Author: Karen

I am an RN, Author, Coach, and Speaker. I write novels about relationships to help people find insight into their own. I guide people to create comfort, clarity, and connection in their lives. By combining metaphysical tools with over twenty-five years of nursing experience, I infuse the 'art of nursing' into my practice by providing partnership and resources help people compassionately honor their health.

Volunteering

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, local fun, teens

My daughter and I signed up to volunteer for two hours this morning to help with tasks involved in getting ready for the annual library book sale. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Even though I looked forward to and attended the book sale almost every year, I had never been involved in any of the activities that preceded it.

We arrived a little early to find a smattering of other early birds there at the crack of 9:00AM, ready to help. We jumped right in.After a few “thank you’s” from Susan, the lovely woman in charge, I said, “Actually, I’m having fun!”

And you know what? I was having fun. More than that, I was having a great time.  Even though it was very muggy and I was sweating and thirsty, I was enjoying what I was doing and the time was passing quickly. As I thought about why, I realized that volunteering to help set up for the library book sale combined two of my favorite things:

  1. Being with the books
  2. Bringing order to chaos

I was especially pleased because I was able to identify, almost without thinking about it, exactly what it was that made me enjoy the work so much. It was a physical job: hauling books from one end of the gym to the other. Usually I don’t love exercise, but then it occurred to me that I was getting my ‘workout’ this morning doing purposeful activity with something to show for it at the end besides sore muscles: the dozens of cartons of books that were arranged on tables, spines, up, ready for the customers tomorrow–another bonus.

Our two hours of volunteering turned into four and a half. We stayed until the job was done.

As it turned out, the day included another one of my favorite things: PIZZA!  Susan unexpectedly treated us to pizza for lunch.  Because in the end, it’s always all about the food…and today, it was also all about the books!

Go ahead: make my day

by Karen, posted in Angels, health, relationships

It’s time for our family’s annual physicals. This morning I was there bright and early at 8am with my daughter for hers…so bright and early, in fact, that the office door was still locked (hey, here’s a tip: if you schedule appointments for 8am at your office and you tell people to arrive 10 minutes early to update paperwork, UNLOCK THE DOOR BY 7:50AM! Just a thought).

So, I was already annoyed when we finally gained admittance at 7:58AM. When we sat down in the cubicle to check in, the woman serving us made no eye contact and not even a glimmer of a smile graced her lips. I noticed then that all of the staff behind the bulletproof shield were tense, not smiling, and not looking directly at each other, never mind at us lowly patients.

I had another thought as I sat there: the necklace that the receptionist was wearing was really pretty. Recalling advice a mentor had shared with me over 25 years ago for job interviewing (pick out something about the person to compliment), I decided to tell  her.

“Your necklace is really pretty,” I said.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, touching it. She turned back to her computer, still not looking at us…and then she did.

Her entire demeanor changed. She was smiling at us both, joking with my daughter, making small talk (“It’s August already?”).

I’m not sure if I made her day or she made mine!

Just sayin’.

Writer’s lull

by Karen, posted in education, family, Midlife Crisis, writing

For weeks and weeks, I was the whirling dervish of writing:

  1. I had a few blogs going for which I posted several times a week.
  2. I was writing 2000 words a day for my book.
  3. I was writing book reviews for several websites.
  4. I was writing restaurant reviews and food articles for an online magazine.
  5. I was writing millions of words in emails to my friends and coworkers daily.

…and so on; you get the idea. I was wily and whimsical in my writing.

Then, an issue came up in relation to the education of one of my children and suddenly I found that much of my writing time was taken up with writing emails, letters, and synopses of events and phone conversations for many different involved parties, almost every day, including weekends, almost to the exclusion of all else. I was diligent and dutiful in my writing.

Now there is a lull in the education issue. I have reluctantly come to realize that there is now a lull in my writing activities as well. I have learned this: the more I write, the more I write. Unfortunately, the converse is also true: the less I write, the less I write. This writer’s lull is different from writer’s block. It’s not that I have no ideas about what to write. I have plenty of ideas;  I just can’t seem to get them out of my head and onto the page.

I was distressed. When I told a friend about this, she suggested that this is actually a period of renewal, a time to foster new ideas and thoughts that will fuel my next writing phase. She further suggested that this period of writing not-so-much is part of the process, and therefore is necessary and beneficial.

I’ve decided to go with it, on the chance that it might be true.

It feels true.

Shopping at the Ocean State Job Lot

by Karen, posted in books, Date night, local fun, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, relationships

I was at the Ocean State Job Lot today, shopping for a bug zapper (bottom left page of flyer) with my husband. Of course, once I was in there I had to look around at everything (sorry, Bill).  Did you know that you can get audio books (on CD) here for only $3.99? Many of which you may have even heard of and be interested in listening to in the car on your way back to Wells from Sanford when you are sitting in traffic on Route 109 from now until eternity, watching the workers stand around waving “Stop” and “Slow” signs at you, taunting you ad nauseam.

I bought two.

Next, I wandered over to the bathing suits. I know; I know. What was I thinking? Well, they were on sale for only $10. Some of them were even kind of cute.

After rifling through the racks for a few minutes, I found a red one-piece that was my size that was kind of interesting looking. I held it up to show my husband, who thought it was okay (I need the reality check of asking another person how something looks on me because I apparently have Body Dysmorphic Disorder–in other words, I have no freakin’ clue how I really look).
I found a clerk to ask where the fitting rooms are and surprise! Ocean State Job Lot has no fitting rooms. I decided to take a chance and buy it, thinking I could always return it tomorrow if it didn’t fit. As I was giving it a final once-over, I thought that the back of the bathing suit didn’t look quite right. Now, I’m no fashionista, but the back was very…plunging, and the butt was very…insubstantial in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on…until suddenly, it hit me. How had I not noticed how thin the strip of material at the butt was?

This bathing suit was a thong in the back! I can’t wear that to the beach!

I’m not even a little bit French!

Book review: The Sound of Hope

by Karen, posted in books, education, family, health, no fear, teens, tweens

The Sound of HopeThe Sound of Hope by Lois Kam Heymann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is geared toward children from birth through about age 8 with APD. It’s still worth reading if your child is older, but there aren’t many interventions that will work with your tween or teenager. Also, I thought it was very naive of the author to lead parents to believe that their school district will be ready, willing, and/or able to work with them to make sure that their child with APD receives a fair and appropriate education and is successful in school. The odds are that the school personnel will not even have HEARD of APD. The burden will be on the parents to advocate for their child.

View all my reviews

Brave the movie

by Karen, posted in family, local fun, movies, no fear, teens

Brave in a nutshell: Best hair in a movie–ever. Lots of slap stick humor. Butts abound. There is one anomaly: a mother.

This is a Disney film, after all, but it includes a mother. Any of you who grew up with Bambi, The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Cinderella…evil stepmothers notwithstanding, there are no living birth mothers in this crowd.

In Brave, however, Merida has one. Does she get to keep her? Well, yes. And no. And yes.

I took my daughter and her friend to see this movie, but it was really more like they took me. I am the one that really wanted to see it. They were sort of humoring me, I think. In the end, though, they both said they liked it as much as I did. They especially liked Merida’s trio of terrible brothers. Okay, fine. So did I.

The central conflict in the movie is this: it’s ‘time’ for Merida to step up and be the princess that her mother has been grooming her to be since birth, and Merida is not the least bit interested in doing this. For (not) the first time in the history of the world, what a mother desires for her daughter and what a daughter desires for herself are two very different things.
From there, a metaphorical battle ensues between mother and daughter as they each try to make the other come around to their own point of view.

Go; see if the twain shall meet.

Girls of a feather

by Karen, posted in health, local fun, Midlife Crisis, no fear, teens, Turning 50

My daughter and I got matching feathers a few months ago. Why? I don’t know. We were at a business expo and there was someone offering to feather people for $5. She said it usually costs $8 but it was a special price Today Only (certainly we’ve all heard that before).

Anyway, she wanted one so I figured it was harmless enough so we got in line. Izzy got to choose her feather from a box of multicolored styles of varying lengths. Once it was in, it looked…FABULOUS! As we walked around the expo, I was liking her new feather so much, then I had a sudden thought:

“I want one!”

So, since this is My Year of Turning 50, and I made the decision previously to follow any and all whims as they arise, I got one.

After a few weeks of living with the feathers, Izzy and I liked them so much, that we returned to Melissa at her regular place of business and got a second one.

Was that wrong?
So far, they are holding up pretty well, except that my pink feather is now completely white, which is not a problem.
🙂

 

Time: is it on my side?

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Midlife Crisis, no fear, Turning 50

I made a decision the week that I turned 50 and also was on vacation: I wouldn’t wear my watch. I had a couple of goals.

1. To stop being so ruled by the time of day it was (eg: “time for breakfast” or “time for bed”)

2. To make my vacation feel longer.

So for about 10 days, I didn’t wear my watch. It turned out that on the few occasions when I tried to guess the time, my guesses were usually pretty close: within 15 minutes or so of the actual time. Of course, for the first several days, I looked at my watch-less wrist to see what time it was, but then when I remembered that I wore no watch, I just said, “Okay, I don’t know what time it is,” and was okay with that.

I didn’t start wearing my watch again until today. I put it on this morning, then after i looked at it for the third time and realized that it still said 10:12AM (not to mention that it was also a day behind on the date!), the ugly truth was revealed: THE BATTERY STOPPED.

Really? Really?

Is the Universe sending me a message?

May planting

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening

We planted the last bed on the last day of May. Tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squashes, peppers, spaghetti squash, various eggplants. I’m bummed out that I couldn’t find a purple and white striped eggplant variety this year, or a purple bell pepper, but what can you do? We did find and plant some blue potatoes, and that is our novelty for 2012.

We try to plant something new that we’ve never grown before every year.

I’m going to try one more time for the purple seedlings at the Portland Farmers Market next week, then give up and go with what I got. After we put the plants in, it rained for days. . . and days. . . and days. Not sure if that will turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing. I’ll keep you posted.

The strawberries in our garden still aren’t red. There are dozens of them, all white. I’m keeping an eye on those too, because if the chipmunks beat me to them, I may not get over it.

The asparagus is just about done, but we got several helpings before it went by, so I’m happy for that. Here’s hoping that we all have a long and prolific growing season!

We also snuck in a few straggler plants: watermelon, pumpkins…things that never do well for us. Maybe if we ignore them, they’ll surprise us this year.

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Midlife Monkey Mind

by Karen, posted in Angels, education, Midlife Crisis, Turning 50, yoga

I’ve been on overload these past few weeks, with my mind overly full of stress-inducing thoughts. Sleeping has been a challenge. Lying awake from 1:30-4:30am two nights ago, I trotted out all my tricks for putting myself back to sleep: saying my ABC’s, counting backward from 100, tensing and relaxing muscle groups, saying the So Hum meditation.

Today at yoga, the instructor coincidentally included the So Hum mediation in our class. My mind had been racing a mile a minute right up until I heard Kristen say those two words, when it screeched to a halt…for a second. I started saying the words: so hum…so hum…so hum…

Then I became aware of something interesting: although my mental voice was indeed repeating the so hums dutifully as requested, another channel in my mind was still gyrating with the monkey mindedness of my midlife brain. It never stopped. Even as my ‘good girl’ brain was desperately trying to fulfill the teacher’s request to meditate on the fact that “I am”, the ‘bad girl’ brain carried on obsessing with wild abandon.

Note to self: shut of the monkey mind when you meditate. It’s so much more effective.