Monthly Archives: December 2023

Life Around Here: December Edition

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Life around here has been off kilter for the last couple of months. It has been busier than I like and more stressful in some ways. Adventure season was shorter than normal this year as I opted to spend more time hiking and less time out running around. That has its pros and cons but the lack of going out and doing and seeing new stuff on Saturdays this fall has given life a different tone. 

I completed 75 miles as part of a Fall Hike Challenge over the course of two months. Those miles zig zagged through state parks, state forests and even a couple of nature preserves and mostly onto new trails rather than repeating the same ones as I’m prone to do. That’s a great thing. 

My annual Christmas weekend with a friend was a bust this year because she got sick at the last minute. I felt bad for her because she was sick and missed out on the fun. While I made the best of the circumstances and went anyway, it would have been more fun with my pal. I haven’t told any of the stories from that weekend here and need to do that soon. It was just a couple of days. While I stayed in Ohio’s Amish Country, I didn’t do much that people traditionally enjoy in Amish Country. Instead, I mostly opted for museums and shopping in surrounding counties. I’m not a fan of that area and have no reason to go back except that I did stay at a lovely bed and breakfast and enjoyed driving some back roads to see beautiful farmland. 

The headline lately is that pure and utter exhaustion has set in again along with a number of other issues I now recognize as symptoms of my hypothyroidism. So, it’s back to the doctor this  week to talk again about how I can’t live this way. Thyroid pain and fatigue are real so don’t doubt the people in your life who complain about their issues. Waking up in the morning is the hardest thing I do all day unless you count staying awake in the afternoon when my mind and body begin to beg for a nap. Diet does help along with rest, exercise, fluids, LOTS of Vitamin C and a little pill that contributes precious little but is part of the team. 

As the holidays approach, so has the cookie baking, rich meals and the comfort foods that make cold weather more pleasant. I’m weighing my options for how I want to retool my diet to better support my thyroid but am putting it off until after all that fun cookie baking is over.  I have been down this path before and know exactly what I need to eat but, man, it is hard to keep up with that kind of rigidity seven days a week. When I’m eating for thyroid health, there’s no processed food, no sugar or sweeteners of any kind, no dairy, no grains and very small amounts of gluten. I prepare every morsel of food I eat and only drink water. Whipping out a frozen dinner because you’re tired after a hard workday is not an option. You use the ingredients you have on hand to whip up a protein, vegetable and healthy fat or just go hungry. 

As hard as it is to prepare from scratch every bit of food I eat, it’s much easier when my head is in the game.

My head is not currently in the game. But I’ll get there. 

Meanwhile, the house is decorated and Christmas cards have been mailed. The days are getting shorter but the impending solstice means that we will soon start to gain daylight. I’m engaging in a Winter Hike Challenge. Our goal is fifty miles and we’ve already completed twelve. I hope to surpass this goal but we’ll see what winter brings. 

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I always hoard vacation time for year end and have a reasonably long break upcoming. It can’t come a moment too soon and I’’m looking forward to some time to rest, spend at home and maybe even go out on an adventure or two. Once we finish up Christmas, I’ll be shifting gears into the next season – my Winter No Spend Challenge when I commit to staying home and using what I already own rather than being on the go so much. This is when I reset my habits for the year opting for rest over running around, for getting creative with ingredients from the back of the pantry instead of shopping and spending more time doing quiet things I truly enjoy – hiking, reading, puzzles, movies and puttering around the house. 

This is when I’ll buckle down on nutrition and try to get back into some kind of daily exercise habits that support my angry thyroid. 

I have big plans but these habits I want to build are manageable because self care and wellness can be the focus of my time. Not to mention, many go together. I’m a fan of habit stacking. When you commit to staying home and resting, it’s easier to find time to cook, to sleep, to write, to exercise and to engage in the self care habits you believe are important. When you eat whole foods, your body naturally craves more water and naturally has more energy to propel you into a mindset of wanting to exercise. 

See where I’m going with this? You can apply this mindset to your own life as well by studying your own habits and desires to create goals that support each other. 

So, this is where I am right now. I’m tired and stretched thin. I have ideas for how I want to be but still have a mountain of work on the job and at home to trudge through before I can get there. That’s ok. It just means I’m needed and it means I’ll appreciate better days when they arrive.

For this I am grateful. 

Tell me, what’s happening in your world? Are you stretched thin? Feeling great? Wishing for more time? Tell me all about it!

Thankful Thursday

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Yesterday my coworkers and I volunteered at a food pantry near one of our branches. A few years ago, my department agreed to forgo giving each other gifts and to instead spend a morning volunteering before exchanging Christmas cards over lunch.

Our bank encourages all employees to volunteer for worthy causes and so this fits well into our culture. Together, we have baked cookies for families at Ronald McDonald House, worked on small marketing projects for my local historical society and helped out at Meals on Wheels.

Our job yesterday was to help fill paper bags with non perishable groceries for a couple hundred households in the community.

Friends, this was a humbling experience.

Those households sometimes are couples or families. Often, they are seniors who are living on ridiculously slim social security checks. Some come in every month while others only come when they need a little help getting by.

The volunteers work hard to make their clients feel comfortable. After all, most folks don’t set out in life to end up in a line for free food. They talked about those clients who don’t engage in conversation, who are tearful or embarrassed and who just take what they need and leave. There are others who make sure the food pantry knows what a blessing it is to have the help.

I complain about the rising cost of food but that’s all I do. I shop sales and try to be smart with my money but I don’t do without fresh produce and the things I like. Yet, here in southern Ohio, I am surrounded by people living quietly with food insecurity. What a horrible thing for anyone to face.

How lucky am I?

In addition to things like canned veggies, soup, pasta and peanut butter, the bags also contained treats like microwave popcorn, a cake mix and a can of frosting. The lady who sorted the cake mix and frosting spent the entire morning making sure each bag got a cake mix and frosting flavor that went together. I appreciated the care she put into this. After all, just because you need a helping hand from your neighbors doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have something good.

This food pantry is run by local churches working together. The school district and some local events collect donations throughout the year and it’s not uncommon for teenagers and other locals to show up and help with whatever needs done.

We all pitched in yesterday and helped in any way we could to make it easier for the volunteers who have been showing up to work every single month for years.

It was a good use of our time and I was glad to be of help, even if it was for just a few hours. I felt better for being useful to others.

Look around your community. There are needs in every nook and cranny and organizations are in desperate need of volunteers. If you want to do good in the world and bring change in your own community, find someplace to volunteer. Not only is it helpful to someone else and good for the community, helping others through volunteerism is a noble way to help yourself as well.

Happiness Is….

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Happiness is a lazy Sunday at home.

I had a chat with Scout before bed on Saturday night, explaining that mental and physical exhaustion is real for those of us who have to earn a living and keep up with adult responsibilities. He will never know this first hand because he’s a cat and I work hard to earn money to give him the life he thinks he deserves.

He listened carefully and, instead of being the 3 a.m. rapscallion we all know he can be, he chose a gentler path that allowed me to sleep. In fact, he let me sleep past ten, something that hasn’t happened since the last time I was sick.

He is a kind and giving soul.

The rest of the day consisted of laundry, dishes, comfort food, Christmas movies, reading and a phone call from a friend. That about covers it and I was glad for a quiet day to do next to nothing. If not for that phone call, I might have even taken a nap.

We all need that quiet day occasionally. Our bodies weren’t intended to be on the go all the time and our minds weren’t designed to be active for every waking minute of the day. Errands will wait. The house can stay dirty. That Facebook message needn’t be answered. One day won’t matter but your body will reward you for the rest.

Don’t believe me? Try it and see what happens.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of News Stories

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“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.” – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Read that again.

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”

It’s true. If you walk around expecting the world to be ugly, it will indeed be ugly. If you drive down the road looking for a white car, you will only see white cars.

I believe this with all my heart.

Yet, for the last seven days, I have been looking for good news stories and I’m struggling to find any at all.

Every December, my friend Nichola and I challenge each other to post a positive news story on Facebook every day. We both scour news sites searching for positive news, something uplifting, something remotely happy that might brighten someone else’s day.

Do you have any idea how hard this is?

War, politics, death, sickness, crime, car accidents, poverty – these are the things that dominate the media landscape right now. Of course, this isn’t anything new but it is worse this year than it was last year and significantly worse than five years ago.

When I was a young reporter, I heard the phrase “If it bleeds it leads” more than a few times. Tragedy, war and sorrow have long played better in the media than people living their dreams or performing good deeds.

People like to complain that the media only covers the bad stuff but they don’t want to take responsibility for their own consumption habits.

Did you know that negative headlines have a sixty percent higher click-thru rate than happy or neutral headlines? Since clicks translate to money, media outlets obviously are going to focus on the negative.

If I am LOOKING for good news and can’t find it, what hope is there for everyone else?

Good news is good for mental health. It gives us hope and brightens our day. Bad news is hard on your mental health and it encourages a sense of helplessness and despair.

We need more happiness in our lives. We need more goodness and light. The world around us is dark enough as it is. Why not go looking for the light?

Unity Through A Microphone

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The Smithsonian Institute is one of America’s greatest gifts to her citizens. My favorite is the American History museum where such treasures are kept as Dorothy’s ruby slippers, Old Glory, the gowns of the First Ladies and a centuries old ship.

There’s also a display of Presidential memorabilia including this treasure.

It’s the CBS broadcasting microphone that Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke into when he gave his Fireside Chats.

It was through this microphone that FDR communicated with Americans about the darkest days of the Great Depression and through the terrifying years of World II. It’s hard to imagine a world without internet, a 24 hour television news cycle or immediate access to information. It’s strange to think of a world when people gathered around their radios to take in a sitting President’s Fireside Chats.

Incidentally, this concept was innovative when FDR began addressing the country in this way. His chats were meant to inform and reassure American citizens. He spoke directly to the citizens about his programs and initiatives and about the war.

There was no room for interpretation and no analysis or opinion from commentators who could disguise their opinions as fact as we see so much today.

It was information straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

Are we really better off today with so many news outlets or businesses parading as media while they push their thinly veiled agendas? There was significantly less splintering of information back then and a greater sense of unity.

It’s funny but I long for simpler days that I never even knew in real life,

In case you’ve forgotten your American history, this is Pearl Harbor Day. It was 82 years ago today that a Japanese attack left 2,403 servicemen and civilians dead at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

In a Fireside Chat two days after the attack, Roosevelt said these words.

“We are now in this war. We are all in it—all the way. Every single man, woman, and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories—the changing fortunes of war.”


-Franklin Roosevelt, Fireside Chat, December 9, 1941

“We must share together.” This is a phrase we don’t hear much anymore. We tend to not share so much as sit in our separate corners and nurse our own agendas.

May we never again know a time of such sorrow and hardship as another Great War. However, if we do, let us hope we are led by an individual who can intentionally unite rather than purposefully divide.

And may all those who who lost their lives so horrifically and so unexpectedly 82 years ago today rest in peace.

Adventure Is What You Create

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If it’s adventure you seek, odds are there are plenty of fun things to do within an hour or two of where you live. While a day trip isn’t as exciting as heading off to far flung and exotic places, it can be just as rewarding.

Of course, my definition of adventure and fun may differ greatly from yours but I hope you will still be inspired by some of these ideas.

Here in southern Ohio I am surrounded by opportunities to get outside and hike on public lands. State parks, local parks, state nature preserves and even national forest land abound meaning that you can hike miles a season and never repeat the same trail.

In the mood for holiday fun? Within an hour of my home, there’s a Wild West style town that offers special visits from Santa and lots of festive activities on the weekends. Click here for a story from my first visit there. Gallipolis transforms its park into a glorious wonderland each year and it’s free to look around. On some nights, local churches take turns sponsoring a live nativity and Santa is present in his little house certain nights of the week too. I have written about this event a few times. Here’s a link to an older post.

Franklin Park Conservatory has a fantastic holiday event. Again, I have written about it a few times. Here’s one story.

I spent a recent Friday night in downtown Chillicothe, soaking in the cheer created by downtown merchants in their holiday open house. While that event comes but once a year, Chillicothe has a vibrant downtown that’s nicely decorated and where many of the businesses are doing special things to entertain customers.

Indoor adventure might include museums in one of Ohio’s cities. Lots of southern Ohio communities have hands-on places for arts like pottery making. There’s a new specialty shop in Lancaster where you can design your own fragrance and pour your own soap.

We also have an abundance of antique stores and vendor malls. Even if you don’t buy, it’s quite fun to find things from your youth or to see things you’ve never seen before.

Adventure is not just surfing in Hawaii and bull fighting in Spain. Adventure is what you make of it. It’s what you need and want it to be. So go make your own adventure. Stretch your boundaries and find the kind of fun that makes your heart sing!