Meg Evans

The credit for this week’s self-nurturing topic goes to Elizabeth Gilbert. In her bestselling book Eat, Pray, Love, there is a scene in which she describes going to a soccer match in Italy and taking notes on a spectator’s colorful cursing because she loves the sound of the Italian language so much. She mentions that there is no good English translation for “che casino,” which literally translates as “what a casino,” but has a meaning closer to “what a mess.”
 

After reading that book, sometimes when I realize that I’ve let myself get into a “what a mess” mood, I say out loud “Che casino!” in my best fake Italian accent, dripping with exaggerated pity. That’s almost sure to leave me giggling and take the seriousness out of the situation! Although we all get into bad moods on occasion, humor can be a very effective way of dealing with them.

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 husband recently asked me to leave cookies off the grocery list because he had been eating too many of them, which was best dealt with by an “out of sight, out of mind” diet. Over the summer his employer got acquired, and he ate more cookies because of stress without realizing it. Many people do that, of course, as shown by this word-art picture I got in an email from a coworker last month.
 

Many years ago, Sesame Street changed the Cookie Monster to the Veggie Monster out of concern that kids shouldn’t be encouraged to eat sugary snacks for comfort. Although I can’t picture the Veggie Monster inspiring kids to clamor for lima beans, the health concern is indeed valid, given that today’s diet has way too much sugar in it. But even though it’s best not to overindulge, I have to admit there are times when nothing beats a soft gooey fresh-baked (or microwave-warmed) chocolate chip cookie after a tough day!

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.

Saturday was a chilly day here, with some rain showers. I was outside for part of the day and was glad to get back home, where I could warm up! When I looked out the window by the front door, I noticed a rabbit on the steps, looking perfectly comfortable. My first thought was that the rabbit wanted to get out of the wet, too!
 

I didn’t invite the rabbit in for tea, like in old-fashioned storybooks, but I did take a photo as a self-nurturing reminder. While it’s good to get outdoors and be active, having a warm and cozy house to come back to later is always something to appreciate!

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.

In my home-office area there are two matching desks, which my husband and I bought in 1999. They’re still in pretty good shape; the only issue over the years has been that the file drawers came with thin curved handles, which broke many times. At one point my husband bought a bag of 10 drawer pulls because they needed replacing so often. The last time one broke, though, it finally dawned on us that maybe we should get something better, instead of always matching the old ones! So we bought nice big sturdy ones instead.
 

Much better! Though it now seems as if it ought to have been obvious all along, we honestly never thought about it before. Over the years we’d gotten so used to the drawer pulls always being in the same style, we just couldn’t shift our mental maps enough to imagine the desks being any different. There’s a good lesson about self-nurturing here; instead of mindlessly putting up with little annoyances out of habit, it’s best to consider the alternatives!

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.

Last week I realized that I’d had a bit of calendar confusion and had made plans to attend a fun activity at the same time as a responsible grown-up activity. Leaving out the details to protect a not-so-innocent party (me, that is), I’ll just say that I came to the conclusion other responsible adults could handle the latter activity without any need for my presence, so I shouldn’t feel obliged to pass up an opportunity to have fun. In short, I decided to play hooky.
 

As it turned out, the would-have-been ditched event got rescheduled anyway, so it didn’t matter except that it gave me some food for thought. Often we feel guilty if we don’t follow through on every obligation—but maybe we shouldn’t. After so many years of being responsible parents, employees, volunteers, etc., and constantly burdening ourselves with one task after another, an occasional day of playing hooky could be just what’s needed to lighten the load!

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 orange trumpet vine along my backyard fence (also shown here and here) has one last bloom remaining at the very top. All the others have turned into big, heavy seed pods hanging down above the grass. Hummingbirds love these flowers, and I took a quick picture with my phone camera on a gorgeously blue morning, to mark the end of the season.
 

Wishing everyone who reads this post something beautiful this week 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.

Today still felt like summer here, warm and sunny; but there’s no mistaking the change of seasons when the days keep getting shorter. This morning I put some Pumpkin Spice coffee on the K-cup carousel, taking the place of my Raspberry Chocolate Truffle summer favorite, so as to get ready for the chilly mornings that are forecast for the weekend.
 

Although I generally like the long days of late spring and early summer the best, there is always something to appreciate at any time of year! Seasonal flavors—whether they’re of coffee or anything else—are a tasty reminder that nothing ever stays the same, and we should enjoy life’s carousel as it turns.

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 crystal bead necklace that I’ve been calling my worry beads (shown in other Nurturing Thursday posts here and here) served as a bracelet today, instead.
 

My right wrist has been feeling sore this week. As far as I know, this is not from exercise or from anything unusual, so it’s likely that I have been putting more pressure on it while sitting at the computer. I looped the beads around my wrist both to ensure I don’t press on it and to increase my body awareness.

Now I am wondering if there may be some area of my life where I’ve been doing too much “pushing” to get things done faster, which has caused me to subconsciously push down on the mousepad harder than usual. Our bodies do send us messages sometimes—we just have to be open to listening!

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 little garden fountain on my front porch, which I mentioned in a May post, has had a lot of algae this summer. I didn’t want to risk harming animals that might drink out of the fountain by putting chemicals in the water; so I’ve just been dumping out the water and the pebbles from time to time, and then putting in clean water and more pebbles.
 

I need to quit being lazy about it, though, and give the fountain a good thorough scrubbing to get all that algae out! The water hasn’t been flowing as freely as it should, and every time I look at it, I’m getting subconscious impressions of blockage and gunk instead of the healthy flow of energy that I had in mind when I bought it. Even the best of intentions for self-nurturing aren’t necessarily going to work out without some work being put in!

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.

As we all know, yard work does not go away when ignored. A row of junipers under my living room windows had been getting overgrown for years while I put off the chore of pruning them. I sternly lectured myself this spring that it needed to get done now, before the sprawling branches killed any more of the grass around them. I started working on it over the weekends, setting myself a deadline of mid-August because that is when the lawn service usually does the aeration and overseeding, which I thought might help with getting the grass to come back more quickly.
 

When I mentioned that to my husband, who is a practical-minded engineer, he said that the timing really didn’t matter because the lawn service people generally don’t walk that close to the bushes anyway, and the bare areas will mainly grow back from the edges because overseeding adds only a small amount of grass seed. Looks like he was right about that because the aeration and overseeding was done this morning, and I didn’t see aeration holes or a significant amount of grass seed in the bare areas.

Still, I would say that setting myself a deadline was good because it kept me motivated to finish the task, even if it didn’t make a practical difference. When neglected chores sit around in plain sight with no definite completion date, they tend to drain mental energy because the subconscious mind notices such things and files them away under the “lots of stuff to do, and it’s not getting done” category. Better to quit procrastinating, get the chore over with, and effectively “overseed” that depleted energy by looking at the positive results instead!

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.