My biggest desire right now is to burn my house, take my insurance money and move to the Caribbean and live in a tree house, eating exotic fruit and playing on the beach everyday. I want to escape this rat race, that is for sure.

But I realize that I have a lot of things here at home that I don't want to give up and so I must deal with them. It's in dealing with them that life becomes crazy.

In Sue Augustine's latest book, Sanity Secrets for Stressed-Out Women, it was the very first paragraph that resonated with me immediately. As much as I wanted to read the whole thing in one night, the irony is my crazy life got in the way.

Here's the first paragraph:

Somewhere along this frenzied journey called modern-day life, we've lost our sanity. In fact, a friend of mine has a magnet on her refrigerator that says, "Out of my mind. Be back in one hour." But she wants to know why she has to return so soon. And she's not along. More and more women tell me they long to escape, even temporarily, to a slower-paced, simpler time. If there is one expression that describes the condition of woman's lives today, it is "stressed out." in fact, many of us are getting stressed out over being so stressed out.

That is me to a capital letter "T".

Sue has a way to almost making you feel calmer just by reading her words. The book offers many, many suggestions on how we can all make our lives a little bit less stressed. From finding your on/off switch, mini escapes, clearing clutter, learning to say no and the one thing that women are best at: multi-tasking. The book is full of great suggestions.

If you're always stressed about how stressed out your life is, this is a great read....hopefully you can find some time to read it. If not here's a suggestion from Sue's book. Put it in your purse or in the car and next time your waiting at the dentists office or in line at Tim Horton's for coffee, then you've found a few minutes in your day. Enjoy the read!

Author: Sue Augustine
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers