Self-Care Starts With You!

Self-Care Starts With Me!

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I achieved the minimum number of exercise minutes in January 2023; the challenge was to exercise at least one hundred thirty-nine (139) minutes daily.

But, like Jan, I did not stop at fourteen days!

I have continued to walk daily for at least that many minutes.

Why, you might ask, have I continued to do this?

I have no rational answer.

The best I can do is say I am doing it because I feel healthier.

Since my love died, I have walked regularly and lost thirty-five pounds.

How long will I continue at this pace?

Perhaps today will be the last time.

But as long as I feel better, I will continue to exercise daily.

Self-care starts with you.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.



Two Thousand Minutes of Exercise

To begin 2023, the challenge was to exercise at least one hundred thirty-nine (139) minutes daily for fourteen days.

At the beginning of each month, I focus on achieving the goal sequentially instead of, for example, picking fourteen random days out of thirty-one.

With the help of temperatures that have been eleven degrees above "normal," I earned the exercise badge today.

Although the day is not over, my numbers are:

  • 2,128 Minutes
  • 123.8 Miles
  • 12,704 Calories

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Self-Care Starts With You!
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Parable of the Sower.

Read: January 2024

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Parable of the Sower

by Octavia E. Butler

Today, I started reading Octavia E. Butler‘s acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel, “Parable of the Sower.” The book depicts a world in which global climate change and economic crises have led to social chaos, particularly in California. The state is plagued by dangers such as pervasive water shortages and masses of vagabonds who are willing to do whatever it takes to survive.

The novel provides a message of hope even in a gloomy environment. It tells the story of Lauren Olamina, a fifteen-year-old girl who lives with her preacher father, family, and neighbors in a gated community. They are protected from the chaos happening around them. However, in a society where everyone is at risk, Lauren suffers from hyperempathy, a condition that makes her highly sensitive to the emotions of others.

Lauren is a young girl who is wise beyond her years and acutely aware of the dangers that her community refuses to acknowledge. She must speak up to protect her loved ones from the impending disasters that could otherwise harm them. However, her fight for survival leads to something much bigger—the emergence of a new faith and a profound insight into humanity’s destiny.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.



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Fair Play

Read: June 2025

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Fair Play: A Novel

by Louise Hegarty

Fair Play” by Louise Hegarty is a captivating and playful novel that is both insightful and profoundly moving. It delves into the complexities of the human heart while challenging our perceptions of a beloved genre. Fans of Anthony Horowitz and Lucy Foley will appreciate this wonderfully original and genre-defying debut from Ireland. The book pays tribute to the brilliant detective novels of the early twentieth century but with a modern twist that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

A group of friends, each with their quirks and secrets, gathers at an Airbnb to celebrate New Year’s Eve. It’s Benjamin’s birthday, and his sister, Abigail, is hosting a Jazz Age Murder Mystery-themed party. As the night unfolds, they enjoy champagne, devour hors d’oeuvres, and form or strain relationships. Someone kisses the wrong person, and someone else’s heart breaks. The setting, a grand mansion with its mysteries, adds an extra layer of intrigue to the story.

By morning, everyone wakes up—except for Benjamin.

As Abigail struggles to come to terms with her brother’s death, an esteemed detective arrives, determined to find Benjamin’s killer. The mansion is now filled with a butler, gardener, and housekeeper, making everyone a suspect, and nothing is quite as it seems. The detective’s arrival not only adds a layer of suspense but also brings a sense of hope as the characters cling to the possibility of justice and closure.

Will the culprit be revealed? And how can Abigail, feeling lost and alone, begin to piece her life back together in the wake of this tragedy?

Gripping yet playful, sharp yet profoundly moving, *Fair Play* explores the depths of the human heart while subverting one of our most beloved genres. It’s a twisty murder mystery that’s both classic and contemporary, along with a poignant exploration of grief and loss.


Louise Hegarty‘s work has appeared in Banshee, The Tangerine, The Stinging Fly, and The Dublin Review. It has also been featured on BBC Radio 4’s Short Works. She was the inaugural winner of the Sunday Business Post/Penguin Ireland Short Story Prize. Her short story “Getting the Electric” has been optioned by Fíbín Media. Louise resides in Cork, Ireland.



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Checkout 19: A Novel

Read: December 2022

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Checkout 19: A Novel

by Claire-Louise Bennett

Checkout 19: A Novel by Claire-Louise Bennett, a New York Times Best Ten Best Books of 2022; the newspaper highlights the novel’s “unusual setting: the human mind — a brilliant, surprising, weird and very funny one. All the words one might use to describe this book — experimental, autofictional, surrealist — fail to convey the sheer pleasure of ‘Checkout 19.'” I fully agree with this description and found myself living in my mind.

Since Jan died in May of 2021, I have found myself with no one to talk to about the day-to-day events that consume so much of our lives. Checkout 19: A Novel reminded me that I have only been carrying those intimate conversations in my mind. Is it surreal? Yes. Yes, it is. Reading this novel helped me to accept the importance of those conversations. The new characters and scenarios I conjure are less creative than Ms. Claire-Louise Bennett’s

Goodreads describes Checkout 19: A Novel as the adventures of a young woman discovering her genius through the people she meets–and dreams up–along the way. Checkout 19 is a radical affirmation of the power of the imagination, and the magic escapes those who master it open to us all.

I recommend this book.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

In a working-class town in a county west of London, a schoolgirl scribbles stories in the back pages of her exercise book, intoxicated by the first sparks of her imagination. As she grows, everything and everyone she encounters become fuel for a burning talent. The large Russian man in the ancient maroon car who careens around the grocery store where she works as a checkout clerk, and slips her a copy of Beyond Good and Evil. The growing heaps of other books in which she loses-and finds-herself. Even the derailing of a friendship, in a devastating violation. The thrill of learning to conjure characters and scenarios in her head is matched by the exhilaration of forging her own way in the world, the two kinds of ingenuity kindling to a brilliant conflagration.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.



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We the Animals

Read: July 2024

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We the Animals

by Justin Torres

Today, I embarked on the literary journey of We the Animals by Justin Torres. This novel, listed among the New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the Century, is a groundbreaking work of art. The author of Blackouts immerses us in the tumultuous heart of a family, the intense bonds of three brothers, and the mythic impact of this fierce love on the individuals we are destined to become.

The narrative unfolds as three brothers navigate their way through childhood, a journey filled with emotional highs and lows, from playful acts like smashing tomatoes on each other to finding solace in each other’s company during their parents’ conflicts and even tiptoeing around the house as their mother rests after her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma, hailing from Brooklyn—he’s Puerto Rican, she’s white—share a profound and challenging love, shaping and reshaping the family numerous times. Life in this family is intense and all-consuming, filled with disorder, heartache, and the ecstasy of belonging to each other.

From the intense familial unity, a child feels to the profound alienation he endures as he begins to see the world, this beautiful novel doesn’t just tell a coming-of-age story; it reinvents it in a sly and punch-in-the-stomach powerful way. It delves into themes such as love, the meaning of family, and heartache, adding another layer of depth and complexity to the story.

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Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Read: October 2021

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Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

by Katherine May

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May is “an intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.”

Two quotes that resonated with me were:

That’s what grief is – a yearning for that one last moment of contact that would settle everything.

We are in the habit of imagining our lives to be linear, a long march from birth to death in which we mass our powers, only to surrender them again, all the while slowly losing our youthful beauty. This is a brutal untruth. Life meanders through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall upon us, revealing our bare bones. Given time they grow again.

May writes in a clear voice that conveys the importance of accepting the cycles of life instead of fighting them.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a breakup, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath swimming in icy waters, and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the serene beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

I recommend this book without reservation.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.



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Reunion: A Novel

Read: June 2024

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Reunion: A Novel

by Elise Juska

Today, I immersed myself in the distinct world of Reunion: A Novel by Elise Juska. This enthralling narrative, crafted by the esteemed author of The Blessings, transports us alongside three middle-aged friends as they live during a college reunion in coastal Maine. Reunion, my forty-eighth read this year and my 250th since January 15, 2019, stands out for its compelling storytelling.

It’s June 2021, and three old college friends are heading to New England for the twenty-fifth reunion that was delayed the year before. Hope, a stay-at-home mom, is desperate to return to her beloved campus, a reprieve from her tense marriage and the stresses of pandemic parenting. Adam hesitates to leave his rustic but secluded life with his wife and young sons. Single mother Polly hasn’t been back to campus in more than twenty years and has no interest in returning—but changes her mind when her struggling teenage son suggests a road trip.

Yet, the reunion takes an unforeseen path, shattering their preconceptions. Hope, renowned for her sunny outlook, is forced to confront the harsh realities of her life and the fractures in her friendships. Adam embarks on a journey of self-discovery, reigniting the spirit of his carefree contrast to his current responsibilities. A single mother, Polly is compelled to face the shadows of her past,  youth, and a stark, long-kept secret. As the weekend takes a dramatic turn, all three are pushed to confront their past and its implications for the future, leading to profound personal transformation.

Beautifully observed and insightful, Reunion is a page-turning novel about the highs and lows of friendship from a writer at the height of her powers. Elise Juska’s skill in portraying the intricate dynamics of friendship will leave you intrigued and wanting more.

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