MSI Press Blog

Released today! 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. R everend Steven Greenebaum is an Interfaith minister with Masters Degrees in Mythology, Music, and Pastoral Studies. The study of myth taught him to appreciate the rich multitude of our planet’s spiritual traditions. Directing Jewish, Methodist, Presbyterian, UU, and Interfaith choirs helped Steven understand the profound wisdom of so many ...

On Septem ber 25, 2019, Brittany Renz, author of Girl, You Got This! , was featured by SportsMD in an article, titled " Motherhood and Self-Care: Staying Fit before and after Childbirth ." Very, very interesting article, chock full of good information and medically sound advice for women about to become new mothers. Read the article HERE . Read more posts about Brittany and her book HERE .

The Arthritis Coalition tells us they are working on a national initiative to raise awareness of those suffering from arthritis. Information can be found here . For suggestions on how to live a productive life with arthritis, see MSI Press author Emily Graves' book, How to Be a Good Mommy When You're Sick .

Slugging though a 5-year period of preparation has moments of high motivation and moments of wondering if the bridge is just too far. I was wondering that today after gaining (not losing) two pounds (still beating around the overweight-obese divide) and thinking maybe commonsense is the better part of valor when I saw this quote from Thomas Merton: "The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little," OK - rock climbing, yoga, it's still on! Judo in January!! And back to more sit-ups, more push-ups, trying to really do a pull up. Strong Fitness challenges -- I'm all in!

Released today! This book encompasses traditional tips that have worked for most people and then goes way beyond them. adjusting them to individual learners and teaching the learners to develop their own heuristics for rapid and successful language learning.  Within these pages, the reader can find a trove of treasure, such as strategies and tactics reading, listening, writing, and speaking mental management ways to manage cognitive dissonance ways to control emotional reasoning the connection between health and language learning understanding and improving memory knowing how personality type and cognitive style affect learning successfully preparing for tests

Anne Laforge interviews Brittany and her husband Holden for National Women's Health and Fitness Day 2019. Listen to the podcast here .

For National Women's Health and Fitness Day, Julie (author of 108 Yoga and Self-Care Practices for Busy Mamas) provided us the following guest post. My 3-year-old does Downward-Facing Dog and Tree Pose. Even at her age, she’s learning how simple and fun it can be to fit in exercise and that exercise is integral to mind-body wellness.   Since she and her brother were newborns, they’ve seen mama stretch, run, walk and lift weights. And some days they exercise with me. The message they’re getting about exercise is: “Fitness is fun and it helps keep us healthy!” As they grow, they’ll know exercise is just as much a part of their day as brushing their teeth and washing their hands. I wake up knowing when I’m going to workout. Fitness fits in the nooks and crannies of almost every day. Sometimes it’s a 20-minute yoga video before breakfast; other times it’s a 30-minute walk outside with the family after dinner. Scheduling time for exercise ...

SASKATCHEWAN  “Between the blush at dawn and dusk the long kiss of land and sky, bare against each other.”  From “The Prairie” in This Land by Ken Odland  The sun shown brightly as we crossed the border into the neighbouring province of Saskatchewan. Temperatures approached 30° Celsius, about 10 degrees above normal for September. Immediate impressions, as seen from the highway, were checkerboard fields of amber, ochre, and green. Fall is harvest time in the prairies and many farmers were taking advantage of the fine weather to collect their crops. On distant horizons, columns of dust rose behind tractors pulling reaping machines. Grain elevators, always beside railroad tracks, were prominent landmarks in most small towns.  British Columbia’s landscape is mostly mountainous; Alberta has mountains to the west and prairie to the east; Saskatchewan, at least the southern section, is endless flat prairie. Two tongue-in-cheek sayings that capture the ...

The long slog through five years of preparing to be able to take on a set of ninja obstacles can get discouraging. Little improvements are not exciting. Moreover, little improvements are rarely seen. It is like climbing a mountain. You climb and climb or hike and hike, and the top still seems pretty far away. But, if you stop and look down, you can often rejuvenate your enthusiasm not because the top of the mountain is close but because the bottom of the mountain is now visibly farther away. Small progress...great injection of motivation. So, too, this week I passed a goal I did not even know I had. After all, who has a goal that the bottom of the mountain will be X amount of distance away? It was a goal that became a goal only after it was achieved. As I was going my homework--and adding repetitions to it--I realized that I had surpassed the number of push-ups, sit-ups, and planks that I was able to do when I was in the Army years ago. Yes, finally, something!! And to mark th...

Released today! An in-depth guide for teachers seeking to understand dysfunctional classrooms and create a mathemagenic experience. A unique resource, based on experience with thousands of language learners. Based on Jungian psychology, using MBTI categories (with a passing reference to equivalents in Socionics), this book presents an explanation behind dysfunctional language classrooms (though much could apply to any K-16 classroom) and provides a heuristic for managing the classroom successfully. For each MBTI type, there is a section posing a teacher of that type and a classroom of randomly gathered types (as in real life). A discussion follows as to the source of any dysfunction, the way to accommodate all learners, an exploration of the probable comfort level of that teacher, and a posed question as to what would be the case if the class were the same but the teacher the polar opposite. Meant for application by teachers and for use in faculty development, it is a book that t...

Released yesterday! This nonfiction book views Canada from a personal perspective, similar to John Steinbeck's view of America in his 1960 book  Travels with Charley . The author travels from coast to coast in a trailer with his wife and pets, including their Standard Poodle, Elly, in order to gain a better understanding of his adopted country. Interspersed between descriptions of history, cultures, places, and icons are the author's reflections on various things such as Elly's antics, signage, ferries, political injustice, environmental issues, and animal instincts. To provide a canine's perspective, Elly reflects on things of interest to her, including cats, cows, and other critters...but especially cats! Where was Canada's first settlement? What is its prettiest town? When and where was its most devastating shipwreck? And who was its greatest hero? Find out by reading this account of the author's journey through a unique and wondrous country, brimming with...

From MidWest Book Review: Synopsis: "Compiled and co-presented by Pat Young and Joanna Romer, " Life after Losing a Child " tells the poignant stories of a dozen individuals who have suffered the loss of a child. and describes how they learned to heal. "Life after Losing a Child" shows readers who have suffered the loss of a loved on how to come to grips with the loss and handle the grief; how to engage in activities that help the healing process; and how to find the strength to move on. Critique: Exceptionally well organized and presented, "Life after Losing a Child" is especially recommended reading for anyone having to deal with the loss of a child -- as well as those wanting to know how they can help someone bereft and grieving the loss of a child. Simply stated, "Life after Losing a Child" should be a part of every community library collection in the country.

Peter Jonas, whose book, Soccer Is Fun without Parents, will be released November 15, was selected  for the bronze medal in the 2019 Readers' Favorite book awards competition.  The book can be pre-ordered at the MSI Press webstore on the MSI Press website. This is the second bronze for an MSI Press book. Two years ago, the Husains won a bronze for their book, Road Map to Power. So lucky to have such great authors!

It seems that sometimes I get tired --- less so from physical workouts (those are often pick-me-ups) but more as the day goes on and I am not continuing with the physical activity but having to do real work, as in, the kinds of things you do to earn a living. Since I am still trying to lose weight, sigh!, I figured there might be some foods I could pull into a diet that would up the energy level. Just in case, someone has an image of me hanging out in bed or developing a best-friend relationship with my pillow, I should explain that I usually outlast anyone who works with me, and I get called the energizer bunny a lot. Still, the energizer bunny's battery does eventually run down, as does mine. So, I am looking for a battery extender fueled by diet. Here is what I learned: Lemon water for breakfast. This is a good one for me because of my GERD. Yes, it sounds counterproductive to be adding acid to my diet rather than avoiding it, but everything I read and everything docto...

  Imagine you had a time machine. Imagine also that you had one purpose in mind for this time machine: to ask human beings living at different intervals in history a series of prepared questions. The goal? A detailed analysis of how humanity’s worldview has evolved over the centuries. Consider Wiktionary.com’s definition of the term worldview :   [Worldview] – One’s personal view of the world and how one interprets it / the totality of one’s beliefs about reality / a general philosophy or view of life .   With this definition in mind, suppose your first stop in history was the year 5,000 bc, somewhere in Mesopotamia (we must also assume that you would somehow be able to communicate linguistically with the peoples you would encounter). After you went through your list of questions and notated the given answers, perhaps your conclusions for the worldview of that time period might be something like this:   These people have an extremely primitive world...

Julie Gentile, author of 108 Yoga and Self-Care Practices for Busy Mamas , recently contributed an article to Natural Awakenings Chicago: " Three Ways Busy Mothers Can Thrive ." Hint: getting sleep, getting away from it all, and getting inspired. Read the article to find out more!