Carol Atkins' Book Featured at NOW Conference

Book will be on display at the Michigan NOW Conference at OCC Orchard Ridge in Farmington Hills April 25
The Trouble with Turtles
by Carol Atkins

". . .I make decisions every day, and sometimes they are life-changing decisions. Like the time I decided to be arrested." from The Trouble with Turtles

A wise and witty memoir spanning 50 years by a veteran columnist and noted feminist. Author Carol Atkins, 85, is a member of AAUW Manistee Branch and a Michigan Women's Hall of Fame Inductee (2008). The Trouble with Turtles
ISBN 978-0-9718214-6-0
136 pages
Softcover
5.5 x 7.75 $15.95
Also on Amazon.com

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"Pajama Days" Excerpt from The Trouble with Turtles © 2008 by Carol Atkins Every so often I have to sit myself down and have one of those dreaded "little talks." You know the kind I mean. It's when you say to yourself (in a tone of voice that you swore you would never use with your children, but did) - "You can do better than this. Surely, after all these years, you can manage your life better than this! Here you've gotten yourself into yet another mess, when you know perfectly well you can't do all that you have promised to do."
This time, even all my brand new excuses failed to convince me that I have any valid excuse whatsoever. After all, the word "no" is one of the shortest and most effective words in the English language and you'd think that by now I would have learned to use it. Especially since we have added two words to it which make it polite, and therefore socially acceptable. Those two words, in case you are not following my meanderings, are "thank you."
So now we have a perfectly acceptable, even polite, way of refusal, and I am such a chicken that I can't or won't use it. So I over-schedule myself regularly and end up not doing the other things I should do, or doing them sketchily, which pleases no one, least of all me. Or I find myself falling behind so hopelessly that I have to cancel some things, which is entirely against my principles.
Last week, while we were enjoying a family visit with daughter Cindy and her husband, Bill, I had to straighten out a couple of the messes I had created, so she sat me down and had a "little talk." But her "little talk" was somehow much more productive than mine have been. She even made some suggestions for progress that I had never thought of before. I am sure that if I can a) remember them and b) carry them out, my whole life will be better.
Among them was taking "Pajama Days."
Now, Pajama Days are days when you plan to do nothing. That's right, nothing. And if you are going to do nothing that day, there's no point in getting dressed, is there? You can just stay right in your PJs all day, and in fact, you'd better, because once you put on clothes you start to do something constructive. And we can't have that, now can we?