Welcome to my weekly Randomly Thinking post where I share random thoughts that pop into my head throughout the week. Enter at your own risk.
I imagine most of you in the US are having some sort of Thanksgiving celebration today. So first, Happy Thanksgiving!
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Nothing like looking up at the clock in the living room and realizing it is 20 minutes fast. Wonder how long it’s been like that? And what did I do very early in the day that I didn’t need to? This same clock was 40 minutes fast the next day even after we changed the battery. We decided it was time for the clock to be retired.
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My son is 14 now so some of his friends are starting to “date”. A sort-of friend of his texted him the other day to tell him he had a GF (girlfriend). My son rolled his eyes. I said “It’s probably one of those girls from the Christian school he goes to.” The Boy says, “Yeah, one of those girls that doesn’t believe in premarital hand holding.”
I snorted out a laugh.
“And they don’t even look each other in the eye because that’s too much too,” The Boy continued. “Like she accidentally looks him in the eye and goes ‘oh my gosh! We’re moving a little fast here, aren’t we?'”
I said, “Well, that’s why a lot of the kids from that school get married immediately after they graduate.”
“Why?” asked The Boy. “So they can finally make eye contact? ‘Oh! I always knew your eyes were hazel!'”
I said, “Um, no not so they can make eye contact.”
The Boy’s response: “Oh.” And he went back to school work because I’m pretty sure he didn’t want to think about that.
Plus, he knew I’d remind him that I don’t believe in premarital handholding either! At least not until he’s 25 or so *wink*
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An elderly woman at the local little supermarket was the only bright spot of my day one day last week when she offered to let me go in front of her and I told she could go ahead, I was in no rush. She said ‘thank you’ because her husband was waiting for her in the truck outside and he “might get into trouble if she didn’t hurry up.” The way she said it with a little wink just cracked me up.
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Pretty sure a lot of women would kill for a husband like mine who randomly says after dinner, “You just go sit and rest. I’ll wash the dishes.”
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Do you have a family of ad-libers like I do? People who watch movies or shows and occassionally sermons, and ad-lib one-liners, additional quotes, or new plot lines? If you do, you have my sympathy. It can be funny at times but when they are rewriting the entire script as the movie plays it can also be aggravating. I blame Mystery Science 3000, a show known for the way its hosts mock horribly bad movies. After The Boy and The Hubby watch their episodes, they suddenly think they can do the same thing. (Honestly, their ad-libs are funny, so don’t take my suggestion that it is annoying seriously.)
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I wanted to update the tagline for the Kindle book ad I saw and mentioned last week. The actual tag line was “Accidentally wed to a screaming hot stranger.” Again, how do you accidentally marry someone?! My son said maybe they stumbled between the bride and groom right when the pastor said “I now pronounce you man and wife!” Even if that was possible, there is all that marriage license needing to be signed thing.
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Have you ever looked at some of the books on Kindle Unlimited? I’ve found some good ones but I’ve also seen more than I care to of “billionaire romances.” Seriously, how many single, eligible billionaires can there be in the world? To see all these romances you would think there are thousands of them, all men, and all sexy and living alone on their sprawling 200 acre ranch, pining away for a woman. And the women — well, they are always poor and in need of rescuing but they are also always suspicious of the rich man who can rescue them because he couldn’t possibly be rich and good looking, right?
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Our kids were playing Minecraft the other day and Little Miss told her brother she needed him to get the creepers out of the McDonalds she built (which was odd since we never go to McDonalds). He used an ax and Little Miss said, “I don’t want you to use an ax! I want you to use your hands like a real man!” I have no idea where she got such a thing. I’m guessing she’s heard The Boy say it.
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We went to see a light display at a golf course about 30 minutes from us. Lights and light displays were installed all throughout the course, on trees, in the fields, etc. I took some vidoes to show family but forgot about the my family’s tendancy to offer commentary at about every event (see aforementioned ad-libing issue). At one point our daughter said “Is that Santa in an airplane?” My husband said, “Yep.” She responded, “That is so cringe.” She’s six.
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We discovered The Goes Wrong Show a couple of months ago and it’s caused some serious laughing fits in our house. I highly recommend watching their show if you can find it. It is currently streaming on Britbox on Amazon. The premise is that a drama society acts out plays but something always goes wrong. They offered this skit up about a week ago for a charity event for the BBC. This is about the craziness that COVID has brought to us. Their other episodes will help you escape from current events so I have added a couple other clips of those, and one from the Royal Variety Show five years ago at the end of the post.
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So those are my random thoughts for this week. How about all of you? Any random thoughts? Let me know in the comments.
You know that normally I don’t write extensively about politics or controversial current events here because I want my blog to be a little bit like a safe space from controversy or stressful things. I may mention them in passing but I don’t like to dwell on them. Today I’m breaking my rule and yeah, I might regret it, but talking about current events won’t be a regular thing here. Also, I don’t consider this post political because I’m not referencing political parties when I write this. This also isn’t written to attack anyone but to try to make us all think beyond our own situations.
I hesitated writing this post because I know people both in the real and virtual world, so to speak, who support locking down the country, or at least their states, to stop the spread of COVID. I understand why they support lockdowns and I am not totally against lockdowns. I am not an anti-masker either. I wear my mask in public, to stores, church, etc. I want to make those clarifications first. You know, before anyone accuses me of being any of these things (but I know my bloggy friends wouldn’t because you all are awesome and usually understand where I am coming from.).
What I have been thinking about is how we all tend not to think of the bigger picture when we support various actions or mandates or whatever, no matter when it is made.
And I hope you read “we all.”
I do it too. So when the lockdown came in March I was like “Yeah, I get it. Let’s go. We can do this.” I understood we needed to” flatten the curve”, or whatever each person was calling it at the time. I understood it could be for a month or more. I accepted that.
A month or more. Maybe two months. That’s what we were originally told by the task force or whoever was rambling on a particular day.
We are now in our ninth month of various restrictions to “flatten the curve.” I didn’t know it would go this long, as many of us didn’t, but okay, this is where we are at, so we deal with it.
I’m not going to discusss any specifics about the virus such as recovery/survivable rate and all of that because that creates a lot of heated discussions and feelings.
What I am going to write about is how lockdowns have a ripple effect on the rest of society and the economy and how, while they can help and are sometimes warranted, they aren’t good for everyone.
Maybe you are among those who think, “Well, shutting down bars and restaurants is needed because that’s where people are sitting close and can spread the virus.”
And okay, so bars and restaurants are closed. It’s fine, right? I mean, maybe some of those business owners can’t make ends meet and end up closing their doors and they have to find a new career and until then the government will help them, right? It’s sad, right, but it’s only a few business, a few lives changed, a few worlds flipped upside down. It’s for the greater good, right?
Sure it is. We have to think of the more vulnerable in society who might get a virus and might get really sick. Right?
Sadly, there is no might for many of these business owners when a governor tells them, many times at the last minute, to close their doors. There is fact. The fact is that if they don’t have money coming in they can’t pay for their product and if they can’t pay for their product then they can’t sell their product (when they are allowed to open again) and if they can’t sell their product they can’t pay for their product and . . . well, you get it.
It all comes full circle. But then that circles ripples out because then they also can’t pay for a lot of other things. They can’t buy their groceries, they can’t buy things their children need for school, they’ll choose not to go to the doctors when they should because they know they can’t afford their health insurance anymore and they won’t be able to afford to pay the doctors bills. The small grocery stores will begin to suffer and then the small stores that sell clothes will suffer. Of course, the big box stores will do fine because the governor said they can stay open. This all effects the suppliers of the restaurant’s food as well and eventually it trickles down to the farmers who provide some of the food and eventually the people who are already the most vulnerable economically are even more vulnerable and in danger of losing everything.
In our state, the government promised to help these small business owners, but then denied them help or the process to get help was so slow that many of them simply gave up and closed their doors. They closed their doors in small little towns that needed their businesses. I should mention that this virus effected our hospitals, especially the ones here in the rural area, differently than you think. Our hospitals didn’t fill up in March and April or any time recently. Our governor ordered all elective procedures canceled in the spring and when we did that the hospitals lost money big time.
So much money that when the federal government cut our local hospital a check for $32 million it didn’t matter and they laid off 400 nurses and staff members. More people with no jobs and no income and no way to support their families. Now we are having a surge in cases and no staff to help while the little hospitals fill up (though thankfully many of these cases are not ending up in deaths) and the health secretary is calling for the cessation of electives again to pull the hospitals even more into debt.
In other words, poverty snowballs into other areas of the economy, in case you weren’t already aware of that, which I know most of you are.
So while you are worrying that a family member of yours might get a virus and might die from said virus (as I am doing as well), the people who can’t operate the businesses they built up from the ground are dealing both with that fear and with the fear that they might lose everything they own, including their homes.
“None of this effects you,” you might say. “You aren’t a small business owner. You stay at home with your kids. What do you know?”
Actually, I do know.
My husband works for a small, independently owned newspaper. The paper survives on selling the paper, yes, but also on advertising. If they don’t have advertising money then there is no money to pay the printer to print the paper so sell the paper to pay the employees. See how that work?
If businesses are shut down by order of the governor then they obviously won’t be advertising with the paper. One, they have no reason to because they are closed and two, they have no money to because they are closed.
If they aren’t advertising, then the paper isn’t getting any income and if the paper isn’t getting any income eventually my family might not have any income, and if we don’t have any income, well we can’t support whatever business your family is in that allows you to be happy when your governor shuts down all the businesses.
So, yeah, it does affect me and it is affecting me and while I’m trying to be polite and nice and bite my tongue when many of you are happy and celebrate when businesses are shut down, it’s hard because I know of families, including my own, who have suffered, who are suffering, and who are going to suffer.
Does this mean I’m angry that you want to slow the spread of COVID? Not at all. I want to as well. I simply want it to be done in a better way that still allows businesses to operate and keep their livelihoods because when a government says they will be closed for “only a short time” we all know that’s not true.
Does this mean I wish people would think beyond their own world and their own fear to realize lockdowns aren’t good news for everyone?
Sunday Bookends is my week in review, so to speak. It’s where I share what I’ve been up to, what I’ve been reading, what I’ve been watching, what I’ve been listening to, and what I’ve been writing. Feel free to share a link or comment about your week in the comments.
What’s been occurring
Cold weather moved in this week (except one day when it oddly went up to 60) and I think it’s here to stay. Sadly. We’ve pulled out our winter coats and had to wear them most days. We even had snow on the ground two mornings in a row.
To cheer us up and fit in with the cold weather, and the neighbors, we also started decorating for Christmas this weekend. We decorated mainly inside the house but we did wrap some ribbon and a bow around our lightpost out front. We will probably decorate more outside today or later in the week. We do know one thing – keeping our kitten out of the tree is going to be very difficult since it is now her favorite place to lay and play. She almost knocked it over nore than once the night we put it up and had to be pulled out three times. If you have any tips on how to keep her out of it, I’d love to hear them.
I told my neighbor this week that I’m not used to the time change yet so I didn’t know what time my dog had run into her yard and got herself wrapped around their cinderblocks (which they use during the summer for their gazebo). I said “It felt like 9 but it was probably 6. My body hasn’t adjusted to the time change yet.” She texted back: “Just wait until our Christmas lights come on. It will feel like daytime at night.”
I asked her if it will be like National Lampoon and she said “not that bad.” I was actually hoping it would be that bright, to be honest. We are looking forward to the display, which our other neighbors have already been telling us about. I think it will be so cheerful to see full-on Christmas lights right now.
What I’m Reading
I just finished Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes. It won a Christy Award last week.
It’s beautifully written. It’s also very poetic. It was almost too deep for me with where my brain is, or rather isn’t, lately, but it was a wonderful story. I was determined to finish it last week because it was taking me so long to push through it with all the metaphors and characters speaking in riddles. That sounds like a complaint and I don’t mean it to be. It was just a lot for my muddled brain. I hope to have a review of the book next week sometime. Until then, here is a description for anyone interested:
In the wake of WWII, a grieving fisherman submits a poem to a local newspaper: a rallying cry for hope, purpose . . . and rocks. Send me a rock for the person you lost, and I will build something life-giving. When the poem spreads farther than he ever intended, Robert Bliss’s humble words change the tide of a nation. Boxes of rocks inundate the tiny, coastal Maine town, and he sets his calloused hands to work, but the building halts when tragedy strikes.Decades later, Annie Bliss is summoned back to Ansel-by-the-Sea when she learns her Great-Uncle Robert, the man who became her refuge during the hardest summer of her youth, is now the one in need of help. What she didn’t anticipate was finding a wall of heavy boxes hiding in his home. Long-ago memories of stone ruins on a nearby island trigger her curiosity, igniting a fire in her anthropologist soul to uncover answers.She joins forces with the handsome and mysterious harbor postman, and all her hopes of mending the decades-old chasm in her family seem to point back to the ruins. But with Robert failing fast, her search for answers battles against time, a foe as relentless as the ever-crashing waves upon the sea.
I’m trying to choose which book I want to read next. I have a Kindle full of books I haven’t read but want to read. It’s hard to choose, especially since I have downloaded books by a lot of new authors recently. The candidates for this week are Wild Montana Skies by Susan May Warren,
Messenger: A Walt Longmire Story by Craig Johnson, (Update: I finished this Saturday night. It turns out it was a short story. Oops!)
Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon (not sure how I never read this one. I have a beautiful hardcover copy my husband bought me when it first came out.)
and
Heart Restored by Elizabeth Maddrey.
I’ll let you know next week which one I chose.
What I’m Watching
I’ve got completely caught up in The Trouble with Maggie Cole, which I discovered during a trial of PBS Masterpiece. Actually, I got the trial because the description of the show completely intrigued me. I probably won’t pay for another month of it because we have enough subscriptions already but I’m going to make sure I go through all five of the episodes that are up for now and if they are going to keep adding them, since this is a new show for 2020, I will probably have to cancel Hallmark to keep Masterpiece so I can finish it.
I looked for a full description on PBS but their description didn’t really do it justice. I found a better one on Wikapedia:
The six-part series takes place in the coastal village of Thurlbury and follows the local busybody Maggie Cole (Dawn French). Maggie refers to herself as a “local historian” and owns a local heritage-gift shop, while her husband Peter is the headmaster of the local primary school. Self-important Maggie has spilt the beans, drunkenly, on local radio about six village characters with secrets, and is thus racked with guilt for her pointless gossip. But she somehow seems to have hit a seam of truth about at least two or three, and thus the stage is set for confrontations and reckonings.
The show stars Dawn French from The Vicar of Dibley fame.
I think one reason the show is both cringeworthy and interesting to me is because, well, I’m Maggie Cole in real life. I’m the person who eviserates friendships and family relationships by somehow sticking my foot in it, or blowing up and regretting it later. After watching the first episode with me, my husband said he’s glad I’ve never gotten drunk because if I did I would scorch the earth with what I would say. Ouch. I wasn’t sure how to take that, but, well, he’s right. I’m bad enough sober.
My husband said “If you got drunk, you would lose control. You are one of the most controlled people I know.”
I looked at him in shock, thinking of the former friends I had told off in the past (though not as bad as I could have) and laughed. “Most controlled?!”
He smiled, “You could be worse. Trust me.”
And yeah, I guess he has a point. I could be. Also, I pointed out to him the many times I really could have let someone really, really have it in the last four years, but haven’t. We also both agreed that neither of us have felt an urge to really let someone have it since we’ve moved to our new town, mainly because we are a lot happier where we live now.
What I’m Writing
I’m working on The Farmer’s Daughter and shared a new chapter Friday. I hope to finish it and have it out on Kindle by February, but we will see how revisions and editing goes. Rekindle (the new name for Quarantined) is free on Amazon through Thanksgiving day.
Welcome to my weekly Randomly Thinking post where I share random thoughts that pop into my head throughout the week. Enter at your own risk.
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I need to stop watching The Man From Snowy River. The Australian TV show version. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, it is cheesy, and second, I’ve started talking to everyone in a very bad Australian accent.
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Our new kitten drives me crazy most days. I have to grab her when I let the dog out or when anyone goes in or out of the house or she takes off across the yard or toward the street in front of our house. On Monday we had to take her to be spayed and it was very strange not to have her in the house overnight. I had to admit that as annoyed as I get at her, I missed her stretching up her paws in the morning, meowing until I pick her up. I also missed her curling up on my chest for naps (she’s getting too long for this now). I didn’t miss her running around the house, climbing our window screens, scratching or attacking my daughter when she wants to play or running into the basement, rolling in the dirt, and bringing that dirt back up with her.
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My dad is in self-imposed quarantine after a possible interaction with someone who had a family member who had COVID so I picked up some supplies for them at the local Dollar General. When I drove up their dirt road (we live on dirt roads here in the Boondocks) I saw something in the road, in front of their garage and hoped it was not dirt and their cat lying dead in the road. When I drove closer I could see it wasn’t their cat Molly (no I didn’t name my Molly in The Farmer’s Daughter after their cat), but an opossum. I looked down at it from the car and hoped it was simply “playing possum” and not actually dead, but alas, it did appear dead. I sent this text message to my husband later: “Dead possum in my parents’ road. Thought it was their cat, Molly. On a totally ‘unrelated note’: tacos for dinner!”
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Note to cat owners, or those owned by cats rather: do not buy the cheap cat litter to save money. Just trust me. Especially do not do this if your adult cat thinks she can pee in your kitten’s cat litter, adding a much larger volume of urine to the cat pan each week.
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My parents have horrible internet and a horrible internet provider. Their internet is out and they were told it will take three weeks for someone to come out and see why it’s not working. This means my mom is unable to download books to her Kindle and my dad is now unable to go on Facebook or look up information online. They are also in quarantine and it’s cold out, which means my dad won’t be outside working around the house to distract himself from the lack of internet. This combination of Mom without reading material and dad without a venting outlet (he actually connects with friends from high school on there as well) seemed like a bad idea to me so I drove to my parents’, picked up my mom’s Kindle, and am now downloading a ton of books into her Kindle to keep my parents from divorcing after 57 years of marriage.
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I get the weirdest ads on the front of my Kindle these days. They are almost always for some weird romance book that makes me roll my eyes. One of the most hilarious taglines was something about a woman accidentally marrying a “hot assassin”. The Boy and I kept trying to figure out how a person “accidentally” marries someone. We were like, “what did she say? ‘Oops, it appears I tripped and fell into this wedding ceremony at the exact moment the pastor pronounced us man and wife.'”?
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Here is another winning description on a Kindle romance book ad: “The powerful, terrifyingly seductive leader of Earth’s invaders wants to make her his.” That’s a lot of adjectives. And I’m guessing he’s an alien?
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And another: “What happens when you fall in love with your fake fiancé?” And all I can think is “Why do you have a fake fiancé in the first place?”
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Harry Styles, the kid who used to sing with One Direction, posed for Vogue recently wearing a variety of dresses. Most of the “dresses” Harry wore aren’t anything a person in the real world would wear. They looked like he simply wrapped some fabric around himself and called it “a dress.” Celebrities. Sheesh. When is someone going to tell them they’re not grounded in reality? Oh, right. They like it that way. It’s how they make their living after all. I’d love to see him wear one of those “dresses” on stage while trying one of those fancy dance moves he’s famous for. I bet he breaks a leg, or at least an ankle when his foot gets caught on the hem or up in the fabric.
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It seems to be a popular theme in our society these days that a man can dress or act like a woman and a heterosexual woman will still find that man attractive. I didn’t find Harry attractive even when he wasn’t wearing a dress. I’m old enough to be his mother (if I’d had him at 17 anyhow). I, definitely, though, don’t find any man wearing a dress attractive (this does not include sexy Scottish men in kilts. Those are kilts, not dresses and with the right pair of manly legs, they are sexy.). I want my men to be scruffy, dirty, and all-the-way masculine. And I want them to be wearing pants. Well, not all the time, but if not pants, then shorts or boxers or nothing (gasp!); just not a dress. And okay I don’t really want them dirty either because well — ew. Dirty and sweaty? Gross! But you know what I mean.
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I should probably mention that my husband is not scruffy or dirty. He doesn’t hunt, own a gun, ride a motorcycle, play a sport, knows nothing about cars, and he is a total Comic Book, Sci-Fi Geek. BUT he doesn’t wear dresses or paint his fingernails or put on lipstick so that makes him manly to me.
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Those are a few of my random thoughts today. What are yours? Drop one in the comments and maybe I’ll share it in my next Randomly Thinking installment.
Sunday Bookends is my week in review, so to speak. It’s where I share what I’ve been up to, what I’ve been reading, what I’ve been watching, what I’ve been listening to, and what I’ve been writing. Feel free to share a link or comment about your week in the comments.
What I’m Reading
Whose Waves These Are
While I am reall enjoying the book, it is full of metaphors and people who talk dramatically with hidden meaning in every word. It’s, well, dramatic, in other words. And that’s nice but it’s also a little mind numbing because there are so many — words in the book. I know that sounds stupid, but I don’t know how else to explain it. The author doesn’t just write “she walked to the pier.” She adds extra meaning behind each step of how and why and where and when she walked to the pier. This all sounds like a complaint but it isn’t. Not at all. The book is beautifully written. In fact, it just won a Christy Award for best general fiction novel. (The Christy Awards are Christian fiction awards.)
So, the book is lovely and I recommend it highly.
Somedays, though, a book with so much hidden meaning is a bit much for my brain and that makes me feel guilty because I should want to read deep things, right? But there are days I don’t want to read anything deep.
After the year we’ve all had, plus my years in newspapers, my brain can’t go deep anymore. It’s bottomed out in many ways.’
There are days I think I should read and write deep.
“My stories would be better if I wrote deep,” I tell myself but then I remind myself that there is a time for deep and a time for simple and light. When someone needs deep and thoughtful they can pick up Amanda Dykes or someone like her (and I hope they do!) but when they need light they can find authors who write light books.
One author who writes books full of humor and laughter is Peggy Rowe. I hadn’t finished her latest About Your Father And Other Celebrities I Have Known for some reason so this week I picked that up again. It’s more of a collection of short stories and that’s perfect for my brain capacity these days.
I’m also reading Christmas in Absaroka County, a Walt Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson. This is a collection of short stories about Sheriff Longmire. I’m enjoying it so far but it is much different than much of what I read.
At nights my daughter and I read Paddington until she falls asleep.
What I’m Watching
For some reason I’m distracting myself with an old Australian soap opera of sorts called The Man From Snowy River. I guess it is based on the movie, which I’ve never seen, which was based on a book that I’ve never read. There are a lot of actors on the show who later became movie stars including Hugh Jackman, Guy Pearce, Josh Lucas (who I always just called “That guy from Sweet Home Alabama”), Olivia Newton John, Tracy Nelson, Dean Stockwell, and Chad Lowe (yeah, I know….I don’t really remember him as much as his older brother Rob either).
The show is actually ridiculous in a lot of ways, but again, that is what I need right now. I’m only in season one. I’m hoping Hugh Jackman shows up soon since he’s the one pictured on the thumbnail.
What I’m Writing
I worked on The Farmer’s Daughter this week and posted two chapters.
What’s Been Occurring
Honestly, life has me down, cranky, and acting quite miserable to others at times so I prefer not to talk much about what’s been “occurring.” The bottom line is that I’m exploding on people because I’m stressed about other things and that isn’t fair to those other people (strangers mind you. My family has been fairly safe — thus far.)
I deleted my Facebook account last week (deleted. Not deactivated.), took Instagram off my phone, and am considering walking away from blogging as well, since not even that is an escape for me anymore. I’m pretty much sick of online life and life in general both right now.
I’m actively avoiding so much of what I used to enjoy simply because there is no enjoyment left in those things. It seems there is always someone out to ruin everything and slowly I am even becoming one of those people in certain circumstances.
Getting rid of social media is one step in many I need to take to deal with the issues I’ve developed from smiling and doing my best not to share what I really think (which I’ve failed at a number of times in the last couple of days.).
Photos the Week
If you read the previous paragraphs, you’ll understand why I don’t have photos from this week. My heart just wasn’t in it.
After scrolling through news and social media sites (for much less time than I once did) this week I felt nervous butterflies and a sick feeling. I wondered how next week’s election would change the lives of my family and myself.
Or would it? Very possibly no, no matter who won.
So I wondered to myself, ‘Why are you even worrying?’
And then as I felt the panic starting to rise and a thought struck me: Who are you trusting, Lisa? Are you trusting in politicians to make your life better?
I realized that yes, to a point, I was.
Let’s get honest with ourselves.
Really think about it.
Who is your trust in?
Are you trusting in men (as the term mankind) to sustain you?
Are you trusting in men to protect you?
Are you trusting in men to provide your security?
Are you trusting in men to provide your happiness?
Are you trusting in men to give you peace?
Because if you are, you are going to be very disappointed.
Mankind will always disappoint us.
They will always disappoint because they are not God.
Only God can provide us peace of mind.
Only God can provide us security and protection and joy.
It doesn’t matter who wins the election tomorrow.
It doesn’t matter if the candidate you voted for isn’t victorious because our victory is not in earthly situations but in heavenly proclamations.
I read a opinion piece this week that reminded Christians in this country that our hope is in Christ, not in presidential candidates.
“No matter what happens, God is sovereign,” Erick Erickson wrote. “The God who gave us Barack Obama and Donald Trump could choose Biden or Trump. God’s will be done. The God who brought bread from Heaven and water from rocks and raised you from the dust of the Earth and stitched you together in your mother’s womb is going to still be on His throne ruling the universe the day after the election. Too many of you are convinced the country is going to hell in a handbasket if your guy does not win. Well, I have read the end of the book, and I don’t mean this to be a spoiler alert, but everybody is going to hell without a handbasket, except for those who put their faith in Jesus Christ, not a politician or a political party. So, calm down.”
Like Erick says: “Calm down”
All of us need to calm down and look to the one who is in control. If the candidate you voted for does not win, trust that God already knew what was going to happen and he ordained it.
Tough times could face our nation, but God is there in the tough times the same as he is in the good times.
John 13:7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
We don’t need psychologists or statisticians to tell us that depression and anxiety are running rampant these days, especially in the United States where we are on the cusp of an election (or right after an election if you are reading this after next week). Between toxic political news (which appears to be happening in more countries than just the United States) and stories about a spreading virus, many people are having a hard time combatting negative thoughts and feelings. Every day there seems to be something new to worry about related to those two issues, and throw those two topics in with our everyday worries and you have the perfect storm for a near, or full, mental breakdown.
Many of us are looking for a break from it all and that’s where unhealthy coping mechanisms step in. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience. Some of those unhealthy coping mechanisms include avoidance, turning to alcohol or food to comfort, looking for distractions we may regret later, smoking, eating the wrong food, watching too much television (which could include porn or something else aimed at distracting us but which could harm us in the long run if addiction develops).
If you’re like me, you’re looking for ways to combat depression and anxiety. These are issues for me even when a contentious election or increasing virus numbers isn’t in the news. I thought that today I’d offer ten ways to try to combat depression and anxiety in this season, both for readers and myself.
Turn off the news. I’ve offered this advice many times on the blog. I want to clarify that this is not an order, it’s a suggestion and it’s a suggestion I’m giving for your sanity. When I suggest you turn off the news, I don’t mean that you never check in to see what is going on that you may need to know, but I don’t believe we need to be completely immersed in the news the way some of us have been for the last several months, maybe even the last several years. If you can’t completely turn off the news (like my husband, who works in media), or don’t want to, then consider reducing your news consumption. Maybe instead of checking a news site first thing in the morning, you set a time during the day when you check the news and also set a time limit.
I suggest five minutes is all you need these days. If I scroll through a news site for even two minutes I feel my tension and anxiety increasing and eventually, depression settles over me like a dark cloud. Let’s be honest, positive news doesn’t sell these days. Our brains are hardwired to seek out the negative and we can find that in the national media, which they know and grab on to. The national news knows they are addictive, they know you want to hear what’s wrong with the world today because we all have a basic instinct to want to protect ourselves. What better way to protect ourselves than to know what negative events are happening in the world so we can decide if they are a threat to our well-being or not? Right? You may not consciously think that way, but truly I believe our subconscious drives us to read the negative headlines for that reason.
There are so many things you can do other than watch the news and I’ll list some of those suggestions in the tips below but for now, a few ideas are watching comedies, reading, organizing or cleaning out your closets, picking up a new hobby, calling your friends, calling your mother or father, offering to help a neighbor with chores, taking a walk, scream at the sky (sorry, had to had that for fun, but it really is a nice stress reliever. I’d suggest not doing this if you live in a more urban area unless you warn your neighbors first).
2. Turn off your phone notifications (except messages or calls from emergency contacts). Couple this with turning off the news. I don’t know about you but constant alerts from my phone unnerve me and distract me from what I really need to be doing. The more distractions I have the more unorganized and off-kilter I feel throughout the day. Whether it’s an alert from a social media app, texts from people who stress you out, a breaking news message, or even spam calls, just shut them off. You don’t need that all day long. Our bodies weren’t wired to have to be on constant alert but with the introduction of cellphones, being constantly “in the know” seems to have become normal.
We are all wired differently so what might be anxiety-inducing for some won’t cause the reaction for another person.
If constant alerts don’t raise your anxiety, great! But if they do, then they need to go for your sanity. Imagine how nice it would be not to have to be “on-call” all day long. It’s one thing to be on-call for your family and their needs but an entirely different thing to be constantly available for the media or people and apps that serve little purpose for us other than to attempt to influence us.
3. Start your day off with a calm routine. This is a reminder for me because I often find myself starting my day by snatching up my phone and reading a news site or something negative before I even get out of bed. I’ve got into this habit in the last four years to make sure no one has killed the president yet, because I believe even people who despise our current president know what complete upheaval to our nation that would cause.
I always plan to log on to a news site for a few moments, but then there I sit, scrolling down the page for a good ten or fifteen minutes, reading horrible headlines about horrible things that have happened to people, or could happen to people. It’s no way to start the day.
A better way would be to wake up and read a Bible verse or listen to a worship song, or if you are not a person of faith, wake up and read a positive attribution or a positive quote and listen to music that lifts your spirits.
Do any of these things before you do anything else (except maybe going to the bathroom) or while you are eating your breakfast. Don’t open yourself up to negativity in your day before you have to.
Part of your morning routine could be writing in your gratitude journal or making some sort of list of what you are grateful for. If you’re a list maker in general, listing your goals for the day could be calming for you because it may help you feel more grounded and organized. Simply sitting on your front porch looking out at the front yard or a beautiful view you may have, sipping your coffee, milk, or tea, before the day even begins is another positive and calming way to start your day.
4. Take a social media break. If you’ve read this blog very long, you know this suggestion is a popular one for me because I have seen a benefit from it. My anxiety and depression are 90 percent better when I’m not logging onto social media throughout the day. Honestly, when I scroll through social media, my brain feels completely overwhelmed and starts to race. Take note if it does the same for you. For me, posts or articles being shared don’t even have to be about something negative. It’s simply there is too much information on there for my brain to take in.
Like the suggestion of shutting off the news, you may not want to take a complete break from social media. Instead, setting a time limit for social media use can be beneficial. I would suggest not only setting a limit in your mind, but setting an actual limit on an actual timer, either on your phone or computer, watch, or even an old-fashioned egg timer. If you only want to be on social media for five minutes, set your alarm for five minutes and when that five minutes is up, log off, no matter what.
So many of us don’t have healthy boundaries with social media and setting time limits can help make our relationship with social media something that enhances our day, not hampers it.
5. Pick up a new, fun hobby. Hobbies are a great distraction from the stresses of life and sometimes those hobbies can even develop into something more. Is there an activity you enjoy doing now, or once enjoyed, that could become a hobby for you? When people think of hobbies they often think of stamp collecting or model making, but there are so many activities you can toss into the hobby category including photography, writing poetry, baking, playing an instrument, getting involved in a sport, collecting objects, art, board games (ex. Chess or Checkers), reading, painting, sketching, quilting, sewing, knitting. . . the list goes on and on.
6. Listen to music. Take time out of your day to listen to some music you enjoy and that calms you. You could do this while participating in other stress relievers such as taking a walk, relaxing in a bath, exercising, or preparing for bed. Music can make everyday chores seem less time consuming (well, except washing dishes. I don’t feel like anything makes that feel less time consuming and boring). If you can’t have music on throughout the day where you are, then maybe you can take music breaks throughout the day instead. Sit somewhere for even five minutes and listen to a couple of favorite songs. You’ll be surprised how much better it will make you feel.
I’m sharing some of my favorite music here to help give you a start and ideas for music that can help perk up, or mellow out, your day.
Listening to this helped me feel more positive about cooking dinner this week. Go figure.
7. Read more (uplifting, light, or silly books). Reading more, in general, can be a nice distraction from the things that are getting us down, but reading lighthearted, funny, or sweet books can help even more during stressful, toxic times. I’ve crawled inside books more and more these last couple of years and especially in the last six months. Of course, reading a book can’t actually solve our problems and eventually, we have to face them head-on, but we can use reading to help balance our emotions as we prepare to face the challenges of life. In other words, we can escape from reality for a little while so that when we face reality again it might not seem as daunting.
8. Journal. Sometimes writing your feelings out can help put some things in perspective for you. Writing about what you are anxious or depressed about in a private place, where no one else can see it, can help you organize your thoughts and feelings.
Helping you prioritize problems, fears, and concerns
Tracking any symptoms day-to-day so that you can recognize triggers and learn ways to better control them
Providing an opportunity for positive self-talk and identifying negative thoughts and behaviors
I once journaled all the time, almost every day, from junior high up until my son was about 5 or 6. After that, I journaled less and I did find myself struggling to organize my thoughts even more and prioritize what I was struggling with during a particular season. I haven’t been journaling lately, but I do have a journal app on my phone where I jot down a few thoughts here and there. In the past, all my journals were physical and I’m thinking about starting that again.
There is something about sitting down with an actual pen and paper versus typing on a phone or computer that helps me to channel my thoughts better and get them out. Writing in a physical journal can also help eliminate distractions that a device or computer would bring. I suggest shutting off your phone or silencing it when you are writing in your journal. You don’t have to carve out a large amount of time to journal either. Even a few minutes a day can help organize your thoughts, or simply record the positives of your day. If you don’t feel comfortable writing your thoughts down, then try a gratitude journal, which is a place you can write down what you are grateful for. Focusing on what you are grateful for in your life can often make the negatives less prominent.
Just a reminder: You don’t have to buy a fancy, leather-bound journal to write in. Any cheap notebook will do the job just as well.
9. Connect with nature. Taking some time out of your day to walk or visit nature can help slow things down. There are a variety of ways you can do this, even if you live in a more urban setting. Maybe you don’t have time to find a place to take a hike, but even a few minutes outside, taking a few deep breaths can help calm your nerves a little and maybe even lift your spirits. Some suggestions to connect with nature include:
Sit on your front porch and watch the squirrels climb the trees or the birds eat worms in your front yard.
Taking a walk, jog, or hike
Search for leaves or different varieties of trees
Bird or animal watch
Getting out on the water through rafting, boating, or fishing
Collecting pretty rocks
10. Focus on your faith. Our faith can be a huge benefit to our emotional wellbeing, but only if we focus on it and not on all the rest of the stresses of the world. As a Christian, I know I feel so much worse when I don’t get into God’s word or listen to sermons that point to Christ. As I mentioned about a week ago, it’s so important to keep our focus on God, the ultimate author of our stories, no matter what our circumstances. Starting your day off with a verse, or a devotional can help you focus more on your hope in a power greater than the chaos swirling around you. If you are not a Christian but follow a faith, find something encouraging from that part of your life to help keep you grounded throughout the day. For me, that means not only reading the Bible or listening to a sermon on Sundays. Reading a portion of the Bible, a devotional, or listening to music throughout the day helps keep my focus on what is important in life — and that is not the craziness going on in our world today.
Talk to a friend, or reconnect with one you haven’t talked to in a long time
Invite an elderly neighbor to dinner (if you and they are comfortable with that)
Adopt a nursing home and send cards or other needed items to them
Walk your pets
Write your memoirs for your family
Adopt a rescue animal
Take a long, warm, bubble bath
Practice Yoga
Make Christmas presents
Learn crafts
Follow some new bloggers (Hahaha!)
So, these are some of my “off-the-top-of-the-head” tips to help combat depression and anxiety in the age of COVID and toxic politics. I’d love to hear some of your ideas becauses I can always use more for myself. Please leave them in the comments so we can help each other through a challenging mental health season.
Sunday Bookends is my week in review, so to speak. It’s where I share what I’ve been up to, what I’ve been reading, what I’ve been watching, what I’ve been listening to, and what I’ve been writing. Feel free to share a link or comment about your week in the comments.
What I’m Reading
I finished two books this week and there isn’t even a full moon. It’s some kind of miracle.
I finished Silas Marner early in the week and really enjoyed it (after making fun of it a few weeks ago). The book has romance, intrique, and a sweet storyline of redemption and forgiveness. For those who have never read it, here is a description:
In this heartwarming classic by George Eliot, a gentle linen weaver named Silas Marner is wrongly accused of a heinous theft actually committed by his best friend. Exiling himself to the rustic village of Raveloe, he becomes a lonely recluse. Ultimately, Marner finds redemption and spiritual rebirth through his unselfish love for an abandoned child who mysteriously appears one day in his isolated cottage.
My son and I will be watching the movie with Sir Ben Kingsley next week.
I also finished Expired Refuge, Last Chance County Book One by Lisa Phillips which was a Christian supense book without the heavy-handed Christian message. God is mentioned, yes. Forgiveness is talked about, yes. But it’s not all throughout the book and doesn’t distract from the action for those who aren’t interested in a Christian message. I had a hard time putting it down because of the non-stop action. I actually thought the action was a bit too non-stop at some points, but it was still a good, distracting read.
The book’s description:
She’ll never accept his help.
He’ll never stop trying to protect his town.
Mia Tathers is an ATF Special Agent. It’s not like she needs Conroy to protect her. However, when it becomes clear someone is recreating her biggest mistake, Mia has to face her own inability to forgive Conroy for what he took from her. It’s the only way she’ll stay alive.
In this town, Police Lieutenant Conroy Barnes is the one who fixes problems. When a blast from the past shows up, bringing danger with her, he vows to keep her safe. But the clock has expired on her refuge. Death is knocking, and Conroy is determined not to let it in.
This week I’m hoping to finish Charles Martin’s book The Dead Don’t Talk.
I also felt really bad about being so negative about Fannie Flagg’s book last week. I mean, what do I know? I’m no award winning author. And some people may prefer a story where it is just “told” to them instead of “shown.”
What I’m Watching
I’ve been watching Signed, Sealed, Delivered on the Hallmark app through Amazon.
There was only one season of the show, with ten episodes, and it was followed by eleven made for TV films.
Just a warning if you watch Episode 9 & 10 especially, get a box of tissues and settle in. I couldn’t handle episode 9 (warning, it deals with rape, but in a very different way and nothing is shown) and had to fast forward it. I cried like a baby through a good part of Episode 10.
What I’m Writing
I released Quarantined on Kindle last week. It is 99 cents until later this week.
Our weather suddenly warmed up this week, just to drop back down again by the weekend. We had temperatures in the 70s with high humidity and by Saturday we were wearing our winter coats. That’s Pennsylvania for you. Other than the weather, we really didn’t have anything too exciting happen this past week. I spent most of my days teaching the kids, walking up and down the street with my daughter and her little friend, and working on The Farmer’s Daughter (as well as finishing Silas Marner).
This post by Heather Dawn on Every Small Voice? Wow. Nail on head. Fear is driving so many to forget their humanity. Please click over and read her thoughtful post today.
Never have I experienced hate from a complete stranger like I did yesterday. Let me explain: I was on a field trip with my two homeschooling children. We did all the right things: kept our distance from people, wore our masks, and respected the rules. While walking from room to room, sometimes we had to […]
