Sunday, November 15, 2015

Sleepytime! | 5 Audiobooks For Sleep PART ONE (In a Positive Way)

My nightly set up.  You can find the speaker HERE.
Sleepy time!
Now, I can’t be the only one who uses his/her Kindle for anything other than reading.  Though sadly I wish I could get into electronic reading.  The problem is I never seem to follow through with anything over 200 pages.  But that’s beside the point.  Except for watching the occasional Hulu or Netflix program (usually while cooking), my Kindle’s primary use is for putting me to sleep with audio books.  Yet, they’re not the kind of books you may be thinking about.  There’s no John Grisham giving me lawyer intrigue during my dream state.  Danielle Steele isn’t lulling me with romance stories.  Though I may need to try her out to get some kind of romantic action.  And while I would love Harper Lee’s latest; Go Set a Watchman's narrator isn't storytelling me to sleep either.
Whether it's seen as accessing the subconscious to switch better thinking thoughts into my waking/conscious state; I listen to self-help, motivational and inspirational books while winding into sleep. 
It started years ago when I would lull myself to sleep listening to psychic Sylvia Browne’s lectures on cassettes.  I used to probe her material at a time when I desperately sought answers through self-realization.  The other truth was her harsh, smoke-stretched voice relaxed me.  ASMR buzzes tingled all throughout my brain at the sound of her crackly voice.  

I’ve never been able to sleep in utter silence.  Actually, I don’t know anyone who can.  So learning to listening to audio books helped me sleep.  They cut the soundlessness.  The darkness.  Complete silence does a number of things, but the primary one is over-activating the imagination.  So groaning pipes become ghosts.  Popping wood becomes approaching footsteps.  But a storyteller with just the right narrative voice relaxes like no other.
With so much said, I would now like to share five of my favorite audiobooks for falling asleep.  In a positive way...

Embracing Change - Louise Hay

Louise Hay changed my life back in 2011.  You can click on the LABEL at the bottom of the post to see whatever other post to understand why and how.  Nonetheless, without a doubt her material/audio books dominate my Audible library.  Fifteen audio books and lectures stay at my fingertips.  Night after night.  And even day after day.  However, as it regards nights, I mostly find myself clicking on her lecture, Embracing Change to lull me to sleep.
Embracing Change features Louise in her classic profession of sharing her profound–though always ecstatically simple–ideas on bettering one’s life from the inside out.  Her examples emerge through her own life experiences.  Such as her overcoming cancer.  The abuse she faced as a child.  Her divorce.  And so forth.  It’s soft.  It’s gentle.  It’s caring.  It’s calmingly smooth against restless emotions.  And her ideas really encourage us to release so many of the negative thoughts and afflictions that hold us back.  Of course with the necessary tools and affirmations to make it happen.  One can never go wrong with her.  Seriously, Louise Hay has been in the self-improvement game for decades and is worth every bit of our attention.  Including in our dream state.


Being in Balance: 9 Principles for Creating Habits to Match You Desires – Wayne Dyer
If anyone should follow or slip above Louise Hay, it’ll be Dr. Wayne Dyer.  Sadly, of course, Dr. Dyer has recently passed.  But his books and lessons will always remain.  And one I’ve enjoyed over the years is Being in Balance: 9 Principles for Creating Habits to Match Your Desires.
While the same can apply toward others in his field, I love Dyer for his ability to shift your thoughts and emotions into acknowledging the bigger picture.  Whether it’s learning how to find asylum from the past mistakes that torture our life.  Or learning how to trust ourselves and others.  Dyer's teachings brings comfort in much needed spaces.  No matter how many times he impresses his thoughts and share his ideas, he always provides a new or refreshed direction at approaching many of life’s struggles.  Of course with the insightful tools necessary to manage the inner work involved.  And Being in Balance takes the essence of the Law of Attraction on with a balanced touch between the Universe and recipient.  Of course immensely refined through Dyer’s wisdom.  And gentle narrative for those interested in falling asleep peacefully to his wisdom.

Mom & Me & Mom – Maya Angelou
Now this author (among other things) takes little explanation or introduction.  So, we’ll just get right into what her book, Mom & Me & Mom is about.
If you’ve read Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, then you should be familiar with her history.  Particularly the history between her and her mother.  Her mother, Vivian Baxter, was certainly a character.  Commanding and demanding as she was, her actions weren’t always in acknowledgment of Maya and her brother.  As Vivian’s marriage grew rocky, she sent Maya and her brother away to the South to live with their grandmother.  An action boiled with resentment inside of Maya.  It’s in Mom & Me & Mom where Maya takes us on the road for reconciliation within her relationship with her mother.  The book pinpoints the different areas of that journey, as well as what the two women walked away from that eventually brought them closer.  This is easily one of my favorite audio books to fall asleep to.  It’s also one that I find myself staying up in the dark listening to.
Thanks for tuning in.  I’ll be back with PART 2 of this list.  There I’ll get into my time with Marianne Williamson, Doreen Virtue, and Lisa Nichols.
Share your experiences and comments below!

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Resident Evil Revelations 2 ~ Episode 4 Gameplay

Strolling through my section of video game uploads, I seemed to have forgotten the upload of my gameplay for Resident Evil Revelations 2 Episode 4: Metamorphosis.  This should subdue the completionist in me.  

Here we'll share the first 2 videos featuring that episode.  For the link to my small (extremely small until I can gather better equipment) gaming channel, click HERE


Saturday, November 7, 2015

So Far: Falling for Herring, Mustard, Bradley

Flavia de Luce strikes again.  This time she’s running against the police investigating the bludgeoned near-death of a Gypsy woman.  And if that’s not enough, a town thief finds himself hanging from a statue with a lobster fork gouged up a nostril.  Gruesome business indeed.  And especially for a pre-teen English girl with a bottomless affinity for the study of death and a little known gag reflex when approaching a corpse.  Nonetheless, it’s all Flavia’s business.  And she peddles her bicycle across her village uncovering stones, roots, and community secrets to fulfill her curiosity.  Oh, and solving murder.
As the third book to Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mystery series, I have to express how I believe I’m finally settled into dedicating myself to this series.  Well, it was no question how I planned to read the books.  The question was the pace I would take in doing so.  Stuff them down in one go?  Or spread them out months at a time underneath the phrase "a little bit at a time goes a long way."  Fortunately, the "spreading" idea wasn't the case.  Immediately after I read A Red Herring Without Mustard, I went in search of the following book (with no luck thus far).  
See, there was no wishy-washy feelings after I read Mustard.  No “eh, eh.”  None of that.  Only the burning need to hit up my local bookstore with a debit card anxious to acquire the following four or five books in this currently-running series.  You see, the previous two books more or less won Bradley’s style of mystery plotting into my groove.  Book one [The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie] read like a test run.  But of course an engrossing run.  And book two [The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag] seemed off balanced from a murder generated 100 pages in, and a file of branching story threads that eventually wove together.  Unbelievable woven, I should say.  So despite finding myself in like with Bradley’s youthful and precocious protagonist, Flavia; I had until now to find myself hungry for more of her in whatever circumstances Bradley features.  
As I said before, Flavia reminds me a lot of myself at her age; filled with questions and willing to find answers when not given.  Particularly by adults.  A Red Herring Without Mustard had that better balance of Flavia, overlaying mystery, suspense, and charm that locked and keyed me to this series.  Sadly, my local bookstore didn’t have the fourth book.  So I’m still waiting to collect her next adventure.

Friday, November 6, 2015

FRIDAY READS: Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritsen


I had the intentions of buying Tess Gerritsen's latest, Playing with Fire, the week of its release.  (No, it's not part of her Rizzoli & Isle series.)  For whatever reason, the two places I went to (one including Barnes & Nobles) didn't have a copy of the book.  Or at least I couldn't find one.  I came home that day thinking that I was a week ahead of its release.  However, according to Amazon's publication date, I had it right the first time.  Maybe it was the Universe's way of giving me something fresh to read this weekend.  I kept myself in the house all last weekend with Patricia Cornwell's Depraved Heart.  And with a storm currently in our city's trajectory, Playing with Fire seems right on time.
So what is this non-Rizzoli & Isle book about?  Let's be lazy and let Amazon do the explaining...
"In a shadowy antiques shop in Rome, violinist Julia Ansdell happens upon a curious piece of music—the Incendio waltz—and is immediately entranced by its unusual composition. Full of passion, torment, and chilling beauty, and seemingly unknown to the world, the waltz, its mournful minor key, its feverish arpeggios, appear to dance with a strange life of their own. Julia is determined to master the complex work and make its melody heard.

Back home in Boston, from the moment Julia’s bow moves across the strings, drawing the waltz’s fiery notes into the air, something strange is stirred—and Julia’s world comes under threat. The music has a terrifying and inexplicable effect on her young daughter, who seems violently transformed. Convinced that the hypnotic strains of Incendio are weaving a malevolent spell, Julia sets out to discover the man and the meaning behind the score.

Her quest beckons Julia to the ancient city of Venice, where she uncovers a dark, decades-old secret involving a dangerously powerful family that will stop at nothing to keep Julia from bringing the truth to light."
Happy Reading!

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