Category: Experience

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My Reading Group Discussion for October

Last night’s book discussion in Dr. Sarah Donovan’s Healing Kind Book Group was Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf. Whether you are a teacher, a parent, a reader, or any combination of those roles, you would likely find strong points of identifying with the author – perhaps both agreeing and disagreeing with ideas even in the same chapter!

Each month, I enjoy the lively discussions of this group. We gather and bring a passage to discuss on our Zoom call. Denise Krebs of California led us this evening. Mo Daley of Illinois liked the quiet eye – the observant part of the reader that takes in details, and Sarah Donovan of Oklahoma liked the idea of cognitive patience – – attending with consciousness and attention to a rhythm that allows insights to unfold. What resonated most with me were the fostering of empathy and refining of critical thinking skills as readers use their eyes to take in whole new worlds through words. Every few pages, I’d marked a passage and stuck a Post-It bookmark tab on the side of the page to flag my favorite parts.

So much of our brain is active when we are reading – it’s performing miracles we don’t even realize are happening, lighting up the night sky during a thunderstorm with all of its lightning sparks and flashes.

To readers everywhere: pick up a book and savor the magic of reading. You are blessed to be able to make sense of print, to consider and contemplate it, to meditate on the ideas and to add layers of new perspective, and yes – even to revise your position because a book presents a case you may have never considered.

Be blessed today and every day.

Read.

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It’s That Time of Year

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for hosting Slice of Life for writers!

It’s that time of year – not just the time of buying hot chocolate bombs and pumpkin spice bagels and cream cheese and coffee creamer and basically pumpkin spice everything. Not just the time of lighting fragrant fall candles and making caramel apples and buying cinnamon brooms to prop on the hearth. Not just the time of putting leaf garland and mums all around the mailbox, and not just the time of getting down the sweatshirts and cabin socks to sit around the fire pit getting lost in the aroma of burning wood.

There’s so much more to that time of year.

It’s Hallmark movie time.

Last week alone, I watched Pumpkin Everything, Pumpkin Pie Wars, Autumn in the City, Under the Autumn Moon, and Home for Harvest. It was my fall break, and I succumbed to the temptation to multitask by watching movies while cleaning. It was the perfect marriage – I was productive enough not to feel guilty, but indulgent enough not to feel overworked.

I tolerate the teasing from my husband, who rolls his eyes every time I push play on a different movie. He finds it amusing that I enjoy watching the same basic plot with different settings and characters from fall to winter. I find it amusing that while he teases me about it, he never fails to be drawn into the story and ends up watching most of the movie with me. And this year, I’ve even started adding secret incentives that he hasn’t quite figured out yet – – like setting out caramel popcorn on the coffee table so he’ll start watching more from the beginning.

I’m pretty sure Hallmark movies make me a nicer person. I go out into the world wanting to smile more and seek joy lurking around the corners of my town square. I can hear movie music in my head as I walk over to the coffee shop and the bookstore from work, and I start admiring all the scarves and boots I see people wearing. I smell balsam and cedar and feel all the excitement of the season ahead.

If you haven’t marked your calendar yet, here’s the 2023 Hallmark Movie Countdown Calendar. The countdown begins this weekend – October 20th, which is also the National Day on Writing. You can download the calendar and also the movie checklist app, and check out the details of each of the new movies.

I’m trying to decide which will be my favorite. I think I’m looking most forward to A Biltmore Christmas. What do you predict will be your favorite, and what are your best movie watching traditions?

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Moments of Peace in Nature from Sunday, October 15

I return to work this morning after a quiet, uneventful fall break. We’re having an emergency drill today, so the inner peace will not fade throughout the work week but instead will be pumped out as adrenaline and action and what ifs replace the echoes of birdsong and back porch swing chains. My brother and his girlfriend came to visit, we arranged some furniture to make room for a few new pieces from my dad’s house, and we sat outdoors by the fire pit, roasting marshmallows and talking into the night.

As I was taking the dogs out for their final evening walk one night, I did what I always do – – I shone the flashlight all along the edge of the woods to see if there were any eyes shining back at me. Out here, we have everything from coyotes to field mice, and I’ve learned that I can never be too careful.

Sure enough, there was a tiny pair of eyes looking at me, about fox height. It had a black, bushy tail with a triangular-shaped face. We had a stare-down for a full minute at least before the animal disappeared around the tree, its tail curving along the trunk as it slunk off into the forest.

I walked the dogs, thinking it was gone, and mentioned it to my brother when I came back inside.

“Really?” he asked. “Let’s go check it out.”

I grabbed the light and off we went, back to the tree, where the two eyes sat just a foot behind it, shining back at us. The brush was thick, so we stared at it for a few minutes trying to figure out what it was before it hopped off through the dense thicket and went on its way.

I Googled and concluded that it may have been an oddly-shaped fox squirrel. We’ve had a black squirrel for a long time on this farm, and perhaps this was the great great grandson or something.

The shape of that head, though, perplexed me. I kept returning to the idea that it wasn’t a squirrel when it hit me: it might have been a skunk.

Just like my brother and me to chase a stripeless skunk into the woods, but I think that’s what happened.

If I’d had any doubt, my husband took the dogs out early yesterday and returned to bed, noting, “There’s a slight skunk smell out there.” I hadn’t told him that I had toyed with the idea that this had been a skunk.

Now I’m sure of it.

Skunks, dogs, birds, fireside pits, porch swings, and Hallmark movies all week- – and today I leave you with photos of peace taken last week. Happy Monday!

Leaves are turning, becoming more colorful by the day in my county.
A pair of finches on the roof
A pair of cardinals in the tree
A tufted titmouse scratching an itch
tufted titmouse
pine warbler
pine warbler
A tufted titmouse takes flight
I’m photographing this tree as it loses its leaves, every few days, so I can see the change shot by shot
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Goal Update for September

I usually post my goal update at the end of each month, but September’s is running late. October was sneaky and arrived before I knew it. I even forgot to say Rabbit, Rabbit.

At the end of each month, (or beginning), I review my yearly goals and spend some time reflecting on how I’m doing in living the life I want to live ~ a way of becoming my own accountability partner and having frequent check-ins to evaluate my progress. I’m still in the process of revising some of my goals as I encounter successes…..and setbacks. New goals have asterisks for the month of October, when I will report on them in a few weeks. For the month of September here’s my goal reflection:

CategoryGoalsMy Progress
LiteratureRead for Sarah Donovan’s Book Group








Send out Postcards


Blog Daily




Write a proposal for
writing group’s book		I participated in the September book discussion with Sarah’s reading group and look forward to reading October’s book – Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. I’ll participate in this book discussion this month. Fellow blogger Tammi Evans recommended a book by Elizabeth McCracken entitled The Souvenir Museum, and I hope to explore this collection of short stories as well this month. I need a spooky book, too, to bring on the chills of October.



I mailed 10 postcards this month from Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.

I continue to blog daily, and the daily writing and reflecting is a wonderful habit for me. I don’t feel complete without some form of daily writing, and the blog is a way of continuing the habit.

My writing group is writing a series of new books, and I will spend time editing the chapters we have written. I will continue to add chapters as we receive feedback from our proposals. We are each sending our proposal out to some publishing companies.
Creativity

*Decorate the house for fall





*Create Shutterfly Route 66

I am working on decorating. It’s a slow process this year. I picked up an orange and a bronze mum today from Home Depot, and I’ve also made the instant hot spiced tea and put it in Mason jars for the fall. I have added a couple of new pillows and a throw for the living room. Our decorations are simple around here in the country – – we have a lot of natural foliage, and I like using it in some wine bottles I’ve wrapped with twine using double-sided tape as vases.

I have been trying to get to Shutterfly since July, so if I haven’t accomplished this goal by the end of October, I may give up on this one.
SpiritualityTune in to church



Pray!



Keep OLW priority		We have been tuning in to church. With Dad preaching every Sunday in October and a few Sundays ahead of that, it makes the church home hunt take a back seat until my childhood church gets a new preacher, since I have the opportunity to hear Dad.

My car is still my prayer chamber for daily prayer, and there’s so much to give thanks for. I continue my conversations with the good Lord each morning and afternoon.

I’m still keeping my OLW my priority: pray!
ReflectionWrite family stories

Spend time tracking goals each month		I have shared family stories through my blog this month and will continue this month to do the same.

I’m tracking goals, revising, and considering some new categories as I look at my goal table.
Self-Improvement*Reach top of weight rangeThis is a setback for me this month. I’ve hit major stress and gained weight, despite joining WW. I need to set a firm date and get the mental mindset that it takes to stay on track. I have work to do. Update: every day, the diet is starting “tomorrow.” I seriously need a good mindset to start back.
GratitudeDevote blog days to counting blessingsI begin the days this way and end them giving thanks as well. I enjoy tea on the porch, taking time to meditate on all that I have been given. And all that I have not been given, too. I’m grateful both ways.
ExperienceEmbrace Slow Travel




Focus on the Outdoors


I’ve taken a trip in September to Augusta for a work meeting and to Kentucky to visit family. We visited Mammoth Cave National Park and the Bell Witch Cave – two caves in two days.






I’m still focusing on the outdoors with birdwatching adventures and camping. It’s the best time of the day to sit outside on the porch (in the shade) and just listen and watch what is going on around me. I have also come to an interesting resolution: I like my own backyard for birdwatching. Over time, I begin to know where each bird lives, its hours of activity, and its preferred seeds and feeders – and there is a powerful science to the perch on a feeder. Take cardinals, for example. They will come to a hanging feeder, but they prefer platform feeders just like mourning doves do. I’m learning by slow birding.
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A Spooky Season of Caves

Mammoth Cave National Park – Cub Run, Kentucky

I have a family member who celebrated a birthday in September, so we enjoyed a trip up to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky this past weekend.

Last spring when I visited her, she mentioned that she’d loved exploring the colorfully-lit caves at Ruby Falls in Chattanooga, Tennessee so much that she’d wanted to visit more caves. So we headed over to Dunbar Cave in Clarksville, Tennessee back in April but were disappointed when all the tickets were sold out. I promised that when I returned in the fall, we’d tour a cave together.

Mammoth Cave

If you’ve ever been to Mammoth Cave, you may already know it’s the longest cave system in the world and that it gets its name from its immense size. We chose the self-guided tour on the last day of September so we could enjoy the cave at our own pace, but we only saw one small section of this natural wonder since the entire cave is 426 miles in total length and growing by the year as more discoveries are made by cave explorers. The lantern tour was recommended as one of the best tours, so we are planning a return trip to see it by lantern light the way that early spelunkers would have seen it – – without electric lights.

To set the spooky tone for the month on the first day of October, we went to The Bell Witch Cave in Adams, Tennessee to hear the historical accounts of the Bell Witch’s terrorizing of the Bell family back in the 1800s, even sending a United States President running from the place. We toured the replica cabin and the actual cave where she was said to have frequented. It is said that she saved a child when he got stuck in the cave one summer. For all the evil she is said to have caused, she did do something good, apparently.

Inside the Bell Witch Cave, full of tight squeezes and ledge climbing

Please share the most fascinating caves you’ve visited in the comments. I’m adding to our list, so I’d love to know which ones would be recommended and which ones would not. I would highly recommend Mammoth Cave for its balmy temperature and fascinating history, but I would not recommend the Bell Witch Cave unless you are very steady on your feet and do not mind squeezing through tight spaces on rocks with a cold-water creek running underfoot. You have to sign an accident waiver, which should have been my first sign – – especially since last year at the end of September, I missed the last step at work and broke my ankle (redefining fall break). I lucked out this year and walked away without injury, but I’m starting to admit that my age may need to be a risk factor in my adventure assessments going forward. I’ll also add that Fantastic Caverns in Missouri is my favorite cave adventure to date (it was discovered, in part, by a lost dog) because I appreciated being driven through the cave in a jeep instead of having to crawl or walk through it – or swim.

Both recent excursions were fun, though, especially as we have long sought reprieve from the brutal heat of summer. There’s nothing like the 54-degree-year-round cool of a cave to welcome the balmy feel of fall!

Cheers for sweater weather!

A ledge climb inside The Bell Witch Cave
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Dream Bags

I’ve finally done it.

I dreamed up the perfect bag for writers.

Since I’ve been taking Meno to ease the symptoms of menopause (namely hot flashes that are like wandering the dungeons of hell in the middle of the night, after just crawling out of a shower of hot baby oil and syrup boiled with dead bugs and toads), I’ve had some colorful and interesting dreams. I think there is a mild sleep agent in it, but at least my dream recentl had an upside.

I invented a purse.

I was wandering with my late mother and her parents through these stores, and I don’t even know what we were doing or where we were, and they had wandered on up ahead. There was no conversation – I just knew they were there.

The stores were big rooms, that connected, but there was no middle-of-the-room merchandise. It was all lined along the walls.

I picked up a pair of flexible toe shoes, knitted like a slipper on top but soft rubber with floor grippers on bottom, and put them back. I walked on into the next connecting store and started making my way along the walls, looking at merchandise. We all looked like creeping mice, never going into the center of the huge rooms.

Then I spotted it.

The price tag: $81. It was splotched black, with intermittent patches of turquoise and shimmery champagne, a shoulder bag with a hinged lap desk that let down from the top and came off, allowing a writer to have a hard surface wherever inspiration struck, to journal even in the middle of nowhere with no desk or countertop space.

Another bag, a mahogany square tote, had a side sleeve that held a thin lap desk for a writer and gave support to one side of the bag. I didn’t look to see if there was one on the other side and the two pieces could connect like a puzzle and become a bigger piece, but hey – there’s another idea for the invention of my dreams.

I’ve had to cut back from 2 Meno gummies to 1 gummy to 1/2 of a gummy to restore some more logical and peaceful dreams without the lingering haunting feelings, but I must admit …..I’m curious about what other inventions I may have made by now if I hadn’t.