Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World Author: Visit Amazon's Tsh Oxenreider Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1400205573 | Format: EPUB
Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World Description
About the Author
Tsh Oxenreider is the founder of TheArtofSimple.net (previously Simple Mom), a community blog dedicated to the art and science of simple living. She's the author of
Organized Simplicity and
One Bite at a Time, a regular contributor to (in)courage, an advocate for Compassion International, and a top-ranked podcaster. A graduate of the University of Texas, Tsh currently lives in Bend, Oregon, with her family. Learn more at TshOxenreider.com.
- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Thomas Nelson (February 4, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1400205573
- ISBN-13: 978-1400205578
- Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
I just finished reading this book, "Notes From a Blue Bike," by Tsh Oxenreider, and I find myself with a mixed reaction.
On a positive note, I love Tsh's writing style. This book is written in an auto-biographical style, and it tells of her family's experiences through the last few years. I was fascinated by her travel experiences, and I enjoyed the stories about her children.
However, I am conflicted, because supposedly this book is about focusing on living simply with intention. However, Tsh seems to lead the most unsimple/chaotic life of anyone I have ever personally known. First, they live in the United States, and then they take jobs in Turkey, and then they move to Texas, and lastly, they live in Oregon. They decide to put their children in private school, and then they decide to homeschool them, and the following year they go to public school. At the end of the book, she says they decide to take the kids out of school and spend an entire year traveling the world. In addition, she mentions several times that she finds herself working from morning until night on her blog, trying to find balance, and even getting up at 4:30 a.m. to write. At the end of the book (page 218), Tsh openly admits that she was not able to live a simple life while writing her book, therefore not practicing what she is preaching. She states, "A book doesn't write itself, and so most of my time exploring the notion of slowing down went to crafting the sentences to describe it, leaving me no time to actually slow down. I breathed a hefty sigh of relief when I clicked, 'send' to my editor, and promptly went to bed."
The how-to section of this book could have been summed up in one sentence: Decide how you want to live your life and then just do it.
I have been SO impatient to receive this book in the mail, as I have been a fan of Tsh Oxenreider’s for a while (from her Art of Simple website) and I was sure it was going to be a good read. I was not disappointed. January always makes me feel very unmotivated, and this book helped me get energized to make some changes in my life and in my family that would make us all feel a little less chaotic. Tsh writes in a biographical style, covering her family’s travels from Kosovo to Turkey, from Texas to Oregon. Along the way, she shows how they’ve made changes to improve and simplify their lives in the areas of food, work, education, travel, and spiritual revival. The chapters are short, and are easily read out of order, so it’s perfect for a busy mom to read on the go. I was particularly interested in the author’s take on the area of education, so I read that section first (after the introduction) and it did not negatively impact my understanding of the book. In the education section, Tsh writes about her family’s decision to homeschool, and then her decision the next year that homeschool was not right for her family at that time in their lives. So, this is not a book that tells you exactly what changes to make in order to make your lives more fulfilling, rather, it helps you think through options that you might be able to explore. (The book doesn’t tell you this, but Tsh actually went back to homeschooling after her year in public school, and next year they’re traveling the world and “worldschooling.” It’s all about what’s right for your family in each season.) I also really loved the section about food, and found myself quoting passages to my husband.
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