April 2024 I am finding more ease and freedom with my early bedtime and quiet hours. I am also finding I am getting WAY more done (what I want to do and what others want me to do!) with the renewed energy. But I didn’t put the boundary in place so I could “life-hack” my way to better productivity. Quite the contrary. It’s a benefit for sure but… I would still want the boundary in place even IF I didn’t get this additional benefit of increased “productivity.” Intention matters. Hustle culture still reigns though we know better. Do what you…

April 2024 There was a perfect storm of many things that zapped my energy last week. What I’ve written about in the past – if I push too far, then it takes me out for days on end – it happened. It was frustrating. It has taken me about 3 days of doing pretty much nothing to get on the recovery path.  A 6 week commitment had a change in schedule mid-way through that seemed to only cause ME tons of stress (as I was the one the change affected and no one else). Why does that always seem to…

(For the season…) May 2024 I’ve been wrestling personally with my rhythms. I have found a lot of support in routine – in doing things at certain times, at the same times, to stay in my rhythm or my flow. It gives my regularly panicking brain a break to know that “X will be done at Y time.”  I’ve realized though it’s not about the things I do – it’s about what those things mean to me and how I am when I’m doing them. It’s more the timing of the things rather than THE THINGS themselves that gives me…

Maybe that’s what I’m doing? May 2024 Photo by Black ice I’ve been thinking about my discussion with Ann Marie McKenzie about Numerology and Listening. Usually once I learn something new I am all over learning about it. There would normally be eight podcasts to listen to and ten books from the library to pick up about the new topic. Not the case this time though. I’ve been fascinated with all the “occults” since I was a girl – tarot, spells, astrology, divination, Wicca, Gnosticism. Pretty much anything the Catholic Church (the religion of my family and therefore my religion)…

May 2024 Mine. “They are mine”, I tell myself regularly. But are they really? There’s this dream as kid that when you are an adult you’ll get to have ice cream for dinner every night, stay up as late as you want and do the things you want to do. Then you grow up and realize that if you thought there were a lot of rules when you were a kid, adulting adds rules upon rules upon rules. And the tricky part is, unlike when you are a kid and the adults tell you “Don’t do this” or “You can’t…

May 2024 I know, what in God’s name is this woman talking about? Hear me out. I’ve been in lots of conversations lately in my various roles (full-time, part-time, volunteer, etc.) about getting things done. It’s something I do, which is why people ask me to do lots of things. (And then I burnout but that’s my problem that I’m here to grow through…) I’ve never known an idea that I couldn’t get done. I have many gifts and one of them is taking any idea and finding a way to make it a reality in the physical world. Especially…

June 2024 “The Work” is the daily stuff of life that has to be done, those tasks that you don’t want to do, that aren’t “fun”, the stuff that actually moves you forward but tends to be ignored… Photo by Liliana Drew Okay, so you want to do “The Work” – you know you need to do “The Work”… But you will do anything and everything, to not do “The Work.” It may not be fun. It’s usually not a great story (unless you like reading about daily chores, cleaning up messes, cooking a meal for the 500,000th time, writing…

Whether or not you are doing it yourself June 2024 “The Work” is the daily stuff of life that has to be done, those tasks that you don’t want to do, that aren’t “fun”, the stuff that actually moves you forward but tends to be ignored… I have spent many times speaking with people who are in charge of things who have no idea what is actually going on (both personally and professionally.) It’s depressing. It’s frustrating.  But most of all it is mind-boggling… How, if you are “in charge” of such things, do you have not a clue of…

Not because we have to but because we get to… May 2024 Photo by cottonbro studio I get frustrated when “The Work” (all the things that all the people do to make sure that we can do all the things we need and want to do) seems to be ignored, debased, reviled, and denied. (See last week’s rant if you want more background on what I’m referencing.) “The Work” affects us beyond what we and others do that keep life running around us. “The Work” is actually what brings us life. Not because we got someone to clean our house,…

The first pearl in my Necklace January 2025 Writing Prompt from Beth Kempton’s Free Winter Writing Sanctuary 2024 – SoulStack by Beth Kempton It was a day like any other day. Life crumbled around me and I did my best to gather up all the pieces and put them back together each night. It was a semblance of a life really. But that’s what I thought life was back then. That day, sometime in the haze between January and April, those pieces shattered as they hit the floor. And that day, I wasn’t trying to pick them up. Instead I…