Anna VS Elsa

When our family saw Frozen for the first time my two daughters chose their favorites. My oldest followed the rest of the world and chose Elsa, but my youngest immediately latched onto Anna.
"You Elsa and I Anna!" She would enthusiastically yell each time she wanted to play Frozen. It was the cutest.

About two months ago my little peanut started moving more towards Elsa's side. It started innocently enough. At first she just wanted to sing, "Let it Go" more often than "Do You Want to Build a Snowman." But soon it became "You Anna and I Elsa." Sad.

For Christmas we gave her a simple Elsa dress and a tricked out Anna dress. The Anna dress has a button that plays the first few lines of "For the First Time in Forever" and causes the dress to light up like a Christmas tree. My husband and I were desperately trying to get her to like the Anna dress more, but it hasn't worked. She wears the Elsa dress twice as much as the Anna dress.

And in the end it saddens me. All the little girls everywhere love Elsa but I think that they should love Anna. In a battle of role models Anna beats Elsa into the ground. And as a parent I would much rather my daughters aspire to be Anna instead of wanting to be like Elsa. Let's take a look at them shall we, and you'll see my point.

Elsa (for most of the movie): Spends her entire life pushing everyone away from her. Is so afraid of what she is capable of that she does nothing. She is in charge of an entire kingdom and her entire focus is on herself. She doesn't think about how her actions are affecting others, nor does she try to do anything to help anyone else. She runs away from responsibility. She is cowardly, selfish, and of little good to anyone. (I know I'm being harsh.) Why do little girls everywhere worship her? She is beautiful, has great clothes, has one talent, and a catchy song. (Your typical pop star.)

Anna: Is the ultimate optimist. She looks for joy and happiness in everything around her and tries to share that joy with others, even if she is shot down again and again. She is courageous, adventurous, and full of life. She risks her life to save her sister and her kingdom (more than once). She faces her fears and doesn't take crap from anyone (not even Marshmallow). She is warm and loving. And she believes in true love. And even though true love with Hans doesn't work out, I still love that she believes in it so sincerely. Plus, she jumps right back in the game with Christoph even though her last boyfriend left her to die, tried to take over the kingdom, and almost slayed her sister. Not a lot of women could do that. She is the kind of woman that I want my daughters to become.

So what do I do about my littlest daughter's switch in allegiance? I'm not exactly sure. But you just might start hearing "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" and "For the First Time in Forever" a lot more at our house.

Anna is My Hero!

This YouTube video sums things up pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buem1Yhtkxs

Spark Your Brain

"In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection." 

~ Plato

I like to exercise (most days) but sometimes I get in a rut and just need some motivation, or a spark. This book did that for me. Obviously exercise is good for our bodies, and as strange as it may sound, our brains are actually connected to our bodies. So, logically speaking, exercise might also be good for our minds.

In truth, I've known this fact for a long time. What I loved about Spark is that it explained the how and why behind it. It showed through case studies, scientific analysis, MRIs, etc. exactly how exercise affects the brain and thereby our mental capacity, emotions, focus, mood, etc.

The first part of the book goes into detail and several case studies to explain how exercise improves your ability to learn and how it actually causes brain cells to grow. "Exercise improves learning on three levels: first, it optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation; second, it prepares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another, which is the cellular basis for logging in new information; and third, it spurs the development of new nerve cells from stem cells in the hippocampus." Who knew?

The middle section of the book looks at the positive effect that exercise has on stress, anxiety, depression, attention deficit, addiction, hormonal changes, and aging. These are each separated into chapters and the authors go into a lot of detail into how and why exercise helps these conditions.

The last part of the book talks about what kind of exercise you should be doing to maximize your brain's potential.

Spark goes into a lot of detail and as you're going through the middle chapters, it can seem a little repetitive. If you aren't super into the science behind it all, I would suggest reading the first two chapters and then reading any of the middle chapters that specifically apply to you before reading the last chapter.

This book definitely motivates you to want to exercise, and who doesn't need that.

Favorite quote: "If exercise came in a pill form, it would be plastered across the front page, hailed as the blockbuster drug of the century."

And the Nominees Are...

I just received word that The Watchers is an official nominee for the 2014 Whitney Awards! The Whitney Awards are literary awards honoring excellence in fiction.

I'm pretty excited about it! Although it's led me to thinking about why people enjoy awards so much. My husband and I are runners and a very large reason that we sign up for races is for the medals (or bling). It's not as if we wear them around town or do much with them. They serve no actual purpose, so why do we want them in the first place? Bragging rights, memento, visual reminder, because they are cool? Probably a mixture of all of those things.

The dictionary describes an award as a reward or prize given to someone who deserves or merits it. I guess we all like to feel as if we deserve something. As if we have done something of merit.

Going back to running, after a half marathon I eagerly grab my medal, but not as if I deserve it, more as if I purchased it when I signed up for the race. After running a full marathon, I wearily grab my medal knowing that I've done something of merit. Something truly hard for me. Something that required more than I thought I could give at times. I'm proudest of my marathon medals.

For me, The Watchers is more like a marathon. It took a lot of time, effort, and energy. It took learning a lot of new things. It took expanding into a new industry. Writing the book was hard, but releasing it was almost just as hard in a completely different way.

Before I published The Watchers I asked my husband, "Do you think there is a way to publish this so that everyone else can read it except for people that actually know me?" He laughed and then hugged me.

Putting your words and ideas and inspiration out there for the world to see is scary. It's even scarier when that world includes your neighbors, friends, and family.

I don't know if The Watchers will merit an award, that's up to the judges to decide, but I do know that I would feel like I put in the effort to get it. I would also really like it. It'd be a little more bling to add to my running medals.


P.S. My husband and I almost signed up for a half marathon this weekend (Baker's Dozen Half Marathon) that would have been completely out of the way, a lot of hassle, a four loop course (repeating the same course 4 times sounds awful), and would require us to eat a lot of pastries while running (also sounds awful). Why did we almost sign up, you ask. For the bling!

Now that's a medal!

Eat Your Way to Immortality, or at Least Longevity

A new study led by Immaculata De Vivo, an associate professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School found that women who ate a mediterranean diet had longer telomeres. What does this mean? Basically it means that eating a mediterranean diet can lead to a longer life.

I did quite a bit of research on telomeres for my book, so I'm always interested when they come up in articles. Here is a part of the article.

"Telomeres are part of your chromosomes, the thread-like structures that house your DNA. At the end of these chromosomes are telomeres, a kind of protective "cap" that keeps the structure from unraveling. It thereby protects your genetic information.

Even in healthy people, telomeres shorten with age. Shorter telomeres are associated with aging, lower life expectancy and age-related diseases such as artherosclerosis, certain cancers and liver disease."

"This study's results provide "some insight into the underlying physiologic mechanism behind this association," indicating that greater adherence to this diet is significantly associated with longer telomeres, she says. Because of the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of the Mediterranean diet, following this diet "could balance out the 'bad effects' of smoking and obesity," De Vivo says.

These findings further support "the health benefits of greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet for reduction of overall mortality, increased longevity and reduced incidence of chronic diseases, especially major cardiovascular diseases."

None of the individual dietary components was associated with telomere length. Researchers suggest that means the whole diet is an important element, rather than one item being a kind of superfood."

The full article and a video can be found here: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=1010&sid=32606031

Book Spotlight

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Bookworm Lisa is a book reviewer and blogger who focuses on family-friendly books. She is also a Goodreads librarian with 1,215 ratings and 1,072 reviews.