Review/Giveaway: Comfort Living

A WINNING READINGS GIVEAWAY!

Title: Comfort Living: A Back-to-Basics Guide To a More Balanced Lifestyle

Author: Christine Eisner

Genre: Nonfiction lifestyle/self-help

How to enter: Leave a comment on THIS post right here! If you're a subscriber or a follower, leave a second comment for a second entry.
Entry deadline: January 25, 2010
Restrictions: Open internationally

That's right, enter right here for this giveaway. Please note: we are giving away our review copy, so it has been gently read.

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I feel more balanced and peaceful just flipping through this book...

I love design magazines and catalogs with their photographs of cozy nooks. I just have no idea how to create what I see in my own home.

Comfort Living: A Back-to-Basics Guide To a More Balanced Lifestyle is an eight-week guide to organizing your home into a positive, comfortable place. It is written by Christine Eisner, a designer, consultant, and writer with an impressive international résumé. This 84-page paperback is published by Lifestyle Designs and has a list price of $19.95. For more information, check out http://comfortlivingbychristine.com/.

Here's how the website describes the book: "In Comfort Living as well as in life, "less" can be so much more. This book is as much about what is in it, as what isn't. Every detail of this book - from the copy, pictures and layout, to the size, format and length - is geared to making the path to a more balanced lifestyle simple, straightforward and accessible. Home can be as simple as looking inward and realizing, 'There's no place like home.'"

This is very much an action-oriented book, containing eight weeks of concepts, worksheets, and activities. The graphic design and illustrations are great - it makes one want to dive right in and get started. And it really is that simple! In the introduction - even before week one, are a couple of easy assignments that get you motivated and feeling the change right away, like arranging your table placesettings the night before so you have a more welcoming meal environment when you arrive back home the next day. This is not just a theory book - it is loaded with specific tools and activities for your use.

What I like about the book is that it doesn't start with layouts and color designs and that sort of thing, like my first inclination is. First you walk through the steps of identifying your personal treasures and obstacles - meaningful moments and things that get in the way. You define how YOU want to feel at home. And that sets the foundation for the rest of the choices and actions you take.

Of course, I appreciated the fact that this process doesn't require huge amounts of money, either. You can do a lot with what you have, and adding nature accents can make a huge difference without costing anything...

By the way, if you're a Christian and have had concerns with some of the origins and principles of feng shui, I thought I'd mention that I didn't catch any specific references to this type of thing. Some of the terminology (guiding lights, echoes, bridges, etc.) felt a little odd to me, but made perfect sense upon explanation and certainly reinforced the concepts being presented.

Now the tough question - does the book work? Hmmm... I'd like to give an unqualified yes, and there ARE some changes I've already taken that have made a significant difference. And I am completely motivated to declutter - which I think will make the most difference of everything we do.

We've still got lots of work to do on our home. We've got several specific challenges:

1. I started working through this book during the holiday period. Bad timing, as I wasn't able to devote the time I'd have liked to. The activities aren't that complex, but they do take time and can add up over the weeks as some actions carry over from week to week.
2. We (husband and wife) differ pretty significantly on the words we use to describe how we want to feel at home. There are a few things we agree on - like "not cluttered" - but our definition of clutter differs! We can designate different areas for each other, I know, but this realization did put a damper on things for me.
3. I've got a two-year-old who has this need to cover all flat surfaces with something or another. A pretty little bowl of shells won't stay that way for long - I'll start finding shell crumbles all over the house sooner or later. Trying to stay ahead of her is tricky!
4. There are all kinds of little hangups, like the fact that our "main" door - the first sight when we arrive home - opens up into the utility room - not exactly the most inspiring of spots with cat dishes and laundry staring one in the face. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

I'm not giving up, by any means. I've taken notes and have specific ideas of what I want to do, specifically in incorporating nature into our home. I'm especially excited about applying some of these ideas to our new preschool/homeschool house that is being built right now.

But with our shortage on time and the two-year-old challenge, I'm going to give myself eight months instead of eight weeks to pull it all together. Especially the decluttering part.

Thanks to The Cadence Group for organizing the review copy of this book.