Kindle Is Saving Me Money

By Connie H Deutsch  |   Submitted On April 10, 2015

  

No, really. Kindle IS saving me money. In the year that I've had my Kindle, I have saved a ton of money.

I have one compulsion and that is books. Before I got my Kindle, I used to go to bookstores, see something I wanted to read, and buy it. Or, I should say that I would go to a bookstore and see a lot of books that I wanted to read, and bought them all.

My reasoning was this: whenever I didn't buy the books I wanted and thought I'd come back for them another time, they were always out of stock and I couldn't get them. So, I got into the habit of buying them when I saw them. This was especially true if one of my favorite authors wrote a series and I wanted to make sure that I had them all before starting the first book. That made for a lot of books waiting to be read.

I've always had a habit of reading about thirty-five books at the same time, switching from book to book according to my interest and mood. Consequently, my books covered every surface of my night tables. When I got my Kindle, everything changed.

It was like taking a magic wand and making all the books disappear off my night stands. But, more important, is the fact that I no longer had to buy all my books at one time for fear that the stores wouldn't have them in stock when I went back there to buy them. I saw that once Amazon listed them on Kindle, they were always there and I could come back anytime I wanted to buy one.

On the one hand, I'm no longer buying a lot of books at one time because I know that I can always buy them when the mood hits me but, on the other hand, I'm finding that in this short year, I have 200 books on my Kindle that I've yet to read.

I don't know how that happened but I think I'm saving money because I'm reading fewer series and Kindle books cost less than print books. I also rationalize that since I'm no longer compulsive about going from store to store, looking for the books that are out of stock in the bookstores, I'm saving money on gas and I have more time to read... or buy more Kindle books.

How's that for logic?? Well, it's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Connie H. Deutsch is an internationally known business consultant and personal advisor who has a keen understanding of human nature and is a natural problem-solver.

Connie is the author of the books, "Whispers of the Soul," "A Slice of Life," "Whispers of the Soul for the Rest of Your Life," "From Where I'm Sitting," "View from the Sidelines," "Reaching for the Brass Ring of Life," "Purple Days and Starry Nights," "Here and There," "And That's How it Goes," and "The Counseling Effect." Her website: http://www.conniehdeutsch.com/ See more of her articles by clicking here ConnieHDeutsch Articles

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In Bed With a Stranger

y Connie H Deutsch  |   Submitted On January 27, 2011

  

We're told we don't know someone until we've lived with them but there have been too many stories that prove that, even then, we don't really know the person. We may know their hot buttons, their favorite color, their thinking patterns, interests, fears, spending habits, personality quirks, etc., but we don't really know them.

Many years ago, a woman told me the story of her marriage. She had been married for more than twenty years and thought she knew her husband very well. They had a fairly close relationship and shared many of the same interests. Their beliefs and goals were similar and they enjoyed the same sense of humor. And she had lived with him for over twenty years.

One night, at 3:00 a.m., there was a loud knock at her door. She went to answer it and was greeted by several law enforcement officers who were there to arrest her husband for murders that he had committed in four different states. She was so sure they had the wrong address that she argued with them until she looked at her husband's face. His expression said he knew the jig was up. He was later tried and convicted and his wife had to pick up the pieces of her life and raise their children by herself.

We've all heard countless stories of men and women who don't tell their partners that they are married. Some say they are getting a divorce while others say they are already divorced and then, in many cases, the wife or husband of these people, finds out about the deception and contacts their "replacement."

One man romanced a woman for close to two years before his wife found out about their liaison and went to his lover's house to confront her. His reaction, instead of being repentant, was one of annoyance that he had been found out and their affair was ending. He didn't care that his girlfriend was devastated and that she had wasted two years of her life thinking that she was going to marry him; all he cared about was that he had been found out.

A woman told her boyfriend that she was single and said she could only see him between assignments because her job involved a lot of traveling. This went on for eighteen months. One day, her husband contacted this man to tell him that he had hired a private detective who had proof of his wife's infidelity and unless this man stopped seeing her, he would see him in court.

Not all relationships have stories like these to tell but there are other stories that bear similar marks of deception. We always hear people saying that it's never a good policy to tell your partner everything; it takes away some of the mystique that makes a relationship interesting. But what if that mystique is really a cover-up for a person's inability to have a close, intimate relationship? What if that mystique is underscoring someone's unavailability for reasons other than keeping the mystery alive and well in their relationship?

In this era of sophisticated technology, it's not too difficult to discover a lot of personal information about someone without having to leave your livingroom chair. All you need is a computer, an Internet provider, Google, and the social networking sites. I'm told you can actually attain a fairly complete dossier on just about anyone. If that's not as thorough as you would like, you can hire a private detective to fill in the missing details.

But the real issue is that people usually prefer to see their partner through rose-colored glasses. They don't want to distort their perception with unsavory details that might put an end to their relationship.

In years gone by, most people met prospective dates through introductions so they knew the pertinent information before they even went out on the first date. It was also a form of protection because they were meeting that person through someone who knew someone and there were very clear boundaries of acceptable social behavior. Nowadays, people meet in singles bars, over the Internet, and various other venues that don't offer any of these safeguards.

It just makes sense that when you meet someone who interests you, do as much of a background check as you can before you go out on that first date. After you go out on a few dates, you already have a vested interest in that person and you might not want to see the obvious red flags. While this background check might seem to take the magic out of the getting to know you stage, it could give you a feeling of security to know that what you see is likely to be what you'll get.

by Connie H. Deutsch

Connie H. Deutsch is an internationally known business consultant and personal advisor who has a keen understanding of human nature and is a natural problem-solver. She is known throughout the world for helping clients find solutions to problems that are often complex and systemic in nature and part of a corporation's culture or an individual's pattern of behavior.

Connie has hosted her own weekly radio show, been a weekly guest on a morning radio show, done guest spots on radio shows around the country, and appeared as a guest on a cable television show. Connie wrote a weekly newspaper Advice Column for sixteen years and has been invited to speak at local colleges and given lectures around the country. She also wrote the scripts for a weekly financial show on cable television.

Connie is the author of the book, "Whispers of the Soul" and is the co-author of an E-book, "Getting Rich While the Rest of the World Falls Apart" which is being offered as a free download on her website. She has also written and produced two CDs on Meditation and Relationships and has done coaching on customer service and employee relationships. Her website is: http://www.conniehdeutsch.com

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Not the Marrying Kind

By Connie H Deutsch  |   Submitted On April 30, 2012

  

1

There must be something in the genetic makeup of women that makes a woman think she can change a man and make him into a wonderful husband.

If a man says he's not the marrying kind, believe him. You may get him to change his mind about marrying you but chances are you won't be happy with what you get.

You may get someone who is emotionally unavailable even if he is physically present. You may get someone who is so resentful of being trapped in a marriage he didn't want that he may feel justified for cheating on you. You may get a man who is more devoted to his family and friends than he is to you and who leaves you alone whenever one of them calls him for a night out.

The most sensible approach would be for a woman to marry a man she doesn't want to change, who is absolutely fine with the way he is, but most women seem to have been born with a "fixit" gene. Every man she meets would be perfect if only he would just change this or "fix" that about himself.

Men frequently try to change a woman after they get married but women seem to target the changes they want to make before they get married.

I once heard a woman say that she thought this man was very intelligent, kind, charming, interesting, and an all around nice guy and if he lost about thirty pounds she could really be interested in him.

My first thought, preceded and followed by a lot of other first thoughts, was what if you were already married and he gained thirty pounds in his first year of marriage to you. Would you divorce him and look for someone new who was thirty pounds lighter?

I can understand there being no chemistry between two people; the necessary spark that is needed to get them from their first hello to getting into bed. What I can't understand is being interested in someone "if only" such and such were fixed or changed.

Men seem to go through a reverse process. They can fall head over heels in love with a woman and then try to mold her into a woman he can love or a woman who will fit into his lifestyle. When those changes are forced on her, resentment is sure to follow.

But the hardest thing to wrestle with is the feeling of not being good enough or Mr. Wonderful wouldn't be telling you that he's not the marrying kind. Don't try to fix him or change him; it's simply not worth it. You will always be left feeling (or hearing him tell you) that you trapped him into marriage.

There are three stages of this mating game. The first stage consists of the bloom of falling in love, that glorious feeling as if you are walking on air and all is well in the world. This would be the time where both genders have blinders on their eyes and they don't want to see the red flags that are waving frantically in their faces. They don't even think about changing one another.

From there it moves into the second stage, the one that gives you that sense of comfort you derive from being in love, but not quite being head over heels in love. And then, if you're very lucky, it moves into the permanent stage of loving, of knowing you are loved as much as you love.

Of course, the ideal situation is for a couple to experience all three stages. Unfortunately, too many people only experience the first stage and part of the second stage. After that, their minor flaws become glaring imperfections and if they stay in the relationship, they only make each other miserable. Still, some of the people who never make it past the middle of the second stage of the mating game do get married and, predictably, make each other miserable.

Sometimes it seems as if the mating game is a game of musical chairs where the men and women keep changing partners in their quest for the fairy tale ending. And only sometimes does a person choose the right chair and the right partner.

Connie H. Deutsch is an internationally known business consultant and personal advisor who has a keen understanding of human nature and is a natural problem-solver. She is known throughout the world for helping clients find workable solutions to complex problems.

Connie has hosted her own weekly radio show, been a weekly guest on a morning radio show, done guest spots on radio shows around the country, and appeared as a guest on a cable television show. Connie wrote a weekly newspaper Advice Column for sixteen years and has been invited to speak at local colleges and given lectures around the country. She also wrote the scripts for a weekly financial show on cable television.

Connie is the author of the book, "Whispers of the Soul," an eBook, "The Counseling Effect," and is the co-author of an eBook, "Getting Rich While the World Falls Apart" which is.being offered as a free download on her website. She has also written and produced two CDs on Meditation and Relationships and has done coaching on customer service and employee relationships. Her website is http://www.conniehdeutsch.com. See more of her articles by clicking here ConnieHDeutsch Articles

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Selecting Your Own Gene Pool

By Connie H Deutsch  |   Submitted On October 19, 2012

  

Many years ago, I had a client who had been having an affair with a man she didn't want to marry. However, she did want to have a child with him.

She selected very well. He had good genes. No craziness in his family, a conventional background, good-looking, stable income, well-educated, and socially adept.

My curiosity roared to life. With all these acknowledged excellent traits, why wouldn't she want to marry him, especially if she was attracted to him sufficiently to have had sex with him for the last few years?

Apparently, she felt that they weren't really suited to one another except that she thought he would make an excellent father and she wanted to have a child. More especially, she wanted to have his child. She liked his gene pool and had selected him to father her child.

After several years had passed, she told me that she had chosen well. He made all the important decisions and she liked not having that responsibility. He chose the gynecologist, the pediatrician, the kindergarten, and just about everything else. He also paid all the bills.

One day, she called me and told me that she wanted to have another child so that her daughter wouldn't be an only child. And guess what? The same man who fathered her first child was her choice for her second child. But this time there was another element that factored into it. This man had recently gotten married.

I thought for sure that would have thrown a spanner in the works so I asked, "Don't you think his wife will mind if her husband is having sex with you?" and she replied, "This doesn't concern her; it's between him and me."

In her mind, she was just using him for sex to conceive a child. In my mind, she was still sleeping with her former lover. She didn't want some anonymous sperm donor; she wanted thisman's sperm.

Over the course of a lifetime, I've spoken to several thousand women and I can't recall a single woman who would have sanctioned her husband's sleeping with his former lover for the purpose of creating a child.

My client eventually had a second child with this man. They didn't use a turkey baster; they did it the old-fashioned way by having sex. I don't know many women who are able to separate their emotions from sex, and even fewer who are able to carry a child and not have some deep feelings for the lover who impregnated her.

And, once again, this man took on the role of the responsible parent, making all the decisions regarding the children's welfare and paying all the bills. He wasn't a wealthy man but he had a stable income. Still, I don't know any newly married woman who would feel comfortable supporting her husband's lover and his children, especially if one of those children was conceived shortly after she married him.

I thought that I would never hear of anything similar to this situation but I was wrong. Several years later, I met a woman who had decided to divorce her husband but wait... not until after she conceived another child by him.

She told me that she loves being pregnant and her husband loves seeing her pregnant. He also loves having children around and he was willing to pay her to keep having his children.

They eventually got a divorce but, by mutual agreement, he had moved out of the house before she conceived his last child. They couldn't stand living together but they enjoyed making children together. At least this one hadn't gotten married and then went to bed with her for the purpose of having another child with her.

After their divorce, the husband bought a house near their other house so they could share custody. It meant that their children could spend half a week in each parent's house and they could attend the same school and keep their same friends and stay on the same sports teams and not have their lives disrupted because of the divorce.

Both their marriage and their divorce were toxic yet they deliberately kept bringing additional children into their toxic relationship. Sharing custody and living near each other so that the children's lives were not torn asunder is good up to a point.

If these parents could get along, it might have been the best of all possible worlds. Instead, the children bore the emotional scars of a dysfunctional family and no amount of "sameness" in their lives could compensate for the endless fights they had to witness when they were within hearing distance of hostile telephone calls and visits.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I believe that children shouldn't have to choose which parent is safe to love and which house feels better to live in. They deserve to have two parents who don't undermine each other to their children and who speak respectfully to each other in front of their children.

And if they can't manage to do that, then they should reevaluate their decision to bring more children into the world.

Connie H. Deutsch is an internationally known business consultant and personal advisor who has a keen understanding of human nature and is a natural problem-solver. She is known throughout the world for helping clients find workable solutions to complex problems.

Connie has hosted her own weekly radio show, been a weekly guest on a morning radio show, done guest spots on radio shows around the country, and appeared as a guest on a cable television show. Connie wrote a weekly newspaper Advice Column for sixteen years and has been invited to speak at local colleges and given lectures around the country. She also wrote the scripts for a weekly financial show on cable television.

Connie is the author of the books, "Whispers of the Soul" and "The Counseling Effect" and she is the co-author of an eBook, "Getting Rich While the World Falls Apart" which is being offered as a free download on her website. She has also written and produced two CDs on Meditation and Relationships and has done coaching on customer service and employee relationships. Her website: http://www.conniehdeutsch.com/. See more of her articles by clicking here ConnieHDeutsch Articles

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Cinderella, the Ultimate Stepchild

By Connie H Deutsch  |   Submitted On May 20, 2013

  

Cinderella might have been our society's earliest awareness of the hardships encountered in a blended family. But, whereas the prince rescues Cinderella and carries her off into the sunset for their happily-ever-after ending, most families don't have that happy ending.

When a divorced parent remarries, it can be hard enough on the children, especially when they keep hoping and praying that their parents will get back together. When there are children from that marriage, whether they are going to live together or just be a blended family who lives in different residences, the adjustment can be traumatic on all sides.

Children often feel that they were the cause of their parent's breakup. If they had tried harder, been good enough, had done more chores, made less demands, complained less, etc., their parents would still be together. And no amount of reassurance that they were not to blame can dismiss that conviction or remove that guilt.

If there were a lot of fights in their house and evidence of severe unhappiness, children often wish their parents would just get a divorce and stop making everyone miserable. However, when children don't see this kind of evidence on a daily basis, they can be blindsided by the divorce and find it difficult to move on.

In many marriages, depending on the level of communication, parents often experience severe unhappiness without the ranting and raving that accompany severely abusive marriages. It is these silent, unhappy relationships that can take children unaware and be so difficult for them to handle.

When children are caught in the middle of an abusive marriage, e.g., being powerless to stop their father from incessant beatings of their mother, or having to contend with an alcoholic parent or a parent who is a drug addict, divorce can be a welcome relief.

But it is the children who are not exposed to this kind of misery and who are oblivious to anything being wrong, who have the most difficulty letting go of their two-parent family. Their security blanket is suddenly pulled out from under them and they flounder for the longest time wondering what they did wrong and what they could have done to prevent this from happening.

Sometimes, a parent has someone else waiting in the wings and just waiting to be free to remarry. When this is revealed, the children can feel betrayed, especially on the part of the other parent.

Remarriage brings with it some unique problems if there are children involved. Depending on the ages of the children, and the type of relationship they have had with their parents, it can become a contest of wills, especially if the new spouse doesn't like them and makes it obvious.

Children are often afraid that their parent will stop loving them so they may become the nightmare from hell. It's not any easier for the stepparent, in that he or she can be vulnerable when it comes to disciplining the other one's children if they haven't set guidelines as to what their parameters are.

Widowed parents who remarry may run into similar behavioral problems from their offspring but for different reasons. Children often feel that the parent hasn't waited long enough to date, let alone, to remarry, no matter how much time has elapsed. A child can feel that a year isn't long enough or even five years isn't long enough.

They may even feel guilty that they are starting to forget what their parent looked like or sounded like and, when the surviving parent starts to date, they may take it as a betrayal of themselves and of their deceased parent. When that parent remarries, they may try to do everything in their power to bring about a divorce.

Widowed parents who try to merge their families, often encounter a different type of resistance than divorced parents in that the children know there is no hope of their parents reconciling because their parent has passed away.

If they were a close-knit family, the children may not be able to forgive their deceased parent for bailing out on them. If they were not close, there may be that sense of dread that history will be repeating itself and they will still be left out in the cold.

Stepchildren and stepparents can either be a blessing or an ordeal to live with. There are some happy stories mixed in with all the horror stories. Children have the ultimate weapon: they can play the guilt card like no one else. Parents often cave in to their demands without thinking about the consequences and may end up giving their children too many material goods to make up for the supposed neglect a second marriage may have caused.

No one likes to be the bad guy but someone has to raise the children in a responsible way so that they grow into the kind of adults who become the moral compass of their families and their community. And that won't be possible unless one of them has the courage to be accountable for their children's development.

by Connie H. Deutsch

Connie H. Deutsch is an internationally known business consultant and personal advisor who has a keen understanding of human nature and is a natural problem-solver. She is known throughout the world for helping clients find workable solutions to complex problems.

Connie has hosted her own weekly radio show, been a weekly guest on a morning radio show, done guest spots on radio shows around the country, and appeared as a guest on a cable television show. Connie wrote a weekly newspaper Advice Column for sixteen years and has been invited to speak at local colleges and given lectures around the country. She also wrote the scripts for a weekly financial show on cable television.

Connie is the author of the books, "Whispers of the Soul," "A Slice of Life," and "The Counseling Effect" and she is the co-author of an eBook, "Getting Rich While the World Falls Apart" which is being offered as a free download on her website. She has also written and produced two CDs on Meditation and Relationships and has done coaching on customer service and employee relationships. Her website:http://www.conniehdeutsch.com/
See more of her articles by clicking here ConnieHDeutsch Articles

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Connie_H_Deutsch

Pitfalls of Explaining Your Life Away

y Connie H Deutsch  |   Submitted On March 19, 2015

  

If you are a minor and living at home and your parent asks you where you're going and with whom, you are required to answer the questions. But if you are not living under their roof, or if you are still living at home, but you are contributing an equal share of the expenses of the house, then you are not required to answer anything that infringes on your privacy.

No one else has the right to question your comings and goings. If you keep answering those kinds of questions, you are giving tacit permission for those interrogations to continue.

You are also setting yourself up for people to take advantage of you by expecting you to do something for them if you don't have anything else planned for when they want your services.

I was visiting a friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in many, many years and she asked me what excuse she could give her parents for not going to see them on the weekend. She said she had used up all the excuses she could think of.

My friend was in her mid-thirties, a wife and mother of two children. I remember looking at her as if she was crazy and I asked her why she needed to give an excuse. Admittedly, it was beyond my comprehension.

This was a brilliant woman and well-educated, and those attributes didn't make a bit of difference. She was so indoctrinated into Pavlovian conditioning that as soon as the question was asked, she went into the automatic response pattern.

Although someone in her mid-thirties is still young enough to retrain, I preferred to just leave her with some seeds that could germinate in her mind whenever someone wanted her to account for her time or activities.

I told her that we all have to be accountable for our actions but we don't have to account for our activities. If push comes to shove, she can always tell her parents that she has other plans or that she doesn't feel like going there.

What could her parents do to her... take away her car keys? Lock her in her room without dinner? Ground her? At this point in her life, her parents are paper tigers: they have no teeth and they can't punish her except to withhold their approval.

I left her with these words: "Stop explaining your life away."

Connie H. Deutsch is an internationally known business consultant and personal advisor who has a keen understanding of human nature and is a natural problem-solver.

Connie is the author of the books, "Whispers of the Soul," "A Slice of Life," "Whispers of the Soul for the Rest of Your Life," "From Where I'm Sitting," "View from the Sidelines," "Reaching for the Brass Ring of Life," "Purple Days and Starry Nights," "Here and There," "And That's How it Goes," and "The Counseling Effect." Her website: http://www.conniehdeutsch.com/ See more of her articles by clicking here ConnieHDeutsch Articles

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Connie_H_Deutsch