Louise Rachlis didn’t want a party for her 65th birthday last February, and so she wrote a book instead.
“I wanted to create a book to help others,” says the writer who spent 25 years at the Ottawa Citizen. “I asked 65 friends to join me in compiling an inspirational log for travelling through life. My three categories were Feeling Good, Making Good and Doing Good.”
Her friend and longtime Citizen co-worker Chris Macknie designed the book, which contains a selection of those submissions.
As she says in her introduction, “When I sent out the invitation a few months ago to contribute to this book, I wondered what would follow. Would anyone send anything? To my delight, there were plenty of enthusiastic ‘count me ins’, and several submissions within a day or two. The very first to contribute was my 91-year-old friend Val Willis, who could certainly fill a book of her own on motivation. Another efficient contributor was Elana Cherry, who has five children under 10, and a busy government job. Both Val and Elana are role models for organization and positive thinking.”
Several of the contributors mention the supportive camaraderie of the “Rice Pudding Runners.” “The group name Rice Pudding was launched a few years ago after fellow-runner Lynn Campbell and I ended a two-hour-long snowy run with a bowl of rice pudding at the Green Door Restaurant,” says Louise. “It tasted so good - what wouldn’t, after a long winter run - that we thought we should share the experience. We invited other women to join us the next time, and long after we’d stopped eating rice pudding, the name still stuck, and we still get together.”
Containing 40 inspiring life stories, the 148-page book is now available for $10 on the CreateSpace e-store at www.createspace.com/3830323 and on amazon.com.
Proceeds are being donated to Parkinson Society Ottawa in honour of daughter Diana Rachlis.
