April 13, 2025

Virtual Painting Classes – Positivity Corner

I am not an artist. I am creative. As the saying goes, I couldn’t draw a stick figure if you paid me. Well, maybe that is an exaggeration, but you get the picture. I started going to group virtual painting classes and liked them. Then I got into the virtual painting classes you join in on from the comfort of your home. This lit a fire in me. It is something to do – a meditative, peaceful learning experience.
March 10, 2025

A Midweek Bath and Guilty Pleasure TV – Positivity Corner

It might seem a trifle to some – and, honestly, it is – but for me, a relaxing bath is one of the most releasing, healing things I can do for myself. Semi-regular baths in near-scaling water filled with lovely bath oils, a fragrant bath bomb or bubble bath, does something for me that no other relaxation technique can.
March 8, 2025

Positivity Corner: Walking Three Times Daily

Walking several times throughout the day helps to de-junk my brain. I can work through the stuff that’s in my head, rattling around. And working through it clears out my thoughts and frees up space for life apart from work.
January 22, 2023

Positivity Corner: Waterfall Bathing in Prony Bay, New Caledonia

I could hear water pounding the surface of the sea and glimpsed out of the hatch to see a waterfall on the shore. The next minute the skipper, Alex, was calling to me. “Do you want to come and wash your hair in the waterfall?”
November 13, 2022

Positivity Corner: Morning Tea on the Patio

It’s a simple thing. It’s something I’ve basically been doing for years. But I’ve never been intentional about it or removed distractions from my morning like this. It has been a fantastic experience. I highly recommend it to others.
November 7, 2022

Positivity Corner: Being Edited

But as I have developed my career as a writer and editor myself, I’ve learned to embrace and celebrate being edited. (And I do use this phrase intentionally; when our words are edited, it feels like we are being edited.)
September 26, 2022

Positivity Corner: A Grey Pearl Accordion

A few years ago, a hurricane demolished the storage shed and several other things on my mother’s property. In so doing, the hurricane destroyed an item precious to my mother - and to me - a marbled, dark brown accordion which she found at a thrift store years ago when she was in college.
September 19, 2022

Positivity Corner: Paper Chain of Accomplishments

Each week, I make a to-do list full of things I need to accomplish on any given day. It could be fun things for the MockingOwl Roost, or maybe a tedious task for work. Whatever it is, it goes on the list. And the list is color-coordinated, with “categories” of life in different colors. For example, my grad school work is in green text, while work tasks are in red.
September 12, 2022

Positivity Corner: Writing Theology Papers

You see, writing theology papers isn’t just a school task for me. It’s an exploration of what I’m learning, how I’m growing, how I’m changing, how I’m developing as an adult human. So much of youth was spent regurgitating rote memorization and trying to make a grade. But now, in seminary I’m synthesizing and expanding the knowledge I’m gaining. And it is an utter delight!
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