Although I have 3 children, I was not prepared for what happened yesterday while I was babysitting my grandson.

My grandson will be two in a few months. I watch him two days a week to give my daughter some time to run errands and get some things done. I am savoring this time because I know time will go by in the blink of an eye, and he will be in school. We always have fun playing with toys, exploring outside, or watching Bluey. He laughs easily, loves playing with our dog, and generally has a gentle spirit. Yesterday, though it was as if a switch had been switched and he turned into someone else.

He had just gotten up from his nap, and as usual, I carried him downstairs and put him down to play. He let out a bloodcurdling scream and looked very angry, and then he began to cry. It scared me because I thought something was hurting him. I picked him up, and he screamed again and did not want me to put him down. This went on for a while and he was also throwing things after we told him not to do something. It was so bad and out of character that my youngest came downstairs looking very concerned and asked me if I needed help. Then my husband came up from his office and told me he would stay with me until my son-in-law picked him up.

I was so worried that maybe he was coming down with something that I phoned my daughter and asked if she had seen any of this behavior. She said they had seen some hitting and biting, but nothing like what I was describing. Later that day she called me and said Nick (my son-in-law) came downstairs very upset with Parker, and she said, “Mommy, it looked like someone hit Parker in the face.” He had thrown himself on the ground in a temper tantrum. Of all my children, Parker’s mom was the only one who had temper tantrums. There was one epic one when I had a cart full of groceries, and she fell to the ground kicking and screaming. Of course, everyone looked at me as if family services should be called. I picked her up, left the cart, and exited the store.

So we have determined that our sweet toddler has turned the corner into the terrible twos as he deals with the frustration of not being able to communicate well and tries to determine what his place is and where are the boundaries. It sounds a lot like what happens when children turn 13. We are going to keep a sense of humor, guard our patience, and serve out plenty of love as we go through this stage.

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My garden fascinates me. There is so much life happening in the small space. Let me tell you some of the crazy things happening there.

There is tremendous growth overnight. Every morning when I go out to check the garden I always feel like I do on Christmas morning. There is a feeling of anticipation as I wonder what I will see today. I planted some bulbs this winter, and each one is slowly blooming. Four looked like onion stalks, and I almost pulled them out. Today, I went out and they had blossomed into a beautiful yellow and purple flower.

Life will find a way to increase itself. I planted several strawberry plants in a raised box container. The strawberries sent out tendrils (strawberry scouts) and now there are strawberry plants all over the front of the garden. If that wasn’t enough to make me happy, I went out to weed today and saw what I thought were vines growing on the side of the strawberry bed. On closer inspection, it is the beginning of berry bushes. I am definitely winning in the strawberry department.

Odd things grow where I swear there was nothing before. There are beautiful purple flowers growing near one raised bed. I have had a pine tree growing in the middle of the lettuce, and a variety of vines affix themselves to the wooden walls.

I am a messy planter, so I have to step carefully in the garden because random sprigs of lettuce are growing here and there outside of the beds, and today I found a carrot growing next to the container for the green beans.

I know my gardening style (total chaos) would drive some people crazy, but I love the unexpected joys that my garden brings me.

I heard a speech yesterday that resonated with me. The speaker said that easy times make weak people and hard times make strong people. He told his audience that we need warriors. There were layers of meaning in what he said.

Nothing worthwhile ever comes easily. The hard work and effort that goes into attaining something keep us from taking it for granted. It means more when we feel we have earned it.

When life is too easy it makes you soft. You feel entitled and don’t want to fight for the important things. A warrior has grit. Here is why that quality is important.

Gratitude. When we have the attitude that we are blessed and thankful, more blessings flow. Gratitude is catchy and a great example to others.

Resilience is necessary for life because there will be some rough moments when you are knocked down and you need to be able to rise back up. If one thing doesn’t work for you try something else.

Inquisitive. A warrior needs to continue to learn and grow and to do that you have to ask good questions and be a good observer. Learn from experts and try new things.

Tenacity means you are not going to give up no matter what challenges you face. You are going to succeed one way or the other, and you are bringing others with you on the path to success.

As a parent, I know I wanted to give my children what I didn’t have growing up. The problem with that is I might have made their life too easy, and by doing that enabled them. We need to teach lessons that will equip them for life. Sometimes those lessons will be difficult to teach as parents, but our children will eventually see the value.

Being a warrior doesn’t have anything to do with violence. A good warrior knows how to diffuse a situation before violence arises. A warrior’s weapons include kindness, love, strength, and calm. Let’s all work on being the best warrior we can be.

Many people would say home is the place you live, but for me, home is several different places. It is of course my present home that I have lived in for years. It is home not only because of the building but also because of the family I have known here. There have been so many cherished memories in this place.

Home is also wherever you have that feeling of belonging. There is a comfortable feeling there, and you know you are deeply known and loved.

Wherever family is will feel like home for me. I love listening to them laughing and telling stories.

Although where I live now is my current home, I also say back home when I am talking about where I grew up. I was born in the North, and that is where my early memories are. I remember wandering the woods near our house where there was an abandoned Indian cave. We went to the local pharmacy and drank root beer floats while reading the latest comic books, and I discovered my love for reading at a library that looked like a castle. Home is memories and emotions, both good and bad. It’s having a safe place to fail, grow, and take risks.

Home for me is also in another country. When I started taking French in seventh grade, I instantly fell in love with the language and the culture. I lived there during my junior year of college, became a French teacher, and went back around 22 times. I am comfortable there.

What is home for you? Is it only one place, or can it be many?

I often hear people say they would love to garden but they don’t have space for it. One of the amazing things about plants though is they will grow practically anywhere, and if you can be a little creative you can have herbs, fruits, flowers, and vegetables growing in no time.

Let me start by saying I do not have a green thumb, and I am not a master gardener, but I love to experiment, I can be creative, and I enjoy learning. I have learned so many things from my experiments, even those that failed. At first, my experiments drove my husband a little crazy because he is a rule follower, and I broke a few rules along the way. Now that he sees the success I have had he jumps right in with new ideas. Here are a few ideas for gardening with limited space.

Containers

Check at the thrift store or go to any store and you can buy a variety of pots and containers. Use plant stands or bookshelves to house them. I use our sunroom as my green space. I use containers in the house and in the garden. I ran out of room in my garden, but I still had room for smaller containers.

A living wall

This seems to be the new craze, but I can see why. It is simple to do, low cost, and it’s beautiful. You need some vials, or containers and a backdrop to hang them on. Fill the vials with water and put plant cuttings in them. After the plants grow roots you can transfer them to a pot or leave them.

A hydroponic garden

My husband bought me a hydroponic garden kit for Christmas, and it has fascinated me. It is a small machine that you fill with water and plant food. It has a light, and it comes with seeds and seed pods that you put the seeds in. Most of the seeds were herbs that I have never grown before, so it was another learning experience for me. The plants are easy to transplant, so now I have basil, thyme, oregano, and parsley ready to put in any meal. The garden is very easy to operate, and we found one on sale for $50.

I hope these ideas make you want to give gardening a try. Use those bare spaces around your house and fill them up with plants.

Kenny Chesney has a song that starts with, “Every now and then, I get a little lost. You save me.” The first time I heard this I was feeling lost, which I imagine most people do from time to time for different reasons. It eased my mind to be reminded that others feel that way too sometimes. There are moments that for whatever reason you feel off balance. You need something to pull you back on track whether that is through wisdom and love from someone or the words you see or hear somewhere. What throws your emotion into turmoil, or makes you question yourself? What do you do to find your center again? Here are a few ideas about both.

Feeling overwhelmed.

I can lose my peace of mind when I am doing too much at once. I am not good at saying no, so before I know it I have agreed to do too many things, and I have to figure out how to juggle them with all the other day-to-day responsibilities. It helps me if I do each task according to what has the highest priority and needs to be done first. I call this doing mission critical. Break big tasks into smaller ones and ask for help.

When you can’t make sense of things.

I do my best to keep an open mind and listen to different points of view. There have been so many times in the last few years though where I cannot make sense of people’s thinking, and it often affects my mental health more than it should. I find myself asking, “Has everyone gone crazy?” The best way for me to solve this issue is to watch the news less and take a break from social media. When I see someone acting in a way that goes against my idea of right and wrong I have to realize that everyone is free to choose his path, and it isn’t my business to judge where that path might lead.

When someone disappoints you or does something hurtful.

I am very sensitive, and I’m pretty sure it is something I will never be able to change, so when someone says or does something hurtful it affects me deeply, and I am not able to just let it go. When this happens it often makes me feel lonely and isolated. I have found it helps if I communicate these feelings to someone. My husband and my best friend keeps me grounded in this area. When I tell them what someone did or said they always have a way of putting it in perspective for me.

When I lose a sense of purpose.

I can be harder on myself than anyone else. I always feel I should be more productive, work harder, and do better. It helps if I keep remembering my why. What are the reasons I’m doing what I do?

The next time you feel a little lost realize you are not alone. Find the things or people who keep you grounded, and always communicate your feelings.

Have you ever heard the song Blessings, by Laura Story? The first time I heard it I was going through a rough time, and I was feeling alone and lost. When the song came on I thought it was speaking to me because the words were so perfect. The chorus says, “What if your blessings come through raindrops, what if your healing comes through tears?” It’s difficult to see certain burdens as blessings, but many of our tough times teach us valuable lessons and make us stronger. I have had several tumultuous and toxic friendships that devastated me, but when the pain healed I realized I was walking away stronger, wiser, and a better person.

Sometimes we forget to be grateful for our blessings and we see them as burdens. Yesterday, I was in a bad mood and I was babysitting my 22-month-old grandson who was also in a bad mood. He was showing me the toddler temper which occurs when I say no to him sticking his fingers into electrical outlets or the DVD player. While this was happening, my Border Collie was constantly walking in front of me trying to herd me to the door to go outside to play. I was reaching the point of needing some quiet time when the thought crept into my head of what if neither my grandson nor my dog was in my life? Would I be happy then? The answer is a definite no. They are two of my greatest blessings. I needed to shift my perspective to realize I needed more patience on certain days.

We might imagine that something would be a blessing for us, but in reality what we imagine as blessings might turn out to be burdens. Garth Brooks summed it up in his song that says, “Thank God for unanswered prayers.” We often think we know what is best for us, but we can be mistaken.

Whether you are holding blessings or carrying burdens depends a great deal on your perspective, and your ability to be grateful. If you always see the negative, that’s what you will have, so look for the positive, and pray for the blessings.

We all have people in our lives who have somehow influenced our identity or had a part in sending us in one direction or another. The people who have influenced our choices have changed our lives in some way. Of course, the changes could have been negative or positive, but it would be nice to have a balance because even the negative moments can make us stronger and teach us valuable lessons. Here are a few possibilities of the types of people who can influence us.

Teachers

I can definitely say that three teachers are responsible for who I am today. The first was my senior English teacher Mr. Chaffee. Mr. Chaffee was brilliant and elegant, and he commanded respect like no one else I have ever met. I was in awe of him and slightly terrified of him as well. His opinion mattered a great deal to me, so the day he was handing back essays and he stopped near my desk and said, “Jenny, you are a good writer.” Will be a moment that carries me through all the rejections that a writer receives. It was also a time when the Advanced Placement Courses were just starting. He pulled me out in the hall one day and asked if I wanted to take the test. I had no idea what it was, but I said yes. The fact that he had faith in me made me feel special, and I didn’t feel that way very often. In 40 years of teaching, I have tried to make my students feel special too. I always loved to write, but I think Mr. Chaffee’s words gave me permission to do it.

The second was my Spanish teacher, Mr. St. John. He was the teacher who convinced me that I wanted to be a teacher. He never said, “Jenny, you should be a teacher”, but he taught with so much passion and energy that I wanted to be part of that.

The third was my French teacher in my sophomore year of college. She pulled three of us out of class and told us she could get us into the study abroad program. I was going to be an English teacher, but the decision to spend a year in France changed the course of my life completely.

Family members

My dad was always doing something. He hated being idle and once told me that there was always something productive you can do. He is the reason I cannot sit still for long because I am always thinking of what I should be doing.

My husband has made me stronger because he expects me to be tough and capable of handling multiple roles. He has also taught me to not care so much about what other people think.

Toxic relationships

I had a friendship that destroyed me emotionally for a while. I thought she was my best friend, and although my family kept trying to show me her true colors when I finally realized how manipulative and narcissistic she was, I felt betrayed and alone. Eventually, the situation made me stronger and taught me to be more careful with who I chose as friends.

Mentors

Everyone needs at least one mentor, an expert at something who can drop pearls of wisdom at your feet. I have had several, and I hear their words often. When I participated in karate competitions, several people commented that the decisions for awards were political because students from certain karate schools always won. My karate mentor used to say, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

Friends

Friends can encourage us to keep going when we want to give up. I had a friend who was there when I received a nasty rejection from a publisher for a book I had submitted. I was very discouraged, and she said, “Jen, that’s only one voice. The next person might love it.”

Who are the people who have changed your life?

Do you ever feel that your family qualifies for its own reality show? Quirky personalities, secrets emerging when you least expect it, complicated drama, betrayals, and actions that defy logic. I have a feeling that most families have dealt with their share of upheaval, but many do an excellent job of keeping it hidden.

Our pastor used to say that every family had that one person that everyone talked about and if you weren’t sure who it was then it was probably you. He usually said that when talking about how family members might be dysfunctional, we still loved them despite not always understanding them. I have always loved that message because the image of the perfect family that many paint on social media causes some to be ashamed of their imperfections. People are going to judge no matter what, so be transparent about the family struggles and you will be surprised how many people will share their stories too.

Every family has someone who has unusual tendencies. Instead of thinking the person needs to change, accept that he is different from you, and as long as the tendencies are not harmful, let it go.

Family secrets have a way of slipping out to produce the most dramatic effects. One of the funnier examples of this in our family was when we had all come together for Thanksgiving dinner. Several months before, we had found out some shocking news about my mother who had recently passed. Thanksgiving morning, I met a waitress at our hotel who came from the same town in Ireland as my great-grandfather. She told me to ask my sister, (the family historian), if he spoke Gaelic. We were eating dinner when I asked my sister, and without missing a beat, she said, “Oh, he was a bigamist.” My brother put down his glass, looked at my sister, and said, “Ok. Is there anything else we need to know about our family?”

Families are capable of betrayal, subterfuge, and actions that defy logic. A typical family has all the elements of a good soap opera including a healthy dash of love. I can shake my head at some of the things family members do, but I still love them and I am grateful to have them.

There are families that can be toxic too. In that case, find a different version of family in friends that will love and support you. Remember that everyone has some junk in the closet, so don’t feel bad about yours.

Since covid, mental health seems to be a more common discussion, but I’m not sure we realize the extent that every individual struggles with mental storms.

There are so many different mental disrupters. Anxiety is one of the disrupters I notice the most. We have so much pressure to perform well at everything we do that it can be crushing. We have social anxiety because we are afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing and looking foolish. We are anxious about our performance at school or work because of what will people think about us if we fail, and we are anxious about the future in general because it is unknown.

Sometimes the disrupter is a sneaky thought that slides into our thinking and causes doubts or sadness. We have to find ways to guard against that happening because it can be damaging. Even being more aware of our thoughts is a good step to fighting against negative thoughts. Anytime you hear yourself tearing yourself down, respond with what you would say to your best friend. Examine the thought and change it into a positive one.

Here are a few ways to calm the mental storms.

Find ways that work for you to calm anxiety. Some people use deep breathing exercises where you practice inhaling deeply and releasing your stress with each breath.

Write down some positive affirmations like, “I am strong, smart, and a superhero.” Say them over and over.

Surround yourself with positive people. Positivity is uplifting and inspiring. Be around people who have a good sense of humor. It’s difficult to be depressed when you are laughing.

Communicate your feelings. Let people know when you are overwhelmed or feeling hopeless or alone.

Be transparent and let others know if you are struggling in some aspect of your life. Ask for help.

We have all had moments when we needed someone to listen and help us out of a funk. There is nothing wrong with you when you are struggling to find happiness. Reach out and ask for the resources you need.