MSI Press Blog

4-minute cardio from Strong Fitness Magazine For the past several months, slogging best describes my physical training efforts. Yes, my trainer kept pointing out ways in which I had made progress, and I kept at my " homework " that she gave me. Still, it did not FEEL like I had made progress. FEELING engages motivation. Motivation can keep you going, but will power fuels it during the blah-nothing times. Sometimes, you just need to FEEL  progress. And that happened this week! In two ways!! I was able to do 100 iterations of abs and laterals exercises, nonstop, with raised legs and 8-pound kettle ball. Not all that long ago 25 iterations were almost impossible; then 50 iterations were onerous. Now, 100, with the energy to do another 100 right away. Yes, FELT progress. Thne, Strong Fitness Magazine (great online magazine for women who want to be fit) published an article about a 4-minute cardio exercise that builds cardio quickly. Right--if you can do the fo...

The American Library Association Annual Exhibit took place in Washington, DC. The following MSI books were on display. Can you find them in the photo? 100 Tips and Tools for Managing Chronic Illness (Charnas) How to Live from Your Heart (Hucknall) Jesus Is Still Passing By (Easterling) The Rose and the Sword (Hucknall) Thanks to these authors for giving MSI Press a presence at the ALA.

Our author, Cindy McKinley (365 Teacher Secrets for Parents, written together with Patti Trombly) was featured in "11 Parenting Books to Add to Your Summer Reading List" on TODAY Parenting. The book is available at our webstore: www.msipress.com/shop and at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, other online retailers, and select local bookstores. For more information about Cindy and her writing, check here .

Released yesterday. Mothers everywhere struggle with finding a comfortable balance between their own needs and their children’s needs. “Self-care, what’s that?” many moms joke, but believe it or not, you can be a super mom while still taking care of your home and yourself. Girl, You Got This! is a complete guide to setting yourself up for success while transitioning to motherhood, and the advice comes from an expert. Brittany Renz is a wife, mother of one and a half kids (a three-year-old girl and soon-to-be born baby boy), entrepreneur, and personal trainer. In this book, she uses her knowledge and experience to walk readers through all of the phases of pregnancy, from before conception to delivery. For each phase of pregnancy, this book offers readers advice not only on fitness and dieting, but also: ·         Money: budgeting for a growing family, ·         Medical Concerns: finding an OBGYN and ...

Pre-order available. Release date: October 1, 2019 Review copies became available yesterday. Contact editor@msipress.com for a complimentary copy in exchange for a review. Throughout history we have divided ourselves into groupings of “us” and “them”.   One Family: Indivisible  engagingly   invites the reader into the deeply spiritual and lifelong journey of the author to find a way to acknowledge our differences without dividing and subdividing ourselves into competing tribes.  It is a journey of mountain tops and deep valleys, but it leads to the inclusivity and mutual respect possible with Interfaith.  This is a book for seekers of all races, ethnicities, and spiritual paths who search for that elusive goal of a community of love and inclusion that also respects our diversity. About the Author . Steven Greenebaum directed church, synagogue, and UU choirs for many years before leaving to found the Living Interfaith Church, anchored by the faith...

One of the things I thought about only cursorily when I entered on this quest was what the cost would be. Sure, I figured there would be some cost for training and for gym membership, but with obstacles around the neighborhood and at home, I figured a lot of training could actually be obtained for free, just through the course of living. To some extnet, the free-from-living training expecttion has panned out. Running into stores from parking lots. Jumping up and down curbs. Flying across car hoods and landing at the door to my  misaligned-elbow-from-lifting-a-sectional-sofa-with-one-hand physiotherpist (he was looking out the window once and saw that -- said I was his only patient who arrived at his door that way). The basics, though, the very necessary things where I need advice and access to equipment that speeds up the building up of specific muscles and specific ninja techniques (not available at our local gym, so travel to distant gyms is required), undeerstanding what...

Released Saturday. Every year thousands of RVers hit the road for fun and adventure, but RVing has built in misadventures—backing into a tree, bending a jack stand, and more—spoiling an otherwise perfect outing. For the past ten years, the author has asked RVers the same question: “What’s the dumbest thing you’ve done while RVing?”  Each year, he has given an award for the dumbest mishap. In this funny and helpful handbook, 101 of these mishaps come together so the reader can learn from other people’s mistakes, saving them unnecessary grief and cash. ·        Always use a spotter when entering or departing a campsite. ·        Do a walk-around inspection before moving your rig. ·        Never flush out your blackwater tank after dressing for church. Practical and comical, this a great read for all RVers, both veterans and novices. #      ...

What better gift for a widowed father on Father's Day than a book leading to a new way of being, a way of moving past the trauma of losing a spouse? The Widower's Guide to a New Life by Joanna Romer, which relates the experience of ten bereaved men, has been praised by Library Journal , US Review of Books , MidWest Book Review , and Foreword Reviews . Selected as a finalist for the Book of the Year Award. Available from online bookstores, retail stores, kindle, and the MSI Press webstore. Read more about The Widower's Guide to a New Life HERE and blogposts/excerpts about widowers from this book and other MSI Press publications  HERE . Read posts about Joanna and her other books HERE .

Julie M.Gentile's 108 Yoga and Self-Care Practices For Busy Mamas is an uplifting and inspirational book that will give confidence to moms out there to become their own wellness leaders by prioritizing self-care so they can make positive changes in their families, friends, coworkers, and the world. The author's ultimate wellness path shared in this book will help to create an easy transition from caring for others around the clock for caring more for you. The 108 (a sacred number in yoga) writing prompts, meditations, yoga poses, breathing exercises, and other wellness practices will inspire readers to walk a path of self-love.  The book will help readers kick start their self-care journey and readers who practice will see wellness coming into their lives. The life-changing practices can be incorporated into daily life and the tips and tools are good to getting started  and keeping the wellness inspiration flowing. Practicing yoga gives the resources and motivation to ...

Yep. No typo in that subject line. I am 100% convinced that deit soda has nothing to do with a good diet if by diet you mean the attempt to lose weight. I want to lose weight. I must lose weight. With push-ups, I am pushing an extra 30 pounds. That is a lot. With pull-ups, I am pulling an extra 30 pounds. That is a lot. I have trued everythng available. Well, probably not everything , but many things. Keto? Fat cells cling stubbornly. Paleo? Fat cells cling ferociously. Trainer's special diet? Fat cells thumb their nose. Drop caloric intake to 900 calories day after day? (The thinking goes: you will lose weight with no more than 900 calories.) Those fat cells proved that thinking wrong. Cling, cling, cling! Then, Carl was busy ubering, and there was no diet soda in the house -- for a couple of days. Time for tea! Suddenly, without other explanation, a couple of pounds walked away. Gone! The only difference that I could identify: no diet soda. That prompted some resea...

The following excerpt comes from the introduction to the book, Understanding the Challenge of "No" for Children with Autism   by Colette McNeil, long-time special needs teacher and aunt to a child with autism. Corey Giggling so hard he almost loses his balance, on tippy-toes, bouncing foot to foot, arms swaying in the air, 3-year-old Corey celebrates with joy as he watches Alice approach.   “Uh Oh! Corey thinks this is a game. I probably shouldn’t have been so playful.”  Alice has removed Corey from the tabletop three times in the last three minutes.  Each time keeping the interaction light, she spiritedly engaged, “Oh no, no, no, little man.  We don’t stand on tables. Get down.” He was then scooped up in a hug, spun away from the table and gently placed with his feet on the floor.  Now, standing next to the table, Alice speaks in a more subdued, neutral tone, “No, get down.”  Corey gleefully throws his hands up and rests his body ...

Name: Julie M. Gentile Book: 108 Yoga and Self-Care Practices for Busy Mamas Date of Interview: June 10, 2019 Who are you? What do you want readers to know about you? I am a full-time working mom, certified and Yoga Alliance registered yoga teacher, author of the book 108 Yoga and Self-Care Practices for Busy Mamas (MSI Press), wellness speaker, and creator of the blog Stand Up for Your Self-Care . I am on a wellness mission to inspire other moms to have the courage to stand up for their self-care. Why are you qualified to write this book? I have two young children and I work full-time, so I understand what it means to be busy in the modern world raising little ones. I have been leading yoga classes since 2011, and I have authored numerous health and wellness articles for multiple publications and websites.   What is the message of your book? What should be the take-away by readers? Everyone deserves more self-care. Whether you dedicate an hour to e...

Joanna Charnas’s  latest book,  100 Tips and Tools for Managing Chronic Illness,  recently came to my attention. This book is short and filled with tips and ideas.  Library Journal  calls it, “An excellent resource worthy of multiple reads. For those with a determined spirit during discouraging times.” Actually, after reading through the book, I think that most of us are “chronically human” and can benefit from most, if not all, of the suggestions. It would even by a nice Mother’s Day or birthday gift. Joanna has personal experience with chronic illness, have been ill for seventeen years before she learned it was a condition that had no cure. Following the publication of her first book, Joanna spent two years as a  Huffington Post blogger, and she currently writes articles for an international health website. Her first book,  Living Well With Chronic Illness,  was an American Book Fest Finalist in the “Health: Gener...

  During the 1970s, many of the girls in my high school had feathered blond hair, like Farrah Fawcett, who starred in the television show  Charlie's Angels   and was a huge celebrity at the time. Short, curvy, and dark haired, I couldn’t relate to her at all. I spent much of my free time in adolescence obsessively watching classic movies in art houses, among them the 1955 film  The Rose Tattoo , starring Anna Magnani and Burt Lancaster. The day I saw that movie, I discovered a star I could relate to. She was dark and curvy, just like me. This year while lunching with my stepmother and aunt, I told them I’d always wanted to look like Anna Magnani. They both immediately exclaimed, “You do!” I was deeply gratified. I finally fulfilled my ideal of female beauty. We can spend our lives wanting to be something we’re not, or we can set our own standards. We don’t have to fit into what’s popular. I found a movie star I could relate to, and she pr...

As my fitness training intensifies, I find that I am as overwhelmed with math, as I was as a humanist, in math classes as a child. I got the "necesssary" A in all my courses, but I took only the routine high school college-prep math courses and nothing fancier. Sometiimes, numbers become completely meaningless. So, trying to put meaning into what is a good heart rate has become a nightmare of numbers rolling over me, of a cloud puffed high like a thunderhead, spewing showers of unrelated digits down upon me at night when the sorting out should happen during my sleeping hours, but it does not. This past week I was at a conference. The fitness center had little equipment other than treadmills. And, the treadnills had just too much information: BPM at 65% for each decade, ages 10-90 (guess not many centenarians find their way onto that moving belt) BPM at 80% for each decade). I had been operating with one figure, which is a comforting way of operating. No need to ...

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Cindy McKinley, co-author of 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents , is posting a weekly set of activities for kids to keep their skills sharp over summer -- in a fun way. Her first post is above. To follow her over the summer on her Face Book page, click here. Visit Cindy's web page for all sorts of parenting help. More information is available on Cindy's book on her MSI Press book page. As with other MSI Press books, the book can be ordered at 25% discount, using code FF25 when checking out, for followers of this blog at the MSI Press webstore. And, a bonus -- an unrelated by heartwarming story by Cindy on The Real Us .

Patricia Lorenz is one of those people who finds humor in every situation, no matter how dire--and she's lived through some pretty dire ones, essentially raising four children on her own on a freelance writer's salary. In this book, she takes on midlife dating as well as sharing her history. Part memoir, part humor, part romantic advice, this book offers something for almost every middle-aged man or woman (or those who love them). For her and her husband, those 57 steps are close, but also allow the space so many of us need at this life stage. Bravo! I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for a fair review. (Melanie Rigney,  Goodreads) Follow the book on our website: click here. Follow Patricia Lorenz on our website: click here . See interview with Patricia Lorenz on this blog: click here Read more blog posts about this book: click here . Book can be purchased at www.msipress.com/shop/ Use Coupon Code FF25 to get 25% discount for MSI P...