Go get your dose of green!

 

 

To do before the leaves change:  forest bathe.

You’ve probably been forest bathing without even realizing it.  Called Shinrin-yoku in Japanese, forest bathing is an officially recognized leisure and stress management activity touted for its health benefits.  You find a wooded area.  You enter it.  You breathe deeply of the wood and leaf essences emitted by trees.  You feel better – emotionally, psychologically and physically.  Like with any aromatherapy, part of the benefit comes from deep breathing, part from stillness, and part from the essential oils themselves.  Wood essential oils, called phytoncides, are antimicrobial, not to mention, a sensory treat. 

So, quick, while you still can – go forest bathing one more time this year.  You know you want to.



Coco Tapi Tea?

Recently, I’ve tried two new food trends – coconut water and bubble tea.  Both beverages.  Both tasty.  According to advertising, coconut water is healthy – it is supposed to help you lose weight, prevent diabetes, aid digestion, fight viruses and “revitalize your cells and boost metabolism.”  I don’t know if coconut water does or doesn’t do all of those things, but, frankly, the claims seems a little over-blown.  And, coconut water, while tasty, isn’t, in my humble opinion, that tasty.  Maybe it needs a kick-butt health campaign to sell it. 

And, then there’s bubble tea – the drink that’s fun to eat.  Bubble tea, reportedly invented in Taiwan tea shops, is a tea base beverage that is mixed with fruit or milk.  It can be frozen, chilled or served as a sort-of slushy and comes loaded with small chewy tapioca balls you can slurp up through a wide straw and eat.  Bubble tea may contain some of the same antioxidants as tea, but some recent reports have linked certain types of the tapioca pearls with cancer.  The reports haven’t been verified to date, though.  It might just be a scare tactic. 

It’s interesting that these two trends produce big discussion.  Is coconut water really the fountain of youth and is bubble tea really the end of civilization as we know it? 

I think we should combine the two drinks into a coconut water bubble tea concoction.  The coconut water’s health benefits would negate any negative effects tapioca might have on human cells.  The result?  A tasty, healthful, fun beverage, maybe called Coco Tapi Tea.  Hmmmmm.

Bottoms up!

 



Virtual stroll through our Missouri gardens

Hello, Nature-Lovers!  Welcome to our Missouri gardens.

I hope you will take a little break among our springtime plants . . .

and flowers!

Breathe.

Relax a little. 

And enjoy your virtual nature walk!

Bluebirds!

Bluebirds are my favorite bird and I've decided to try to attract them to our yard.  We've seen some here and there but never with any regularity.  With a little online poking around, I found out that these lovely bug-eaters will nest in boxes overlooking meadows and grasslands.  Nearby trees are helpful for the baby blues when they're learning to fly.  My husband and I set up our first bluebird house this weekend and are eager to see if it will attract a beautiful family.  There are so many dos and don'ts, myths and legends out there -- it's hard to know which bluebird attracting tips really work.  Have you had luck attracting bluebirds to your yard?  If so, please share your helpful hints!

Highlighted Author

I'm happy and honored, today, to be the featured author, on esteemed Charlene A. Wilson's "Highlighted Author" blog.  Stop by Wilson's blog to read up on Shame the Devil, sure, but don't stop there.  You can also explore a virtual bookshelf of other literary delights, indulge in loads of book trailers and scan little known facts about countless authors and their missives.  Enjoy finding your next great read!  


Click here to visit the website:  Highlighted Author

Take a gander at my Book Trailer:  Shame the Devil  (It's got a great song!)



The Brain on Love

Diane Ackerman discussed the mind/body connection, again, in her New York Time Opinionator piece about interpersonal neurobiology.  Studies show what we've always known and felt -- that love heals and comforts -- for real.  Just as the pain of heartbreak is experienced as real pain in the body, the joy and peace of love is experienced there, too.  So, whether you're having a hard day or a sleepless night, get close to your loved ones.  Hear their voices, see their faces, feel their skin.  Your own brain will light up with pleasure as you feel the love.

Read all the details here:  Your Brain on Love

Chocolate

Oh, my darling 85% dark cocoa dream!  I must have you every day.  And, it seems that I am in the majority since, according to the latest chocolate manufacturer’s data, 90% of Americans say they have some chocolate almost every day.  So, the average person eats 11 ½ pounds of chocolate a year, which means that over 600,000 tons of chocolate are consumed annually throughout the world. 

What about you?  Do your consumptive habits support these statistics?  If so, how do you partake?  Mini bits of chocolate chips?  Bars with nuts, caramel or coconut?  Spoonfuls of pure cocoa powder at midnight? 

Paraprosdokians for thought

Thanks to my friend, Political Science Professor John Langton for sending me this list of paraprosdokians.

PARAPROSDOKIAN:  A figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation.  Some examples:

-- If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

-- We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public.

-- War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

-- Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

-- Evening news is where they begin with 'Good Evening,' and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

-- To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

-- A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

-- Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.'

-- I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

-- Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

-- A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

-- I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

-- You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

-- Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

-- I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

-- Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

-- Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

-- The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.

-- Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

-- A diplomat is someone who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.

-- Hospitality is making your guests feel at home even when you wish they were.

-- I always take life with a grain of salt. Plus a slice of lemon, and a shot of tequila.

-- When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.

Which one is your favorite?  I must say, the tomato one speaks to me! 

"Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells" Blog Hop

Are you ready to hop?  Take this tour of 12 blogs -- some you may already know and some new ones.  It's easy.  It's fun.  It's a good Friday diversion.

*******

‘Tis the season, you know, for giving and receiving – mostly for giving, though, right?  But, what is the nature of true giving?  How does one define generosity?  Philanthropy?

As is often the case, my idol, Fanny Fern, has already written the perfect seasonal column about this very topic.  Who is Fanny Fern?  Fanny Fern (the pen name of Sara Payson Willis), was one of the most successful, influential, and popular writers of the nineteenth century. A novelist, journalist, and feminist, Fern (1811-1872) outsold Harriet Beecher Stowe, won the respect of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and served as literary mentor to Walt Whitman. Scrabbling in the depths of poverty before her meteoric rise to fame and fortune, she was widowed, escaped an abusive second marriage, penned one of the country's first prenuptial agreements, married a man eleven years her junior, and served as a nineteenth-century Oprah to her hundreds of thousands of fans. Her weekly editorials in the pages of the New York Ledger and other periodicals over a period of about twenty years chronicled the myriad controversies of her era and demonstrated her firm belief in the motto, "Speak the truth, and shame the devil."  

As part of the “Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells” Blog Hop, my blog will introduce you to the real-life writing of the heroine of my historical novel Shame the Devil.  Her typically-sarcastic June 5, 1852 article, published in Boston’s The Olive Branch, follows:

Mistaken Philanthropy

“Don’t moralize to a man who is on his back;—help him up, set him firmly on his feet, and then give him advice and means.”

There’s an old-fashioned, verdant, piece of wisdom, altogether unsuited for the enlightened age we live in; fished up, probably, from some musty old newspaper, edited by some eccentric man troubled with than inconvenient appendage called a heart!  Don’t pay any attention to it.  If a poor wretch—male or female—comes to you for charity, whether allied to you by your own mother, or mother Eve, put on the most stoical, “get thee behind me,” expression you can muster.  Listen to him with the air of a man who “thanks God he is not as other men are.”  If the story carry conviction with it, and truth and sorrow go hand in hand, button your coat up tighter over your pocket book, and give him a piece of—good advice!  If you know anything about him, try to rake up some imprudence or mistake he may have made in the course of his life, and bring that up as a reason why you can’t give him anything more substantial, and tell him that his present condition is probably a salutary discipline for those same peccadilloes!  Ask him more questions than there are in the Assembly’s Catechism, about his private history, and when you’ve pumped him high and dry, try to teach him—on an empty stomach—the “duty of submission.”  If a tear of the wounded sensibility begins to flood the eye, and a hopeless look of discouragement settles down upon the face, “wish him well,” and turn your back upon him as quick as possible.

Should you at any time be seized with an unexpected spasm of generosity, and make up your mind to bestow some worn-out old garment, that will hardly hold together till the recipient gets it home, you’ve bought him, body and soul; of course, you are entitled to gratitude of a life-time!  If he ever presumes to think differently from you after that, he is an “ungrateful wretch,” and “ought to suffer.”  As to the “golden rule,” that was made in old times; everything is changed now; it is not suited to our meridian.

People shouldn’t get poor; if they do, you don’t want to be bothered with it.  It is disagreeable; it hinders your digestion.  You would rather see Dives than Lazarus; and, it is my opinion, your taste will be gratified in that particular,—in the other world, if not in this!

--Fanny Fern


Ha!  You said it Fanny!  To learn more about Fanny Fern and my historical novel about her, click here: Shame the Devil.

To continue onto the next “Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells” blogger, the amazing Malcolm R. Campbell, click here: Malcolm’s Round Table.  From Malcolm’s site, you’ll be directed to hop to the next blog until you finish the whole short, wonderful tour of twelve blogs.  Enjoy! 

“Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells” blog hop participants are authors of small press/university press books that are eliciting discussion and notice.  Blog hoppers include:

Smoky Zeidel @ Smoky Talks

Patricia Damery @ Patricia Damery

Debra Brenegan @ Debra Brenegan, author

Malcolm R. Campbell @ Malcolm’s Round Table

T.K. Thorne @ T.K.’s Tales

Anne K. Albert @ Anne K. Albert

Elizabeth Clark-Stern @ Elizabeth Clark-Stern’s Blog

Collin Kelley @ Modern Confessional

Sharon Heath @ Sharon Heath

Melinda Clayton @ Author Melinda Clayton

Ramey Channell @ Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge

Leah Shelleda @ After the Jug was Broken

Coming to you: Friday, Dec. 16th

You're Invited to a

"Blog Hop"

Read about new books

Read about new authors

Get ideas for your holiday gift list

Visit some new, quality blogs

Enjoy!!



Simple Pleasures

They say the best things in life are free.  When you think about it, our lives are laced with hundreds of simple pleasures – little perks that satisfy and sooth, that make life seem A-Okay. 

Here’s a partial list of life’s little niceties:

A new toothbrush

Sleeping in on a rainy day

A baby’s smile

Making all the traffic lights

Fresh flowers – delivered

Finding money you didn’t know you had

Clothes that fit just right

Receiving a snail mail letter

The smell of bakery air

Hearing the right song at the right moment

Stars on a clear night

Saying the same thing simultaneously

Snow Days

The first bowl of cereal from the box

Fresh bed sheets

Drowsing in the sun with a light breeze

A good laugh shared

Spying your favorite bird at the bird feeder

When the workout is over

A sunset

What are some of your favorite simple pleasures?  Take a minute and add to the list!