Jennifer’s writing

Spending time with animals has always been a way for me to lift my spirits. Animals have a way of accepting you and making you feel special. Our neighbor has a beagle named Joey who acts as if he is over the moon excited every time he sees you. He becomes so excited that he starts to howl. I know he does it to everyone, but it still makes me feel special.

Animals make you laugh, and it is difficult to be sad when you are laughing. Another neighbor has an Australian Shepard puppy. We are buddies so when she sees me and I say, “Miss Hazel!” She comes barreling full speed at me. The only problem is she does not know how to use her brakes yet, so she is not going to stop. To keep her from taking me out at the knees, I have to time it just right, and I open my legs right before impact, and she races through. I laugh every time she does it. It is pure joy running straight at you!

Animals trust you and want to spend time with you. When I let Bandit out of his crate in the morning, I take a few minutes to rub his belly and talk to him. Both cats wander over to say good morning and see if they can have some attention too. When your animals lie on their backs, it is a sign they trust you. The minute I sit down, there are three animals vying for my attention, and I love it.

Showing an animal love and taking care of it can be calming and rewarding. It gives us a sense of purpose. It is even better when they show us that love. Another neighbor has a massive pitbull named Floyd. He and Bandit love to play, and when I come out to see him, he trots over and leans against me so I can give him belly rubs.

I’m sure there are many other reasons that animals can be therapeutic. They become our family and enrich our lives.

The definition of a prepper is someone who prepares for a possible future catastrophe by stockpiling food, supplies, and weapons and ensuring there is proper housing. Some people believe preppers are paranoid or extremists, but I can relate to the reasoning and their preparations.

I believe in always being prepared. When I was a teacher, people knew that whatever they might need, it was in the closet in my room. My purse is the same because I have something for most possibilities. I have influenced my youngest because the other day we were out shopping when I broke a nail. She quickly produced a nail clipper and asked if I needed a band-aid. I was only joking when I asked if she had first aid cream, but she pulled it out. My daughter has prepper tendencies too!

I think preppers see potential problems in our societal structure and they are preparing for the event when life as we know it might be turned upside down and we have to find a way to survive. We saw this happen recently with the pandemic. The average person did not see Covid coming, and every aspect of our lives was disrupted. We went into lockdown and had to figure out working from home while helping our children do online school. We watched loved ones die and felt helpless. People lost their jobs and we had to pivot to survive. There were also many positives from the pandemics. Many people showed how creative and innovative they were. The fact is though we were not prepared. I have a feeling the preppers were ready and were not worried about having enough toilet paper.

I understand how someone could want to prepare for a disaster especially when it comes to food. I am intrigued by what is missing from the store shelves. Have you noticed? Then we have the debacle with baby formula. I watched my daughter, and her friends help each other by buying formula where they could find it and then sharing it. It is another example of us coming together and being innovative.

So, I will continue to do my best to be prepared for the future, but I’m also going to keep hoping that we will work together to face the bumps in the road.

My husband constantly amazes me with the things he knows. I’m not talking about facts and figures, I’m talking about knowing how everything works and how to fix what doesn’t, knowing there are parts of things I never knew existed, and having keen observation and problem-solving skills. It is so impressive that my youngest daughter has asked him to write down all the things he knows in a book that she can take with her when she leaves here to live on her own. I have begged him to never leave me because my knowledge is woefully inferior to his and I would not know what was making the whossimagigger not work. Here are a few examples of when I have looked at him with my mouth open while I say, “How did you know how to do this?” Before I give you the examples, I also have to add that he tries to explain to me each time what he did to fix the problem, and I nod my head while I wonder what on earth he is talking about.

Did you know that there is a filter under the refrigerator that should be changed every six months? I did not. Go look and if the light is red, it’s time to go buy a new one.

One day, we were walking through the cellar when he stopped, looked up, and said, “Hmmm.” That is never a good sign. He noticed that our copper pipe had a tiny leak. He said, “I have to go buy new pipe, and then I’ll solder it.” I said, “Wait, you know how to solder things?” He then looked at me as if everyone knew how to do that. Last month, our neighbor had the same issue…guess who they asked for help?

Everyone in the neighborhood calls him for help. Our neighbor called at 6 a.m. and said the shower knob had come off in her hand and water was spraying everywhere. He headed over and solved the problem. Another neighbor stopped me while I was running and asked me to come inside because she heard an explosion in the basement and now, she smelled something burning. I told her I would have John come over and I predicted that he would walk in and say, “Oh, of course, it’s the whatgimaggiger.” Yup, he came in and diagnosed it in a second and then explained to me how he came to that conclusion.

Another neighbor’s shelf fell, and John headed over to put it back up. He knows how to make beautiful furniture, including beds, dining room tables, hutches, and podiums. He is our mechanic, changing brakes, spark plugs, oil, and radiators. He has climbed up a 40-foot ladder to paint our house, and he is our pool boy. This man knows so many things, so I will forgive the fact that when he was reserving a flight for me, he put my daughter’s middle name instead of mine. Nobody’s perfect!

Have you ever done something you thought was insignificant, but then realized it had a huge effect on someone? I love helping people and I am convinced that sometimes tiny gestures yield huge results. Here are a few examples.

Give a compliment

Compliments are so easy to sprinkle around, but it requires us to interact sometimes with strangers and we are sometimes understandably hesitant to do that, so do it when you feel safe. A compliment can turn someone’s day around and it may be something she remembers long after that moment. I was in the grocery store today and there was a beautiful older woman in front of me. She had bright blue eyes and snow-white hair that was styled like a man’s crew cut. I told her I loved her hair. Her husband found me later in the store and thanked me for the compliment. He said she is recovering from cancer, and no one besides him has called her beautiful in a while.

Smile

I don’t know what it is about a smile, but when someone smiles at you, it makes you feel good as if you are special enough for the person to take the time to smile at you.

Do at least one act of kindness

Paying for a coffee for the person behind you, holding doors for the mom with a stroller, bringing a meal to someone who is struggling, or surprising someone with a gas or grocery card are all ways to show some extra kindness.

Mow a yard

Do you have an elderly neighbor who needs some yard work done? Help out in the yard.

Babysit for a mom

Moms need a break sometimes. Volunteer to watch the kids for an hour.

It doesn’t take a lot to make a huge difference. Have fun lifting up some people.

Making excuses is like taking drugs, it’s an attempt to push aside reality while making the reality even worse. Excuse makers start with complaints about what they are struggling with in life, they will explain to you why they are the victim, and they will explain why there is no possible solution to their issues. If you are an excuse maker, here are some reasons you should switch to being an action taker.

Making excuses will hold you back. You cannot grow if you don’t take any action to change your situation.

If you have the courage to make your life better, you could inspire someone else to do the same.

Everyone has failed at something, so don’t worry that you might stumble, or be judged. Be transparent and ask for help.

The negativity that surrounds excuses will eat away at your mental health until your situation becomes even worse.

You are the main person that excuses hurt as you run away from the truth. Take the initiative to be an advocate for yourself. The changes have to start with you.

People will be more attracted to being around you if you are taking positive steps toward happiness. Negativity can be draining, and most people don’t want to be around it for long.

You can attract as much attention if you talk about the positive aspects of your life as you can by talking about the negative.

If your situation seems too overwhelming, reach out for help instead of assuming there is no solution.

Kick the excuses to the door and start living the extraordinary life that you have the right to have.

As a runner, I have always been fascinated by the way the body works. I have experimented with the best ways to eat and hydrate, including trial and error with products until I found the ones that work best for me. I have been consistent with my training, logging in thirty to forty miles each week and incorporating strength training and walking and biking. I am in good shape, so I was surprised to find myself in a hospital last Saturday.

I was in Santa Rosa, Florida with my daughter and twelve other ladies on a mom’s retreat. Saturday morning a yoga instructor was meeting everyone at 7:30 at the house to go for yoga on the beach. I told my daughter I was going for a quick run, but I would be back by 7:30 to walk the beach while they did yoga.

I went for a two-mile run and I felt great. It was muggy, but I’m used to running in humidity, and the heat wasn’t bothering me. I was enjoying looking at everything around me. As I came close to the house, a woman stopped me to ask for directions. I still felt great. When I finished speaking with the woman, I turned to run the short distance to the house, and I thought I was going to pass out. I sat down thinking the feeling would pass, but it didn’t. My next thought was I need to get inside in case I do pass out. I opened the door to the pool and sat down and told everyone I didn’t feel well. I still was sure I would feel better in a minute.

I went with the women down to the beach, and I couldn’t get my breath. I sat while they were doing yoga thinking that something was seriously wrong, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it back to the house. I started praying and asking God to help me with whatever was going on.

When the yoga was done, my daughter took one look at me and told me we were going to urgent care who called the ambulance. After several EKGs, they told me I had a heart flutter. The doctor began explaining it to me as well as all the possible treatments. I know it is a terrible attitude, but all I heard was limitations, as I wondered if I could keep running. I was surprised when the doctor cleared me to run, as long as I was taking a beta-blocker, but I cannot do the ultra I was supposed to do next Saturday. Here is what I learned about my condition. I hope you will be smarter than me, and not wait two hours to go to the hospital if you have these symptoms.

Atrial flutter

Atrial flutter is a type of abnormal heart rhythm. The heart has an electrical system that tells it how to beat. In atrial flutter, the signals move rapidly in the top chambers of the heart. This makes your heartbeat very fast. The goal of treatment is to prevent blood clots from forming and control your heart rate.

The symptoms are a racing heart, shortness of breath, chest pain, feeling dizzy, and fatigue. I had all of those, but I never had chest pain, it just felt tight, and I was not tired.

I am heading to the cardiologist and praying for some answers. If you have any of the symptoms of the heart flutter, I hope you will seek medical attention, and I would love to hear from anyone who has this condition.

The people who know my passion for running will think this article is about recovering physically, but although that is important, I also know that healing mentally is vital as well. We need to be strong both mentally and physically and when one is out of balance, the other is thrown off as well. No matter what your story is, our day-to-day lives are demanding and sometimes we need to take a step back, regroup, reflect, and renew in order to heal and regain that balance.

On a regular day, we interact with all kinds of personalities, we solve problems, we are creative and innovative and by the end of the day, it can sometimes feel as if we have been through a battle. There has to be some time to recover from our daily struggle.

I love being around people and as a teacher, I am often surrounded by a certain amount of chaos. I spend the day hearing my name called a million times and I love it, but when I come home, I need some quiet. I love the peacefulness when there is no noise, no one who needs me, and no need to speak.

We need quiet time to process everything we have experienced during the day. One of my favorite ways to renew is to go out on our porch and listen to the sounds of the neighborhood. It is a time when I don’t have to answer a question or solve a problem. I can renew in other ways as well whether I take a walk, read, write, cook, or do something else that is soothing. When I make this renewal a regular practice, it changes my attitude towards everything else I do.

Being in nature can be restorative. I love being outside because it always seems to energize and calm me at the same time. It is difficult to feel anxious when we are surrounded by such beauty. Taking a walk or a bike ride or sitting outside will lift your spirits.

Reduce the stimulation around you for at least thirty minutes each day. Put your phone away, turn off any other technology and give yourself some time to disconnect.

On the occasional bad day, we all need some time to recover from mistakes we made or unkind words that may have been said. Use positive self-talk, give yourself some grace, learn from any mistakes, and apologize when it is necessary.

We also need to take time to heal our souls. Life can become so busy that we forget how important it is to grow spiritually. We need time to read the Bible and pray.

Music can be a great way to heal. Find your favorite music and relax and listen. On a recent trip with two friends, we listened to the music we had grown up with and swapped funny stories from our childhood.

Reading is another way to destress. I can become completely lost in a story and forget about time as I follow the characters through the plot. I can leave my reality for a short time and immerse myself in someone else’s adventure.

Spending time with animals has always been a great way to decompress for me. Animals love you completely and they crave spending time with you. Our next-door neighbor has a dog that acts as if he is over the moon to see you to the point that he will start to howl, and even though I know he acts that way to almost everyone, it still lifts my spirits.

Cooking has always been a way to relax for me even though I am not a very good cook. There is something comforting about being in the kitchen where we produce and consume the food we need to survive. Have you ever noticed that when you have guests over, everyone gravitates to the kitchen?

Sometimes the best answer to being worn out mentally and physically is to curl up and catch up on sleep. A good nap on a rainy day can make you forget any troubles you may have.

Practicing gratitude is an important exercise in healing. List all the things you are thankful for, and any problems you encountered during the day start to fade away. Realizing all of your blessings instead of focusing on burdens will make you feel better.

My friends will not think I wrote this unless I mention that running for me is the ultimate escape. When I am running, I feel such a sense of peace, as if any stress is just falling off behind me. I can work out problems, generate ideas or simply listen to music. Running is what I turn to first when my emotions are out of balance. If running is not your sport choose anything that is an active activity.

Find the activities that you need that will help you relax, reflect and renew. It does not matter what the activity is as long as it is one that will help you when you take time to heal.

There are healthy ways to relax like exercise, gardening, reading, listening to music, laughing with friends, watching a movie, taking a nap, playing with an animal, or sitting on the porch and enjoying the quiet. All of those have the potential to renew you after a long day, but there is another very common practice we use to relax that can be dangerous.

Many of us use nicotine or alcohol to relax and if used in moderation, there would probably not be a problem. The issue though is when one drink or cigarette turns into several and continues to grow until you are dependent on what you used to see as a pleasant decompressor. I am not trying to be preachy, but I would love to help someone else avoid what I saw happen to two people I love.

My sister used to have a glass of wine after dinner, but the one glass gradually became a bottle as she was faced with breast cancer, divorce, and the loss of her partner. It happened over a long period of time, and by the time we realized how much she was drinking daily, she was completely dependent but refused to admit there was a problem.

My mom smoked her whole life, but I think she always thought she could stop whenever she wanted. Having a cigarette now and then turned into chain-smoking and she died of emphysema. She used to smoke a cigarette with her oxygen tank on which could have caused an explosion.

If you use substances to relax, be careful that instead of relaxing, you are trying to medicate yourself to avoid the roller coaster ride of life. Addiction can sneak up on you until instead of relaxing, you have another problem to worry about.

If you think you are alone in whatever you struggle with in life, I assure you that you are not. If you are hoping that no one ever finds out your family secrets because you think you will be judged, I need to tell you that most people have the same struggles or worse than what you are experiencing.

The best thing you can do is share what you are going through with someone you trust or with a professional because a burden is lighter when more than one person helps to carry it. Hiding it, making excuses, and worrying will chip away at your mental health until your issues are even bigger than they were before.

I have noticed that when a group of people is together for an extended period, the issues start to leak out as soon as people have read the room and deemed it safe to share. In any group of people, you will find at least some of the following: marriage struggles including issues with age differences, a controlling partner, infidelity, multiple divorces, alcoholism, single parenting, serious health issues, children with special needs, anxiety, and depression. These are just a few of the issues that come up in a group.

We are so much better together than we are alone, and when we are facing the struggles in life, it is easier to do it head-on like the warriors we need to be when we are surrounded by kindness, and friends that are willing to accept us with all our bumps and bruises instead of judging us for our flaws and burdens. If you know a single parent is going through cancer treatment while also caring for children, step in and offer help, if a neighbor has lost a job, collect money, and leave an anonymous donation, or make the neighbor meals, offer to spend a few minutes talking with an elderly neighbor. There are so many easy ways to help people with their burdens. I used to have a sign in my classroom that said, “You have no idea what the person next to you is going through. Be kind always.”

Is age just a number?

I love to people-watch because they fascinate me. I enjoy watching the interactions, and I am always interested in the stories of how people became who they are, and why they act the way they do whether that shows them at their best or on a bad day. One thing that disappoints me though is when I see someone who is allowing inactivity to age them too early or damage their health, or someone who is giving in to age.

Don’t focus on the negative aspects of aging

I don’t think we have to act our age. I hear people half my age complaining about getting old and how everything hurts. If we exercise, eat right, and take care of ourselves, we can live a vibrant life without having a number attached to our health. Don’t say things like “I’m getting old.” “I can’t do that because I’m too old.” The more you speak things, the more they come to pass.  

Use it or lose it

I have an amazing mother-in-law who is 84. She is a very talented artist and a phenomenal cook. Unfortunately, instead of having fun with those activities or finding other interests, she sits in a chair all day watching television. I mean she sits there non-stop, all day without any movement except to hobble to the bathroom or the kitchen. I also know a runner who is 84. She runs races all the time and is full of energy. Inactivity is a bad idea at any age. Your body needs movement to stay healthy. Your mind needs to be stimulated to stay fresh as well.

Don’t let age stop you

Is there something you have always wanted to do, but you think you would look silly? I think you should go do it unless it’s super dangerous, then I think you should act your age! Think of all the fun you can have. Take music lessons, art classes, get a pilot’s license, whatever sounds fun to you. I started karate at 45, ran my first marathon the same year, had a baby at 43, ran my first ultra-marathon at 57, and I’m going to complete another one at 64 next week. If I can do it I guarantee almost everyone else can too.