I never did get around to taking down the Christmas tree in January. Whenever I thought about doing it, we had another dark morning that made me feel sunlight and spring were very far away, and I just wanted to leave the tree and its lights for a bit of brightness and cheer.

There were still a few presents under the tree because our daughter hadn’t yet come by. I also bought a small gift for a friend of hers. Our daughter stopped by yesterday and collected the presents, along with some clothes she had left here. Later, she told us that her friend hadn’t expected a gift from us and was happily surprised. I was glad to have brightened her day!

Word-art that says, "If everything around seems dark, look again. You may be the light." -Rumi

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

Last week, I scheduled my time off for a February spring break trip to Sarasota, Florida. My husband and I enjoyed taking a winter road trip to Sarasota the past two years, and by now it feels like it’s turning into a regular event for us.

Work has been going well for both of us, and we’re not looking to escape from it. In fact, my husband, who has less vacation time than I do, plans to work remotely in the mornings. I thought about doing the same, but then decided against it. Even though I can’t picture myself being retired and spending many long, lazy days on the beach without much to keep my mind busy, I still need to allow myself enough unscheduled time outside the usual routine to enjoy quiet days and let myself unwind.

Word-art that says, "I want days without a schedule to keep. Hours left open for unplanned adventure. Moments of true stillness. I want a life outside of our busy schedule—a life with time to live." -Brooke Hampton

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

I like my new Garmin tracker, which allows me to customize activities much more than my old Fitbit did. In addition to pre-set activities such as walking and running, it has a menu with other options. I added rowing, indoor rowing, and yoga.

Photo of Garmin tracker showing activities: yoga, meditation, row, row indoor.

Meditation is one of the pre-sets, but I have not used it because I never track the length of time I meditate. Although I know that many people do, for me it seems to go against the purpose of meditation, which—in large part—is to free the mind from its cluttered thoughts of plans and schedules. When meditation becomes just another scheduled task on the to-do list, with every minute precisely tracked, that feels like a counterproductive approach.

So, after taking a photo for this post, I decided to delete meditation from the list of tracked activities. If, after meditating on any particular day, I feel that my mind has not been suitably refreshed by whatever amount of time I put into it, I probably would do better to take a walk outdoors or do some yoga, rather than fixating on the tracker and judging my meditation time as inadequate.

Sometimes it can be hard to stay confident in a world that seems full of challenges. I just did a rowing machine workout this evening with 25 fast intervals and not much rest. Even though I did the same workout last winter and got through it okay, it still felt daunting to sit down on the machine and get started. As it turned out, everything was fine, and my time was a little faster than last year.

Then my husband went to do his workout while I got in the shower. We follow the same exercise plan, and I was thinking about how much better off we are to have each other’s encouragement. Without it, we likely wouldn’t be pushing ourselves to do as much.

Because the modern world is so full of scheduled tasks with work, exercise plans, household chores, obligations to family and friends, and other duties that crowd in on us, we can easily lose sight of what matters. Every day, through ordinary interactions with family members and others, we are shaping their future as well as our own. We may not see it in the moment—but that is a truly awesome superpower.

Word-art that says, "You were born with the ability to change someone's life. Don't ever waste it."

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

The wind has been howling outside my house this afternoon, and colder temperatures are forecast to arrive over the weekend. As adults, we tend to grumble about winter weather because, for many of us, it seems like an annoyance when we’d rather enjoy the outdoors on pleasant summer days. When we were children, though, we’d go out any time of year, and a snow day was a fun day, just right for sledding and adventures. There’s no reason why we can’t keep those memories in mind, even now, and look on the bright side.

Word-art with children sledding that says, "Bright hopes for the future, sweet memories for the past."

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

Last night my husband and I went to our rowing club’s white elephant gift exchange party at a pub. As usual, there were funny gag gifts, including a calendar of “Sexy Men Doing Chores,” which none of the women had enough gumption to take from the guy who had the misfortune of unwrapping it. We came home with what we thought were the best items—a decorative miniature oar, a vanilla candle, and a set of cheese-cutting utensils. Of course, everyone has different ideas about what is best for gifts, as well as in life more generally. It wouldn’t be as much fun otherwise!

Word-art that says, "All that is best, that best I wish you."

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

Considering the outcome of my previous New Year’s resolution on a dark, misty afternoon, I judged that it hadn’t amounted to much. Although I had resolved to feel unburdened by self-imposed tasks, my to-do list snowballed instead. It all started innocently enough; I decided to spend a little time improving my coding skills. That led to my manager deciding I was tech-savvy enough to help another group with technical writing.

Meanwhile, with a big push for AI development underway, my workgroup had to do software testing in addition to our regular tasks, and by June that had expanded so much that we had overtime hours available every week. At the same time, my husband was making plans for our mixed quad crew to row in October at the Head of the Charles, which would be our first time traveling to this extremely competitive regatta in Boston. I earned some overtime money to put toward rowing expenses, while keeping up with both my regular workouts and rowing practice in the quad.

The Boston trip was exciting, and I was glad that we did it. Still, this was a year in which I felt exhausted and fragmented more often than not. I couldn’t honestly say I’d gotten anywhere with my resolution to unburden myself. What I really wanted to do was to soar through life free and easy, floating weightlessly above it all, kind of like this old-fashioned image I came across recently:

Word-art that says, "A Joyous New Year to You!"

(Image credit: The Graphics Fairy)

“So, go ahead and do it then.”

Dot, my personified to-do list, stepped out of last year’s resolution post and tapped one of her shiny red shoes impatiently.

“Okay, that sounds good as a resolution and a word of intention,” I had to agree. “Soar. Let go of the burdens, becoming so light without them as to lift up into the air. Yes, I like that idea—but how can I take any practical steps toward doing it?”

“You don’t, really.” Dot opened her hands, showing their emptiness. “You just let go, and everything else takes care of itself. Here’s a question: What were you doing last week?”

“Not much. I was on vacation.”

“Did you feel unburdened?”

I thought about it for a moment before answering. “Yes. I suppose so. It felt quiet and calm, with nothing much going on. I didn’t feel that I was carrying any burdens in particular.”

“Well, there you go.” Dot smiled. “That means there’s nothing to stop you from soaring. Maybe your feet already have lifted off the ground, just a little, whether or not you’ve noticed yet.”

While I’ve been on vacation this week, with no concerns about getting tasks finished on a schedule, I have found myself wondering why I felt so constrained in the first place. After all, there are plenty of ways to arrange my days even when it’s an ordinary workweek. No need to stress about putting everything in a precise order and then hurrying through it all. Life doesn’t have to be that confining.

Word-art that says, "She couldn't keep her colors inside the lines, so she drew new lines."

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

I’ve been trying to make sense of a dream I had last night, in which my family lived in a comfortable townhouse in a large apartment complex. We had bought a wooded lot in the country some time ago, but we still hadn’t gotten around to building a home on it yet.

Photo of woods along a country road.

(Photo credit: Robert Lyle Bolton)

In real life, there was no dilly-dallying when we built our current house. We looked at several subdivisions, found one that we liked, met with the developer, chose a floor plan, decided on a lot, and signed a contract to get the construction started, all in fairly short order.

My best guess is that the dream was illustrating the inertia that people commonly get at the end of the year. Our culture tells us that we’re supposed to be making long lists of projects to get busy on when January starts, but instead we’re comfortable just sitting in our quiet, cozy homes in the dark of winter. For now, it feels like there’s no hurry, and all those grand projects can wait a little longer.

This morning, while I was sitting at my desk, a bird chirped outside the window of my home office. Maybe it had hopes of an early spring, as this has been a rather warm December. But, although a white Christmas is not in the weather forecast for my area, I’m predicting it will be merry.

Merry Christmas word-art with birds turning the calendar to December 25.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”