Random Recommendations

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I have a couple recommendations to share, for various aspects of your life, in no particular order...

Have you checked out Battle Tested?  Read my post here if you need to catch up.  You can listen to the podcast here, or more importantly, you can make a DONATION to support the next Battle Tested live event (coming up on Veteran's Day).  If you live in/near the Bay Area, you can attend the live event in person. Tickets can be found here.

There is a new pod cast I am really enjoying: How I Built This. It's hosted by the same guy who hosts the Ted Radio Hour, and is "a podcast about innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built." The stories have been pretty amazing - from the people behind Spanx, Clif Bars, Radio One and Instagram. While you may not be an entrepreneur, there have been some amazing stories of perseverance and team leadership.

I am listening to Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield, a book I should have read last year when it first came out.  It's about the advent of Cultural Support Teams and the women that were first selected for this unique mission.  The Teams accompanied Special Ops missions before the repeal of the prohibition of women in combat. What I am really loving is that it is non-fiction written as a story, not a recitation of facts. The narrator, Kathe Mazur, is great!  If you would rather read the book, you can find it HERE on Amazon.

Lastly - I am a new user of Blue Apron and my family has enjoyed it far more than I expected. My kids are kind of on the picky side (veggies = yuck) but I wanted to see if we could expand their horizons a little. Plus I feel like I am cooking the same things over and over. Surprisingly, they dove into chicken curry and salmon burgers without hesitation.  You pick two of the four possible menus each week and the box arrives on my doorstep Sunday. I had one week where some of the ingredients spoiled before I cooked the meal, and they responded immediately with a reply and a credit on my account. Two caveats: A - It's not inexpensive - not as expensive as a restaurant meal for the 4 of us but more expensive than pizza delivery and B - it takes me about 45 minutes to make each meal - so it stretches the bounds of a quick week night meal.  However, I haven't spent time at the grocery hunting up coconut milk and bok choy, so I'd call it even.  If you are interested in trying it out let me know - I have free meals to give away to new subscribers. (NOTE: I am not a paid endorser - all subscribers of Blue Apron get meals to give away :-))

Best Way to Stay Cool in August...

...is to stay inside and watch the Olympics.  You already know I love me a good sports movie, and watching the Olympics is like a two week long movie of awesomeness.  Watching amazing athletes, seeing them overcome so many challenges, the sappy Bob Costas narrated back stories, the wacky athlete ceremony outfits (remember these from 2 years ago?) and the "Thanks Mom" commercials.  I love it ALL.

What makes this Olympics special is that the US team has more women than men.  The Wall Street Journal had a great article about it, stating the the US women they "are the main reason why The Wall Street Journal is projecting that Team USA is going to reign supreme in both the gold and overall medal races."  

Title IX is now 44 years old - so almost all of the athletes on the team have grown up in a world of equal funding and support for women's athletics. "The current generation of female athletes have never known a world where young girls were not expected to play multiple sports as intensely as boys. Few other countries have female participation in sports so deeply woven into the fabric of youth culture."  So awesome.  

Did you know there are two members of the US Olympic team that are Air Force members?  

David Higgins - shooting

Cale Simmons - track and field

Join me in cheering on Team USA!

Suggestions for the Dog Days of Summer

As the late summer heats up and you return from your vacay pink with sunburn, can I suggest a great, completely family friendly, very zen show to binge watch? Check out the Great British Baking Show.  It was recommended by one of my favorite podcasts, Pop Culture Happy Hour.  It plays on PBS and you can catch at least one past season on Netflix. It's the most un-reality-show-ish reality show, and is full of awesome English vocabulary.  For example, one episode recap was, "The competition continues with a "saucy puds" bake-off, a tiramisu technical challenge and a heated showstopper round featuring baked Alaska." What's not to love about that?

If baking doesn't light your fire, how about some podcasts?  I recently drove home from North Carolina on my own, so went deep, deep into the archives of my favorite pod casts to pass the time. Check out these that I loved:

• The Nerdist with Paul Dini.  I wasn't familiar with Paul Dini (if you love animation and comic books you might know of him).  About 20 minutes into the pod cast he described a life changing event, a personal tragedy.  He said, "You can either be the hero or the villain, you need to chose which to be."

• Water Color from The Moth.  A man's story of being underestimated at Boy Scout Camp.

• Speeding to Bible Study from The Moth.  A rabbi's hilarious encounter with the police.

• The Curse from the Moth.  This story is amazing and contains one of my favorite lines, "The difference between a smart person and me is that they read a book that I haven't." Indeed.

• If you feel behind because you are the only human on earth not playing Pokemon Go, here is a quick overview from Pop Culture Happy Hour that is helpful.

One last recommendation - a book!  I put The Rosie Project on the inaugural GIB Book List.  I read the sequel, The Rosie Effect, and it's equally awesome!

Tell Me (More!)

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I appreciate very much the comments on my last post.  I know it didn't communicate to everyone, so that's a challenge for me - to keep working on my writing.  But the only perspective I have is my own, and the best way to grow and learn is to listen to what others have to say -- I want to hear more from you! 

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send me guest posts.  I would love to hear what you have to say.  On anything, really.  Generally I write about being female, a mother, and in the Air Force, but you don't have to be any of the above to add your voice to Gals in Blue.  

E-mail me ---->>> (at the link on the side bar)

For a great series of guest posts, read "What I Want You to Know" on Rage Against the Minivan.

My friend Michelle also has a great series of posts on her blog Whole Spouse called Naked Truth: Real Military Spouses Share Their Stories that is AWESOME!

Gals In Blue Reading List

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The Chief of Staff of the Air Force just released his 2016 reading list.  I 1000% applaud any efforts to inspire and educate through reading - there is so much great writing out there.  The CSAF list is filled with important, enlightening, incredible writing, but I'm not inspired to read them at all.

I try, really I do, especially when I was deployed, to read and learn about the world I live in. But at the end of the day, in those few spare moments, I want to escape, and my friend Jane Austen frequently assists.  Long ago I was on a weekend hiking trip with some buddies from Osan and one of the guys was reading Pride and Prejudice at his girlfriend's request. He handed it to me to read when he finished and I was forever hooked on all of Austen's books.  I think I watched this version of Pride and Prejudice about 1000 times the year I was deployed. This is not an exaggeration. The poor folks that lived in the other half of my pod must have cringed every time they heard the intro music.

Not only have I read the original many times, but I have also read a lot of the fanfic - like Mr Darcy Takes a Wife (a continuation of the story) and Death Comes to Pemberly (a murder mystery by PD James with all of the P&P characters) - both really great.  So I was excited to hear about the latest book from Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible.  Even though I knew the ending, I still got wrapped up in the story.  There was just enough modern twists to keep it really interesting and just enough of the original story to make it a true retelling of the story.  Liz and Jane are working professionals in New York City, but come home when their father has a health scare.  Charles (now Chip) Bingley is a recent contestant on a Bachelor-esque show called Eligible.  Darcy is a top rated surgeon, and just as taciturn as the original.  Liz's younger sisters are just as vapid, and Lydia still runs off with someone that causes her mother distress.  It was soooooo awesome.

All great writing has something to teach you - even if it's not on the Chief's list.  Instead I think we'll make Eligible the first entry on the Gals in Blue reading list.  Here are some other recent reads and faves for the inaugural GIB Reading List...

• The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion
• Orphan Train - Christina Baker Kline - see more at this post
• The In Death Series - JD Robb - this series features my favorite fictional bad ass, Eve Dallas
• The Comoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith - see more at this post
• Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand
• The Boys in the Boat - Daniel James Brown
• The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson
• A Year of Yes - Shonda Rhimes - see more at this post
• Wild - Cheryl Strayed
• Attachments (or anything written by Rainbow Rowell)
• Who Do You Love (or anything written by Jennifer Weiner)
• Furiously Happy and Let's Pretend This Never Happened - Jenny Lawson (and I just got to meet her!!)

What would you add to the list?

Procrastination...My Friend :-)

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It's been a while since I have done this - have you missed these amazing posts?  The here's cool stuff I like you might also like posts?  I thought so!  

1.  Have you heard about the kerfuffle at West Point regarding a picture?  Here is a great piece by a West Point graduate that puts it into perspective.

2.  You never know where you will hear something interesting and thought provoking.  The brief interview of Rose McGowan on the trivia show Ask Me Another was great.  There is also an interview with the head of social media for Star Wars, Andi Gutierrez. She says her mantra is "What Would Leia Do" because of her snark and bad assery - yes sister!  You can listen to it here.

3.  The Invictus Games are going on in Orlando - have you seen this video?  Priceless!

4.  One last thought for you...(although a: this assumes I had a plan to start with and b: I would change the last word to awesome)

Intersection of Fiction and Non-Fiction

I mentioned in a previous post about the awesomeness of Kathy Kinney and Cindy Ratzlaff.  I downloaded their book, Queen of Your Own Life, and have been really enjoying it.

It's pretty light reading, and it's full of great anecdotes.  I like that the self-help perspective includes their real world examples - it reads more like a chat with your closest friends, rather than a lecture.  A theme throughout the book is the conscious decision to choose what to leave behind and what to take forward.  Leave behind the bad, the sad, and other wearying baggage and take forward what you decide you want to keep in your life.  They recommend assembling a court of ladies in waiting, or a term they use I like better - non agenda friends - to help you and back you up.

Weirdly this same theme cropped up in a book I am reading for my book club, Orphan Train. Although I attend regularly - it's good food, wine and non-work, non-kid centered conversation - I have a very poor record of finishing book club books.  But this month I was determined, and was immediately hooked on the audio book.  IT WAS AMAZING!  The story flips between present day Maine and the 1930s Midwest.  Orphan trains were real - it was a supervised welfare program that transported orphaned and homeless children from crowded Eastern cities to foster homes in the rural Midwest from the mid-1800s to the 1920s.

In the book the teenager in present day has to do a project for History on the philosophy of portage. Indians in Maine used canoes for transportation, and needed to carry, or portage, their vessels between bodies of water, carrying in their canoes all of their possessions.  Thus they had to decide what was worth carrying, and what needed to be left behind. Isn't that similarity weird?  I won't give away where this project leads in the book - go read it!