Meg Evans

Although the modern world is full of amazing opportunities that the people of past generations never could have imagined, it also can be more stressful precisely because we have so many choices. We procrastinate because we feel overwhelmed by all the things we ought to do. Instead of acting on opportunities when they arise, we fill our minds with imaginary scenarios of everything that could go wrong.

This afternoon I got something taken care of that I’d been putting off for a while. I thought it would be hard to do; but when I actually got around to doing it, I found that it wasn’t nearly as difficult or time-consuming as I had imagined.

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.

The willows in my backyard (shown in this post last summer) have been somewhat neglected the past few years, I have to confess. Some small branches died in the frigid winter of 2014, and I never got around to pruning them off. My husband carefully maneuvered the push mower around them for the past two summers without complaining, and finally he said, “Hey, Meg, can you prune these willows, there’s always dead stuff poking me when I walk around them.”

So I’ve been going outside to work on them every weekend when he’s mowing, and it makes quite a difference! The ones that have been pruned so far are looking much better. Instead of having small dead branches sticking out all around, they look neat and tidy.

Walking around them feels much better, too. There’s an inviting sense of openness that wasn’t there before. The air seems to circulate more freely, even if it hasn’t really changed that much, and it feels more comfortable in general. Sometimes pruning away old dead stuff can make a big difference—both in the yard and in life generally!

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.

Often when people are too busy, it’s because they’ve gotten the idea that if they don’t do everything, then it won’t get done. Of course, that is not really true. It’s not all on us. Lots of things happen whether we’re involved or not. Most of us are nowhere near indispensable in our jobs and other obligations, however much we might like to think we are; and Mother Nature does as she pleases.

I planted snapdragons in my garden next to some that had survived the winter, as I mentioned in a post a month ago. Here’s a photo showing two large plants on either side (the survivors, now blooming) with the freshly planted ones in between and smaller plants from last year’s seeds popping up all around.

If I hadn’t gotten impatient for a bit of color in early May, I could easily have waited, and the garden would have filled in with snapdragons naturally. I see it as a good reminder that even though we always have things we want to do, the world is not going to fall apart if we don’t happen to get them done!

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.

Even though it’s silly to try to be like celebrities, most of us would have to admit we’ve done it at one time or another. When I was a student, I decided that I wanted hair that looked like Princess Di. The stylist gave me a lecture about how my long hair looked pretty as it was, complained about young people who don’t appreciate the beauty of just being themselves, and reluctantly trimmed it a little after telling me that Princess Di had started wearing her hair longer.

I was young enough that I didn’t appreciate the advice, either; but it did start to make more sense as time went by. If we can’t be comfortable as ourselves, then we’re probably not going to have much success trying to be someone else, either!
 

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.