Meg Evans

My family has gotten scattered around the country over the years. We stay in touch by phone and mail, but it’s not the same as seeing each other in person. I like to think of friends as being part of a larger circle of family. That helps with feeling connected—which, of course, is something we all need.

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.

My employer has been training the managers this year on Psychological Safety, which involves creating a supportive environment where workers feel that they can express their concerns and will not be punished for asking questions or making mistakes. I believe that it is more important than ever in today’s circumstances, after people got totally stressed out last year and are still struggling to recover. More kindness and understanding are needed now, rather than unrealistic pressure to be perfect.

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.

This morning, my husband and I had a Zoom meeting with our rowing coach, Christine Cavallo, to talk about the sprint races we did this summer and what we’ll be doing in the fall season. We let her know that we were pleased with her training plan and that we’d both improved our speed, endurance, and consistency. Christine said that when she looked up our results from last month’s racing, she was surprised to see that we had competed in several sprint events during the regatta. She would have given us more work, she told us, if she had known we would enter so many races!

Truth be told, before we signed up for online coaching this year, we hadn’t realized how much a regular training schedule would improve our fitness. It’s very good to know that there are so many possibilities—both in rowing and in life more generally—for improvement.

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.

Instead of exercising on the rowing machine after I finished my work this evening, I decided that I could better nurture myself with a Restorative Yoga online session instead. It was very calming—all those rushed feelings from the workday fell away, and I breathed in life.

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 online coaching that I mentioned in last Thursday’s post was definitely worthwhile. My husband and I rowed in several races at the Masters National Championships regatta last weekend in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and had good endurance in the heat. The weather stayed sunny, with no disruptions to the schedule other than morning fog delays. Just after the last race of the final day, a storm blew in, but by then we were already packed up and getting on the road.

Our rowing team traveled together with friends from another nearby rowing club. My husband won a silver medal in a men’s lightweight quad with rowers from both teams, and my women’s lightweight quad took bronze. We also rowed mixed quads, which were fun; and we rowed our double and our singles, as usual. Although we got no medals in those races, we did well in comparison to past years, gaining both speed and consistency. And, it was especially good to be traveling with friends and seeing familiar faces.

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.

This summer I haven’t been blogging as much as usual because I’ve spent more time rowing with my husband. He signed us up this spring for online coaching from Christine Cavallo, who works for Tagalong. Christine is well suited to us because of her experience with the lightweight double, which is our preferred race. The training plan she created for us includes both rowing workouts on the water and indoor exercises on our rowing machine.

I have to admit that it felt exhausting when we were getting started, but now we’re definitely rowing faster and more smoothly together. My strength and endurance have improved noticeably, and my husband is looking better as well. The Masters regattas where we compete are just for fun—no prize money or anything other than cute little medals. But it’s a fun activity that we can do together and a good way to stay fit, and I am thankful to have something that we can work on improving every year.

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’ve been amusing myself this week playing with an app that turns photos of faces into cartoon images. My current Gravatar/Wordpress photo is from 2018, which now seems like a very long time ago; so I’ll probably change it to a cartoon of me soon, just for fun. We all could use more fun these days, right? And more reminders that the world is full of beautiful things just waiting for us—or, perhaps, waiting to be us.

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 woke up later than usual on a cloudy morning. In part, that was good because I needed more sleep, but it also left me feeling like I was behind schedule and would have no free time to rest and relax during the day. There wasn’t actually much going on at work today—no meetings or anything, and no particular schedule to keep, so it was mainly in my mind.

As the day went on, though, it got to me. Usually I get groceries on Thursday around noon, which doesn’t take that long, but today I felt like it just wasn’t possible to have a few quiet minutes for myself. By the time I finished my workday, I was feeling tired and blah, even though I hadn’t really done anything much. It was all because I started the day with the expectation of having no downtime.

I did a workout on the rowing machine, took a shower, and put on my pajamas, still feeling like the day had gotten away from me. Then my husband came into the bedroom just after I finished drying my hair, and we started to chat about nothing in particular. Only a minute or so had passed, but I felt much more cheerful and relaxed. Then it occurred to me that—of course!—I would have felt much better earlier if I had started the day expecting to find plenty of small relaxing moments.

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.

When I sat down to write my usual Thursday post, I wasn’t sure what to say because this seemed like a very ordinary day. I got up, worked half the day in my home office with my husband also working from home on the other side of the room, took a break and went to buy groceries, got some exercise on the rowing machine in the basement, took a shower, and finished my workday as usual.

Then it occurred to me that this ordinary day looked magical if I just took the time to notice. Working from home with my husband to keep me company is nice and mellow, buying groceries in a well-stocked supermarket means that I am blessed with abundance, and the rowing machine makes it easier to stay healthy and fit. Worth writing about, after all!

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.

When I woke up this morning, I felt calmer than I’d been in a long time. Nothing had changed much since yesterday, but I felt more peaceful anyway, as if my own perspective had somehow shifted overnight. Whatever concerns I’d had were farther away, distant enough that they no longer felt threatening but were just little specks in my internal landscape, without much emotional content. I began the day feeling as if I had made more space to invite happiness into my life.

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.