Monday On My Mind

September 13, 2021 By Carole

Before I get to what’s on my mind today, I want to remind you that tomorrow is discussion day for the Read With Us summer book selection, Unsettled Ground. Bonny and Kym and I will be posting questions on our blogs and then holding a zoom meet up at 7pm EST to discuss the book with anyone interested. It’s not too late to join us, just leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll make sure you get an invite.

Okay. Onward.

I went for a haircut on Friday and had to wait a few minutes for my stylist. While I was sitting there, a young woman was brought over to sit under the hair dryer. Her stylist made a point of telling her, “if you’re on your phone, make sure you hold it up at eye level so you aren’t looking down at it, otherwise the front of your hair won’t be getting enough heat.” Made perfect sense to me but I didn’t think too much of it at the time.

Then, last night, Dale and I were watching the Patriot’s game and every time they scanned the crowd I was struck by how many spectators were looking at their phones. I’d guess it was 1 in 4 that was looking down at a cell phone . . . while at a major (and rather expensive) sporting event.

Now. I’m probably shouldn’t judge, as I have an iPhone that I’m very attached to and I enjoy time on Facebook and Instagram and (lately anyway) TikTok. But, I like to think, and I’m aware that I could be very wrong about this, that I’m pretty cognizant of putting down the phone and . . . you know . . . living my life. Being present. Engaging with the people and things happening around me. I can absolutely tell you that I wouldn’t be looking down at a phone while attending a Pat’s game.

I think it’s safe to say that cell phones and devices are here to stay and an accepted part of our daily lives. At the same time, though, I think we have to be very careful about just how much we’re engaging with these devices and how much we might actually be missing by not putting down the phone and looking around. Phones are a great tool for so may things (remind me to tell you about the great meal planning app I just started using) and I have a lot of apps that I use that are not related to social media at all . . . Spotify and podcasts and Audible and so much more. And none of it is wrong. But some of it . . . well . . . maybe it’s too much.

I’m making a promise to myself, and I’m telling all of you so that I don’t forget, to engage more with people I am with and not so much with those on the screen. To save the social media stuff for when I’m alone. To be fully present.

I’m a firm believer in you-do-you, so please don’t take this as me lecturing you on your personal cell phone habits. But if you’ve got a little voice telling you that you’re maybe on TikTok too much (raises hand) then perhaps you’d like to reconsider how you spend your time, too.

And that’s what’s on my mind this Monday.

Monday On My Mind

August 30, 2021 By Carole

Home is what’s on my mind this Monday. As in, being home. After a week in Iceland, a handful of days at home, and then another week away on Cape Cod, it’s just good to be home. I know travel is something I have missed terribly due to the pandemic but, at the same time, I also got very very used to being home. I’m grateful for the privilege of being able to travel (safely, too) and I’m also very grateful to just.be.home.

Home . . . where I have all my stuff, not just the stuff I think I might need. And I don’t have to live out of a suitcase or pack everything up to move to a different location every few days.

Home . . . where I get to sleep in my own bed with my own pillows. While a king sized bed is a travel treat, I still like my own bed (and bedding!) best.

Home . . . where I have a kitchen stocked with the tools I love best. And I cook with gas and not electricity.

Home . . . where I can turn on the television and watch live news easily. I’m generally not a big tv person but I do like the news in the morning and the evening and I felt a bit disconnected in Iceland, where we never turned on a tv once, and on the Cape, where the tv in our rental didn’t have local cable.

Home . . . where I can blog and catch up with all of you!

It’s good to be home, friends.

Monday On My Mind

August 9, 2021 By Carole

It’s wedding week, my friends and, as Hannah said yesterday, it’s GO TIME.

Up until the end of June, anyone traveling to Iceland had to be tested at the airport upon arrival and quarantine until they had a negative test result. They dropped that requirement at the beginning of July so we were very excited about not having to cross that hurdle. And then they reinstated a new rule, effective July 27th, that you have to present a negative test result, from a test less than 72 hours before arrival, in order to travel to Iceland. Hannah and Mikey have had several discussions about how they would handle someone testing positive and they had ultimately decided they would need to postpone if it was a parent or member of the wedding party. At least, I think that’s what they had decided.

I spent the last week feeling so anxious about the need to be tested for COVID yesterday. Worried that I’d be the only one who tested positive and having to force my daughter to make a difficult decision. Worried that it was the universe punishing me for not being 100% excited about this plan to get married in Iceland back when they first said that’s what they wanted to do. Worried, frankly, that I wasn’t worthy of attending because thinking I’m not worthy of good things is a lifelong struggle.

The good news, though, is that everyone tested negative yesterday! I cried tears of happiness and relief when the call came in and released the breath I had been holding all week. And then I started packing and making lists and really allowing myself to get excited.

So. In summary, we’re off to Iceland for a week tomorrow. The wedding is Saturday. The weather forecast looks perfect. I’m incredibly grateful for science. Follow me on Instagram for photos because I won’t be posting on the blog again until we’re back.

And send these two all the good juju for a long and happy life together.

Monday On My Mind

June 7, 2021 By Carole

A little while ago, Kym wrote a post about rituals and she considered the difference between a ritual and a habit. Many of you left thoughtful comments and I’ll admit that I’ve been thinking about this post for several months now. I think I’ve ruminated on it long enough that I’m ready to share my thoughts with you and I’m going to focus on rituals and routines.

When I think about routines, I think about the things I do daily or weekly. Things like having our kids over for dinner on Wednesday nights, going to Kiwanis on Thursday nights, knitting while I watch television, Friday Night Snacks, reading before bed, listening to podcasts on my drive to work. These things are important to me and they enrich my life but I don’t put a whole lot of thought into them. They just sort of happen . . . and I’m glad they do.

What I’ve learned, though, over this last year or so, is that it’s very easy to take those routines for granted. It’s even possible to become bored by them. Wednesday again? I guess the kids are coming over. Thursday again? Time for Kiwanis and the same old menu choices. Get out the cheese and crackers because it’s time for Friday Night Snacks. It can feel mundane and unremarkable. Until it gets taken away by something out of your control, like a pandemic. Or your husband getting hit by a car.

All of a sudden your kids can’t come over for dinner. Your meetings are cancelled. You aren’t driving to work because work is closed. You can’t read before bed because your mind is wandering and you find it impossible to concentrate. Your Friday Night Snacks are for one because your husband is in the hospital. And now you long for all of those familiar routines. You yearn for the boredom of the life you took for granted. You chastise yourself for not paying attention to every little detail of every ordinary moment.

What if, instead of having routines, we had . . . rituals? What if we treated the things we do over and over again as sacred? What if we set an intention to add meaning to our schedules? What if we gave as much importance to dinner on a Wednesday as we did to a holiday meal? You may be thinking that would be too much. You may be thinking that the big things won’t feel like big things if we make all the little things feel like big things, too. I don’t think that’s the case, though. I think if we honor the things we do repeatedly, if we pay attention to the details of everyday life, we will enjoy it more. We will value it more. We will love it more.

There are things I already do that are rituals. I write in a gratitude journal every morning while my coffee brews. I meditate. I have seasonal rituals like changing the wreath on the front door and switching my coffee mug to one with a beach scene on Memorial Day weekend. I consider these things to be rituals because I approach them with thoughtfulness and intention.

I’m going to challenge myself to create more rituals rather than going through the motions associated with routines. I’m going to savor those moments when I read in bed, luxuriating in soft pillows and crisp sheets with Dale right beside me. I’m going to prepare our Friday Night Snacks with gratitude. I’m going to greet the kids with hugs. I’m going to remember that nothing is certain and each moment matters.

I invite you to join me on this journey.

Monday On My Mind

May 24, 2021 By Carole

I want to talk to you today about reading. As a librarian and avid reader, it’s a favorite subject of mine. And I’ve got a lot to say, apparently!

I believe that reading books is the single best thing we can do for ourselves. Books can educate us, whether they are made up stories or true. Books can take us places we’ve never been, with our imaginations but also with illustrations. Books can help us understand ourselves and others, as we read about characters we relate to or who remind us of someone we know. For me, and maybe for you, too, reading is the ultimate form of self-care. And for that reason, I read whatever I want. I don’t follow rules or join challenges or make lists. I don’t belong to a book club (except for Read With Us and that’s only 4 books/year). I should say, at one point I did have a book club but it was very unconventional in that we did not read the same book but rather, we spent our meetings telling each other about great books we had read that we would recommend. I am so about the book recommendations and I totally designed this book club to serve myself!

I don’t quantify the things I read as harder or better and I don’t see reading as a competition. Maybe you do and maybe that’s what motivates you to read . . . to challenge yourself to read a difficult subject or to read a classic or an extra long book. That’s awesome. But I’m also pretty sure there are people out there who are completely put off by that sort of thing. By the online challenges and intense reading communities. By the high brow recommendations and the pressure to read a gazillion books in a year. And I worry that those people aren’t reading at all because they think they aren’t reading books that are good enough. That if it wasn’t nominated for an award it doesn’t count. That if it’s not going to make them stretch their thinking or expand their horizons that someone will judge them for their choice.

To those people, and all the others I say: just read. That’s what I do. I just.read.

I read things that I see my friends reading. I read things that are recommended to me. I read best sellers and books that are considered obscure. I read important prize winners and I read cozy mysteries and romances, family dramas and historical fiction, biographies and memoirs. I read what I like . . . and I like a lot! This isn’t to say that I don’t read books that challenge me. I love a book that makes me think about things in a new way or a book that takes an unconventional approach to telling a story. I read because I want to learn something or experience something and sometimes I want that to stretch my mind. But, to use a food analogy, books don’t all have to be filet mignon, sometimes you need a cheeseburger and fries.

The reason I’m bringing this up right now is because Summer Book Bingo starts this weekend. The book you are currently reading could, potentially, be your first Bingo square, in fact. I love Summer Book Bingo and I so appreciate all of the work Mary puts into setting it up for us. I love having interesting squares on my Bingo card and I really enjoy the challenge of finding books that match up with those squares. More often than not those books are already on my to-read list on GoodReads and I see Summer Book Bingo as a way of getting around to reading books I’ve been meaning to read forever but haven’t yet.

I’ll admit that I do get a bit competitive when it comes to Summer Book Bingo and I’ll be striving for a cover-all again this year. Maybe you have that goal, too. Or maybe you just want one Bingo. Or maybe you don’t give a fig about Bingo. Guess what? It’s all good. You don’t have to fill out a lengthy questionnaire and consider your reading life. You don’t have to read better books (better than what? and who decides?) You don’t have to read with any intention other than the intention of reading. Turning a page. Absorbing the words. Fitting them into your life and perhaps expanding your world view or maybe just having a few hours of well earned entertainment.

If you want to fill out those questionnaires and be very mindful of what you’re reading and why you’re reading it . . . go for it. And if you want to plan out your entire summer of reading right now so that you get a Bingo cover all . . . go for it. And if you want to go to the library each week and see what strikes your fancy . . . go for that, too. When it comes to reading, you do you.

I’ll be right here. Reading. And cheering you on.