Merry Christmas

Just want to wish everyone a warm, happy, memory-filled Christmas.  Please be safe.
~ Donna

10 Tips for Handling Holiday Stress

Ah yes, the Christmas season is upon us and as the hustle and bustle increases so does the stress. Most of the time we can handle it, sometimes we can't. When those times hit there are ways to combat them.  Here are a few of the several ways I found on Helpguide.org.   that can be applied all through the year, not just during the holidays. 

First you must realize that "until you accept responsibility for the role you play in creating or maintaining it, your stress level will remain outside your control".  Know what you can and can't do.  If the church choirmaster asks you if you can make ten matching halos and wings for the children's choir and you really don't have the time.  Say no.  You won't go to hell for it.  If you’re child asks you to drive him/her somewhere and you’re really swamped with other things – say no. You won't be reported to the Child Protection Agency for voicing it.

Put the most important/necessary tasks of your to-do list on top and the least at the bottom. If it has very little importance you might consider not doing it at all. See if you can volunteer some of the others in your family to help with some of the special cleaning, decorating and chores that are a part of "getting ready".  I make a list of everything that needs to be done. I then tell my family members to pick a chore, put their name next to it and cross it off when it’s completed.  It works in my house, maybe it will it yours.

You don't have to be an angel, so if there's something bothering you, talk it out.  Don't let it come to a boil inside until it blasts out making you sound like a shrilling grinch.

Keep things in perspective.  If something is irritating you, ask yourself will it matter in a month?  A year? Is it really worth getting upset over? If the answer is no, focus your time and energy elsewhere.  

Think of things that are positive, that includes, besides rainbows, puppies and kittens; your own good qualities and strengths such as compassion, creativity, honesty, courage, and/or loyalty, to name a few. Also try to think more positively.  If you feel everything is going wrong, think, I can get through this if I take it one step at a time. Or I’ve been through this before, I can do it again.

No one's perfect, so don't demand perfection from yourself.  Even Martha Stewart makes mistakes, though she does use the word perfect a lot.

Don't try to control those things that you can't.  You can control how you will react but some things you don't have any power over, like Uncle Joe.

Get enough sleep. Studies have shown that people function best after seven to eight hours of sleep.

Try to exercise.  It helps to boost endorphins and reduce stress—and research shows that 20 minutes each day is all that is needed to experience benefits.

And lastly do something for fun once a day.  Throw in a CD or grab your i-pod and dance until you feel a smile coming on. Put together a puzzle with your family. Go to a park and take pictures. Do something silly either by yourself or with loved ones.

Another good site for tips is the American Heart Association. 

Hope this helps a little bit.  Have a wonderful and hopefully calmer holiday season.

What IS Nora Roberts?

At our bi-monthly writing meeting, the discussion turned to the trials and tribulations, the angst, and the periodic hair pulling of putting together a story. Somehow the talk moseyed over to the topic of Nora Roberts. For those who don't know, Nora Roberts, with the release of Whiskey Beach in April 2013, has written two hundred and five books.  Thirty-seven of which were under her pseudonym, J.D. Robb.

"I heard she's not human," said Hanna, whose eyes were still red from her breakdown minutes before after telling us about the battle she's been having with her present work.  

She glanced around the cafe.  Her voiced lowered to barely a whisper as she leaned forward. "She's an experimental android spy made by the military. NORA is actually short for Natural Observational Robotic Agent.  But all her reports displayed such creative flair  everyone wanted to read them and were trying to sneak copies out.  Of course the military couldn't have that. "

"They tried reprogramming her, but it didn't work and decided to let her run on her own, monitoring how long she could operate before malfunctioning.  They never expected her to be this good for this long. Plus the Department of Defense gets a percentage of the book sales, so they're real happy."

"But she smokes.  She has to be real," said Mary.

"They added that for realism," replied Hanna.

"I don't think so." Mary continued, "I read Nora's an alien from a literary planet.  She has two brains that work independently from each other and has two sets of arms.  That way she can work on a couple of stories at the same time. She just picked up the smoking habit while on this planet."

"And where the hell did you read that?" asked Cyndi, whose voice whipped with disdain.

"From a reputable newspaper."    

"Yeah, well I wouldn't call The Backdoor Inquisitor a professional journalistic paper."

"I didn't say I read. . ."  

"Oh come on.  I  know you grab that rag every time you go shopping and that bit of info is just their speed."

Mary's fingers tugged at the buttons  of her blouse.

"Okay ladies, let's calm it down here," Keira, always the peacemaker of the group, said as she flipped her hands up in a crossing guard gesture to stop them. 

"You're both wrong," said Tawny.  "She has eight clones tucked away in a remote cabin, each turning out a different story.  Nora, herself, only writes one book every three years."

Cyndi quirked an eyebrow.

"Really! I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who was made privy to it by her  sister-in-law, who got it from her mother, who heard it from her hairstylist, who happens to be the same person Nora uses."

"Did you breathe at all through that whole sentence?"  Cyndi stifled a chuckle.

Tawny's eyes narrowed.  Her hands, resting on her lap, clenched into fists as she drew in a deep breath  through her nose.

"Admit it ladies, we're just jealous and wish we could be as prolific," Keira threw in before more could be said.  She sighed as she gazed at the sullen faces and nodding heads, then raised her coffee cup. 

"To Nora, whatever she may be."

We lifted our cups to meet hers.  "To Nora." 

Annual Thanksgiving Rant or What's Your Thanks in Thanksgiving?

Does the thought of stores open for business on Thanksgiving make you see red or at least a vibrant pink? Does hearing K-Mart will be open at 6 a.m., Walmart and Best Buy at 6 p.m., and Target, Sears, Macy's at 8 p.m., to name just a few, make you want to hand in your membership card to the human  race? Okay, maybe not to that extreme, there are far more important situations to hand in your card for but you get the idea. And I'm right along with you when it comes to these stores.

But I can't vilify and lay the whole blame on the retail sector.  Like the movie Field of Dreams, corporate America heard the little voice say, "if you open, they will come".  And the public did . . .  in droves.  Let's face it, if the consumers weren't there, the doors would stay shut.  So why? According to a RetailMeNot email survey one in five consumers said it gave people a fun activity to do on Thanksgiving.   They haven't talked to my husband. "Families often like to do more than just eat on Thanksgiving. Some go to movies. Some go bowling. Some go to football games or to restaurants," says Bill Thorne, senior vice president of the National Retail Federation.   They couldn't buy or borrow a DVD or play some games at home? It's not like there's not going to be another sale until Christmas! I just don't get it.

When I was a kid, the men would watch  football games, except for my dad who'd go down stairs to play pool with anyone who'd like to challenge him, and the mothers would congregate in the kitchen to help prepare the meal.  When everyone was gathered at the bountiful table, my grandmother would say a short grace that was followed by the noise of platters being passed around and requests for favorite foods.  Then came the silence broken by the clanks of silverware as we enjoyed the results of their labor.  Like a wave,  conversations would rise and fall throughout.  Afterwards, the adults would gather at the table and play penny poker while the cousins, all girls and most of us within four years range of each other, would talk and listen to music. 

Most of those adults have passed on now and the cousins are scattered across the US.  We'll never have those times again.  I miss them.  And I have to ask, what kind of memories are the families of these shoppers and workers going to have to look back on; laughter and sharing or long lines, fighting for a parking space and/or a missing family member at the Thanksgiving table?

Okay, if you feel stores should be closed on Thanksgiving, raise your left hand and  place your right hand on your credit/debit card or any thing else you use to get yourself into debt then repeat after me:

        I, say your name, solemnly swear not venture forth into any store, mall or on-line shopping site to make any purchases on Thanksgiving Day. I shall respect the ideals of Thanksgiving by spending it with family and/or friends and shall not force anyone to work because of my selfish wants.

Good for you.  Now please share what you're thankful for besides family,  friends, employment, health etc.  One of the things I, and this might sound a little strange, am amazed at times and grateful for the ability to turn on my faucet and have hot and cold, clean water whenever I want it.  So many people around the world don't have this simple feature.  We take it for granted like so many other things and we shouldn't.

May you have a wonderful, happy, and safe Thanksgiving.

Sources: Huff Post, USA Today,

The Black Thumb of Death

Thank God for supermarkets.  I mean it.  If my family and I were pioneers, we'd surely starve.  I'm not lying here.

A while back I blogged how I had planted ten strawberry plants.  With the help of the neighborhood feral cats and my own black thumb, they never took.  But four pumpkins plants popped up surprising me, giving me hope. (The seeds were from pumpkin innards I threw in the compost pile the year before.)

Then  the middle of summer came and so did powdery mildew.  The poor plants didn't stand a chance.  It was a pitiful sight. At the end, I solemnly stood by the row of withered vines and blew taps.

Before the demise of the pumpkins, I had bought a tomato plant, figuring we're only a family of three, how many tomatoes do we really need.  I planted it in a container so I could move it around to the sunniest spots in my yard and to be able to get it out of the way when my husband mows the lawn.

Well, that one plant produced one tomato throughout the whole growing season. Yep, one tomato. Disappointed?  Ooooh yeah.  When it became ripe, I picked it, and proudly announced, at supper, that the tomato in the salad was our own home grown. After some cheers and smiles from my family, mainly to make me feel good, we partook in enjoying the fruit of my labor.

Then the months turned to October and I thought it would start to die back.  But what should I see one morning?  The dang plant had a small tomato hanging off one of its branches and a week later another appeared.  What the hell?   Did it realize its biological clock was about to tick its last tock and decided to push out two more before winter?

 The nights are now about 35 - 40 degrees and most days are in the middle fifties.  Not exactly the best growing temperature.  But I'm determined to see these orbs grow to their potential.  The plant now resides in the shower of my smaller bathroom at night and if it's sunny and the temp. is in the higher fifties, I carry it outside.  Hey, if the plant is willing to try, so am  I.

I will be triumphant and the tomatoes shall be mine!

Has anyone else ever had a bad vegetable garden?  Tell me please, it will make me feel a bit better. : )

7 Reasons to open a book

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." 
~Joseph Brodsky

As writers we hope everyone would pick up a book (especially our own), crack open its pages and find delight in its well chosen words.
                                               BUT . . .
In a Pew Internet report it states 19% of those eighteen years and older questioned didn't read, up from 8% from a 1978 Gallup poll. Those who read 1-5 books increased from 29% to 32% and those who read 6-10 and 11-50 changed little though the numbers in 2011 were a bit lower than 1978. It also stated "Our question was somewhat different from Gallup’s in that we asked respondents whether they had read any books in the past 12 months in print, via audiobook, or an e-book. We also asked 16- and 17-year-olds. Some 78% of those 16 and older had read at least one book in any format in the previous 12 months, compared with 88% in the 1978 Gallup survey of adults. 

In our December survey, looking at the general population, 72% of Americans age 16 and older read at least one book in the past year in print; 16% read at least one e-book; 11% listened to at least one audiobook. The figures for adults 18 and older in that survey were the same, except it was 17% who had read an e-book.

So what are some of these people missing out on but others are gaining?

Brain-stimulating activities, such as reading, at any age may preserve memory
In a Science Daily article it states in a study  published in an online issue of Neurology that "research found that people who participated in mentally stimulating activities both early and late in life had a slower rate of decline in memory compared to those who did not participate in such activities across their lifetime."

Reading can make you smarter

Non-fiction books offer an abundance of information without having to take courses. duh : }

Better verbal abilities

Though reading doesn't guarantee you'll be a communicator, readers tend to have a more varied vocabulary enabling them to express their feelings and ideas better.

It improves your imagination

When reading a description of a location or event, your mind creates an image in your head thus reinforcing its creative side.

Reduces stress

In a The Telegraph article it stated research  at the University of Sussex showed "subjects only needed to read, silently, for six minutes to slow down the heart rate and ease tension in the muscles, he found. In fact it got subjects to stress levels lower than before they started."

And here's two reasons for writers.

It inspires

Besides creating an image, as stated above, it can spur other thoughts and ideas.

Instruction

By reading you learn how to craft your story. By dissecting the work you can find out how the author created a scene that moved you in some way, how to move your characters through a plot and how word choices make a difference.

You probably read because of one or most of these reasons.   But just in case I missed  something, share why you read.  Thanks.

 "Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant, and interesting." 
~ Aldous Huxley

P.S.  If you're considering participating in NaNoWriMo, check out Kristen Lamb's blog,
http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/fueling-the-muse-for-nanowrimo-part-one/
Fueling the Muse for NaNoWriMo gives great tips on structure by using movies as examples.

Make it Stop

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head?  I mean, REALLY stuck, like every blank moment is consumed by lyrics or you're thinking of something and realize there's background music so you tune into it and when it comes to the fore front you scream ACK, no, not that again! That's what has been happening to me for the past two weeks.  When I'm on the computer - it's there.  When I'm driving - it's there. When I'm cooking , at work, trying to write  - it's there.

Patsy Cline's Sweet Dreams, Loretta Lynn's Coal Miner's Daughter, Cher's Half Breed and Abba's Dancing Queen, all have taken turns to tilt me over to crazy. And it's not like it's the whole song, it's just the chorus or two or three lines played over and over and OVER again.  Some times I get a break and another singer gets a few moments but that reprieve doesn't last long.

I've had this problem before but not usually this bad.  What I do to counteract this is hum Schubert's Unfinished Symphony #8.  I hear you snickering.  Stop it. Hey, whatever works, right? The thing is,  I hum what was presented in an old Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon; the section of music you hear when Casper first meets Schubert.  Okay you can laugh now. (I wanted to include the cartoon but it wouldn't let me load the video.   Here's the link.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbDqon8-804&list=PL25B80D600F5715C4 )
Go on , check it out, it's short.  I'll wait.  Hmm hmmm hm hm h  hmm

Oh good you're back. Isn't that a beautiful, catchy tune? It helps to block out the uninvited songs without getting lodged in my brain.

I know you probably have had a song that just won't let go.  What kind of tricks did you do to get rid of it? Tell me - please. Hurry, I hear Aretha singing R-E-S-P-E-C-T and Sly and the Family Stone is right behind with Baby baby baby light my fire.  Boom shaka-laka-laka Boom shaka-laka-laka.    Help!

PS. How many of you remember that particular Casper cartoon?