valeriesbookofme

The title of this week's blog comes from the title of an article I read this week in The Atlantic. The author, Arthur C. Brooks writes a weekly column on "How to Build a Life". His articles are always worth thinking about. The subtitle of this one, whose three-word title might have been written by a certain nameless US presidential candidate about his numerous misdeeds, actually clarifies more about Brooks' theme for the article:  Our fears about what other people think of us are overblown and rarely worth fretting over. Brooks describes where this fear originates--in many of us, it's an ancestral holdover from a time where it was imperative that we knew what people thought of us. It's also a holdover from a time where what people thought of us determined the grades we would achieve in school, the job we would obtain and whom we would marry. Those fears are not in Brooks' article though, they're my own musings. Brooks focuses on the other kind of fear,...

A few years ago I had a planner, Panda Planner, that was aligned with something called Via Institute on Character. I am (almost) always up for filling out questionnaires that relate to who I am, my talents, weaknesses, etc., and Via had such a questionnaire--Finding Out Your 6 Strengths. Long and short of it, I filled it out and I discovered I had six strengths although, as I read all the things that each were about, I would have said they were more six tendencies than strengths because I am still working on them three years later.  Via presented the results in terms of a "meaning wheel". I often forget to review it but as I am in January, taking stock of where I'm going and all, I share these six, ummm, reminders?, that I am using to take stock of my life on a weekly basis: Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence, Curiosity, Social Intelligence, Perspective, Gratitude and Spirituality. I suppose that, based on my answers to the questionnaire, these were the top aspects tha...

  I haven't posted on my blog for a long time. Partly that was due to not knowing what to write about and partly it was wondering if I wanted to put myself "out there" anymore. And in what way. I subscribe to a few blogs on Substack, which is a subscription-based blog. You can pay to have your own blog, you can pay for someone else's blog, and that means you get to write and post and get comments back from a whole lot of people. You can comment on other people's blogs--if you pay--or else you can just read the blog and not pay. Of course you might miss some of the "pay only" content--much like modern news media has teaser stuff but to read the whole article, you have to pay for a subscription. The Substack blogs cover all kinds of topics and there are a few "professional" writers--meaning they're journalists and writers who have published and been paid larger bucks than the $5 a month they get per subscription on Substack--but I think most ...

  I subbed for my daughter yesterday. I wasn’t sure how I’d cope as I am still somewhat jet lagged but she has a very well behaved fifth grade class: they’re respectful, good humored (most of the time) and willing to learn (most of the time). She warned me the night before that there had been some “issues” this week—kids fighting on the playground, some backtalk in class from a boy who’s normally a very hard worker. With that in mind, I started off my day in the classroom addressing this up front. “I hear it’s been a tough week,” I said and then waited for a response. Some shifting in the chair, some rolling of the eyes, a couple of “Yeah, it really has” emanated from the kiddos. I then sat on the corner of my desk and talked about how I remembered being their age, the emotions, how things seem so very important, so very “raw” in the moment. I shared with them how my own teachers reacted to misbehaviors, after-school detention (Wow, Mrs A, AFTER school? They could DO that?) But the...

  We returned from our weeklong Oceania cruise along the California coast yesterday. Given our last few holidays, I am pleased to say neither of us became ill or sprained anything. No luggage was lost, actually nothing was lost, and all flights were on time. All was well at home, the dog did just fine at the kennel. It was a very good holiday all in all. We flew direct from Tucson to Los Angeles at midday on both flights. It's only an hour and a quarter in the air, although on both flights there was quite a bit of turbulence. I hate turbulence, the pitching of the plane, the bumps, the drops. R says it's just warm air and cold air colliding but I'd rather they didn't collide. We had decided that we would take public transit from Los Angeles to our hotel and my Rome2Rio app on my phone told me that it was quite do-able. We were confused at first at LAX about the various signs, unsure which shuttle to take. We asked several people but it was a busy time, 4:30 pm, the LAX ...

  I had my second cataract op last Monday; I was more emotionally prepared for it although still nervous of course. I had been thinking, between the first op and the second, that I really wanted to have some distance vision rather than "only" close up so, at the penultimate moment before the surgeon made his final lens choice I asked timidly "could I have a little more distance vision please?" They checked their lens inventory and, yes, I could. So, here I am, ten days after surgery, seeing quite well without glasses or contact lenses for the first time in 60-odd years. It's still a little wobbly as the two eyes get used to working together without a net. Well, of course not quite a without a net, there are those lenses inside my eyeballs now. I had quite normal vision until I was about 10 years old and I told the teacher that I couldn't see the blackboard very well. It was the teacher who noticed that one eye seemed to be crossing slightly. She mentioned it...

  First I must defend my using the term "guinea pig". I have great respect for guinea pigs. I took care of one for several months many years ago. He came, along with a solitary goldfish in a huge tank, with the house that I was renting/housesitting while the owners were away on sabbatical. His name was Squeak and he lived in his very own bedroom in a two storey house in Westdale, which is a suburb of Hamilton. When I had said I would look after their house, the owners were a bit nervous because I had a cat, a large white cat named Princess. I promised that I would keep the door to Squeak's room closed unless I was in there, feeding him or changing his shavings. I actually spent a few hours with him from time to time because my very new, very mysterious loaned computer from McMaster University was in there. It was DOS and the only thing I ever learned to do on it was play PacMan. But we won't go down that road of my antipathy toward all things DOS and why I was so thri...