The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book. The author is a surgeon who makes the case that the more difficult and complicated things are it becomes even more necessary to use simple checklists to do things consistently, correctly, and safely. He gives good recommendations for making and using effective checklists.

He illustrated how checklists are used in the airline industry to make flying safe. Pilots go through checklists when they fly and when there are emergencies (think Capt. Sully). Builders and contractors use checklists to make sure the buildings and skyscrapers they build are safe and all the subcontractors are scheduled in the correct order and communicate with one another to solve problems.

The author states that hospitals should also use checklists to make the complicated procedures they do safe and so they don't forget any of the important steps they must complete.

The author tested and implemented a "Safe Surgery Checklist" in eight World Health Organization Hospitals all over the world and the results were amazing. Complications for surgical patients in all eight hospitals fell by 36%. Deaths fell by 47%. After three months of using the checklist, they had the staff members of the hospitals fill out an anonymous survey. In the beginning, most had been skeptical, but after, 80% said the checklist was easy to use, didn't take long to complete, and improved safety of care. 78% said the checklist had prevented an error in the operating room.

One of the quotes in the book that I enjoyed the most was from this hospital staff survey: "Then we asked the staff one more question. "If you were having an operation, we asked, "would you want the checklist to be used?"

"A full 98% said yes."

The author has tried to get hospitals in the US to adopt this checklist but he has been met with resistance because doctors seem to view themselves as "mavericks" that solve problems on the fly.

This book made me realize how safe flying and buildings are because of checklists. It also made me want to print out the "Safe Surgery Checklist" in case I have to have surgery...but according to this book my surgeon would probably be too proud to use it. :)

Here's a link if you would like to see the "Safe Surgery Checklist" http://www.who.int/patientsafety/safe...

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Curly Girl Program Review and Results

Here's a photo of my hair.

I bought the book "Curly Girl" by Lorraine Massey and I've been using her sulfate-free DevaCurl products (DevaCurl No-Poo Shampoo and Low-Poo Shampoo,  DevaCurl One Condition, DevaCare Arc AnGEL (gel), or DevaCurl Frizz-Free Volumizing Foam and DevaCurl Set it Free).  You can buy a combo trial pack with all of the products HERE.

Moisture is the KEY! My curls are so much better defined since I've started using her methods and products because they keep moisture in and frizzy hair stays away.  

"Curly Girl" helps you discover your type of curl, from wavy to zigzag, and comes with a DVD that shows you what to do for each type of curl.  The book will tell you how to use small metal hair clips to hold your curls in place and give volume too (here's a video tutorial). 

I knew it was working after I tried the method and products because I received more compliments about my curls in one week than I had in a year.

A GREAT haircut will set your curls FREE!  My hair is layered and cut in a special way that works especially for curls. I went to a hairstylist who is DevaCurl trained to give haircuts like they recommend in Curly Girl. 

My hairstylist has some great photos of curly hair on her website here. You can find a DevaCurl trained stylist here.

It takes me about 10 minutes to wash, condition and put gel in my hair like they recommend in Curly Girl.  I leave in most of the conditioner and I use a lot of gel.  Then I put in small metal hair clips around the front to set the curls in place and give lift while it dries.

Sometimes I gently twist up larger parts on the sides and back and hold them with large plastic clips. After that, I spray it with "Set it Free."  Depending on how much time I have, I either let it air-dry, or I blow-dry with a diffuser on a lower setting so it doesn't disturb the curls.  

Use the Pixie-Curl method to blow dry your hair without frizz.  Here's a video.

I also do what the book says in not washing my hair every day.  It's too drying.  I wash it about every 3 days.  At night I twist and hold my curls with clips in front , then I tip my head over and put it up in a loose pony tail on top of my head with a soft scrunchie.  

To really keep frizz away I wear a silk nightcap.  On the days I don't wash my hair I wear a shower-cap so the moisture from the shower doesn't cause frizz.

Read this blog for a wonderful overview of the Curly Girl program and why you want to use no sulfate or silicones on your hair here.

Here is another blog post from a woman who wrote about her experience trying the "Curly Girl" method and the products she uses here.

Write It Down Make It Happen

Write It Down Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want And Getting It by Henriette Anne Klauser
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow! Super book! I took many notes while I read so I could remember all of the wonderful ideas for using writing as a tool of creation. There are assignments at the end of each chapter for you to practice what you are learning. She helps you clarify your thoughts, and desires. She also helps you work through your worries and fears and realize your true "hearts desire." The chapter I have used and enjoyed the most is, "Writing to God." This is a wonderful process of faith and writing with the Spirit. I have received incredible answers and counsel (Instructions are below).

A friend used this method to sell their ranch. They wrote down that they wanted to sell it and how much they needed to sell it for. Within six months they had a neighbor come to them unsolicited and offer them the exact amount they had written down.

Here are the instructions to write a Letter to God

Write a Letter to God

1. Find a quiet place where you will have no distractions.  Write your own letter to God (or your higher power, Jehovah, Universe, etc). 
2. Start your letter with “Dear God,” and write about the situations in your life that are difficult or challenging for you. 
3. Sort through your feelings, then move on to specific questions that you have. 
4. End your letter with: “Dear God, please write through my pen.  Thank you very much.” 
5. Then write a letter back to yourself from God.  “Dear (your name).  Thoughts and impressions will come to you about what to write.  Trust them and let the words flow through your pen to the paper.
6. Trust what comes through to you enough to act on it.  Do what you are guided to do, whether it is through a strong inner prompting, a creative idea, a sudden insight, or an actual external sign.

Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars

Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars by Richard K. Bernstein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Are you on the road to diabetes? A simple way to know you have this problem is if you have excess body fat around your waist. That means your insulin levels are out of control. Insulin is the fat storage hormone. Diabetes is a disease in which a person has high blood sugar, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is produced.

After reading this book I went and bought a blood sugar monitor at Walmart for $8. I started testing my blood sugar five times a day to see what the food I ate was doing to me. I found that I cannot handle carbohydrates (carbohydrate means foods such as cereals, bread, rice, and pasta or simple carbohydrates, such as sugar -found in candy, jams, and desserts.  Fruits and vegetables are also carbohydrates). I have a pre-diabetes condition and I wouldn't have realized this unless I hadn't started testing my blood sugar.

This book is a must read for anyone who has diabetes or pre-diabetes with metabolic syndrome or syndrome x (metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions — increased blood pressure, a high blood sugar level, excess body fat around the waist or abnormal cholesterol levels). This book can help you prevent getting diabetes or help you from developing some of the devastating health problems that come with uncontrolled diabetes. This book turns the current recommendations from the diabetes community upside down. Dr. Bernstein is a pioneer in the study and treatment of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 12 and he is now almost 80 years old. It is almost unheard of for a Type 1 diabetic to live that long. He was an engineer who's wife was a doctor. He was able to obtain the first hospital machine to test blood sugar and start using it at home. No one back then knew that food had such a profound effect upon blood sugar. He starting monitoring all the foods he ate and their effect on his blood sugar levels. He wrote papers to try to educate the medical community but they wouldn't listen so he decided when he was in his forties to become a medical doctor so he could publish his findings and actually give real help to diabetics. http://www.diabetes-book.com/

He contends that all diabetics are entitled and should expect to have the same blood sugar levels as "normal" people (83 mg/dL). He will walk you through all aspects of what happens with blood sugar, how to control it and why you should do this. You'll live longer and have MUCH better health.

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Faithful, Fit and Fabulous: Get Back to Basics and Transform your Life in Just 8 Weeks!

I just bought this book a week or so ago.  It's an easy read with clever examples that have given me a lot to think about in evaluating what is most important and what I want in my life. I'm excited to do one weekly goal a week  and get back to basics in the eight different areas: 1. Establish Holy Habits 2. Create a Life Plan 3. Discover Joy in Womanhood 4. Feel Fit and Fabulous 5. Find Balance in Motherhood 6. Get Organized! 7. Create Healthy Connections 8. Establish Financial Peace & Prosperity.

Classic Mom's Book Discussion

We had our first book discussion last night about Carry On Mr. Bowditch. a fictionalized account of the real life of Nathaniel Bowditch who lived in Salem, Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War. 


Nathaniel Bowditch had to deal with poverty, death, lack of freedom and many disappointments in his life but he never gave up.  When he was young he showed an aptitude for math and dreamed of attending Harvard. His father didn't think Nat would be good sailor because of his small stature, and when his mother and grandmother died, his father bound Nat into a nine year indenture-ship to work for a ship chandler store (selling ship commodities.)


Nat felt unhappy about his situation but on his first day there one of the other workers told him, "Only a weakling gives up when he's becalmed! A strong man sails by ash breeze!" (Definition: When you get ahead by your own "get up and get!" Using manpower to move the ship when there is no wind.  Back then oars were made of ash) That simple statement changed Nat's perspective. Rather than letting his new life depress him, Nat began the process of educating himself, learning mathematics, astronomy, navigation and three languages.  He would create notebooks for each subject he learned that said just enough to explain things to himself.


Nat was twenty-one years old at the end of his indenture when he left the chandlery and became a surveyor around Salem. Success with this job gave him the opportunity to sail on a ship. This began several trips across the ocean and around the world. As first mate he taught the other sailors how to navigate using mathematics.  He felt all men could learn, but teaching wasn't so easy.  Nat had always had a 'quick' brain and would get impatient when someone couldn't understand something he was explaining.  But he always remembered what Elizabeth Boardman (his first wife later on) had said to him, "Your brain--it's too fast.  So you stumble on other people's dumbness like a chair in the dark.  And you want to kick something."  So Nat created a new notebook--writing down the explanations that made sense to the men.  That way he wouldn't forget if he ever had to explain it again. Nat's mentoring and teaching changed the men who sailed with him.  Sailors that had previously been trouble-makers now took pride in themselves and their accomplishments.  Many went on to become ship's navigators themselves.  Teaching helped prepare Nat to write a book that would help all seaman.

Back then every ship depended on Moore's Navigator to know where they were in and about the ocean.  Nathaniel Bowditch found errors in the book and decided to check each computation so that corrections could be published. Because of the mistakes found in Moore's book many ships and sailors were killed at sea. After a while Nat was thoroughly disgusted with Moore's navigation.  He said, "Do you know how many errors I've found so far? Eight Thousand!  I'm going to write a book of my own." 

Nat wrote, The American Practical Navigator, and included three things the other books didn't have. 1. Correct tables. 2. Definitions of every sea term and maneuver. 3. Tables so any seaman could solve problems in navigation.  Using his book everyone would be able to navigate confidently if they could follow the instructions, read the charts, and do simple addition and subtraction. When Nat was asked why he was slaving over and checking every table published he replied, "Because they ought to be right, that's why! Math is nothing if it's not accurate!  Men's lives depend on these figures!"  


Nathanial Bowditch first published The American Practical Navigator in 1802. During the last two centuries over 75 editions, almost 1,000,000 copies, of Bowditch have been published by the US Government. Bowditch contains numerous tables which have been valued for years by practicing navigators. Bowditch is carried on the bridge of every U.S. Navy ship.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• The press is dangerous in a despotic government, but in a free country it is very useful, so long as it is FREE; for it is very important that people should be told everything that concerns them.  If we argue against any branch of liberty, just because sometimes people abuse that liberty, then we argue against liberty itself.  In a free country, the press must be free.
• The best way to stay at peace is to be prepared for war.
•  "You know the anchor won't hold if the cable's too short. A man always needs another shot in the locker." About being a proper mariner's wife
• "To an active external commerce the protection of a naval force is indispensable...  it is in our own experience that the most sincere neutrality is not a sufficient guard against the depredations of nations at war. To secure respect to a neutral flag requires a naval force organized and ready to vindicate it from insult or aggression. This may even prevent the necessity of going to war." George Washington, Eighth Annual Address

Nathaniel Bowditch is a wonderful example of the Phases of Learning contained in the Thomas Jefferson Education model.  

What are the “phases of learning?”

1. Core Phase (ages birth – 8 yrs.)  This consists of the lessons of good/bad, right/wrong, true/false, and is accomplished through work/play.
2. Love of Learning Phase (8 yrs. – 12 yrs.) Children in this phase study whatever they are interested in—and most of the time, it does NOT LOOK like “study!”
3. Scholar Phase (12 yrs. – 16 yrs.)  A time to study “everything under the sun,” to read, study science and math, practice art and study the great artists, and cover every topic and subject in a spirit of passion and excitement for learning.
4. Depth Phase (College or equivalent) Is characterized by a profound hunger to prepare for on-coming responsibilities and future contributions in society. The student digs deeper into the great wealth of learning available. A mentor is required to personalize the course of study for the individual mission of the student, filling in gaps and exposing weaknesses that the student must address.
5. Mission Phase (Change the World) Mission Phase is when an individual transitions to adulthood, and begins the all-important task of building two towers: a family and an organization.  On the Leadership Education path this begins the new era in which a person passes on the wisdom and experience he or she has gained and seeks to make the world a better place.

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