Affirmations

What type of photographer might you be?  Do you aim for candid shots or are you more of a staged photo sort?   Do you prefer pics of nature, architecture, humans, or a some combo of the above?   Or, are you reading this and thinking, does it even matter?  They are just pictures, right?   I’ll be honest:   I fall into the last group   I put almost zero effort into “framing” a photo, unless under duress to “make it look good.”  I just don’t get all that excited about pictures.   Luckily, Jim enjoys taking and posting pictures, so I’m “mostly” off the hook.   So why do I ask?  Because I find myself hoping that you’ve each had reason to smile today. Whether it was a smile after seeing someone you’ve been missing, or perhaps a smile appeared while watching a tiny house TikTok (yes, several of those encouraged my smiles today), or maybe your special smile showed up after completing some onerous task.   Whether you smiled for these or...

That would be me!  I know I’ve shared in the past that it takes a great deal of thought to plan and the these blogs.  I want to offer a useful tool so I try to plan thoroughly.  Today,  have struggled with my topic and even the simple act of sitting down to type.  Thus, today has become one large game of “how long can I wait to type something?” I know I espouse NOT procrastinating, but sometimes we have to stand against our beliefs, too.  That might be today’s message!  Nothing is black and white.  When I say “don’t procrastinate,” what it really means is “do not procrastinate when you are ready to complete [a task].”  It is unrealistic to think that we will always be ready, always know a proper response, always have our acts together (although I am quite envious of the ability of some of you to always appear ready for anything! - You or your spouse know to whom I refer!) 😜 Let’s focus on the bigger picture then.  This post isn’t just a...

Although I’ll be the first person to remind someone to compete their responsibilities with as little procrastination as possible, I’m also the person who will tell you to seize the opportunity for fun when you can.  In fact, I thoroughly encourage you to “Carpe Diem” when it comes to fun. So today, let’s have a little fun!  On our recent trip, Jim and I played a lot of trivia.  We love the competition, both between us and the other teams, as well as the internal competition as we strive to figure out the answers.  One of the games we played was the “connections” game.  We were presented with three words and we had to figure out what they had in common.  Some clues were easy while others really challenged us.  Those were fun! Well, we like a challenge so they were fun for us.  Perhaps you feel the same?  I enjoy the productive struggle and the opportunity to challenge my brain a bit.  🤷🏻‍♀️ Let’s all play the Connections Game today! I’m...

Do you ever feel this way?  Do you ever want to ask someone to refrain from this?  Sometimes it feels like we are surrounded by well-meaning individuals who want to “help.”  The media also does a great job of telling us many things, many of them useless, unrealistic, unresearched, and with a purpose or intention based on a belief that is not necessarily our own.  More on evaluating and making wise choices based on media in a later post - once a librarian, always a librarian). This week, I am “tIIIIerred.”   That is “TIRED” written phonetically in the way Sage says it when he needs a nap.  😜. It’s the cutest little thing, and it drives home a point.   There is a time when rest is necessary.  I feel it often, and sometimes, like this week, it is stronger than usual.  So what to do when one is “tIIIerred?” Firstly, I would imagine that you can agree that one is aware when they feel this way.  If that’s the case, it also stands to reason th...

Good evening!   First off, I would like to apologize.  Some of you have asked if I was going to blog again.  Yes.  I realize it’s been a  quite a long time since my last post.  A small portion of that is due to our travels, but mostly it was simply my lack of effort toward writing a post.   Full disclosure ahead:   I started the blog, as you know, as a way for me to send some positive thoughts and uplifting ideas to our young people.  We all know that life is challenging, and I figured, “I’m older and have a lot of life experiences.  Maybe I can say something to help them through their days.”   It sounded like a great idea at the time.  I think it is still a good one, but I realized recently that there’s more to the idea than I had originally embraced.  You see,…I stopped blogging because I found myself in a not-so-healthy, not-so-positive headspace.  I appreciate the sentiment that people share with me:  that I’...