Picking Daisy Deadheads

I just spent the last two hours, yes two hours picking daisy dead heads off one of the two daisy plants in my front yard. Of course, I was thinking to myself, here I am a doctor with years of schooling and I have so many things to do, write, blog clean, cook, shop, put pictures in a photo album, ha-ha, so many things and I’m sitting here picking dead heads. blah blah blah.

Why? I asked myself.

To make it pretty.

Beauty.

Because the plant needs it.

Well, isn’t that why we do anything? We want to make our life pretty, or happy or joyful, and of course we have to accomplish a need.

Not even close to half way through this first plant, I get the big cutters out from the garage and start to trim some of the plant away - the overgrowth that really doesn’t need to be there in order to make the plant pretty.

It cleans the plant up a bit and makes my life easier by decreasing the number of dead head that I have to pick. It’s getting rid of the unnecessary. Guess what. The beauty is still there. Actually, the plant is even more beautiful.

My hands are dirty and the dirt has gotten under my fingernails and I’ll probably have remnants of the daisy plant in my nails long after a long, hot shower; but, when I go outside and look at the daisy plant, I’ll smile.

Of course, there still is more dead heads, and I still have to clean up the other daisy plant. These things are never done. But right now, I can look at the one daisy plant and see beauty. See beauty that I helped to bring out.

I guess when I pick dead heads I think. I think about my life and how it’s so much like me picking dead heads off the daisy bush. With every pick, life is my beautiful. But the work is never done. I have to keep on picking, keep on working to find that beauty, knowing that there’s a whole other plant right behind me waiting for my time and energy. Our work is never done. But our work is important. Beauty in life is important.

Sometimes I feel like taking those big cutters and cutting the whole bush down and maybe plant something easier to take care of, lower maintenance. And maybe I will someday. But today, I pick daisies and with dirt under my fingernails, I look at the job accomplished and smile.

Appreciate the beauty of today.

Work hard to achieve your own beauty.

The job is never completely done, the daisies bud, bloom, and then die. There are always new daisies growing.

So, here I go, picking the daisy dead heads, enjoying the beauty and knowing that any small or large job is worth the work.

Soon, I'll get to write, blog, clean, cook, work, help the kids, etc. and I’ll try find beauty in those things too.

Look around; see the beauty in the world.

Have a Beauty-filled day in all you accmplish,

Meredith

How Do You Handle Stress?

My six-year-old son had baseball practice this past Friday night. Afterwards, many of us went to a family friendly restaurant in our town. Believe it or not, even though it was after 7pm, our eight boys were all sitting and chatting and actually being really good. The adults and older kids were talking-it was all going really well.

Or so we thought . . .

This older gentleman came into our walled off area with fists clenched and red faced and started yelling at us. He said how the children were being terrible and how we were all irresponsible parents for allowing our children to behave so badly.

Honestly, we were all shocked. We had been impressed with the kids. It was so late and the food was taking a long time to get there, and they were sitting and playing. This man was not only attacking our kid’s behavior, but our character as well.

So.

What should we have done at that point?

Should we have yelled back?

Should we have tried to ignore him, hoping he would just vanish in midair?

Should we have complained to the manager?

Or, maybe we should have gone to his table and start a fight, attacking his family or friend’s character and behavior.

What would you have done?

I’d like to say we spoke with the manager who handled it quietly and tastefully and everyone shook hands, the man apologized and we all laughed about it.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. There was a little yelling back and forth, and then the manager was notified. We never got an apology and I’m actually not sure what the man was so up in arms about. Happily, the boys didn’t hear any of this and they continued having a great time together.

I assume the man had a bad day or was unhappy about something in his life. We’ve all been there; we’re upset and take it out on the closest target, which I guess was us that night.

But it got me thinking. Life is hard. How do we deal with these hardships without scapegoating others around us?

Well, no surprise what I usually do when I’m sad, upset, or have a lot on my mind. I write. Writing it all out helps me deal with it better.

Some people work out, or shop, or drink, or even sleep.

How do you handle your stress and how would you have handled this man’s attack?

Life can be hard sometimes. I think that in order to get through it in the most fulfilling way, we need to grab onto the positive, work hard to be happy and successful in whatever you do, and laugh it out. As they say, laughter is the best medicine. Maybe we should have just told that man a joke, for example, my favorite:

So, this guy walks into a bar . . . OUCH!

Sorry, but I do love that one.  Ha ha.

Have a wonderful, laughter-filled and as stress-free as possible day.

Be kind to each other,

Meredith

April Fools

Hi! I’m back.

What a break I took from my poor, neglected blog.

It’s been a whirlwind of a March and I blinked and it’s April. How in the world did that even happen?

My husband, David and I went on a quick trip to Arizona to celebrate my cousin’s daughter’s wedding. We literally were gone for less than 24 hours! But I was so happy to go! What a beautiful wedding. The couple looked so happy. I got to visit with family that I don’t see often enough. I did the things I love to do: dance, laugh, eat, and drink.

It reminded me about a piece of advice someone gave me before my wedding almost 14 years ago. They told me to take a moment a few times during the wedding to look around, be present, and really feel the love, see the people, appreciate the sights and sounds. So many times, an event happens after months of planning and darts by before you know it. I think life can be that way too.

We blink and months go by, a year flies by.

Did we even experience it?

Life is so busy.

Kids need to be driven here and there. Groceries need to be bought. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner need to be made, eaten and cleaned up. Wash needs to be folded and put away, Work happens Monday, Tuesday, all of a sudden it’s Friday. School, homework . . .

WAIT!!!

We need to live life-life should not get to live us!

Breathe. Count 1, 2, and 3. Breathe again.

Okay.

I’m ready for life now.

I’m ready to appreciate the experiences: good and bad.

(Although I prefer good, please)

I’m not going to be the April fool this time. Are you?

I know this is a short blog post this time.

But, I have a lot more to say.

We will be talking soon!

Enjoy life,

Meredith

Best Face Forward

For my 18^th birthday, my parents asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted a makeover. You know, have some person tell me what make-up colors look good for my skin and eye color and how to apply it to my face. That kind of thing.

So, we went to this local woman who had me sit down in front of a magnifying mirror and started looking at my face. The only thing I remember from that day was one comment she made. She was shaking her head as she was studying my face and said, “You know, you really shouldn’t smile so much because you are starting to get laugh lines around your mouth.”

I started to laugh. I thought she was kidding. Not smile? Are you for real? What’s the point of life if you don’t smile and laugh?

Thankfully, I didn’t take her sage advice. And yes, I do have some laugh lines, which I’m proud of, usually. (Although some creams wouldn’t hurt to lessen them a little. Is that shallow?)

I think that’s why those Beverly Hills housewives look so strange to our eyes, or at least mine. It’s not that they’ve had Botox or plastic surgery, I’ll support anything that makes a person feel good about themselves. It’s because they went a little too far. They cut away their individuality. They cut away the things that make them unique, different, special. Now they all look the same. Some have brown hair with long hair extensions and some have blonde hair with long hair extensions, and they all have the same wide-eyed, permanent smiling faces-even when they’re not smiling. Their face is pulled so tightly that they can’t seem to look relaxed.

I think it does pertain to writing. We all don’t want our novels to look the same. We want our stories to have laugh lines and maybe even some grey hairs. We want depth. We want to feel that our characters had to work through their lives. We want to care.

Maybe that’s one of the things, (the many things), that made Harry Potter so interesting. His scar made him different, not perfect, but even more, it made him special. We wanted him to be victorious. We cheered for him- our flawed, courageous underdog.

So, just like my 18-year-old self laughed at this crazy woman who told me to smile less, we should see that when a character is too perfect, or too refined, it gives the feeling of a shallow and superficial story that is difficult to embrace.   

Show your characters’ faults. The reader will care and will root for you and your characters’ success. Isn’t that what we want from our reader?

We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be.

Lauren Hutton

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

William Shakespeare

Love yourself- laugh lines and all!

Meredith

Discovering Your Story

I have been writing a new middle grade story for a few weeks. I love the characters and I love where the story has started from- but, after reading the book, SAVE THE CAT, by Blake Snyder (more to come on that after I attend the Save the Cat workshop in March-can’t wait!!) I realized that my story had a major problem, well, actually two major problems.

First problem- I didn’t have a villain. I didn’t know who the bad guy was, and why he was the bad guy in the first place.

Second problem- Why??? Why was the bad guy bad? Why was my hero the one who needed to fix my unknown problem?

OMG-What did I have???

I had gigantic problems. Actually, you can also consider them creative, exciting problems. I get to build a world, create the rules, laws, and where the problem originated so I can figure out how to fix it.

It now seems so obvious, but at the time, I just was writing and enjoying the journey and wasn’t looking ahead. It will come to me. I loved my main character. I knew he’d take me somewhere. But, as the SAVE THE CAT book made crystal clear- I need more. Of course I discovered my story had these problems right before I was about to go to sleep two nights ago. You can just imagine my dreams!

Actually, it was perfect timing because the next morning I was meeting my friend that I’ve known almost all my life, Robyn, at a Panera in between our two houses. She’s also a writer and has written a romance novella called, TAKE ME FOR LONGING, available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble websites under her pen name, Felice Fox.

So, first, I started to plot. On an blank piece of paper I wrote my main characters names and as much as I knew about them. That’s when I realized I didn’t know them well enough! I then wrote the other characters, the details that I did know, and lots of arrows and lines and words until they all met together with the three words:

BAD GUY??    WHY???

The fun began. I started to build a family tree for my hero, then the beginnings of the world they live in, then some simplistic arcs that my characters need to take. Robyn was a great sounding board. Should the bad guy be the uncle? No, it’s always the uncle-just look at Lion King. How about the friend? No-no real reason. Then I looked at the cousin. Yes!! The cousin. You are the bad guy and you have some serious problems buddy!

Some of my whys and wheres and hows were answered. Some weren’t yet. But it was an amazing time trying to piece them all together to make a meaningful, high-staked, fun story that I can’t wait to continue to discover.

Well, I’m off to continue this discovery.

“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” 

~Marcel Proust

Have a fantastic weekend and enjoy your new discoveries!

Meredith