Category: Self-Improvement

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VerseLove Day 28: Instructions

Our host, Jessica, lives in Chicago, Illinois where she teaches English. She is currently a teacher-consultant with the Chicago Area Writing Project.

Jessica offers these words of inspiration: “This winter, I was fortunate to see the Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. ” She was inspired by the lyrics of Grapefruit, in which a poem takes the form of instructions. Today, she inspires us to write poems on how to do something. You can read her full prompt here.

Lately, I’ve returned to the interlibrary loan system I used when I was in college to get books I want to read in my rural county in middle Georgia. I log in to my account, search the shelves across all the state libraries, and place holds on the ones I want in hard copy with my Pines System Library card. One simple click brings them across the miles to me – for free – where I pick them up and return them right across the street when I’m finished. It’s a frugal way to read anytime, but especially with retirement and a more limited budget as the next chapter. Also, our library offers free state park and zoo passes and theater tickets. If I want to listen, I can log in to Libby and get audiobooks too. This is the way to live, laugh, and read.

Librarian scanning books while woman shows library card at checkout desk
A librarian helps a smiling patron check out books at the library counter.

How To Enter The Next Chapter

get a library

card ~ reserve your books online

check out locally

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VerseLove Day 25: Slam Poems

I am working on a slam poem to go with today’s prompt at ethicalela.com for the 25th day of VerseLove, but meanwhile this sonnet is burning a hole in my paper, so I share this one today and may convert it to a slam poem later. For now, peace.

Older woman reading a handwritten letter at a kitchen table with plants and a cup of tea
A woman happily reads a letter while sitting at a wooden kitchen table with plants and a cup of tea nearby.

Nature Sonnet

a fragrant flower in the windowsill

a bookmark made of braided meadow grass

the signs of earth indoors my heart doth fill

I long to take a watercolor class

to plein-air paint the sunsets orange-red

that fireball sinking ‘neath horizons west

where scenes of Mother Earth are richly fed

her images in nature-tones finessed

I long to write earthsongs in lilting verse

to feel cool breezes blowing through each line

as raindrops on fresh soil my soul immerse

as fragrant as bright morning glory vine

at every turn the earth extends her hand

inspiring me to love her ev’ry land

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VerseLove Day 15: Cascade

Our host today for VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Erica Johnson, who offers inspiration here in a new-to-me form of poetry called a cascade. These remind me of Pantoum poems. Erika explains: It’s a form created by Udit Bhatia and asks that the poet take each line from the first stanza of a poem and makes each one the final line in the stanzas that follow. This results in the poem resembling a tumbling waterfall, which was when I knew I needed to go look through my photos of waterfalls for inspiration!

Erika shares the process with us: Read over the cascade form and write out the pattern you wish to follow: tercet or quatrain.  I found that having the structure written as a reminder helped guide my writing.

My mind went straight to Gibbs Gardens, where I’d rather spend the day in flowers than at work. Here, you can check out the bloom report and see where I’d take you if you were spending the day with me. We’d have lunch at The Burger Bus and order daffodils to plant next season.

Let’s Play

I did not want to get up today
I’d like to sip coffee with friends in a cafe
talk books, catch up, paint daffodils, play

I’d drive to Ball Ground
stroll Gibbs Gardens’ spring blooms
I did not want to get up today

the tulips have opened, Monet’s pond awaits
I’d load up the girls for a quick getaway
I’d like to sip coffee with friends in a cafe

we’d laugh and share stories
take off work for the day
get a slow start, talk books, paint daffodils, play

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VerseLove Day 12: The Poetry of Everyday

Rita DiCarne of Pennsylvania is our host today for the 12th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com. She inspires us to write list poems, prose-style or with line, about all the things we love. It makes me think of Tom T. Hall’s song, “I Love.” You can read Rita’s full prompt here.

You can hear Tom T. Hall’s “I Love” here.

The Nest

I like going places~

camping, girls’ trips, weekend getaways

but I love coming home

I love bone-tired sleep, the kind where

you don’t move all night and have sheet imprints

on your face from the weight of

not carrying anything with you to bed

putting it all down at the foot

climbing in, clocking out, cloud-drifting off

I love waking up to dog noses

in my face saying Let’s Go Outside!

I love Skechers Slip-Ins for when the grass

is too tall and wet with dew for the regular slippers

I love opening the front door for the sun

to barge in, full of life and light and laughter

I love checking the bird nests, finding

a clutch of four brown-headed nuthatches

snuggled under mama bird on a

bright, cool Sunday morning

like a prayerful blessing of their own

a place where they will learn

to fledge, fly, and face a lifetime

of setting out and coming home

to their feathered nests

the places they’ll grow to love best

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Verse Love Day 10 : Villanelle Vibes ~ Georgia State Parks

Susan Ahlbrand of Indiana is our host today for Day 10 of Verselove at http://www.ethicalela, com, and she inspires us to write love letters to a place we love. She challenged us to try a villanelle, a 19-line poem of five tercets and a quatrain with a rhyme scheme and refrain sequence. As I sit on the campsite of a Georgia State Park recharging my batteries this week, I could not think of a more fitting place to pay tribute.

Villanelle Tribute to Georgia State Parks

out in the woods on a state park campsite

nestled in shade by meandering creek

Pollock-splashed beams of breeze-filtered sunlight

shelter from life’s woes, respite from plight

renewal blooms hope when refuge we seek

out in the wild on a state park campsite

Swallowtails air-dance on blackened blue-brights

welcoming wings, meditative mystique

sashaying rays of oak-splattered sunlight

flame-flickered campfires on stargazing nights

embers leap up to kiss Pegasus’ cheek

out in the wild on a state park campsite

mosaic edges softened by twilight

for life’s jagged junctures, outdoors re-key

shadowy brushstrokes, dusk-darkened moonlight

birdsong awakens, euphoric daylight

new trails to hike, fresh air to seize

out in the woods on a state park campsite

canvassing nature, the soul re-ignites

In honor of National Poem In My Pocket Day…..

I have a poem in my pocket

a perfect way to start

hummer at my feeder

hope restores my heart

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VerseLove Day 9: Home/Hogar

Bryan Ripley Crandall, our host today for Day 9 of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, lives in Stratford, Connecticut, where he directs the Connecticut Writing Project and is Professor of English Education at Fairfield University. He co-hosts National Writing Project’s The Write Time. 

Bryan explains his process and directions for writing, which you can read more about here.

He shares his process and the directions by inspiring us to write about our homes and places we’ve lived. I’m not thinking past today – I’m thinking future.

Person driving a vehicle on a curved road next to a lake with snow-capped mountains and pine trees
Driving through stunning mountains alongside a clear blue lake on a sunny day

My Open Road Retirement Home

a teardrop

a fifth-wheel

a bumper pull

no tent

no yurt

no fort in a tree

a camper van ~

Class A, B, or C

anywhere I can take to the road

most any RV will do for me

but with this old back and

collapsible knees

no tearjerkers for me, please

a full tank of gas

a State Park Pass

dogs by my side, ready to ride

(husband can come, too, if he’d like)

pens to write and books to read

and that is all I’ll ever need

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VerseLove Day 7: Alternative First/Last Lines in a Slice of Life

Luke Bensing of Valparaiso, IN, our host today for the 7th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, teaches 9th Grade English in Merrillville, IN. Since it’s Tuesday, I’m also writing with the bloggers at Twowritingteachers.org, slicing about a reflection or part of my day.

Luke inspires us to write poems that have alliterative beginning and ending lines and that are inspired by a photo on our camera roll or any other image. You can read his full prompt here. Lately I’ve been dabbling in the fun and challenge of watercolor painting after seeing so many friends’ lovely paintings last month as part of the Slice of Life Challenge. A couple of them were using Emily Lex guides to take them step by step through the process, and it prompted me to pick up a set of watercolors and see what the paint brought out. I started with an inexpensive Hobby Lobby version similar to the Lex guides – this one with a nature and floral theme.

It’s a perfect camping hobby since it doesn’t take a lot of equipment or space, is inexpensive without a ton of supplies or brush cleaners needed, and you can mess up and still fix it. My lofty aspiration in a dream world would be to be like one of those plain-air painters who can sit outside and paint whatever they see. If the water stays wet, I’ll be one of those low-grade types, never having true talent like my children have (they got that from their father), but just enough skill for the trying will make me happy. In retirement, I dream of traveling the United States in a Winnebago View model 24D and paint the sunsets in the National Parks and write poetry with my 3 schnoodles curled around my feet, behaving like normal dogs (if I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming big). So today, I’m going for the gusto. I’m in the learning phase in an InTech Aucta Willow Rover in a Georgia State Park painting lilacs from a step by step guide.

If it all falls to pieces, I’ll go for the paint by number sets next.

I chose a lilac for an alliterative haiku, inspired by this image below. A novice attempt at the painting, but a start nevertheless.

Lilac Haiku

purple-pink petals
watercolor blossoming
bristles brushing blooms

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Making Cookies with the Kindred Spirits

If you don’t have a book club in your life, go find you one – or better yet, start one – that likes to read across a variety of genres, gather and discuss books, and be so inspired by them that there is that one little thing or two that makes you want to do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do, see, taste, or experience. People who say that books can change your life aren’t joking; my father always said that if your book isn’t changing your life, it’s time to change your book. His words were never more true than yesterday, on what was his first heavenly birthday.

That’s one of the reasons that in the Kindred Spirits Book Club, we squeeze every drop of life from every book by allowing it to take us to new places. I think back to that first book we read together in January 2025, The Beautiful and the Wild by Peggy Townsend, and one of our group members noticed that one of the characters was always serving hot tea. We found a local tea room and paid them a visit one Saturday morning. One year later, we’re still going strong, seeking the full adventure that’s ours to claim as we find it between the pages.

Our last book of 2025 was The Book Club Hotel by Sarah Morgan, and one group member noticed that the chef in the book was always talking about her cookery books. It inspired us to want to take some sort of food class – a charcuterie board class, a cooking class, or some type of cake or cookie decorating class. We found the answer right in our own small town. A retired teacher created a cookie business as her next chapter and now travels the surrounding area with her own personally-designed cookie decorating kit, setting up in homes and giving groups the opportunity to create together.

L-R: Janette, me, Joy, Jennifer, Chris Tyree, and Jill (we were missing: Martina)

We called our friend Chris Tyree of Cookies by Chrissoula, and we set Friday, February 13 as our cookie decorating party, complete with a chili dinner and the fun of togetherness – in pajamas, sweats, and slippers. We laughed, we concentrated on cookie details, and commiserated over the woes of the world. If a cookie broke, we learned how to glue it back together with icing – discoveries that become metaphors for all the broken places in our own lives. Just slap some sugary sweetness in between the jagged edges and put it back together and keep going. In a world of tension and deadlines, frustrations and disappointments, we counted our blessings and considered the icing on our cookies, so to speak.

books and friends steer swift

currents, keep us anchored as

we share adventures

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Falling in Love with Silent Book Club

I have another new book club, and I hear that this kind is sweeping the country. It’s all the rage right now. I’d heard of Silent Book Clubs, and the idea was intriguing. My first thought: I can read silently at home in my pajamas in my favorite chair; why do I need a silent book club? Then I was invited to one, and I went as a guest. I was delighted to be surrounded by readers who were completely immersed in the joy of actual reading – – something we don’t see at most other book clubs, since we read ahead. It feels reassuring to glance around and see others taking in print, not distracted by the dryer buzzer or the dogs or the kids or anyone asking for anything.

My friend Janette is one of the most avid readers I know, so it’s no surprise she has begun hosting the Silent Book Club Flint River chapter here in middle Georgia. You can check out and join the page to follow all of our book adventures and see what folks are reading by clicking here. It’s not the only book club the two of us attend together, but rather than being a club with a common title and established meeting location for discussions each month, the meetings are created pop-up style in various locations, and each reader brings whatever book they’re reading at the time. We know there’s going to be a meeting when we follow the Facebook page and see the time and location. We show up with our book and read for an hour in a room full of old friends and new friends. Some read from Kindles, some listen to audiobooks, some read hard copies, and some, like me, even bring noise-cancelling earbuds or headphones to play nature sounds as they read.

Reading downstairs in 1828 Coffee Company in Zebulon, Georgia

If you don’t have a Silent Reading Club chapter near you, consider starting one. Until then, join us – no matter where you are in the world. Find out when and where we are reading, then do the same from your favorite comfy chair….or bench….or beach towel. Send a picture of you and your book and say hello on the Facebook page. Let us know that you read for the hour. We can’t wait for you to be a part of all the fun and to create new opportunities for reading wherever you are!

Silent Book Club reads

in adventurous places

world page-travelers

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To Love a Word

Check out Georgia Heard’s Substack for monthly writing calendars that work for both children and adults. Her February Valentine Mini Writing Calendar, inspires us to fall in love with the everyday. Day 5 asks us to fall in love with love with a word, one that feels good to say, then to write it down and let it lead.

Since my One Little Word of 2026 is Onward, I’m choosing it today.

Onward

onward: mountains call ~

fresh, clean air…..majestic views

…..babbling creeks….ONWARD!