Morning Feelings: Embracing Renewal and Clarity

I'm Feeling A Sense of Renewal.

This morning, I chose to begin with light. I stepped outside to sit on my porch, letting the sun warm me for fifteen quiet minutes.

While I was there, my eyes landed on the Morning Glory I wrote about yesterday.

Its simple presence reminded me how powerful it can be to welcome the day with intention of letting the light set the tone for how I feel before anything else.

Back inside, I made breakfast and had a moment of clarity. After looking up high-histamine foods, I realized I’d been overdoing it the past couple of week, so it's no wonder my psoriasis flared.

Sometimes the body speaks louder than the mind, and it’s up to us to listen.

This led me to investigate more about how stress affects healing.

Today I’ll be ordering one of Gabor Maté’s books, a small step toward understanding my inner world and the connection to psoriasis.

And writing this post feels like another step forward.

Yesterday, I shared how I've been writing in the evening instead of the morning, and that my writing felt dimmer.

Writing this morning feels like more proof that I’m back in rhythm with my creative practice.

The rest of my day will be devoted to my shop site.

Seventy designs to upload, new descriptions to write, and a lot of SEO ahead.

If I’m going to truly step away from Etsy, this work is essential. I would rather be in my studio making stuff, but this has to get done. And I've got a solid 3 days to do it.

But beyond the tasks, what matters most is this: I feel renewed. Grounded. I've got more clarity about the importance of caring for myself first, before offering my energy to others.

And maybe that’s the reminder for all of us, that renewal doesn’t always come in big, dramatic ways.

Sometimes it begins with a flower, a bit of morning sun, and the decision to start again.

Morning, Glory!

Random fact about me: I spend about $500 per year on pretty rocks, outside of the ones I find on the ground. They last way longer than flowers, so that's how I justify the expenditures.

Foul Mood, Happy Video

I woke up in a foul mood today, and when I do, I like to find a peaceful video on YouTube to regulate my mood.

Here's a channel that I like to get me out of my funk, and just watch a beautiful life happen in Ukraine as this couple goes about their daily chores.

This couple is a balm for a foul mood. Julia is so happy, and a great cook! She cooks on outdoor grills, and we get a glimpse of their life on a farm in Ukraine.

I don’t understand anything they say, but you don’t need words..just watch. You’ll see what I mean!

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Random fact about me: I love fresh figs and have a fig tree on my property. I ate some tonight with my dinner.

Rethinking the Use of 'Perfect' When Ordering Food

Daily writing prompt

What is a word you feel that too many people use?

View all responses

Lately, I’ve noticed how often people, especially waitstaff, answer ‘perfect’ when I order something.

And it drives me nuts.

The conversation is the same...no matter where I go.

"I would like some soda water."

Perfect!

"I'd like the gluten-free pizza with non-dairy cheese and chicken."

Perrrrfect.

I've always had a problem with this word, perfect, and the way it is loosely used, but when I'm ordering food?

Are they saying my choice is perfect? or are they happy they don't have to explain something or make an adjustment in some way?

That’s just one way I hear ‘perfect’ used, and it always makes me pause.

Perfect is a word used in many ways, but mostly it's describing something that is free from fault or defects. Or it's fully realized and whole.

But it is usually fleeting. It's a word that captures an alignment that happens rarely, just to fall apart minutes later.

Ask a musician about how often an instrument needs tuning or how for a photographer, the light is always changing.

Perfect is a word that many people use as if it is final.

It's not final, unless the thing that is perfect is dead.

For all the waitstaff out there, here are some phrases to consider when someone orders and you feel the need to respond to what they ordered.

Got it.

Great choice!

Sounds good.

I'm on it!

I just had this last week and it's really good.

Or, if perfect is your favorite word and you just have to use it, how about this:

"I'll make sure it's perfect for you when I bring it out."

I'm cool with that...because, hopefully, it will be all the way dead before it enters my mouth, and this tells me that you are actually looking at what I ordered and making sure it's without flaws and defects.

And by the way, we had a PERFECT meal of smoked meat and French fries...all the way dead and completely smoked and delicious in Almont, Colorado this week.

If you're in the area, eat at Three Rivers Resort. My waitress never said perfect and the smoked meat is mouthwatering.

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Random fact about me: My favorite 70's song is Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd. It's what I heard in my head when my father passed.

The Joy of Play: Learning to Sling by the River

Yesterday, we traveled to Gothic, Colorado, and spent the day playing and resting peacefully near the East river.

The valley past Gothic is one of my favorite locations near Gunnison. Gothic is an old mining town that turned ghost town fairly quickly when the wire-silver discovery went bust.

Now, it's home to the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab, where they teach students about the environment in this pristine location.

My step-father and I found a beautiful spot by the river and spent the day there, and I discovered the joy of the sling.

https://videopress.com/v/kFcSg74m?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

My step-father brought his sling and gave it to me to try. I spent about an hour figuring out how to throw it and had so much fun picking up rocks and trying to hit a target that we would pick out.

Surprisingly, I picked up the technique pretty quickly.

I realized I haven't just had pure fun learning something new in such an immediate way outside of picking up new jewelry techniques in a long time.

One of my favorite book series is The Clan of the Cave Bear. Ayla, the main character, is a Paleolithic woman who learns to hunt with a sling.

I had a ball experiencing firsthand how the book describes her learning how to throw a sling, hit the target and rejoice in seeing immediate feedback from her intention.

I was in sync with this beautiful environment and play was an essential part of the equation.

I also occupied myself with walking the small river, looking at fish, panning for gold and watching some fly fishermen work the river.

Which brought up my love for fishing, and after watching them fly fish all day, I've decided to take a class when I get back home and learn how, too.

More fun on the horizon.

Play is so essential, isn't it? The river brought back an emotion of total abandonment to the present moment that was invigorating.

Now to balance out this idea of play, I also observed an overly cautious mother thwart her kids opportunities to play because of her incessant chirping be careful.

I watched her telling her kids exactly how to cross a part of the river that was only about 2 inches deep.

They were afraid of it, and didn't want to get their feet wet.

We had a pretty strong wind gust at one point shortly after and I watched her two boys complain about the wind and the dust it was kicking up.

They left the river and ran back to the car where they were parked. They were probably 7 or 8.

This made me sad.

I remember playing without much, or any, supervision for long periods of time when I was a kid their age.

Play is the purest form of learning, and without it, or when it is supervised to such a degree, you end up with kids that become afraid of learning and the discoveries that can happen when you screw up.

What I witnessed profoundly affected me, and I promptly picked up more rocks and slung away.

Here's a cool video I found on slinging.

https://youtu.be/hHSpRhHFBE4?si=2FFJuyQ4_7NaLvQh

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Random fact about me: When I was a kid, my dad bought me a compound bow. I was really good at shooting it at the hay bale target in our backyard.

Why Taking a Break is Key to Mental Wellness

Quote Box Wisdom

My stepfather has a handmade wooden box that is filled with quotes he's collected during his life written on index cards.

I just pulled one out and this is the gem I received:

"Whenever he thought about it, he felt terrible. And so, at last, he came to a fateful decision. He decided not to think about it." Life 101

Oh my. Can I relate to this one.

Sometimes, choosing not to think about something is the way to go.

When you cut yourself, it's not wise to start poking on it before a scab forms. It's going to delay healing and further damage the skin.

Let the body's intelligence work on it first. If it's too raw and open to deal with, wait until it isn't.

You're Pressing Pause, not Delete.

I believe our minds are similar.

When we have an experience where there is mental pain and anguish, maybe we need to retreat for a while, and put our mind's insatiable thirst to think onto something else.

That's a step towards healing, too.

A pause can give the unconscious mind some time to work on the problem before we consciously give it some attention.

Where the wisdom lies is understanding the difference between a pause and just avoiding something to continue getting some relief. The relief is only temporary, and that pain will just jump somewhere else in your life, like numbness, angry outbursts or stress.

I take a beat all of the time in my creative life. If I'm working on a design, and I can't figure out logically how to do something, I'll walk away and do something else. I sort of know how much time to devote to something and if I can't process it now, I wait until I can.

And usually the answer to the problem comes when I'm doing something totally unrelated.

Honestly, I believe I've been on a pause for some deeper issues in my life that I feel like I'm just now strong enough to process.

I'm still learning the difference between outright avoidance because of fear, and taking a pause to allow some healing to take place first so that I'm strong enough to deal with the real problem for my deeper, emotionally-based problems.

So, yeah. Giving something time first, is a smart move in many instances.

The hard stuff I have to process only loses its power when I'm ready to meet it...physically, mentally, or spiritually.

But I can't just refuse to look. I'm finding that if I give myself time, I'll eventually get the grit to give it attention.

I thought I was going to end this post on the last sentence, but I read this post to my step-father and he said this:

"God made time so everything doesn't happen at once, because we can't handle it." My step-father, B.

Random fact about me: I had a fried catfish and hushpuppy buffet at my wedding.