What's on My Mind

First I am grateful for many things, but today I want to say thank you to Ian and Daniel, two teenage boys who moved a computer desk upstairs for me yesterday. It was not easy because they had to take the desk outside and up a couple of sections of steps with a sharp turn near the end. They did not complain one bit even though I know Ian's hands hurt him. They did a couple of other things for me, too. I paid them, not a huge amount, but Daniel said, "We like to help people."

I am also grateful for close and loving family and friends that I can share my fears, my concerns with and know they are there for me. 

One of those friends is Estelle Rice who told me she will be 99 years old in October. She was my co-author for Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins, a collection of creative nonfiction, short stories, poems, and photos about the beloved animals that have graced our lives. 

Estelle and I have a deep friendship that goes way, way back to the early 1990s. She taught at my Writers Circle studio more than once and we always enjoyed her classes. A true artist in many ways, she is also a visual artist and a musician. I spent a couple of hours with her last week and we had such a good visit. I encourage her friends to send her notes, cards, or letters and tell her what she means to you. Give flowers while you may, not when your friend is gone. She doesn't do email now. I understand that. I get so frustrated when my fingers don't want to go where I want them to. 

I am also grateful for my dear niece who spent a long time on the phone with me this weekend as she tried to help me with selling my house when it is ready. She sells real estate in Georgia and can't work here in North Carolina. I feel very appreciative because she doesn't like to talk on the phone.

While I am frustrated again with the medical system, I am not going to dwell on that.

 Every day is a good day when I think about all I have to be grateful for. Today my rural mail carrier drove up my steep drive and around my house to bring a box that would not fit in my mailbox. I often hear or read that people complain about our mail service here in Clay County. But I have always had very good mail carriers who went the extra mile for me.

I hope you have much to be grateful for and that the bad times don't get you down. My blogger friends, I hope to get to your latest posts today and read about your exciting and interesting lives.

What the New Year Brings

January 1, 2015

This year has begun with a brighter day than most we’ve had in December. The sun is shining and that makes me smile.

The first day of a new year is like opening a new writing journal for me. I have a clean slate on which to begin. It is mine to do what I will every day, make it mundane or exciting. On my Gratitude List today, number one is: I am here in this lovely place which inspires me to write and to share with other writers. 

Last May, as I started up my stairs, I had a sudden muscle strain in my left hip, fell and for two months, as I visited one doctor and another, I worried that I might have to stop holding classes in my studio, Writers Circle around the Table. I could not walk up and down stairs for three months without extreme pain. Prescription drugs became a way of life for me. Depression set in as I visualized myself moving to be near family, leaving this place I love so much.

I am not a city girl. The first time I lived in town, I shared an apartment with two girls after college. The girls were great, but I missed my privacy and the open green space of my rural home.  When my husband and I married we lived in a furnished apartment for less than a year. Our poodle, Brandy, soon made it obvious that he was not a city dog. He chewed everything in the place and shredded the sofa cushions. We had to move to a place with a yard.

That was when we claimed our five acres of my father’s farm. My husband delighted in living in the woods and Brandy spent all day outside. 

For thirty years we lived there and when we moved to the mountains of North Carolina, we found a house surrounded by trees, very private but only five miles from our small town. After my husband died, I remodeled my downstairs for my studio. Already, I have excellent instructors lined up to teach classes in 2015. (see Schedule page)

Thankfully, the stairs hold no challenge for me now. With the help of my orthopedic massage therapist and an acupuncturist who introduced me to Pete Egoscue’s book, Pain Free, A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain, the pain in my hip is gone. I do one simple exercise every day. It is called Static Back. The book has many of these e-cises and I also do many of them, but Static Back is the one that fixed my hip problem. 

So on my Gratitude List today are two very wonderful young men, Jay Gibson and Chris Bassett, and a young woman massage therapist, April Stewart. With massage, acupuncture, and the dedication of these therapists, I feel better than I have in a long, long time. Seldom do I need any pain medicine, and when I do, it is over the counter, not prescription. 

We have to manage our own health, learn all we can about our problems, and follow our gut instincts. I was told I needed to see a back surgeon. I was told that all of us live with pain and I could expect to deal with it the rest of my life. I would not accept that. 

When Chris Bassett told me I didn't have to live in pain. I could work on my posture, aligning my body by lying on the floor twenty minutes a day with my legs on a chair, I wanted to cry with joy. He took time to show me how I walked, what I was doing that aggravated my muscular problems, and gave me the hope I needed to go to work on myself. Simple stretches every day will keep our muscles from atrophying. The acupuncture helped with the pain, as did the massage therapy, but I had to continue treatment on myself so that I was not re-injuring myself. 

Yes, this New Year has dawned bright and beautiful and full of prospects for challenges and successes.

I hope all of you, my readers, will have much to be thankful for in 2015, and I hope you will start your own gratitude journal today. Write five things each day for which you are thankful. This stimulates the positive in your life instead of the negative. 

I might write “I am thankful for the butterfly flitting around on my flowers.” I might also write, “I am grateful today for the good test result for my friend.”  This is your journal and no one needs to see it. 

Although we hear all the horrible things on the news that make us feel that our world is coming apart, our words, deeds, and ideas can help to make a better world. They really do matter.

Who lighted the flame within you?

                     
"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark

from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep

gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."

                                    ~ Albert Schweitzer


I begin with Nancy Simpson, Janice Moore, Carol Crawford, Richard Argo, Steve Harvey, Maureen Ryan Griffin,  and other writers who sparked the flame of writng in me.
Later when my light was so dim I wasn't sure it would survive the storm within me,  my sisters, Gay and June, Lee Hunter and Lyn Hunter, Michelle Keller,  Stu Moring, Ginny my guardian angel, Ash, Nadine and Vicki, Alice and Marsha, Dick and Linda, all helped me hold it together, and they sparked the flame to flare again. I think of all of them with deepest gratitude.
Supporting me also were JC Walkup, Kay Byer, Nancy Purcell, Paul Donovan, Estelle Rice, Maren Mitchell, and all my wonderful students who have passed through Writers Circle.
Without the support and guidance of Maureen Ryan Griffin, Writers Circle would have been a much larger challenge. I am grateful for my relationship with Tipper Pressley who has been a joy, huge supporter and technical helper for my blogs.

Is there any one of us who doesn't have cause to think with deep


gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us?