I woke up to a dark and rainy morning. Rather than complain about it, I browsed through the online gallery for the digital art display on my dining room wall and picked a suitably dark and dramatic wilderness image, with steep rocky cliffs and fog. It made me feel like a Tolkien character about to set out on a quest. There is no photo of it for this post because the colors didn’t look right when I tried to take one; so instead, I’m posting a simple piece of word-art as a reminder that even on an ordinary wet spring day, there’s always something fun to be found, and it’s good to have fun!
 

Fun Is Good -Dr. Seuss

Just because we are grown up, that doesn’t mean our imaginary quests are childish or silly. We need them for the same reasons as when we were little kids reading storybooks—to nurture our imagination and expand our perspective on the world. Our ancestors understood this when, in ancient times, they regularly held elaborate ceremonies and made drama and ritual a central part of their lives. Nowadays, although we have many more options for exercising our imagination, we often lack the rituals that reminded our ancestors of its importance, so we need to give ourselves little reminders every now and again.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

March 27, 2016 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

After nearly two years of posting Clutter Comedy entries every Sunday about getting rid of useless stuff in and around my house, most of it is gone, and I’ve decided that my blog needs some fresh new energy. So I am starting another weekly series instead—Good Things, featuring the many unexpected joyful things that show up when clutter and stagnation have been cleared away.

I recently ordered new running shoes online when I noticed that my old pair was getting worn out. The new shoes came in pretty spring colors—purple, with a bit of green around the ankles, and with laces in a lighter shade of purple.
 

Purple running shoes in grass. 

They felt comfortable when I jogged around the block in my neighborhood a few times. I realized they weren’t what I needed, though, when I ran five miles in the park and my feet ached afterwards. The new shoes didn’t have quite the right amount of arch support for me. I bought another pair of running shoes—hot pink, this time—in another brand I’d worn before, which felt much better.
 

Pink running shoes on concrete. 

In past years, if I had bought running shoes that weren’t right for me, I’d have felt irritated about it. And if I had decided to keep them for walking, they would’ve been just another not-really-wanted thing with annoying memories and negative energy. But this year, after I had liberated my house from old shoe clutter (as seen in this post), I felt cheerful about keeping the purple shoes for walking. They brightened up the closet and looked good when I wore them with spring clothes. Besides, there’s certainly no reason why I can’t have two pairs of new and pretty athletic shoes at the same time!

Today was dark and very windy here, with occasional showers. Some gusts were strong enough to rattle the house. But now the storm has blown through, it’s a quiet and peaceful evening. I can hear birds chirping outside my front windows. Nothing to worry about!
 

Word-art image that says: Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles, it takes away today's peace.
 

Sending hugs and peaceful thoughts to anyone who may have been worrying today! Just as in the natural world, when there are storms in our minds and in our lives, they always blow over eventually.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

March 20, 2016 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

My coat closet has two shelves at the top. The lower shelf has hats, gloves, and scarves that we use regularly. I tidied the ones on the top shelf and got rid of a few when I started cleaning up my clutter two years ago, but I don’t think any of them have budged since then. About time to send them all on their way!
 

Hats, gloves, and scarves on a closet shelf 

It hasn’t been quite two years since I started writing weekly Clutter Comedy entries; I started posting them in May 2014. But it has been long enough that my husband recently said he thought there wasn’t much clutter left in the house to write about. Of course, no matter how much of it goes out, clutter always builds back up when it gets a chance. He’s probably right, though, that my blog could use some fresh new energy, rather than having so many posts about old junk.

So I’ve decided to make a change—today I am “wrapping up” the weekly Clutter Comedy posts, and I’ll replace them by writing about good things that come into my life. When clutter goes out, it leaves plenty of open, inviting spaces for something new and cheerful to come in and play! I don’t yet know what they may be, or how often I’ll find them; but of course, that means it’s going to be an adventure!

It’s bright and sunny here today, with cheerful spring flowers popping up everywhere. I enjoyed seeing them all over the neighborhood when I went out for a run yesterday afternoon, but I did not take any photos. So instead, for my Nurturing Thursday entry I’m posting this word-art image that compares life to a camera:
 

Word-art Minion image saying "Life is like a camera. Focus on what's important, capture the good times, develop from the negatives, and if things don't work out, take another shot." 

Blogging is a great way to capture and look back on the good times, and to make friends along the way. Whether a post has photos or only words, it’s a snapshot of where the author happened to be at that point in time. Like old-fashioned journals and photo albums, but more easily, our blogs let us look back through time and see how we’ve grown and what we’ve learned. It’s a wonderful exercise in perspective too!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

I wrote this post in draft with my favorite pen, on the first sheet of a new notepad on a cool, damp morning. That seemed appropriate after a week when I hadn’t felt at all like writing, or indeed doing much of anything on the computer.
 

First two sentences of handwritten draft on a lined notepad. 

Instead of trying to force the muse to get busy when she was nowhere to be found, I decided to reflect quietly on what benefits, if any, there might be in days without writing. At first the very idea that there might be something positive going on seemed a bit of a stretch; it was hard to wrap my mind around it. After all, in our culture, anyone who is audacious enough to claim the identity of “writer” is expected to scribble away daily and produce enough material to be worthy. Bursts of inspiration should appear regularly; and if not, we must go forth on a brave quest to slay the evil dragon of writer’s block.

The underlying fear seems to be that if a day goes by without feeling motivated to do any writing, many more will follow, and soon the dragon will be found gleefully gnawing on the poor failed writer’s bones. That’s a silly fear, of course—for those of us who process our experiences mainly through written words, putting down our words on paper (or the computer) is as natural as breathing. Sometimes we may get so busy with other things that we lack sufficient processing capacity, but it always gets freed up after a while.

Coming back around to my original question, then, a day without writing would be a day when the subconscious mind requires more mental CPU space to process other things; and the benefits, in general, would consist of a better understanding of whatever else is being processed. So, after meditating on it for a while, I concluded that “writer’s block” is not really an evil dragon to be feared—it’s a perfectly normal response to the human need to make sense of our experiences, in one way or another.

Although spring is near, this post is not about baseball, but about all the old stuff in the sock and underwear drawer that never seems to get thrown away until after it has been sitting around for years. There’s no good reason for that—replacing socks and other small items of clothing is not that big of a chore, and it is nice to have new socks even if the old ones are not full of holes.
 

Wooden drawer stacked high with socks of many kinds. 

Maybe the socks are neatly stacked up and not in the way, but that doesn’t mean they ought to stay there forever. The fabric gets more worn and stiff than we may notice because it happens gradually. Or it could just be a type of fabric that doesn’t wear well, like that awful crinkly synthetic that everything sticks to after one washing. Early spring is a good time to purge the sock drawer and get a fresh start!

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

Because it has been unusually warm this week, my husband and I decided to go rowing yesterday. We hadn’t gone out since November, and we’d been looking forward to another enjoyable season with our rowing club. Summer and its long sunny days seemed right around the corner!
 

People in small boats rowing on a river. 

The forecast called for occasional light showers, though, and when we got to the boathouse there wasn’t anyone else around. Then the rain started coming down harder, and an updated forecast showed more of it blowing in. But since we were already there, we decided to go for a short row anyway. It was good to get out and enjoy nature, even with a little rain!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Among the heap of stuff that has been in a corner of the basement since my daughter moved out, there is a baby gate. One of my daughter’s friends gave it to her in 2014 to keep her new puppy in or out of rooms. Now she has no use for it because the dog is full grown and reasonably well trained. But some of my daughter’s friends have babies, so I didn’t want to get rid of the gate without asking. I thought one of her friends might want it.
 

Baby gate with plastic rods and mesh in between. 

My daughter came home for a visit this weekend; and of course when I finally got around to asking about the gate, her friends were not at all interested in it. So, off it goes to charity. As for the other stuff my daughter is supposed to take, hopefully she can fit it all in her car when she departs. Though, I am not sure about that because she brought home lots of laundry to do!

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

March 5, 2016 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

Some authors suggest that hereditary conditions might not be caused entirely (or even mostly) by genetics, but reflect patterns of thought and behavior in families. When I came across this idea, it didn’t convince me. It seemed too far afield from the conventional wisdom, shading into woo-woo and unfairly blaming people for their own health issues. But, setting aside my skepticism, I gave it more thought recently.

When I was a child, my mom gave me milk with every meal because she was concerned about a family history of osteoporosis. She told me to eat my veggies and always kept plenty of fruit in the house for healthy snacks, but I’m not sure how much difference she thought it would make. She has said, on many occasions, that she believes almost everything is genetic.

Could there be any patterns of thought and behavior in the women of my mom’s family that might relate to weak bones? Not lack of exercise, as they always enjoyed activities such as gardening and tennis that got them outdoors and moving around.
 

Three large hostas in bloom. 

Maybe there was something on a subconscious level going on, but what could that be? My mom’s family have been comfortably middle-class for many generations, well respected in their communities; they haven’t struggled to keep food on the table or a roof over their heads. Then a few words spontaneously came into my thoughts: “Brittle on the inside, keeping up appearances!”

My first reaction was along the lines of, wow, this is farfetched. Not the part about keeping up appearances—that really is important to my mom’s family; they don’t want anyone to see their vulnerabilities and mistakes because people might talk. When I was a child, my mom never really got angry (or at least, she didn’t show it) unless I misbehaved in some way that set the neighbors to talking. Then, in addition to getting punished, I would get sternly lectured about behavior that was a bad reflection on the family.

“Brittle” was not a word that I’d have used; on the contrary, I saw it as a strength and a quiet sort of confidence, just going about one’s business and calmly doing whatever might need to get done. It wasn’t until about two years ago (as I discussed in this post) that I began to understand there was a downside to bottling up feelings and acting tough.

I’m still not convinced that taking a more relaxed approach to life is enough to keep bones in good health regardless of genetics, but I have decided to reserve judgment. Much is still unknown about how the human body and the subconscious mind work. And in any event, letting go of old worries about keeping up appearances is likely to improve health and happiness generally, whether or not it does much for bones in particular. So, it’s all good, one way or another.