People caint help being what they are...

 **This writing is a part of my Abydos Writing Workshop that I am currently enrolled in!  

 

"People caint help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk. Don't you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else? Sure they would. People are just weak." Fannie Flagg, quotes this from her book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

A definition of weakness is a person or thing that is unable to resist or likes excessively. Weakness examples are when I have trouble asking for help or sometimes lacking confidence. I get impatient when projects run beyond the deadline, or I'm behind. But with weakness comes strengths. My greatest strength is that I'm an encourager. I work well under pressure, and I'm going to pull you along with the pack - no matter what! If you are a team member, I will be your biggest cheerleader!

Acceptance is a great thing! The act of taking or receiving something offered or getting that shaking of the head with approval is so gratifying to the soul. We all want to be accepted, don't we? I want to be more accepting. Acceptance is the ability to see that others have a right to be their unique persons. That means having a right to their feelings, thoughts, and opinions. When you accept people for who they are, you let go of your desire to change them; as I watch the social media, frustration kicks in. Why is it so difficult to accept others who are different from you?

The Necessity of Having a Hobby or Two

 **This writing is a part of my Abydos Writing Workshop that I am currently enrolled in!  

  

The Necessity of Having a Hobby or Two

The 2020 COVID pandemic has increased anxiety and stress to such an extent that some experts warn of a looming mental health crisis. Mayo Clinic has offered this solution: "Enjoy hobbies that you can do at home." After all, "a distraction can get you away from the cycle of negative thoughts that feed anxiety and depression," and doing "something positive to manage anxiety is a healthy coping strategy." During this pandemic, numerous experts encourage people to return to the hobbies they have left behind or to pick up some new ones. We now have ample time at home while we are enjoying social distancing.

For many of us, these pandemic days became hectic. In my world, I became quarantined during Spring Break in March of 2020. My husband and I are both teachers, and our youngest son of three returned home from the university to finish his semester asynchronous. I worked the many roles of a daily teacher, wife, mother, lunch lady, and maid. Finding a "new" daily routine proved difficult, as each of us was virtually teaching, attending ZOOM meetings, grading homework, and watching the ever-changing news on social media. Cramming in new technology skills and resources became the norm after school hours. All around the world, families were making moves into a new way of life. It became a time filled with pressure and confusion.

I had to set boundaries for myself and my schedule. To take care of my mental health, I had to set aside time to unplug from teaching, work, and duties. With the help of numerous naps, Netflix binging all the shows that I never had time for, I turned to my art. I was an art teacher for 25 years. I used this time to recommit to my art. I've been creating art my whole life with a variety of media. It has made my daily life better.

Hobbies are a great way to disconnect from work and break away from the monotony of daily schedules. Even though it may seem daunting to add one more to your to-do list, having a hobby has proved to be a stress reliever. Hobbies are often thought of as activities for people who lead quiet, relaxed lives. However, people with full, busy, even stressful lives may need hobbies more than the average person, and benefit greatly from having hobbies. Hobbies bring many benefits that usually make them more than worth the time they require.

There are many benefits to having a hobby or two. Different types of hobbies offer different kinds of uses. Physical hobbies have clear physiological benefits because they increase your heart rate and brain function; other services include lower blood pressure, weight loss, building muscle, strengthening bones, and an overall energy increase. Geocaching (my favorite), hiking, camping, swimming, yoga, or martial arts are some physical hobbies.

Mental and emotional hobbies come in a variety of things and projects to do. Hobbies decrease stress by relaxing you and taking your mind off the more pressing concerns of daily life like work and paying bills. Also, hobbies can give us a sense of mastery and control. Our esteem level tends to rise as we feel ever more accomplished at a particular task. Our family trio, along with my son's girlfriend, has all picked up crocheting! We watched instructional videos, collected new project ideas, and even had competitions with different stitches and project completions. We have added a new hobby to our list!

Finding a hobby that boosts your creativity may be just what you need. Hobbies inspire us to tap into our creative side. Hobbies can be especially helpful for people who have no creative outlets at their work. Engaging in a creative hobby can help train your brain to be more creative in other areas of your life. I enjoy creating cards, and I am a part of a monthly card swapping group. Some hobbies can provide a way to save or make money. For example, to save money, you can refurbish items you find at a garage sale or grow vegetables. To make money, you can sell the photographs you take or the cakes you bake. Hobbies are essential to having a well-rounded life.

Saving some time for yourself to enjoy a hobby can provide the physical, mental, emotional, and creative benefits that make life more meaningful, relaxing, fun, and beat the "COVID Blues." Regardless of which hobby you choose, the benefits of engaging in a hobby will likely surprise you.

Mind Mapping (Trouble with the Editor Response)

 

 **This writing is a part of my Abydos Writing Workshop that I am currently enrolled in!  

In response to the podcast "Trouble with the Editor".  

MIND MAPPING

Each school year, I would often start the first day with the example of "this is the size of your brain" and used the visual of my two fists held up together! All my eager-faced students would willingly hold up both of their fists and exam them near. Some faces would show excitement; others would exclaim how big or small this relates to their brain's size, and a few would look and quietly tuck away this tidbit of knowledge and visual example. But all my students were accepting of how each had a brain and the wonders that it held.

In teaching Art for over 25 years, I felt it necessary to decipher the brain on the right and left sides. For school purposes, I find it essential and useful to teach this method to use the whole brain to learn and comprehend knowledge by adding visual, color, and creativeness to the black & white facts and organization of a subject. As I have moved from Art to teaching English, this method is still very effective and necessary.

Mind Mapping is a method that I choose to use daily in my personal and professional life. Mind mapping incorporates the whole brain using both the right "artsy-fartsy" brain side and the intellectual, analytical left brain side. Reading is purposeful and requires active involvement on behalf of the readers, mind mapping aids in reading comprehension. Using the whole brain becomes essential to master the skills involved in reading and name comprehension, coping with complicated texts, which are crucial parts of teaching students English. Tony Buzan first introduced mind maps that are a graphic and visual presentation of materials in the late 19th century. 

I have had great success combining my Art and English skills in teaching mind maps to my students. In writing, I am also learning to apply the whole-brain concept in my writing process. Writing with the figurative and sensual language will paint a vision in my reader's head. English and Art combined work beautifully together. To unblock "trouble with the editor," I must use the whole brain concept - I will provide visual the picture, scene, or story and then write! I will engage the right side - the "Creator" of my brain and then allow the left side - the "Editor" to take over and perfect the Creator's work. Mind mapping allows the Creator to spill out all brainstorming ideas and information in a creative manner. After that process has occurred and a collective clump begins, the Editor process can complete the project. Mind mapping has proved to be a successful strategy for me to produce writings and eliminate the negativity or trouble that the Editor can bring!

Fighting Tofu!

 

 **This writing is a part of my Abydos Writing Workshop that I am currently enrolled in!  

   Just as Bubba Blue described the many ways that you can serve up some shrimp... TOFU is the fruit of the soybean - the heart of the vegan! You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute' it. There are tofu-kabobs, tofu creole, tofu gumbo. Pan-fried, deep-fried, stir-fried are just a few ways to prepare tofu!

You have heard of the classic tune "Ode to Joy" by Beethoven, but have you heard of the poem titled "Ode to Tofu"? It was written many years ago by a Chinese poet, Su Ping. It is a literary song dedicated to this delicious protein! This soybean curd still does not receive enough credit. Tofu can be transformed into one of the most satisfying bites. I am convinced that I could convert you with my most favorite fried tofu recipe! "Tauhu Goreng" is a simple term that means "fried tofu" in the Indonesian and Malay languages. You will never say "I hate tofu" again.

Tofu is a food made of condensed soy milk that is pressed into solid white blocks in a process quite similar to cheesemaking. It originated in China. Rumor has it that a Chinese cook discovered tofu more than two thousand years ago by accidentally mixing a batch of fresh soy milk with nigari. My husband and I are plant-based eaters, and we love tofu. Tofu is high in protein and contains all the essential amino acids your body needs. It also provides fats, carbs, and a wide variety of vitamins and minerals. Stop fighting tofu and join the crowds of the healthy. As Albert Einstein quotes, "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet"!  

In this Moment

 **This writing is a part of my Abydos Writing Workshop that I am currently enrolled in!   

In this moment

In this moment of a day as a teacher, it takes strength to be firm.  It takes courage to be gentle.  

In this moment of a day as a teacher, it takes strength to conquer.  It takes courage to surrender.

In this moment of a day as a teacher, it takes strength to be certain.  It takes courage to have doubt.

In this moment of a day as a teacher, it takes strength to fit in.  It takes courage to stand out.

In this moment of a day as a teacher, it takes strength to feel a student's pain.  It takes courage to feel your own pain.

In this moment of a day as a teacher, it takes strength to stand alone.  It takes courage to lean on another.

In this moment of a day as a teacher, it takes strength to love.  It takes courage to be loved.

In this moment of a day as a teacher, it takes strength to survive.  It takes courage to live.

In this moment of a day as a teacher, I am strong.  I am courage in this moment of a day as a teacher.

The Vase of Flowers (Contour Drawing)

 **This writing is a part of my Abydos Writing Workshop that I am currently enrolled in!     

A Vase of Flowers   (Contour Drawing)

     They sit there, in front of my eyes in the center of the table.  A vase of flowers filled with freshly plucked lilac-colored amaryllis that I gathered from my backyard flower bed this morning.  They bask in the rays of the sun that shine through the window of the den and spotlight the vase sitting on the table.

     Sitting in a half-full translucent vase of water, the flowers overlook the scenery of which they were sat upon.  As I gaze at the contour of my drawing; a story emerges...

     A girl lies in bed asleep, her breathing heavy labored, and slow with an occasional deep cough.  She is covered with a thick, quilted blanket, her mind is far gone into the world of dreams, where she dreams of being awake and awaken in her dreams.  The room is in silence except for the small ticking sound coming from the clock that hangs on the wall above her bed and the dripping sound coming from inside the tube that connects the girl to her life and all that she depends on.  Her life before the dreaded virus struck her fragile body and put it into a downward spiral.

     The vase of flowers, they are a symbol of innocence, of first love, and they serve as a reminder of the boy who lives at the end of the street.  

     Days pass, the clock ticks.  There is a heavy atmosphere in the room.  All is quiet, the quarantine allows no one to help pass the time away.  Solitude - deafening silence.  It is strangling the life out of the flowers.  The flowers yearn for the outdoors.  They have grown to be free.  Their petals are dry, their leaves hang limply from their stems.  They try to hang on.  When the girl awakes, the flowers want to be there because they want to remind her.  

     It was a rainy day for the last day in the month of July in 2020.  The small girl shifted in the bed uneasily but drew in a deep, deep breath.  This was unusual. Her breaths had recently been so choppy, labored, and sporadic.  This breath was different.  The flowers waited for the next one but were greeted with a wall of silence.  Then suddenly, another deep, relaxed breathing rose and exited from the girl's healing lungs.  Each brittle petal, discolored leaf, and decaying stem rejoiced.  The flowers then allowed nature to take its course.  The flowers would wither and shrivel up into nothingness but the girl's future would be different.  Her future held hope and happiness.  A future that would be bright and full of new days to come.

My contour drawing of the vase of flowers.  This was a strategy for writing from a contour drawing.

Finding the Bright Side during COVID19

  

This writing is a part of my Abydos Writing Workshop that I am currently enrolled in!   

  

     The year 2020 has proved to be a year of change.  Change that the whole, side world embarked on together.  A world that had often embraced separation with loud conflicts with weak solutions.  2020's society has found a common bond within this worldwide pandemic.

     With millions of people in the world entering isolation to fight against the spread of the coronavirus or aka - COVID19, the need for positivity becomes even more critical.  As a teacher, it is hard to even put into words the grief that I've experienced being so abruptly taken from my students.  I know my peers feel it too.  We left for a much-needed break on March 13, 2020, to never return back to a classroom setting for teaching and assembling together as a class of this school year.  We kept trying to "teach" through virtual correspondence and paper copies of weekly studies but how I yearned to have face to face time with my students.  To lay eyes on my special kids and hug their sweet beings.  Just one last connection to let me and them know that I cared and wanted them so desperately know that they were one of a kind and so much a gift to this world that they were a part of! 

     As a mother and wife caught up in a pandemic, I had the wonderful delight to stay at home and not worry about this meeting or that event to attend.  To stay home and indulge in many, many naps that were much needed, to Netflix binge the shows that I never had time to watch before, and all those house projects that had been put on hold because of lack of time.  This time quickly became a "game-changer" for my husband and me.  We had made a huge life change within our careers the year before.  

     Kyle, my husband, had taken on a job in Amarillo.  This job had appeared to be his dream job and a step up in the career ladder.  I had first thought to retire from teaching after 26 years but took on a new adventure of teaching in a small school outside of Amarillo as a Sophomore English teacher.  That job was a struggle but also such a delight because I met some of the best kids on earth at River Road.  I will say that I truly loved the students and many of the faculty members on that campus.  We put our home on the market to sell in Childress and were able to live in a small garage apartment located about 35 miles from Amarillo.  We lived this way, traveling back to our house in Childress every weekend for eight long months.  Most of our belongings were packed and stacked in our garage ready to move once we had sold our house and found a new one.  With living on bare essentials, merely eating, sleeping, working, and driving back and forth to destinations every single day, the joy of being "stuck" in our Childress home was a hidden treasure.  We both realized soon that our place was in Childress living in the home that we both loved so much.  Living in a small, west Texas town where we both grew up is where we belonged and needed to return to and reside.  This decision brought our whole family peace, excitement, and joy.  If it was not for the dreaded COVID19, we might not have figured this out!

My Childhood Home - the KITCHEN episode

 **This writing is a part of my Abydos Writing Workshop that I am currently enrolled in!      

    My Childhood Home - the KITCHEN episode

     In Childress, Texas at the address of 1011 Avenue L NW - stands my childhood home.  My mother still lives in this house and it has changed very little since I first moved away to college in 1982.  I moved into this house in 1967 with my mom, dad, and little brother.  We celebrated my brother's 2nd birthday the month that we moved into this house.  We had moved from Denver, Colorado to this small west Texas town.  I do not remember this - but have pictures in a scrapbook that records this family historic event!

     In the blueprinting exercise, I drew the layout of my childhood home as I listened to Judd's sing "Flies on the butter".  A wave of nostalgia for my childhood flood my memories.  As I listed the rooms in my childhood home and begin writing incidents, adventures, and stories that had occurred in each of the rooms - I recalled a crazy, traumatic (on my part) and hysterical story that happened in our kitchen!  

     I learned to cook in my childhood home kitchen at a very young age.  I was a baker, cook, and took on the role of the family chef, feeding my family of four.  I was in all kinds of food contests and competitions with 4-H; even winning the State 4-H Food Show competition in 1982 which led to my "claim to fame" in 4-H.  My specialty was bread.  I baked all kinds of bread.  This incident involved me mixing a yeast dough with a hand mixer.  I had proofed the yeast but was rushing my steps.  I had not let the yeast properly "bloom" when I had added the yeasty-water to my flour bowl.  As I was mixing the dough, I leaned my face down deep into the bowl to smell if the yeast was active.  Being the connoisseur of bread making, I knew I could smell if the yeast was active.  I failed to have pulled back by shoulder-length hair, as all good chefs were trained to do, and my hair fell down into the bowl with the flour, yeast, and water.  Within mere seconds, my hair was caught up by the blades of the mixer along with the bowl's content and I had an actively spinning mixer beating whelps into my skull!  Luckily, (and by the grace of the good Lord above) I had the instinct to sling back my body, head, and attached mixer quickly pulling the cord out from the electrical outlet.  I was stunned, hurting and quite embarrassed. 

     I will never forget the look on my mother's face as I walked in the living room with her on the couch and I'm covered in gooey bread dough and a hand mixer is attached to my head with my hair wound ever so tightly in the blades of the mixer.  After her laughing episode and a quick trip to the kitchen to see the results of this disaster, she began the process of unraveling my hair out of the beaters of the mixer.  It seemed to take hours to untangle my hair from the mixer's beaters and then I had to soak & shampoo my hair several times to get the sticky yeast out of the strands of my hair.  It was a very messy situation.  There were swollen patches on the side of my head for several days but no hair loss and I did survive to tell the story!  Needless to say, no bread was baked that day!

Food! Glorious Food!

**This writing is a part of my Abydos Writing Workshop that I am currently enrolled in!      

     Food!  Glorious food!  Food that makes me happy.  Food that creates a squeal of delight!  Food that holds surprises and treats for the tongue, mouth, and body.  Food that creates a fabulous memory for the future.  Food aids to set the mood of the festivities.  Food adds to the fun and fellowship of gatherings.  The importance of food!

     Food is needed daily for nutritional purposes for our human body.  A daily intake of food - of GOOD food is essential for the well-being of life.  The consumption of the wrong food can lead one down a path of ill health and "large" being.

     Comfort food is a favorite food category that I adore.  Your favorite food can bring on a comfortable feeling from a pleasant memory of times pasted.  As a little girl, my father would always "whip up" his famous potato soup when anyone in the family was ill.  It was merely a boiled chunk potato soup of milk and butter broth, but it was the love and care he included in the recipe that made this soup the very best comfort food ever.  This soup was always the perfect remedy for any illness.  I still make it today for my family.

     Food can transform the body.  When my husband had a heart attack in 2016 at the age of 46, though this was a life-altering catastrophe, I was prompted to research and find a remedy and did so with success in food.  My research brought up the fact that food has astounding results in reversing heart disease.  My husband was overweight and held a multitude of bad genetics that led to this attack.  But my style of "Country Southern" cooking had also aided in the bad habits of eating unhealthy.  My mantra began, "I got you into this mess, I can get you out...!"  So, with a huge lifestyle change of eating only a plant-based diet and the grace of God, major changes have occurred with dramatic results in his life and body.  

     Some of my favorite foods include a crunchy grilled cheese sandwich that is filled with oozing plant-based cheese served along the side of a bowl of piping hot tomato soup.  This ensemble is best served on a rainy afternoon along with a sour pickle spear!  Cornbread dressing, gravy, and creamy mashed potatoes bring on a holiday mood.  These foods are always served at Thanksgiving and Christmas times.  Times often shared with family, friends, and cold weather.  Cotton candy reminds me of carnivals and the circus.  Popcorn is for movies and dark theaters.  Soft pretzels with a side of tangy mustard is a must with a mall shopping adventure.  Allsups burritos hold fun memories of midnight runs when my sons were little and in the summertime when our daily routine had reversed; mixing up our days and nights!  Never-ending chips, hot sauce, and a variety of delicious Tex-Mex entrees bring on the fun and fellowship mood of friends gathering together at a local restaurant.  

     Along with restaurant gatherings, home gatherings for a time of playing family favorite games or watching videos together would often include everyone's favorite snack food to be eaten by the fingers as you mingle, talk, and laugh.  Grazing the plethora of hors d'oeuvres that may include little smokies swimming in smokey BBQ sauce or wrapped up in cheese and biscuit dough.  The classic Rotel cheese dip served with corn tortilla chips, jalapeno poppers, stuffed mushrooms, the list goes on...

      What are some of your favorite foods and stories that go with your choice of morsel?    

Food! Glorious food!