year-old “paints” your walls with the black permanent marker, or forgiving a teenager who screams “I hate you,” or loving more when that naughty child doesn’t really deserve it, it’s a change that refines us—or as the dictionary describes it, “removes impurities, makes something more effective or become more elegant.” That is powerful! You may think that everything has been said about motherhood, but the delightful thing about Deliberate Motherhood is that every mother/author is one-of-a-kind. They each come from different backgrounds, have different parents, are married (or not) to different people, and certainly have “different” children. Each of the 12 “Powers” provided in this book is a crucial component to help you in your motherhood. And the best part is that you don’t need to do it all at once. You can focus on one “power” a month, and over the course of a year, you’ll see great changes in yourself and in your family. The mark of a great book is that it makes you think . . . and it helps you change . . . which in the case of this book, is an absolute guarantee!

After experiencing the loss of her first-born son, Melissa Dalton-Bradford thrust herself into literature searching for those who have experienced similar, devastating loss. What she found was comfort and guidance to help her overcome the pain of losing a loved one and the faith to face her own life without him. In On Loss and Living Onward, she has compiled the best resources that will guide the living through the process of grief.Superbly written essays by author and bereaved mother accompany each of five sections: Life at Death; Love at Death; Living After Death; Learning From Death; Life, Love, and Light Over Death. Quotes are from across history, geography and the philosophical spectrum. A substantial bibliography and suggested readings list is included.

With more than 150 recipes from across America, The Great American Family ReunionCookbook provides a culinary, coast-to-coast adventure and helps families of every background and every size provide the most important element of any reunion—the food. Author Lori Nawyn spent over a year interviewing residents from each state, exploring their stories and their food to identify what was the quintessential recipe for that perfect family gathering. Whether from the Louisiana Bayou to the Black Hills of South Dakota or from the rugged landscape of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to the beautiful farmland of New England, the recipes capture the essence of what it means to renew family love and relationship. Nawyn has also coupled the recipe collection with practical advice and creative activities to help organize and host an unforgettable family reunion.

From how to deal with cyberbullying to the strange, true stories behind Barbie and G.I. Joe, media insider Bill Ratner takes an inside look at our wired-up world in a fascinating book—part memoir, part parenting guide—for the digital age. Landing his first job in advertising at age fourteen, Ratner learned early that the media doesn’t necessarily have our best interests at heart. His career as one of America’s most popular voiceover artists and his life as a parent and educator gives readers a first-hand look at the effects of digital media on children and what you can do about it.

We believe that family life is beautiful and that motherhood is a privilege. But we also believe it is often really hard to see all that beauty when we’re in the midst of mothering. So often, we feel like we’re spread too thin. We feel like we don’t match up. Our hearts want to do more than our hands can manage. And every day, as we cycle through household duties, discipline, errands, conversations, teaching, and hundreds of unexpecteds, we’re often left tired, worried, and in need of some extra inspiration and encouragement. Power of Moms is an online community of deliberate mothers. Since 2007, millions of mothers from all backgrounds who are striving to be the best they can be have gathered to our website to learn and grow together. Time and again, our posts receive comments that say something like, “I am going to print this out and put it on my nightstand so I can read it again and again.” We’ve been concerned about those nightstands . . . getting all cluttered up with paper. So we’ve selected dozens of our most popular posts and compiled them neatly into this book just for you.This book isn’t just a book. It’s a tangible representation of a living, breathing community of mothers. Motherhood is the hardest job we’ll ever love, and it’s so much better when we’re doing it together.

It is said that God could not be everywhere so he created mothers. With more than 200 unique quotations, The Quotable Mom shares thoughts, ideas, humor, and advice from the best minds of the ages for the most challenging situations that come with being a mom.”The phrase ‘working mother’ is redundant.” —Jane Sellman

When Mary Potter Kenyon’s husband, David, was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2006, she searched libraries and bookstores for books on cancer and the caregiving experience. What she discovered was a plethora of technical and medically-oriented books or those written by a caregiver whose loved one had died, a scenario she refused to contemplate. While serving as David’s companion during Wednesday chemotherapy treatments, Mary began journaling about their experience as a couple and parents of young children as they navigated the labyrinth of cancer. It soon dawned on her that she was writing the very book she had searched for upon David’s diagnosis: one that goes beyond the cancer experience to give hope and inspiration to the reader. Chemo-Therapist: How Cancer Cured a Marriage is a moving testimonial of a relationship renewed by the shared experience of a life threatening illness.”Initially, after David’s diagnosis, I would cringe when I read books or articles by cancer survivors who stated that cancer had been a gift in their lives. How could all that David endured be viewed as a gift? The invasive surgery, the weeks of chemotherapy and radiation: a gift?Yet, after the cancer, David would often reach for my hand and say, “If it is cancer that is responsible for our new relationship, then it was all worth it.” And I’d reluctantly agree that cancer had been a gift in our lives. We’d both seen the other alternative: patients and survivors who had become bitter and angry, and neither one of us wanted to become that.

A child swipes her mother’s ring, snatches her sister’s nightgown, and runs outside to play “bride.” She soon loses the ring, rips the gown, correctly assumes it’s about to rain daggers, and runs away from home to find a better family. What happens next is a summer-long journey in which Grace Townsend rides shotgun in a Plymouth Belvedere, and hunkers in the back of a rattletrap vegetable truck, crawls into a crumbling tunnel, dresses up with a prom queen, and keeps vigil in the bedroom of a molestation victim. There are reasons why Grace remembers the summer of 1956 for the rest of her life. Those are just a few. Through the eyes of a child and the mature woman she becomes, we make the journey with Grace and discover important truths about life, equality, family, and the soul-searching quest for belonging.

The Pear Aficionado examines the unassuming and often under appreciated pear from orchard to table where it steals home plate with its flavor and versatility. With recipes for both the novice and intermediate home chef, the book showcases the fruit in an impressive variety of dishes ranging from fresh pear salads, to a pear quiche and a Caramelized pear mock soufflé, a simple pear and berry galette, pear tarts, tortes, scones, and Chocolate Pear Biscotti, to Pear Salad Croissants, Salmon with Pear Marmalade and Balsamic Vinegar Reduction, and a tangy Grilled Pear and Swiss Reuben with Spicy Mustard Aioli. You might just discover pears are your favorite fruit after all!

A teen’s job is to be difficult and most do it really, really well. But what about you? You want to hug that hedgehog, right? But you don’t want to get hurt. No problem. With entertaining stories and 12 principles that open the cages, unlock the doors, gently tear down those walls, and get you talking, How to Hug a Hedgehog explores everything from communication to what you might have missed on the teen “warning label.”Wilcox and Robbins help you face your worst fears, effectively handle pressure and stress, and answer the hardest question of all: “What happens if I fail?”

Have you ever tried to change another person? If you have, you probably know it is next to impossible. Most parenting books teach parents how to change the child. The Parent Fix focuses on the parents, emphasizing a parent’s need to change to inspire family improvement.If our greatest joys and sorrows come from family relationships, are we truly happy when we are in control of our loved ones? That deep joy we are searching for comes as we watch those we love learn lessons that change their own lives. To have this change it is the parent who must change.In today’s age of troubled youth, broken families, and mixed messages from the media, our families are fighting a tough battle to succeed. With the increase in drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders, gang violence, and teenage suicide, many of our families are failing. Parents need help.There is power in parenting—correct parenting. Rather than focusing on the kids, as so many other self-help books do,The Parent Fix stresses that when parents change, kids change. Focusing on key principles like correct judgement, taking time, education and more, Stevens provides concrete ways parents can change their own behavior to improve the behavior of their children. As a mother, Maggie spent years researching and found the answers needed to successfully raise five children. With over thirty years of practical experience, Maggie knows the answers that make a difference. When parents change . . . kids change.

It’s actually true that Mongol warriors rode with slabs of raw meat under their saddles then ate them that night in camp! It’s actually true that Chinese archaeologists found 4,000-year-old noodles in an overturned cup. It’s actually true that Americans buy $1 billion worth of chocolate each Valentine’s Day. You think food is just stuff we eat!? Come on! There’s a world full of great food stories out there—and Rude Dude’s going to tell them!

What happens when an idealist volunteers to introduce Shakespeare to a group of unruly kids? Bedlam. Tears. And hard lessons learned. Convinced that children can relate to Shakespeare’s themes—power, revenge, love—Mel Ryane launches The Shakespeare Club at a public school. Teaching Will is a riotous cautionary tale of high hopes and goodwill crashing into the realities of classroom chaos.Every week Mel encounters unexpected comedy and drama as she and the children struggle toward staging a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Woven through this fish-out-of-water tale is Mel’s own story of her childhood aspirations, her acting identity, and the heartbreaking end of her onstage career.In the schoolyard, Mel finds herself embroiled in jealousy and betrayal worthy of Shakespeare’s plots. Fits of laughter alternate with wiping noses as she and the kids discover a surprising truth: they need each other if they want to face an audience and triumph. Teaching Will is an uplifting story of empowerment for dreamers and realists alike.

It is easy to find alarming statistics on escalating violence, addiction and economic inequality in developed countries and stubborn poverty in the third world. The fascinating question has to do with cause. New York Times #1 bestselling authors Richard and Linda Eyre’s new book The Turning: Why the State of the Family Matters and What the World Can Do about It contends that the social and economic challenges faced not only in the United States, but throughout the world, are the direct result of an unprecedented and widespread turning away from family. The negative effects of this turning are apparent in the youth of the world today: ·In São Paulo, Brazil, more than 1.2 million “street children” are addicted to cocaine; ·Suicide is the third leading cause of death for American fifteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds; ·Great Ormond Street Hospital in London has treated girls as young as seven or eight for eating disorders; ·In Ethiopia, nearly half of the children under the age of six work 30-hour weeks; and ·In the past year there have been over 64 school shootings in the U.S., equaling more than one shooting a week.The Turning uses research findings, statistics (like those listed above), and the Eyres’ personal experiences at home and abroad to show that families are essential to the survival and success of civilization.With the well-being of the world at risk, The Turning will move readers in a way that will raise personal reflection, discussion, and action to return the family to its necessary position as the recognized and prioritized basic unit of society.But far more than a book of statistics and political suggestions, this is a book for parents—parents who want to better understand the world their children are growing up in and who want to create a family culture that is stronger than the internet culture, the peer culture, and all the other influences that flurry around our children every day.As Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat opened our eyes to the cause-and-effect aspects of the global economy, The Turning will open the eyes of readers across the world to the means-and-ends connections between stable families and households and the world’s ability to meet its social and economic challenges.As Harvard’s Clayton Christensen and best-selling author of The Innovator’s Dilemma states, “This book gives us a common cause, and a clear way to frame and explain the causality of today’s problems.”In the spirit of Friedman’s The World is Flat, Richard and Linda Eyre examine the connections between the world’s mounting social problems and the breakdown of families and look deeply at the root causes of family disintegration—the false paradigms that confuse the priorities of parents and influence the kind of policies and practices in larger institutions (from media to government) that threaten families both economically and emotionally.

If you aren’t rooting for yourself, who will? Drops of Awesome is that unique discovery journal about celebrating the amazingness of you. Based on the viral blog Drops of Awesome, this book helps you become your own biggest cheerleader and tells your inner critic to stick a sock in it.What did you accomplish today? More than you currently realize or give yourself credit for. As you work through Drops of Awesome, you will start to see just how much goodness you contribute to the world and as you feel that success, you will find that you can accomplish anything. You are awesome!

When a young boy finds a stick on the ground and reads the inspiring words carved into it, his life begins to change until he fulfills lifelong dreams and discovers the truth about giving.

From the Astoria Column and Crater Lake to Tillamook Cheese and Powell’s Books, these 10 Little Monsters discover some of the most unique and interesting things about Oregon and what it has to offer. Silly, over-the-top fun, and a bit macabre, 10 Little Monsters Visit Oregon is the perfect book for every little boy and ghoul!9 Little Monsters love Tillamook cheese”We would like free samples please!”One monster trips while looking for lunch.New ice cream flavor, “Monster Crunch”6 Little Monsters play hide-and-seekUp and down an Oregon creek.One stays quiet and still all dayTil a beaver chews him and hauls him away.1 Little Monster decides to goTo ride and rope in a rodeo.He can’t hold on. See him fly!Poor Little Monster. Wave goodbye!

Parenting is one of the most stressful fulltime jobs around. School, lessons, sports, homework, hormones, dinner, dishes. . . . Parents want to know how to be calm and enjoy these wonder years. Dr. Ben Bernstein, celebrated performance coach for CEOs, professional athletes, and musicians, takes on parents this time around in his book Stressed Out! For Parents. Focusing on his nine steps to optimize performance during stressful situations, Dr. B. teaches parents in clear, entertaining, and thoughtful writing how to be calm, confident, and focused in all that they do. So, say good-bye to anxiety and optimize your parenting performance today!

“Where is the handbook for widows?” Mary Kenyon lamented as she planned a funeral for the beloved husband whose triumph over cancer she chronicled in Chemo-Therapist: How Cancer Cured a Marriage. During the ensuing weeks, as she attempted to make sense of his untimely death, she filled two journals, blogged, and read the inspirational writings of others who had gone down the road of grief before her—authors like C.S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle. She eventually found herself studying grief and bereavement in her quest to unearth answers to alleviating the pain associated with profound loss. In the process, she discovered a strength and emotional reserve she didn’t know she had, along with an evolving faith that helped her face the impending loss of an eight-year-old grandson.“In the midst of the darkness of loss, I found light. Admittedly, in those first weeks, it might have been but a single small spark I sensed deep inside of me, but that spark guided me in the twisted, dark journey of grief. As I stumbled over the roots of hopelessness and despair, that light grew to illuminate my path, a path I sometimes felt very alone on. At some point in the journey I’d turned around, and there was God.”That is grace.”In beautiful prose, touching metaphors and stories, and actual journal entries, Mary Potter Kenyon provides a balm for the grieving soul.

Sassy, funny, blunt, and definitely not sugar coated, Don’t Burp in the Boardroom examines etiquette in the workplace, from the warehouse to the top floor. While the outerwear may be different, the dilemmas from cubicle to corner office are the same. Rosalinda Randall delves into common predicaments like food, the break room, social media and electronics, office romances, or how to make a good impression when you’re new on the job. She also delves into the uncommonly common like catching your boss in an unfortunate position and how to avoid that one co-worker who always wants a hug.In today’s modern, fast-paced, crazy lifestyle we think we don’t have time for etiquette. We might believe that it is outdated, irrelevant, or even pretentious. But Don’t Burp in the Boardroom talks about etiquette without mentioning etiquette! How’s that possible? Because Rosalinda defines etiquette as an attitude. What’s yours like?