Meg Evans

In addition to posting Nurturing Thursday entries on this blog, which I’ve done for the past 10 years, I now send weekly emails to my coworkers (with different Nurturing Thursday messages, though they are similar) to bring more peace and self-nurturing into the workplace after the pandemic. My workgroup had a tradition of motivational emails long before that, but those messages ended when the various contributors retired or changed jobs.

I’m taking vacation this afternoon and tomorrow, and I was just finishing up my work at 1 PM when I realized that I hadn’t sent a Nurturing Thursday email. I quickly composed and sent one, feeling relieved that it was still early enough in the day that my coworkers wouldn’t notice I almost forgot. Then I started thinking, what difference would it make anyway? We all forget things, or come close to forgetting, and the world still keeps on spinning regardless. No worries!

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.”

This afternoon, with my husband away traveling until tomorrow, I felt unsettled in my quiet house. It was okay, though. I reminded myself that emotions come and go. I went down to the basement to do a rowing machine workout, which left me feeling better afterward.

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.”

Continuing my line of thought from last week’s Nurturing Thursday post about how to balance other activities with a demanding exercise plan, in which I compared it to learning how to pace a workout on the rowing machine, the solution became obvious once I looked at it in those terms. My pacing on the machine improved when I had collected enough statistics on my workouts to know when I was going too hard. So, I need to take a similar approach to my activities overall, creating a spreadsheet to track what I actually do and compare it to the workout plan, to make sure I’m not overexerting myself.

Running low on energy is no fun, either during a workout or feeling run down more generally; but sometimes it’s part of learning how to do better.

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.”

This week I’ve been contemplating how to balance other activities with my training plan for rowing, which my husband and I do together. It includes strenuous exercises crafted (more or less fiendishly) by two national-level rowers. They balance the hard workouts with some easy days and Sundays off, so it’s a reasonable plan, consistent with the current wisdom in exercise physiology. They are younger than our kids, and I suspect they think it’s an interesting challenge to see how much they can do with geezers like us.

My fitness has been much improved since we started doing these workouts three years ago. At first, it felt overwhelming because I hadn’t previously done such demanding workouts and did not have a good sense of how to pace myself. There would be days when I started too fast on the rowing machine, then all my energy suddenly drained away, and I struggled to finish. Now that I understand pacing better, that generally does not happen, and the exercises don’t feel as daunting.

I still find myself getting low on energy sometimes, though, after traveling or other events that are outside my usual routine. That also seems to be a pacing issue, in that the training plan takes up more of my energy, restricting what else I can do. I need to discover where my limits are, letting some things go and taking others more slowly, so that I can find the right balance.

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 recently saw a word-art image that left me smiling after I looked at it, and it made me happy enough that I decided to share it—in hopes of making readers happy too. Enjoy!

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 had a rather long day. Work, hair appointment, race-practice exercises on the rowing machine, more work, then some easy rowing outdoors to unwind. This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but it was after 11 PM by the time I sat down to write this post, and nothing particularly imaginative came to mind.

So I decided that instead of stressing about it, I would give myself permission to simply relax and not expect anything more of myself tonight.

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.”

There isn’t much left of the gravel path between my rowing club’s boathouse and the dock. It got neglected during the pandemic, as many things did; and by now, the grass has grown all through it. Walking to and from the dock is like going for a walk through a country meadow, bright green with spring grass and clover, and clumps of violets along the path here and there.

More gravel will be put down sometime this season; the club’s board already has approved the expense. It really does need to be done soon because the path is uneven, with groundhog holes and other hazards that might cause someone to fall. Even so, as peaceful as it felt to walk through the grass this afternoon, I was almost wishing it could stay like that a while longer.

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.”

Eclipse day was beautifully clear here in western Ohio. My husband and I went down to the river to watch from our boat. We brought extra shirts so we wouldn’t be chilly, but Monday was such a warm day that we only needed to wear them during the totality. Seeing the light fade away until the sky looked like sunset was pretty amazing. We felt lucky to have had the chance.

I’ve been reminding myself this week to slow down and appreciate what is around me. When I catch myself running through a list of to-dos in my head, I stop and replace that thought with a reminder that I am only doing one thing at the moment, along with a reason for gratitude to be doing it. Even if it’s something as simple as getting a glass of water, for instance, that is much more convenient for us than it was for our ancestors, who had to trudge to the pump or cistern and could only get ice in the winter.

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 had more than usual going on this week and have felt somewhat distracted, like I am ping-ponging between too many activities without enough time to rest and reflect. When that happens, generally the best thing is just to breathe quietly for a minute or so, letting the mind slow down. Everything will get done—or maybe some of it won’t, and that is probably okay too. No worries.

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.”

Although I knew that my old plates and bowls needed replacing, I hadn’t yet gotten around to doing it, mainly because of having fond memories of family dinners. The plates were getting a bit worn around the edges, but they still seemed to be usable.

Then I got a ceramic splinter in a finger on Monday while I was unloading the dishwasher. I thought it all came out right away, but something was still in there causing irritation the next day. When I asked my husband to look for it, he couldn’t find anything either. It seems like he got the speck out, though, because the finger is looking better now.

I’ll definitely be going to the mall to shop for new dinnerware—sooner rather than later.

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.”