I met my friend Erin not long after we moved to Wisconsin. It’s been long enough that I don’t actually remember when or how we met. I just remember lots of conversations about books, watching her kids come and go at the library, and being amazed and proud at the amazing things she’s done in her business, Lake Country Family Fun. When I decided to make What the Boss is Reading a regular part of my blog, she is one of the first people I thought of to feature; not just because she is an avid reader herself and how I’ve seen her instill a love of reading in her daughters, but also because she loves to talk about and share her love of reading. Without further ado…
Meet Erin:
Erin Guenterberg is the owner of Lake Country Family Fun (LCFF, LLC), a resource website for local family fun. She went from social worker, to stay-at-home mom, to Lake Country Family Fun enthusiast and sales manager, to then owner in 2016. Since taking over, Erin has grown a team of women. The business thrives at creating community (both on and offline), supporting local businesses, giving back to the community and promoting and hosting amazing local events like Hartland Kids Day.
In 2019, Erin and her team identified a need for online creatives, bloggers, and entrepreneurs to learn and grow together on the local level. Thus, “Lake Country Currents” was born bringing over 50 budding and established entrepreneurs together. In her free time, you’ll find Erin and her family enjoying all of Wisconsin’s seasons – boating and paddle-boarding in the summer and snowmobiling in the winter.
Do you mostly read for pleasure or do you mostly read for professional development?
I read a mix of for pleasure and personal development books.
For pleasure, I love a historical fiction story. If only, I’d read more for pleasure in my younger years, history class would have been easier! The beauty of historical fiction books is that I (usually) have a basic understanding of the time period in which the book was written, but the author and characters bring in that personal, human element and take what could have been just facts and dates (from history class) and humanize the events from a different perspective.
I recently finished reading, “The Island of Sea Women” by Lisa See. It’s a historical fiction book that follows two friends throughout their life and many decades on an island south of Korea (1930 – present day). I found it fascinating that there were many elements of a matriarchal society. The women were divers and the men stayed back to raise the children. While the book started out a bit slow for me, it soon gained my attention, and I could not put it down. In the last chapter, when everything came together, I was reduced to tears, and still cannot stop thinking about the quote, “To understand everything is to forgive.”
As part of Lake Country Currents, we partnered with Lydia and did a monthly book club, where we discussed a personal development book every month. We just kicked this off in January 2020 – so the process involved 5 books from January through May. Within the Lake Country Family Fun team, if I read a book or blog post or podcast relating to time management (my worst skill), I share with the team as I seek to educate and better myself, so we can all work more efficiently.
Here are the books we read as part of Currents Reads:
- Getting Things Done by David Allen
- Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Grit by Angela Duckworth
- You are a Badass by Jen Sincero
- Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
What Are You Currently Reading?
While I like to alternate personal development books with fiction books, I’m currently reading a fictional book again: “A Place for Us” by Fatima Farheen Mirza. The book is too new for me to have my thoughts wrapped around the story yet.
Have you always been a reader or did your love of reading come later in life?
I read for pleasure as a child, but in high school and college only read for homework/assignments. I then really started reading for pleasure again upon having my own children in the past 9 years.
Are your friends readers, too, or are you the outlier in your group?
Many of my friends are avid readers as well. I love it when we can discuss a book that we’ve both read or share book ideas. Recently, I was at a friend’s house discussing with her and her mother-in-law the amazing books that they had just read. I quickly jotted them down in my Goodreads account for later!
Do you have a favorite author? Favorite book?
When I first started reading for pleasure again, I was introduced to the books by Amy E. Reichert, local WI author. I quickly fell in love with her books, because they are all based in WI, and I could picture all the scenes as she laid them out. More recently, I enjoy a wide variety of authors and seek out authors that write from a different perspective than my own.
Is there a book that you feel has changed your life?
I think that many books that I’ve read in the past few years have changed my life. It’s hard to point to a single book and say it was the one life changing book, but parts of all of them challenge my thinking and force me to think outside my worldview.
How Have You Influenced Your Daughters As Readers?
When it comes to my children, one of which is an avid reader, the other a novice reader, I greatly influence the books that they read, but they also have independence to pick out books for themselves as well. Their rooms are teeming with books, and we have additional bookcases throughout the house.
We actually just entered our public library for the first time since early March, in late June to gather books for the summer reading program, too. For the chapter books that I pick out with my eldest that we like to read together outloud before bed, we read books that cover topics that might bring up questions. This lets us have deeper conversations that we can talk out together. We read the entire Penderwick series by Jeanne Birdsall as well as My Fate According to the Butterfly by Gail D. Villanueva, among many others in the past couple years.
In general, like myself, I like to ensure that my children are reading books with characters that differ from them, and illustrations as well, for my younger reader. The three of us really enjoy the “Little People Big Dreams” series as well as the “I am” series by author Brad Meltzer. We’ve read pretty much every one.
So There You Have It…
You can find Lake Country Family Fun on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest and check out their webpage for all the fun things going on in Lake Country. If you’re local, you might find Erin out on one of our many lakes or checking out a new restaurant. If you do run into her, feel free to ask her what she’s reading. She’ll be happy to tell you!
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It was a joy to be interviewed! Thank you!
Thank YOU! So much fun to learn about Lake Country Family Fun, your girls, and YOU!