The Feel Good Shot

There must have been a bad moon rising last week. Every day brought with it some disruption, upset, or annoyance - computer glitches, household mechanical failures, sleepless nights, sick dogs. It was in pursuit of a remedy for the latter that I became acquainted with the notion of a Feel Good Shot. Both of my little dogs are prone to digestive upsets, Magic in particular. We never know what brings on these occasional bouts of abdominal distress, because he's not a forager - is in fact, a rather picky eater. But they definitely make him miserable for a few days.

And when one of my dogs is miserable, than I'm miserable too. That's just the way of it.

My vet offered a new medication that's akin to a miracle drug for all manner of canine intestinal distress. She gave Magic an injection which was supposed to take effect immediately. "He should feel better by the time you get home," she promised. "We call it the Feel Good shot."

Ah, a Feel Good shot. At the end of the week, I desperately needed one of those for myself.

The thing about a series of upsets - even relatively minor ones like those of last week - it that they derail me from my carefully laid plans and routines. I am a creature of habit, I love my daily routines, and when they get disrupted I don't feel good. They also prevent me from putting myself first, and though that sounds completely self absorbed, I finally understand that if I don't take care of myself and my own emotional and physical needs, I can't possibly take care of the other people and things in my life.

But that means recognizing what Feeling Good means. Like most women, I'm more likely to think about what's going to make other people feel good than what it takes for me to feel that way myself. To even devote the time to consider what's necessary for my own happiness seemed self-indulgent. There's certainly nothing wrong with being considerate of other people, or with the desire to care for them and make them happy. But I've finally accepted the fact that I have to put myself at the top of that list, because if I don't Feel Good about myself and my own life, there's nothing I can do to make the people I love feel good about theirs.

Feeling Good for me is the sense of peace that comes from feeling energized, organized, confident, attractive, and loved. How do I get to that place? What's my Feel Good Shot?

The daily routine, of course, which means my morning coffee and book time,  exercise, productive work, being outdoors, regular dinner time, evening relaxation with a good TV program or movie, and a relaxing bath before bed. But beyond that, it's being able to do the things I find fulfilling - writing, reading widely, playing music, keeping a nice home, spending quality time with my family.

When I was young, I got allergy shots every week, and the allergist would specially blend the injection each time depending on the time of year or the particular allergens that were affecting me. Like those allergy shots, I think our feel good shots need to be blended exactly the same way, with specific and very individualized ingredients depending on our emotional and physical needs of the day.  There are times when all I want to do is play music, or read books. There are other times when my legs just itch for a long bike ride or walk. Sometimes nothing makes me feel better than scrubbing the bathtub until it shines or cleaning all the clutter out of my closet.

The point is to learn what makes you feel good - what calms your anxious heart, makes your inner spirit smile, fills you with a sense of well being. Take notice of the things you do as you go about the business of your own precious Life in General. Is it that first cup of coffee in the morning that makes getting out of bed worthwhile? Or is it a bracing hot shower and singing along with your  favorite tunes as they blast through the steamy air? What energizes you through your workday? Does a comforting, healthy lunch you packed at home the night before or joining with your co-workers around a common table, sharing a meal and conversation give you the extra boost you need to make it until quitting time. And what sets you up for a restful sleep? Curling up on the couch with your significant other and watching a good movie, reading bedtime stories to your kids, doing yoga or meditating, writing in a gratitude journal?

I promise you that feeling good can be just that simple and routine. If you start to notice those times throughout your normal day when you're the most happy, the most content, the most productive, and then look around to see why, you'll find all the ingredients for your own Feel Good Shot right there for the taking.

Give it a try. And come back and tell me what works for you.

Feel good shots are meant to be shared.

TLC Book Tours: The Widows of Braxton County

Jess McConkey's novel,  The Widows of Braxton County, explores over a century's worth of dark secrets in an Iowa farm family. When Kate Krause relinquishes her city life to move to her new husband's 140 year old farm, she has no idea what she's getting herself into. And it's more than just a cranky mother-in-law and long days doing back-breaking, unfamiliar chores. The Krause family is harboring a  secret, one the whole town has been speculating about for decades. Kate finds herself drawn into a chain of mysterious and dangerous events, as she is haunted by a death that occurred long before her time. Kate Krause, and her 19th century counterpart, Hannah Krause are both abused women, and I always find stories about abusive relationships difficult to read. They make me angry - and I don't always want to be angry when I'm reading a novel. Nevertheless, I love historical novels, and I especially enjoy those (like this one) that show how the past influences the future. McConkey conveys life on the farm in the 1800's through flashbacks, showing just how difficult daily living was for farmer's wives in those times.  The author resides in a small Iowa town herself, and her descriptions paint a vivid picture of life in both eras.

Thanks to TLC Tours for the opportunity to read this book.

Locking the Door for the Last, Last Time

Today I left our old house in Redford for the very last time. Tomorrow (finally) we will finalize the sale of the home to a young couple with a two-year old son named Jackson. The circumstances of the sale were made in heaven (thank you St. Joseph, patron saint of homes).  During the final stages of the major clean-out process, our next door neighbor came knocking at the door.  "Are you getting ready to put the house up for sale?" he asked.

Yes, we answered, already filled with trepidation about dealing with realtors and regulations and mortgage companies.

"My son and daughter in law are really interested," he replied. "If they like it, we could do the deal without involving the real estate."

Wonder of wonders, they took one 15 minute look and they were sold. And so were we.

Easy as pie.

How blessed can you get?

So now we are about to relinquish the Rowan family homestead - the property my father in law purchased in 1948 and the brick home home he built in 1952. And today, I took one last walk through the empty house, and said my goodbyes.

To the living room where I walked the floor with a cranky baby, played my piano for hours on end, unwrapped Christmas presents for 36 years, and drank my morning coffee while I watched the sun come up.

To the bedroom where we slept night after night, where our son was conceived and where we lay, sleepless,  waiting for the sound of his car in the driveway when he was a teenager.

To Brian's room, where he played and drew pictures and wrote stories and made recordings, where he littered the floor with stuffed animals and books and vinyl record albums and Hot Wheels cars.

To the kitchen - oh the kitchen, where I cooked countless pot roasts and casseroles, made innumerable pots of coffee (first in Corning Ware percolators, and then in those new fangled Mr. Coffee machines), washed hundreds of dishes, unloaded tons of groceries.

To the back porch, where I sat in the mornings listening to a symphony of birdsong and watching rabbits play across the grass, rushing to squeeze through their escape hatch under the fence as soon as Magic or Molly would take off after them.

And to the clotheslines, where each week I hung sheets to whip dry in the summer sun and brought them in warm and fresh to put on the bed. I miss the clotheslines a lot.

I even said goodbye to the basement (although I always hated the basement), and the laundry tub where I washed my hair and bathed my dogs.

I have to believe it's a rare thing in this modern world for people to live in the same home their entire married lives - even rarer still when that's the house where you were born.  I don't think life in these United States lends itself to that kind of longevity or continuity. It's expected that you will want more than the "old things" your parents had, that you will continually strive for bigger and better houses, and cars, and vacations. People move all over the country and even the world, traveling wherever their relationships and jobs might take them, looking for the next big thing.

Perhaps it's part of our oddball nature, but we never felt any particular tug for a bigger or better home. Our little house suited us fine. And with every passing year and every increasing ache or pain, it became more and more difficult to imagine the rigors of moving two family lifetimes worth of stuff to another place.

But there are times in life when the need for change becomes palpable, when the yearning for something fresh and new insistently clamors for attention and can no longer be ignored. It took a long time for that to happen to us, but finally it did.

And here we are, saying goodbye to the house.

We've lived in our condo for almost a year now, long enough to feel like we belong, long enough to know we love it, long enough to feel confident we are in the right place. There were no tears today as I walked through the hallways, turned off the lights, and locked the door for the last time.

Just my spirit saying a quiet thank you  for sheltering me and the people I love.

Write On Wednesday: Expanding Time

In a productive, well-ordered life two elements must be managed: time and work. Poor time managers fail to recognize the difference between the two elements: Work is infinite; time is finite. Therefore, you must manage your time, not your work. Work expands to fill whatever time is allotted to it. ...The concept of "finishing your work" is a contradiction in terms so dangerous that it can lead to a nervous breakdown - because it puts the pressure on the wrong places in your mind and habits. Time, on the other hand, is finite, though there's much more of it available than people who manage it poorly think. The real problem is we don't have enough disciplined energy to use all the time that's given us. A Writer's Time, by Kenneth Atchity

It's probably the most common complaint heard today, and one I've made myself many times on these very pages. There  isn't enough time to write, play music, quilt, bike ride - whatever your consuming passion happens to be, there's never enough time to satisfy your appetite for it. Time is definitely finite, and while it can expand in horrific ways when you're in pain or worried or bored, it can also expand positively to allow you the opportunity to feed your dreams.

Within the past couple of months, I suddenly find myself with more finite time available than I've had in years.  I'm working part time from home, I'm not currently involved in an active music group, the moving saga is over and our old house tidily cleaned out and sold. Suddenly, my time has expanded before my eyes.

That's a good thing, but it's also a scary thing. Because I know how easy it is to fritter the time away with shopping or social media or dithering over what to have for dinner. Now I'm faced with the task of learning to manage time in a different way - rather than successfully juggling dozens of tasks and responsibilities in a day, I have entire days with nothing on my schedule. (I know, don't hate me.) And I want to make the most of that.

Writing will be a major component of the way I spend my new expanded time. I am poised to make the step from writer to Writer. I have a serious project underway, I've joined a writing group for inspiration, support, and feedback.  Soon I will leave this blogging space behind for a self-hosted page that supports this next step in my writing life.

My "success" in any of this depends on two things - willpower and attitude. Willpower to develop writing habits that work for me at this time in my life and stick to them as much as possible, while retaining enough flexibility to participate in life's other pleasurable and mandatory activities.

Just as important is adjusting my attitude from one of laser focus on the finished product to one of full participation in the process. I've always been a product oriented type of person, trying to get things done as quickly as possible. And I sometimes burn myself out early, lose interest if things take too long.  I've realized that this constant pressure  to finish things is adversely affecting my work habits. Kenneth Atchity also writes, "Instead of trying to finish your work, you need merely find time to do your work; then simply concentrate on doing it the best you can. The satisfaction will come from knowing that each day you've allotted time for the work you love, the work you want to do."

Do I want to finish this novel I've started to write? Of course. But I also want to savor the process. A novel is so much more than the sum of its words. I want to take the time to think about these characters I'm creating, to immerse myself in the work of other novelists who have written books I admire in similar genres, to research and study the psychological aspects of my subject matter, to surround myself with the soundtrack of music that will be a major component in this story. I want to live in this world I'm making so it becomes reality to me, and, as a result, will be a reality to the people who read the book.

The emphasis must be on the process rather than the product.

One of the perks of being menopausal is the tendency to wake very early in the morning. Instead of lying in bed, tossing and turning, I'm looking at this time of wakefulness as a gift, a sign that there's something I'm meant to be doing, so I'm getting up and doing it.  I've set a manageable goal - 30 minutes of actual writing on the novel each morning, first thing with my coffee when I'm at my most creative, and before the distractions of news or Facebook or dogs can deter me.  Any time during the remainder of the day, usually in the latter part of the mornings and afternoons, is for researching,  reading pertaining to the novel, or other writing (blogging or articles for ATG).

Will every day be easy? Will the words always flow in a direct line from my brain through my pen and onto the page? Certainly not.

But there is time. There really is.

It's expanding all around me.

How about you? Do you feel as if you have a handle on managing your writing time? Are there places you've not explored in your daily life where you could find time to write?

Write On Wednesday

Yes. I'd like to.

Write, that is.

But sometimes there are things more important than writing.

Like sons and grandsons who drive over 1000 miles to visit you for almost three weeks.

So instead of writing I've been blowing bubbles and taking walks and watering the garden and looking for mushrooms and reading "welcome home mouse" and singing the "tut tut" song and looking up videos of wheels on the bus and playing cozy pillow.

Not writing.

But Living.

Experiencing.

Savoring.

The writing will wait. And when the house is quiet and the toys have all been put away for another visit in another year, there will be pages to fill from a heart that is warmer and fuller and more open than it was before.

How about you? What are you savoring these days? And how does it appear in your writing?