Some girls get giddy over a new pair of shoes. Marian Parsons gets giddy over room makeovers. With a lot of ingenuity, a little bit of effort, and a tight budget, she has transformed her home into a beautiful space and filled her heart with a lot more contentment. Thousands have found inspiration at Marian’s blog, missmustardseed.com, and now she shares dozens of new projects, ideas, and DIY adventures in the pages of Inspired You. Marian will remind you that homes don’t have to be magazine material to be special, comfortable, and inviting. The goal you’re working toward is home. Not a perfect home. Not an “impress the neighbors” home. Just home—one whose walls and rooms tell the story of the family who lives there. Beautiful homes start with inspiration and a willingness to try. So uncover your God-given creativity. Be encouraged, be willing, and be inspired.
A practical and inspiring guide to transformational personal storytelling, The Story You Need to Tell is the product of Sandra Marinella’s pioneering work with veterans and cancer patients, her years of teaching writing, and her research into its profound healing properties. Riveting true stories illustrate Marinella’s methods for understanding, telling, and editing personal stories in ways that foster resilience and renewal. She also shares her own experience of using journaling and expressive writing to navigate challenges including breast cancer and postpartum depression. Each of the techniques, prompts, and exercises she presents helps us “to unravel the knot inside and to make sense of loss.”
So, you want to publish books.Drawing on 23 years of experience operating an independent publishing company, Joe Biel has written the most accessible and comprehensive guide to running a successful publishing business. You'll learn all the skills of the trade, including how to:Develop your individual books to connect with readers on a practical and emotional levelChoose between offset printed, digitally printed, and eBook formats and work effectively with printersBuild an authentic niche so you can reach your audience and sell books directlyUnderstand if and when you're ready to work with a distributor or large online retailerCreate a budget and predict the cost and income of each book so your company stays in the blackDecide what work you need to do yourself and what can be done by othersPlan for sustainable growthFeaturing interviews with other upstart independent publishers and funny anecdotes from publishing's long history as well as detailed charts and visuals, this book is intended both beginners looking for a realistic overview of the publishing or self-publishing process and for experienced publishers seeking a deeper understanding of accounting principles, ways to bring their books to new audiences, and how to advance their mission in a changing industry. All readers will come away with the confidence to move forward wisely and a strong sense of why publishing matters today more than ever.
Using my unique experiences as I went from being on welfare to becoming a world renowned metal sculptor I share with you step by step how I designed my perfect life by creating a picture, an Inspiration Blueprint, and how you too can create yours and live your most inspired life!
A national bestseller combining the emotional depth of The Art of Racing in the Rain with the magical spirit of The Life of Pi, “Lily and the Octopus is the dog book you must read this summer” (The Washington Post). Ted—a gay, single, struggling writer is stuck: unable to open himself up to intimacy except through the steadfast companionship of Lily, his elderly dachshund. When Lily’s health is compromised, Ted vows to save her by any means necessary. By turns hilarious and poignant, an adventure with spins into magic realism and beautifully evoked truths of loss and longing, Lily and the Octopus reminds us how it feels to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go, and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all. Introducing a dazzling and completely original new voice in fiction and an unforgettable hound that will break your heart—and put it back together again. Remember the last book you told someone they had to read? Lily and the Octopus is the next one. “Startlingly imaginative...this love story is sure to assert its place in the canine lit pack...Be prepared for outright laughs and searing or silly moments of canine and human recognition. And grab a tissue: “THERE! WILL! BE! EYE! RAIN!” (New York Newsday).
A gorgeous coloring book from one of the most followed artists on Instagram, Kristina Webb Instagram sensation and author of Color Me Creative Kristina Webb (@colour_me_creative) presents her completely original and unique take on the coloring book craze. Color Me Inspired encourages readers to place their own photographs inside hand-drawn frames, add their own doodles to artwork, and much more by coloring in a variety of artwork and patterns in Kristina’s signature style. Kristina’s clever prompts and suggestions help make this book stand out. From a coloring scrapbook to cut-out cards to inspirational quotes, every page will surprise and delight readers.
The fascinating science and history of radiation More than ever before, radiation is a part of our modern daily lives. We own radiation-emitting phones, regularly get diagnostic x-rays, such as mammograms, and submit to full-body security scans at airports. We worry and debate about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the safety of nuclear power plants. But how much do we really know about radiation? And what are its actual dangers? An accessible blend of narrative history and science, Strange Glow describes mankind's extraordinary, thorny relationship with radiation, including the hard-won lessons of how radiation helps and harms our health. Timothy Jorgensen explores how our knowledge of and experiences with radiation in the last century can lead us to smarter personal decisions about radiation exposures today. Jorgensen introduces key figures in the story of radiation—from Wilhelm Roentgen, the discoverer of x-rays, and pioneering radioactivity researchers Marie and Pierre Curie, to Thomas Edison and the victims of the recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. Tracing the most important events in the evolution of radiation, Jorgensen explains exactly what radiation is, how it produces certain health consequences, and how we can protect ourselves from harm. He also considers a range of practical scenarios such as the risks of radon in our basements, radiation levels in the fish we eat, questions about cell-phone use, and radiation's link to cancer. Jorgensen empowers us to make informed choices while offering a clearer understanding of broader societal issues. Investigating radiation's benefits and risks, Strange Glow takes a remarkable look at how, for better or worse, radiation has transformed our society.
How do today’s most successful tech companies—Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla—design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of people around the world? Perhaps surprisingly, they do it very differently than the vast majority of tech companies. In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love—and that will work for your business. With sections on assembling the right people and skillsets, discovering the right product, embracing an effective yet lightweight process, and creating a strong product culture, readers can take the information they learn and immediately leverage it within their own organizations—dramatically improving their own product efforts. Whether you’re an early stage startup working to get to product/market fit, or a growth-stage company working to scale your product organization, or a large, long-established company trying to regain your ability to consistently deliver new value for your customers, INSPIRED will take you and your product organization to a new level of customer engagement, consistent innovation, and business success. Filled with the author’s own personal stories—and profiles of some of today’s most-successful product managers and technology-powered product companies, including Adobe, Apple, BBC, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix—INSPIRED will show you how to turn up the dial of your own product efforts, creating technology products your customers love. The first edition of INSPIRED, published ten years ago, established itself as the primary reference for technology product managers, and can be found on the shelves of nearly every successful technology product company worldwide. This thoroughly updated second edition shares the same objective of being the most valuable resource for technology product managers, yet it is completely new—sharing the latest practices and techniques of today’s most-successful tech product companies, and the men and women behind every great product.
Be inspired by Marjolein Bastin's passion for the natural world in this lovely coloring book. "I see every day as a new gift full of new discoveries, which I want to share with everyone through my artwork." --Marjolein Bastin Now you can share the beauty of Marjolein Bastin's nature-inspired art by coloring images based on her artwork. In this unique coloring book, sixty-three paintings featuring an array of nature vignettes that include birds, flowers, deer, butterflies, and more from Marjolien Bastin are presented in color across from the line art of the same image. Take inspiration from Marjolein's beautiful watercolor pallets or create your own colorful interpretation.
What it means to be human—and a mother—is put to the test in Carole Stivers’s debut novel set in a world that is more chilling and precarious than ever. The year is 2049. When a deadly non-viral agent intended for biowarfare spreads out of control, scientists must scramble to ensure the survival of the human race. They turn to their last resort, a plan to place genetically engineered children inside the cocoons of large-scale robots—to be incubated, birthed, and raised by machines. But there is yet one hope of preserving the human order: an intelligence programmed into these machines that renders each unique in its own right—the Mother Code. Kai is born in America’s desert Southwest, his only companion his robotic Mother, Rho-Z. Equipped with the knowledge and motivations of a human mother, Rho-Z raises Kai and teaches him how to survive. But as children like Kai come of age, their Mothers transform too—in ways that were never predicted. And when government survivors decide that the Mothers must be destroyed, Kai is faced with a choice. Will he break the bond he shares with Rho-Z? Or will he fight to save the only parent he has ever known? Set in a future that could be our own, The Mother Code explores what truly makes us human—and the tenuous nature of the boundaries between us and the machines we create.
