New Book and Author Signing

Brooke Parker, R.D., author of Love Your Body: A Diet-Free Balanced Approach to Eating will be signing copies of her book Tonight, December 4th, from 6-10 p.m. at The Book Table, 29 South Main Street, Logan, UT as part of The Book Table's midnight shopping sale.

Feel Good About the Way You Look!

Are you tired of dieting and feeling unsatisfied with your appearance? In this book, registered dietitian Brooke Parker shares secrets for developing a positive body image and creating your own customized eating plan. You’ll also learn how to replace negative thoughts about yourself with positive, motivating thoughts.

With the tools you master in Love Your Body, the scale, the media, and your “skinny jeans” will no longer have the power to determine your mood or your life!

Topics include:
• Finding a New Relationship with Food
• Honoring Your Hunger and Fullness
• Finding Your Own Healthy Balance
• Creating Healthy Expectations
• The Inner Dialogue
• Put an End to Worry
• Your Body Is a Gift
• Eliminating the Physical Triggers
• Destructive Thinking Styles
• Pampering Activities
. . . and many more.

Brooke is a registered dietitian with a degree from Utah State University. Brooke currently works for Utah State University as their dietitian and is considered one of the best body-image counselor in the state of Utah.

What makes Love Your Body different from diet and body-image books out there?

1. In Love Your Body, Brooke enlightens readers as to the reason why deprivation doesn't work by showing that when we focus on foods that we can't have, it actually makes dieting harder. Instead of focusing on what we can't have, Love Your Body shows how to add new and healthy foods to our diet and by doing so increasing our success.
2. Love Your Body teaches the reader to recognize their relationship to food while exploring the emotional reasons for why we eat. Brooke coaches readers on how to recognize the destructive inner voices that sabotage their effort and provides them the tools to overcome them.
3. Many of us overeat because we haven't learned how to recognize the fullness signs that our body is sending. In Love Your Body, Brooke guides readers on how to find balance so that they never lets their body become too hungry or too full.
4. For many, food brings anxiety and guilt. Brooke guides one through tackling that anxiety and guilt and shows them how to set realistic expectations and to replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
5. Lastly, Love Your Body provides an LDS perspective that reminds them that their body is a gift and we should treat it as such. Love Your Body provides ways to express gratitude for our body, and reminds us to be happy with the things we can not change, i.e. height, eye color, shoe size, etc.

Radio Interview and Book Signing

Alan and Renita Cassidy, authors of Behind the Smiling Faces: An LDS Perspective on Marriage and Divorce will be doing a Radio interview Thursday, December 10, 2009, on KTMP (Heber City, Utah), from 9:30 to 10:00 a.m. Following their radio interview, the Cassidys will be signing copies of their book from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Apple a Day Natural Foods & Bookstore, 464 North Main Street, Heber City, Utah.

Tune in or stop by on December 10 because you'll be in for a real treat if you do!

Contests and Giveaways

Want to win a copy of Missing by Ronda Gibb Hinrichsen? Well you are in luck because THREE sites, Anne Bradshaw.blogspot.com, Heather Justesen.blogspot.com , and LDSFiction.blogspot.com are sponsoring giveaways this week.

The giveaway on Anne Bradshaw ends TOMORROW, December 2nd, so start tweeting, blogging and facebooking away.

Heather Justesen is giving away Missing as part of "A week filled with Giveaways." Which gives you ALL week to enter with multiple ways to enter and win.

Missing is the December LDSFiction sponsor which gives you the WHOLE of December to enter. Full details here.

I love it when books can be the catalyst for change

One of the things I love about November is the refocusing on stories of service, gratitude and Christ-like principles.





Author Jason Brigs spent seven straight day flying 6,548 miles to seven different cities living, never leaving the airport and observing human nature. Jason wanted to know what our airport experiences can teach us our everyday lives. Step Back From the Baggage Claim emerged. A book based on the way small moments can impact our lives. It's a book that reminds everybody to step back, be compassionate, live gratefully and travel gracefully along your path.

I'm heading to the bookstore tonight, this sounds like the perfect Thanksgiving read.

Signings Photos

Joyce DiPastena, Victoria Gunter, and Ronda Gibbs Hinrichsen have been busy at signings lately and we have the pictures to prove it.

Joyce at AZ Costco's

Ronda's Book Launch Party at Reflections of Utah LDS Book and Gift

Josi Kilpack, Ronda, Jody Durfee, Becki Clayson

Victoria's Signing at Ensign Book Stores, CA

Victoria, Josi Kilpack, Julie Wright

If you've never been a part of a book signing, checkout what Joyce and Ronda had to say about their experiencs and what they did to make them successful.

Book signings are an interesting thing. They can be a lesson in humility--I didn't know that many people didn't like me and will do everything they can to avoid me. They are lesson in marketing and advertising--some tools works, some don't. I've also found that signings bring out true friends.

And while signings aren't an everyday occurrence for most people what have you done to make them successful. We've done fliers, postcards, emails, drawings, and facebook/blog/twitter updates. We've hung signs, posted it in the newspaper, provided food, and begged/gave guilt trips to/encouraged our family and friends to attend. What have you done that's been successful?

Victoria will be "The Girl in the Whirl" tomorrow--in a good way!

For those who haven't had the opportunity to meet Victoria Gunther, author of The Girl in a Whirl, yet--well you are in luck. Tomorrow you will have 3 chances to meet her, as she will be doing 3 book signings at 3 different Ensign Book stores in California.

She will be at the Ensign Books-Temecula from 9:30-11:30 AM
28910 Ranch California Road
Temecula, CA 92590-1868
(951) 308-1679

Ensign Book-Riverside from 12:15-2:15 PM
10115 Hole Avenue
Riverside, CA 92503-3442
(951)343-9595

And Ensign Books-Upland from 3-5 PM
1037 West Foothill Blvd
Upland, CA 91786-3731
(909) 949-8676

With Julie Wright and Josi Kilpack also doing signings it is sure to be three big parties!

I want to be like Ida

Photo: Tom Smart, Deseret News.

Just reading about Ida Hoggan on Mormon Times makes me tired. :) But on the other hand, I hope that I can be like her one day. Her total embodiment of service, compassion, gratitude and Christlike attributes all year long is inspiring. After reading Ida's story, I want to redouble my efforts not only during this holiday season, but all year long.

GRANTSVILLE, Utah -- Ida Hoggan can't be bothered with the typical things that go along with being 90.

She's too busy taking care of her friends in the Senior Care Center who need rides to the doctor or the store.

She has too many Christmas gifts and slippers to crochet and to knit. There are too many places to go.

"I just don't sit and do nothing," says the lively Grantsville woman who has to do deliveries of fresh apples and banana squash before she can sit down for an interview. "I have to have my hands busy."

Hoggan is currently the Relief Society president for the Cooley Lane Branch, Grantsville Utah West Stake, which means she has 41 elderly women to look after.

She serves in the local Daughters of Utah Pioneers chapter.

She gets those who need rides to appointments in the Grantsville City Center.

(She's comfortable driving around Grantsville, but she doesn't do freeways or drives into Salt Lake City. She can, but she doesn't like it.)

She's always making a little something for a grandchild or great-grandchild or great-great-grandchild. She has four children, 15 grandchildren, 29 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren with another great-grandchild due in December.

This year for Christmas she made 20 reversible, denim-lined tote bags that she stocked with games, crayons and toys for church meetings. The great-grandchildren are each getting a little hand-crocheted Christmas ornament that pops out a chocolate Hershey's kiss.

Last year she made 70 pairs of slippers from a stock of yarn her son bought her.

"I make hats all the time," Hoggan said, "every size and color. I make dish rags and potato bags." (Potato bags are 10-by-10-inch padded pockets that insulate a potato in the microwave and make it come out fluffy.)

For a granddaughter on an LDS mission in Germany and another in college, she's putting together a cookbook of simple family recipes.

"She is amazing, making (her Relief Society sisters) emergency kits with first aid supplies, doing service projects for humanitarian services and everything," said her daughter, Marla Jones. "She is an inspiration to her family."

Two years ago, Hoggan made gift calendars with pictures on the pages of herself, her family and her many trips because she's quite the traveler.

After her husband died in 1983, the opportunities just came, Hoggan said. She started traveling and visiting family and friends.

She's been to Hawaii numerous times, to Europe, Alaska, New Zealand, Mexico and the Panama Canal.

"I really have been on over 20 beautiful trips," she said, "including several church history tours. I never did get down to South America yet, but it doesn't matter. I've been plenty of places."

She realizes she's been blessed with excellent health, which makes it possible to live a busy life.

"I guess I've just got good genes," she said, which is likely since her mother lived to be 105 and Hoggan has three living siblings who are 87, 92 and 95 and going strong as well. (One plays piano in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building although he's now legally blind.)

She's also careful about her lifestyle choices.

"I'm just kind (of) careful about what I eat and I sure thank my Heavenly Father for my good health," she said.