07-03-17 - Can we take a trip to the book store?

Monday, July 03, 2017 @ 7:54AM

Good morning.  This is me.  Alas, you were looking for someone else?  Today is going to be a very relaxing day, we hope.  It is the day before 4^th of July, so many places are closed for the holiday, and as to OUR schedule, our gym teacher Laura is off on vacation.  YAY!  We could have gone to the Sandwich YMCA, but we would have had to be there in a half an hour, and that IS a very early time for us.  We’re still in our PJ's and just starting to get on with the day.  We can wait.

There is one other change in the schedule.  Well there are a few.  Austin called yesterday and said he would be unable to come this week due to a chipped tooth that was aggravating him.  So, we rescheduled for a couple of weeks later – so that he’s going to be coming on our birthday YAYYYYYY!  So, happy about that!  I’m pretty sure we’re going to be celebrating.  I would wish to do something with the kids as well, but I’m pretty sure that Maury will be working that night.  AND, the same would go for Wednesday.  AND, then Austin will be gone on Thursday – probably after noon.  I’m looking VERY forward to having him!

Another change in the schedule, is that Dr. Austin will be seeing me on Thursday, July 6^th.  Over the weekend while we were in the pool – or somewhere close to that, my right big toe nail broke.  It is still on at the bottom, but loose anywhere else, so, we’re pretty sure it’s going to need coming off.  Dr. Austin is the podiatrist.  It’s not painful.  I’m glad about that!  The appointment is at 8:30AM – so thinking an hour, - so 9:30AM, and then we COULD go to Dr. Marvin’s for a 11AM appointment.  Better check for time.  AHA!  MapQuest says 41 min and 38 miles.  We go straight down 88 to 290.  Looks like almost straight east.  If the traffic took an hour instead of 41 (for traffic), we’d get in a half hour early.  It looks doable.  We might also have to stop at the bank, but whether we go before or after Dr. Marvin’s would have to be calculated at the time.  Also, we don’t know if Rich would come with us, or we would have to go on our own.  I think we can handle it, though we don’t know if we’ll be in pain and if the foot will be numbed.  It is our pedal foot, so maybe we CAN’T do this on our own.  Shoot.  Sorry to have to wreck Rich’s day ☹

BUT, it would be a productive day for him in that he does have to go to the bank.  He has a check here waiting for deposit.  I don’t know though, if he can wait on it until Thursday.  Sometimes, having money in the bank earlier, then later, is a very good idea!  Hehe We’ll see.

AHA!  Just checked our Trello schedule.  We’ve been off for most of the week.  We crossed out all the gym times, so we’ve freed up our schedule for 3 ½ hours of writing.  We still have to take time from that though, to take a shower, and get dressed.  We did pick-up in the living room and kitchen and we started the dishwasher.  We also got the last “ten to” time to get in our 250 steps.  There were only a few other necessary, but it allowed us to clean the dining table.  We just brought a pile of Rich’s stuff to his office AND we brought a pillow from the sitting room Rich must have used this morning to the bedroom.  YAY!  SCORE!  I love how happy the little guy in our Fitbit gets when we do a good job!

One of the things we MUST do today, is get the quilt back finished so we can mail the quilt package to our quilter by Wednesday.  We must allow time for delivery, and she said she had time in her schedule for the second week in July.  That’s already next week!  I don’t want to complicate the matter.  We have written our instructions the last time we blogged and we just need to buckle under and get the job done.  It should be easier in the daylight, so we’re going to block out time this afternoon after lunch to work on it.  Everything is at the dining room table, we just need the time.  It’s a nice sunny day – so NO Excuses.  That give us tomorrow – to finish up or get to our 160 emails BLAH!  Tuesday being the 4^th nothing of note going on. 

We should also wash some clothes today – just to get our vacation clothes done.  Hmm, maybe I should get that started too?  We did just do the kitty litter and garbage for Rich, because it’s garbage day and he was taking a few moments to get it done.  Ok, laundry.  BRB.

There, that was easy enough … just two bags.  Well, maybe 2 ½ bags.  AHH … I know good day to get the guest bed through the wash maybe sheets and pillow cases in with the half, and then on its own, we should wash the blanket too.  It’s time.  Got that all covered, we should then be good for the day.  First writing, laundry and dishwasher – place is all picked-up except the bed/shower/dressed, and then we continue that after the shower until 11:45 – 12:45 which is lunch/CNN, and then we take care of sewing.  If there is any time after that … we can start on the emails, hmm?  Good-good!  Oh, and after dinner?  Last night, we went out with a couple of pre-made Margaritas with Rich, but there were little bugs around everywhere, so maybe tonight, we’ll just turn off the TV, turn on the music and have a little happy hour with Rich INDOORS!  Could work!

So, let’s move on.  There have been some things happening since we last wrote.  One of the biggest things was that we went to the dinner theater to see, “Grease!”  It was very good.  Not excellent – because Sandy was only medium good and we didn’t really like the Danny character’s singing.  There were a few break-out voices from other people, but in general watching any play half-way good in a nice dinner theater – well that sort of makes up for a lot of things.  This was the first time, we’d seen the show, so that was interesting to see how it unfolded.

Our seating was excellent!  We were in a row of seats in the handicap section where there weren’t any stairs.  AND, we were on the end, AND they gave us two empty chairs next to both Rich and us (we sat across from each other), but the extra space was for Dakota.  So that was perfect.  I’m mixed on the other part of the seating.  We were at a table for six, and again there were only four seats because of Dakota, and fortunately, the other couple had three big dogs, and so there weren’t any problems with them and Dakota.  The guy was an engineer who put signals something together for sensors for multitudes of electronic hardware.  His wife was an administrator of the court, and they were there on their 15^th wedding anniversary.  I’m sure that she didn’t appreciate sitting with others, but he was very talkative – mostly in a good way, but after a while, we just wanted to have time with Rich.  I’m SURE the other woman felt the same.  I think she was irked to be with others, but Rich was saying I was reading into things.  I wouldn’t argue my observation skills, but I know they’ve been trained over the years studying and working in Psych.  During other times of the trip, we discussed some of Rich and our foibles.  But, not here at this moment.

In general, what we will say, is that we had a good time.

I believe we’ve talked about losing our nail.  That was one of the bad things about this trip.  We did get in on swimming Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, but we couldn’t go in the pool or hot tub afterward because of fear of infection – for either us or others.  Rich did get us some bandage material and he dressed the wound.  And, without it hurting much AND being able to still wear shoes, we just let the rest go.  Again, we have an appointment on Thursday.  We just hope she gives us a good dose of “please don’t’ hurt stuff!”

The other bad thing about the trip was that we got a call from Rich’s Mom’s and Bud’s service saying that Bud had fallen.  And, then there was a flurry of calls between their house, Karen, Rich, the aide and medical services.  Apparently, Bud had his third stroke.  He’s OK now, but they had to wait until sometime today to do further testing, because with his heart pace-maker, he needed special diagnostic people.  He did tear some skin along his arm when he fell.  Rich took his mother to the hospital yesterday, and in general seeing to her well-being was going for about six hours.  He had the help of an aide, but made sure she was in her pajamas when he dropped her off, and then called later to assure she’d made it to her bed.  She should have been OK during the night, but today’s special caring will start again for him.

After Rich got the call, and even though he knew that he’d set things-up well for his Mother and Bud, given the circumstances, he still decided that we should skip the scenic tour we had planned for the trip home, and we spent less time goofing around the hotel before leaving.  They did have a very good breakfast bar – AND, a LOT of seating in a separate area next to the food service counters.  We didn’t have any problems there with Dakota or other.

Dakota did pretty good on the trip, he had a harder time getting to the washroom at the right time, in that, he couldn’t go when we preferred, but did have to go at other times offered that were less than perfect, but he didn’t have any accidents, so that part was good.  As stated, he did very well at the play, and his most remarkable time was when we were still using the pool.

The first day, we tried it he grumbled a little about laying down, but both at the pool and the hot tub, he stayed exactly where we put him no matter where we were in the pool. We stayed about 45 minutes the first time, and then the second time on Friday, we stayed an hour in the big pool and another 15 minutes in the hot tub.  We found ourselves even more sure of ourselves and Dakota the second day.  We didn’t have any problem with him staying in place and that included during 20 minutes of time, we stayed in the deep end where we couldn’t touch treading water.  I thought it was a great exercise and we could have gone on, but our arms were feeling some wear and tear. 

We enjoyed very much being in the pool and feeling very light and able, and we practiced using our knowledge picked up during gym as to always moving different parts of the body.  We used the pole coming down the stairs for a lot of the exercising.  One arm would be on it, for example, and the rest of the body would twist in a circle.  It didn’t feel hard at all, although we could feel stretching.  We knew we were doing good work, especially doing things like switching our legs from regular back and forth swimming – to doing scissor-like cuts.  It just felt helpful and it got us very enthused thinking that perhaps, we could extend our Y activities and swim at the pool doing exercises with the group in the fall after the kids go back to school.  Maybe we’ll have some more time with Dakota to get him used to pool-side, but we’re feeling good about it.

We did go out for a separate dinner other than the dinner theater on Thursday night.  It was good and we got a picture of Rich maybe we could slip in a picture of Rich we took.  The only other picture we took is the Cover picture of Dakota’s street in MN.  I know very significant picture-taking, right?  The picture of Rich at this restaurant was great.  The windows he is looking out had a deep ravine and there was more woodland creatures there, such as a raccoon family that was playing on the restaurant’s decking looking for food.  Ducks too!

The only other thing was the actual driving – oh one more other thing beside driving.  We should mention the room, because it was GREAT!  It had a bed, dresser, closet and TV on one side behind a lace covered window and door, and then in the other room – the living room – well it was very big!  It was the length of our real living room and maybe 2/3’rds the width.  It had a bar with a nice counter, and then it had a desk and nice desk chair, a fully stuffed chair and a couch, a cupboard and the TV, PLUS it had a four-seater table.  Behind the counter, there was a bathroom, and it had a hot tub that was our size, but we didn’t get a chance to use it before breaking our nail.  The doctor’s office (we called home) said we shouldn’t get in the water again, which was a repeat of Rich’s message to us. 

Being in that much space and not having a bed in the middle of our life all day was critically nice – especially, Thursday and Friday when Rich went to his three meetings.  It felt like we were not being forced to work around a room that was suggesting we just give-up and sleep.  You know?

The car drive – I can’t remember much about it.  I don’t think there were any problems, AND Rich let us drive for two hours on the way up while he took a nap, and then took care of some business. During his regular driving, we do some caring of his phone work, but not very much.  I don’t think we read anything, we did get a chance on Thursday to talk to Dr. Marvin.

I love that we can talk over the phone, when we are away.  It makes a very nice addition to our life in general.  We didn’t have much to talk about since seeing him, but we were ready for a conversation that had moved-on since we last saw him.  I’m talking about the work we did and noted during the last blog entry on Quantified Self.

Hmm, that was good … we just took a five-minute break and did some laundry.  We switched a load, and then took apart the bedding in the guest room.  Enough work.  We still have about 130 steps left for this hour, but we have about 40 minutes to get them in. I think we are going to air out the pillows too.  There are four on the bed, AND we found our sweater that we must have left in the guest room.  I’m not sure why – maybe we laid down in there.  I don’t know where our black sweater is.  I’m hoping, we didn’t leave it at the Holiday Inn a month ago.  I DO NOT want it lost.  I love that sweater.  I’m going to need searching my closet better, AND/OR looking more carefully at Rich’s SUV, though I’m sure he would have brought it in if it was out there.  Right?

Ok, enough worrying.  Back to Dr. Marvin’s conversation.  I think the best part was that we had gotten a chance to go over the page and a half of notes we had taken.  I don’t want to repeat the information here, but what seemed to be happening most often, was that we were either telling him about the way we’d been thinking of things, or we were listening to him because of our questions on what one thing or another meant.  He is very good at defining things to make them easier for us to understand, and if he doesn’t know something, he will look it up on the computer.  As well, he takes notes for us.  WHICH reminds us – that we saved something he wrote out for us.  Hold on.  There is not much.

Hi Ann,

Here are some notes from the phone today:

·         Therapy for self-regulation. DBT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy

·         Look at the books on self-regulation and DID – figure out a time/space for how to add this to the schedule

·         Doing this work/research has re-activated some thoughts about a potential career path in psychology

·         Look up “context” as a concept

 Have a good rest of the trip.

 -Dr. M

Yeeks, that all seems hard to me.  I’m thinking that these notes are for someone else in the system who can think more clearly.  I didn’t remember the parts about self-regulation, but anyone in the system knows that it’s one of our key phrases.  It goes back 12 years ago, when we first heard the concept, but didn’t do much with it … It had been too hard.  I guess, Dr. Marvin and some of us think that it is time to consider it again.  I guess I can do the hard part and see if we have any books on our shelves.

Hmm, that was dusty!  We found five books.  Three of them were on “self-regulation,” and two of them were on “self-determination.”  I don’t really know much difference between one and the other right now.  There might be some books on our kindle too.  We better look there as well.  Hmm, devise on the phone wasn’t working fully – it only showed me about twenty books.  We have a LOT more!  We’ll recharge the phone and look at the Kindle later.  Nope … well, we DID look on the Kindle when we unhooked it to plug in the phone, and we went all the way to the bottom and no more books.  So, let’s look at these five.

First book is “Handbook of Self-Regulation: Research, Theory, and Applications” Edited by Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen D. Vohs (2004).  The next book is “Self-Regulated Learning: From Teaching to Self-Reflective Practice.” Edited by Dale H. Schunk and Barry J. Zimmerman (1998).  I just know Zimmerman’s name is big in the field.  This is the smallest book at 244 pages.  The first book is 574 pages – so more than twice the size and the second book looks more like teaching then the first book, which looked like strong research.  The THIRD book, is a BUFFALO!  It is 763 pages and its name is also, “Handbook of Self-Regulation,” but it is edited by Monique Boekaerts, Paul R. Pintrich and Moshe Zeidner (2000).  It is a LARGE 23 Chapters that sound very tough. 

Pswhoo!  We did some more moving around to get the steps we needed to make 250 for the hour.  Good girls!  We’re doing it!  This time, we went out in the sunroom and we cleared-up some garbage that was on the table, or under it.  We have a stack of fishing stuff ready to go out, and we have the garbage part – like who is EVER going to put back-on the hinges that we took off when remodeling the kitchen?  GARBAGE!  Rich doesn’t like to throw, but we do.  I asked him to budget in time for the two smalls, but heaviest weighing boxes on the treadmill.  We’re serious about using it AFTER Rich takes care of the electrician.  They’ve been messing up times for the guy to come in and analyze the problem. Basically, we don’t have much electricity on that side of the sunroom through most the garage although the garage door is opening.  So there is that.

It will take a force of steel to move those two garbage containers AND the fishing stuff, but we are going for gold.  We want to make the room look good again as a room, and not as storage with a creepy look.  We might have to keep the few things on the horizontal file out there, but we’ll see.  Maybe they could be tucked under the open part.  I know people from the outside can’t see it, but it’s a terrible view when coming from that side of the house through the door.  I’ve wanted to clean it up for a LONG time, and it seem today is the day!  Yay!  MAYBE … we’ll even get the vacuum out there, hmm?  We’ll see.

Back to the self-regulations books.  Oh, one more thing … laundry and dishes are still going, and it is now 10:08AM.  That’s all.  Shoot, bathroom.  BRB again!

Shoot!  That reminds us that we haven’t taken our shower and gotten dressed yet, otherwise, WE might be able to move the fishy stuff and garbage.  There’s a thought.  Not something we want to do, but doable.  Right now, though it is snack time, and we REALLY want the blueberry yogurt!  Girls?  Are we really concentrating?

OK.  We just skimmed a few seconds.  We read the foreword.  It wasn’t too long or difficult.  The authors then go on to write a 12-page introduction.  It includes general theories and models of self-regulation, and then Zimmerman writes about attaining it as a social cognitive perspective.   That’s all Zimmerman writes in this book, but it is substantial that he is the first psychologist asked to write a chapter.  Yay Zimmerman!  This is as far as we got with the book.  This the LARGEST of the three on self-regulation is just two years newer than Zimmerman’s book including learning and teaching.  And, then the third book – the moderate size book at 570 plus pages was written four years later.  That must have been the current stuff and falls in line with our knowledge that our interest was motivated in 2005-2007.  Then, we wonder what is big out now?

Hmm, first stuff is a lot on early child education.  Holy cow!  In 2016 Baumeister and Vohs (middle book) came out with the same book, but third edition.  AND the KINDLE copy is $65.  EVEN the used books are that expensive and for $4 more you can get the hardcover.  Looking over things now … Oh yes, we’re back from another round or two with the sunroom AND we are now dressed too.  We got Rich to take out the two lighter loads, but then we added a couple more loads, and we put his fishing things in front of the fridge out there.  There’s no electricity so the fridge door is partially open – non-commissioned, but the point is now, he’s seen us and heard us that we want his fishing stuff out!  It was only supposed to be there while he was working on that project.  So, now it went from the table, to the file cabinet, to now on the floor in front of the fridge. 

I told him, when he took those last loads out, I would vacuum.  He complained because he had stuff to do.  So, do we.  We’re working very hard to get at least 250 steps in per hour.  I know that isn’t a paying job, but it helps move the day along productively.  AND, the sunroom IS looking much better.  We threw out the old torn plastic table cloth – VERY dusty, dirty, AND we put out one of our older table clothes that is brown and matches the some of the furniture.  The Big couches are a nice deep mossy green.  Yup-yup looking better.  The carpet is red, but will look MUCH better, after we vacuum AND the garbage is out.

Hmm, 11:22AM.  216 steps done, 34 steps remaining. Might as well get them done now by taking our medicine and having lunch.  We’re on 9 pages 4045 words.  Smiling at the writing Gods 😊

Oh shoot … just saw on our list, we are supposed to stop now – well at least a half an hour from now.  Maybe we’ll take our medicine, and then finish this last half hour, we want to include something on the other two books.  AND THEN, we’ll have lunch 😊

OK … moving on.  The last two books are both on Self-determination.  I know there is a difference between them, but we don’t yet know the difference.  It seems like regulation is when you can do things as checked on the to-do box, and self-determination is perhaps, the will to carry through?  That’s our first uneducated guess.  Let’s name the books. 

The first is “Handbook of Self-Determination,” Edited by Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan (2002).  And, the second book is “Teaching self-determination to Students with Disabilities:  Basic Skills for Successful Transition,” by Michael L. Wehmeyer, Martin Agran, and Carolyn Hughes (1998).  It must have been a busy year back then. 

I think this group of five books was part of the stash we bought from my father’s inheritance.  I think we spent about $2000 on all the books, we could fit in at that time.  We started with a list at $4000, but paired down.  Wehmeyer, was very big at the time and it appears that working in the field of disability aided the thought processes in studying the topics, though our real concern has always been “Multiplicity.” 

It appears that “self-regulation” is a section in the latter book with three chapters.  While the second book IS trimmed to the kind of educational issues we are familiar with through our work, the first book on research seems steadily heaped in motivational theories. It looks like then our guesses are not too bad, though sorely uneducated.  Just skimming the BIG book on self-regulation – looking for clues of self-determination.  I found the chapter in the middle of the book, we’d like to start with – if we can get by on that kind of thing.  Thinking What would Dr. Marvin say?  Hmm, probably, he’d smile, and say, “Sure, why not?!”  Hehe – he’s such a COOL guy!

The chapter were most interested in – have only gotten to chapter 7 of 23 … is the one called “Organization and development of self-understanding and self-regulation: toward a general theory” by Andreas Demetriou.  Also, we’d do the chapter immediately following, “The role of intention in self-regulation: toward intentional systemic mindfulness,” by Shauna L Shapiro and Gary E. Schwartz. Now skimming down more chapters of the big book.  They have a chapter on health behavior Goal model – that be great – for sure though if its organizational or personal – rather have the personal.  Next one is on maintenance of physical health – See where we are going with this – all to do with Quantified Self.  It has a lot on learning – that be cool.  Some on distress.  I think that’s where Multiplicity comes in. 

The only thing on self-regulation I want to do in the teaching book right now is the one on writing and self-regulation.  I think though its case studies on a strategy development model.  That isn’t real interesting. We’ll skim that chapter first, and see what to do, but other than that – applied teaching isn’t where we’re at yet.  Maybe later.  That HAD been an original goal.  I have one more book the second one that was in its first issue – and now has a 2016 third issue.  After that, we will look to see if any other books look bigger than the third issue, and then we’ll be stuck just deciding if the book is worth buying for $65.  Because of all the definitions, we are more interested in a Kindle copy.  Plus, we want one book that isn’t a hard copy, so it’s easier to travel with it.  Let me look closer at the chapters.

OK, this seems like an interesting book.  I’m thinking the chapter headings aren’t frightening me to pieces.  I would really like to read both the old version and the new version side by side – Chapter to chapter.  I know there are about 19 of the 28 or so chapters of the new book that are new, so, we’d want to group our reading between old and new by sections.  Some seem the same and some are different. 

Something has come up in all the books that we’ve skimmed table of contents.  And, that is there is a definite connection to attachment theory and object relations, which Dr. Marvin also indicated a strong interest for me in.  When we were going through these last five books, we found three others in that regard.  The three books start with … Ahh two books, they repeat.  The first book is “Self and Others: Object Relations Theory in Practice,” by N. Gregory Hamilton, MD (1990), and “Creating the Capacity for Attachment: Treating Addictions and the Alienated Self,” by Karen B. Walant (1995).  These two books are older, but have basic information.  The older starts with the object, the self, the self-object and the ego.

I was interested in the first book discussion on autism, borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. It was all listed under a section on object relations continuum.  The rest was just general good stuff.  Average book of about 330 pages.  The second of these books doesn’t interest me so much.  I’m sure there’s more to it, but the table of contents was short and vague.  I have too much to read to search for information.  Now the NEXT interesting part.  I want to go back to Amazon.  As far as attachment theory – maybe just that first section, and then the second section we mentioned, and then we’d move on.  I’m not interested in all the tasks. 

Ahh, here’s something interesting.  Under this section, of self-regulation, there is a book on “The dialectical behavior therapy skills” It’s a workbook.  That is one of the key terms, Dr. Marvin wrote down for us.  I don’t think we wanted to get into it deep, but did want to understand it.  We don’t veer too much in other treatment modules other than Dr. Marvin. We picked-up a free book on “Self-control: Discover how to control your emotions, desires and behavior through self-control and self-regulation,” by Francine Edwards (2015). There are a lot of books on kids and especially in autism and ADHD.

Ahh, this is a BIG BOOK BUT, WAY too expensive.  It is “Handbook of Mindfulness and Self-Regulation,” by Brian D. Ostafin, Michael D. Robinson and Brian P. Meir Eds. (2015).  Oh Lord.  It cost $180 to buy and $96 to rent AND that’s only for 3 months.  VERY sure not interested!  WOW!  This is an interesting chapter, “The “Why,” “What,” and “How” of Healthy Self-Regulation: Mindfulness and Well-Being from a Self-Determination Theory Perspective,” by Patricia P Schultz and Richard M. Ryan (2015).  It looks like another favorite Dr. Marvin term – “Mindfulness.”  Maybe that is a subject area we should consider too. One other aspect to recall later – is that several of these books have added something on food and eating disorders. 

There is another book for $63 on Mindfulness, Self-regulation and Yoga – but, not interested in Yoga yet either (2015) by Catherine P. Cook-Cottone PhD.

WOW!  There is a new book coming out that is STILL very expensive, but might be more interesting.  It is called “Handbook of Self-Regulation of Learning and Performance – Educational Psychology Handbook),” 2^nd edition, by Dale H. Schunk and Jeffrey A. Greene (ed.) (2017).  It doesn’t have a LOT of information, but it’s a major book.  Paperback is only $100 and hard cover is $257 YEEKS – Nailing students!  They haven’t offered digital yet and it can only be pre-ordered.  Obviously, a lot on formal education.  Can I underline here that we WERE a master’s student of Educational Psychology?  There is no small wonder, these books are exciting us to pieces.  We did really fall in line with adult teaching online.  Don’t know how this would all work as to us learning something worthwhile.

This is the current information:

The second edition of the popular Handbook of Self-Regulation of Learning and Performance responds to and incorporates the wealth of new research that the first edition inspired on the subject. At the same time, it advances meaningful perspectives on the scholarship and history that originally shaped the field. Divided into five major sections―basic domains, context, technology, methodology and assessment, and individual and group differences―this thoroughly updated handbook addresses recent theoretical refinements and advances in instruction and intervention that have changed approaches to developing learners’ capabilities to self-regulate in educational settings. Chapters written by leading experts in the field include discussions of methodological advances and expansions into new technologies and the role of learner differences in such areas as contexts and cultures. As a comprehensive guide to a rapidly evolving and increasingly influential subject area, this volume represents contemporary and future thinking in self-regulation theory, research, and applications.

Chapter Structure – To ensure uniformity and coherence across chapters, each chapter author addresses the theoretical ideas underlying their topic, research evidence bearing on these ideas, future research directions, and implications for educational practice.

Global – A significant number of international contributors are included to reflect the increasingly international research on self-regulation.

Readable – To make the book accessible to students, chapters have been carefully edited for clarity, conciseness, and organizational consistency.

Expertise – All chapters are written by leading researchers who are highly regarded experts on their topics and are active contributors to the field.

Hmm, the Great Courses put out a book called, “The Science of Mindfulness: A Research-Based Path to Well-being.”  It’s a DVD for $59.95.  Interesting, but too expensive for a version (DVD) I’m not interested in.

AHA!  We found a book on “Mindfulness – How to Find happiness in the present moment by changing your focus, thought, and awareness,” Morgan Johnson (2016).  It’s only about 80 pages, but we purchased it for free … another book on unlimited e-books YAY!  That will give us a sense without selling the house!

We went ahead and ordered one of the books on “The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anxiety:  Breaking free from Worry, Panic, PTSD, and other Anxiety Symptoms,” Alexander L Chapman, Kim L. Gratz, Matthew T. Tull, and Terence Keane (2011).  It was only $9.99 for a Kindle copy.  I liked that it also got into PTSD – never read much on that, and also some obsessive/compulsive behaviors and social anxiety.  As well, it touches on Mindfulness, distress tolerance skills, and emotional regulation.  YUP-YUP AND STRESS/WORRY.  I can’t say enough about that stuff.  It’s a workbook, so it should be fun.  Now, we should go back and look at the one book, one more time.  It’s not the expensive one that isn’t out on Kindle yet – with emphasis on learning, THOUGH to be fair, “learning” is my favorite psychology word – so maybe down the line – like if we can read things seriously, maybe it could be for Christmas, hmm?

2:49PM. OK, it’s been awhile.  We’ve come back to focusing on these Amazon purchases.  We haven’t purchased one of the major books, but we read through a bit on another new book called, “Self-Regulation and Ego Control,” by Edward R Hirt, Joshua John Clarkson, and Lile Jia Eds., (2016).  I would like this book too, but later.  I couldn’t find the new location for list to save for later.  I think Amazon, is pressuring the only option is to buy.  At $80 for an e-book (hardcover $64), I will wait a bit.  This book is more on the negative side like when processes don’t work, or like coming up to the wall and what gets one over.  It’s a GOOD book, just not the top priority for me. 

WOW!  I did it … I bought the 3^rd edition of “Handbook of Self-Regulation: Research, Theory, and Application” by Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen D. Vohs (2016).  It’s a HUGE purchase for $65.  I’m pretty sure that Rich is going to see this one.  But Self-Regulation, Self-determination and learning are the most KEY components to my desired learning and understanding.  I don’t know WHY we’re so attracted to these things.  Just know that we are.  I’m going to need coming up though with the next part of the picture.  I must budget in time for reading.  Not sure when yet, but we should be fresh enough that we can comprehend the tough sections – or the authors who insist on using every BIG word in their dictionary!  CONCEPTS!  There are just so many dang concepts.  I believe in psychology, they are as important as the next decade with its fresh experiments and mindful developments.  Just we must dig in somewhere. 

I was doubly impressed in that we have the first version hard cover, two important online chapters of the second version, and the entire third version on our Kindles (phone).  THIS is where we must start!

In other news?  The laundry is buzzing again – the sheets and pillow cases are ready and the mattress cover will go to the dryer.  LAST will be the quilt itself.  I never did get to airing the pillows.  I think we should ask Rich about that.  I’m thinking about the back porch, just don’t know how to keep them from falling over, and I don’t want to rest them on the chipping paint/floor.  I KNOW it’s against the rules specially to hang your “stuff” out front.  The back we might get away with for a couple of hours.  Maybe try that next. 

OH, and we’re done with the sunroom!  It looks great!  I’d like to put a few more things away – like bottles and cans INSIDE the fridge, instead of outside, but we must do for now what we can.  We’ll risk Rich’s frustration and ask him again – he’ll be out of the house for another couple hour.  We should ask where’s the electrician.  They seem to be playing phone tag, and not meeting each other’s schedule.  That would get stuff back in the small fridge, right?  Rich stopped over to check on his mother, and he had a few items AND her grocery shopping list.  Poor guy – there is always something!  Oh, and we want to check the snail mail.  WooHOO.  Keep hoping for that driver’s license plate.  All about our vanity!