TJ Hirst

My Daily Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

Today, I had an unfortunate post office experience. I complained.

I had purchased a roll of 100 stamps three days before the price was increased from $0.41 to $0.42. No sign was posted announcing the change that was only days away. Nor did the sales clerk communicate it to me when I asked for this large quantity of stamps. On the morning of the change when I heard of the price increase on NPR news, I seethed. I knew it was only $1 extra for all of those stamps, but they were worthless three days after I bought them without that extra one cent stamp that I now had to return to purchase.

When I went to the post office I told them of my complaint, which was primarily that no one communicated the price increase with words or with a sign. I didn’t think I was rude; I just expressed that I was a little “perturbed.”

The clerk, whom normally has a smile and a joke for everyone, put me in my place with his ultra polite, “Well, it has been difficult for all of us.”

But it didn’t feel like he understood me or even acknowledged my concern. So I upped my emotion. Then he said things like, “You asked a question, can I have a chance to talk, now?” I felt my confidence diminish that I had even stood up to speak.

KH and NH stood beside me during this attempt to express myself. Later when I asked KH about it, she admitted it was a bad scene. “A little embarrassing,” she said. “And your voice was shaking.”

So I wondered, how else was I supposed to handle it? Not saying anything? Act as if it doesn’t matter? I am opinionated, and sometimes I have a hard time knowing when I need to step up and say something and when I don’t.

But the good news is that I am mentoring my own daughter to know how. She received a late slip from the public library for a book she thought she had returned. Apparently she didn’t. She looked for the book everywhere at home. She even stayed after school to clean out her locker just too find it, but still no book. It was lost.

She stressed over it for many weeks. Every time she wanted to check out a book at the library, the outstanding fee prevented it and reminded her of the loss.

She waited until the end of the year to pay the $25 for the lost book and the $5 late fee thinking that maybe it could still show up. For a 14-year-old that is a high price to pay for a book that you won’t even get to read again.

This morning, she moaned about the “consequence” for losing the book and insisted that she had learned her lesson to be more careful. She resolved to pay it with her own money.

At the library, she paid her fee. After, I found her in the young adult stacks. She pulled out a book. “This is the book I paid for.”

“You mean you think it is the actual book that you checked out?” I said.

She hemmed and hawed, not wanting to commit. She explained something about the computer listing only one copy at our library, and that it was lost and paid for, but she said, “This must be from one of the other libraries.”

She hesitated as if she didn’t really believe that, so I pressed her. “Do you think that is the same book you checked out?”

She wasn’t completely sure, but I could tell she felt something growing inside of her. I encouraged her to trust her feeling and tell the librarians.

I sat on a bench with my other children and watched her in action. She took her concern to the front desk. She handed them the book and said she thought this was the book she just paid for.

They checked the barcode. Indeed it was. She had paid for a book that was sitting on the shelf the whole time she was stressing about it. They acknowledged that they should have looked on the shelf first. Two librarians thanked her for coming to tell them, which built her confidence in speaking up.

What a genuine learning experience in so many ways! Why couldn’t my “speaking up” at the post office have looked this good?

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

Spring is transition time, right? During the winter months, my body intuitively wants extra calories to insulate me from the cold. That may just be an excuse for the holidays, birthdays, winter blues, and more holidays and birthdays, but I can’t believe the double digit negative temps don’t contribute to my carb cravings.

Every spring, though, I feel those extra five to seven pounds weighing me down. And this month I challenge myself to eat less and eat healthier. For the first time, all my Try-It-With-Me Tuesday challenges in June will focus on the goal to eat healthy, starting with the June Reading Challenge:

Read food labels this month to be more aware of serving size and nutritional value.

My healthy eating goals include eating appropriate portions for what my body needs, increasing fiber and reducing sugar. While your needs and goals may be different, reading helps us remember and retain. Most diet plans emphasize in one way or another this common practice—think about what I put in my mouth and, ultimately, what I put in my body.

Usually I think before I eat, but most often it is in a general good or bad sense. That just leads to general positive or negative thoughts, depending on what I ate. On the other hand, when I read the nutrition facts before I eat, I make specific, positive choices or treat myself to specific controlled pleasure choices. Reading reminds us that we choose several times a day what we want to be.

Do you want to Try It With Me?

I will report on my progress on Tuesdays and give a final summary on Tuesday, June 24, of my results and yours when I publish my post with your links and comments. Healthy reading to you!

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link. Feel free to use the TIWMT image in your post.

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

May is about as busy as December for a family with children in school. The end of the school year fills our calendar with field trips, concerts, talent shows and award ceremonies. I think it is the school’s way to prepare us for the return of busy summer days. When I finally gave the “back-pack mail” a thorough rereading, I discovered that I had scheduled an appointment at the same time as my son’s wax museum presentation and had planned to transport KH to her field trip a full one week before it was to happen. I need a mental refresher for this week’s challenge:

Give yourself one hour of solitude this week.

It seems weird to schedule solitude, but that may be required to actually meet this challenge. Solitude is the state or quality of being alone or remote from others. I just finished reading Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen, an interesting novel in which the main character’s famous sister voices a serious “Oops” remark on the air of the morning television show she hosts. She copes by retreating into seclusion in Jamaica.

Her solitary time is a luxury, and it isn’t practical for most of us. But similar to her time away to rethink her surroundings, I need regular time alone to regroup and ponder. So, I propose to find one hour away from the computer and Internet connection, one hour away from being available, one hour away from outside distractions, and most importantly, one hour away from my other goals and got-to-do lists.

I’ll take the challenge and write about it next Tuesday, May 20th. Do you want Try It With Me?

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Have you had any opportunities to read to or with someone, yet, for the May Reading Challenge? Although bedtime stories are no longer part of the regular routine with my independent reader children, I surprised my youngest with two impromptu “read togethers” of her almost-forgotten picture books. I especially liked The Quiltmaker’s Gift.

Two more weeks to Try It With Me. . .

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link. Feel free to use the TIWMT image in your post.

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

Thus far, I have mostly posted challenges that stretch me and those who try it with me. But an equally important part of my goal in writing for Try-It-With-Me Tuesday is to give and receive encouragement. Yes, I need encouragement to overcome discouragement—especially now as I jealously await (from my snow-covered locale) the spring-time weather that has arrived in other parts of the country.

To encourage is to inspire with hope, courage, or confidence and to give support. Personally, I need courage and inspiration to continue in a worthy purpose, whether it be writing on this website, being a good wife and mother, or serving God by nurturing my own spirituality and serving others. We all need encouragement in our process to become the person we want to be. For that reason, here is my challenge for the week:

Encourage someone this week by giving genuine praise or positive feedback.

Interestingly, this challenge comes from the reflective thoughts I have had since writing Commonality in a Community of Mothers. Many women across all religions share a common desire to use our time wisely to accomplish meaningful and inspired purposes, including being good mothers. Sarah at Genesis Moments considers this question as it relates to earning an income but concludes with the inspiration she gains from women who encourage her:

Most importantly, I am learning through these humble spiritual giants to pray above all things, on all things, about all things, under and through all things and that God is faithful if we believe in Him. He knows our comings and goings and will see us through.

I loved reading her thoughts and followed her link to Musings of a Housewife, where I read some more:

I often wonder what I’m doing with the blog. Is it a waste of time that I should be spending on more holy pursuits, or is it an opportunity for me to put my gifts to use by bringing women together and bringing new products to moms? Is it simply a place to socialize and ramble, or does it serve a greater purpose? Do I share too much, or should I share more? Am I really being myself? I evaluate these questions often.

Another forum posed a similar question To Blog or Not to Blog? in response to this excellent talk given by an LDS leader on womanhood and motherhood.

I took from that talk this important message:

There is no one perfect way to be a good mother. Each situation is unique. Each mother has different challenges, different skills and abilities, and certainly different children. The choice is different and unique for each mother and each family. . .What matters is that a mother loves her children deeply and, in keeping with the devotion she has for God and her husband, prioritizes them above all else.

Elder M. Russell Ballard
Daughters of God

As I consider all of these words from varied religious perspectives, I know that I can be tough on myself or overly sensitive to the reaction of others in regards to my own priorities and purpose. Knowing, however, that this is not a struggle that I alone face, I am inspired to trust in the personal messages of encouragement that I receive from my own prayers and to look for opportunities to give encouraging words to others.

Do you want to Try It With Me? Share your thoughts next Tuesday, April 22, at Finding What Inspires on this week’s challenge. I am also spending some time trying to memorize something inspiring for the April Reading Challenge.

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link.

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

The April Reading Challenge is to memorize something you have read that inspires you.

The students I teach in an early morning religion class are encouraged to memorize 25 scriptures from the Old Testament of the Bible this school year. One student has expressed that memorization helps her recall what she has learned and answer questions about her religion.

I am no longer a student with a need to recall for tests, but like this student, I have discovered there is still value in memorizing even after leaving formal school. In fact, it wasn’t until I discovered the value beyond recall for tests that I was enthused and motivated to memorize. Memorization develops my mental concentration in all tasks and is a tool to control my thoughts. In addition, when I memorize something that has inspired or enlightened me and then bring it back to my mind, I retain the emotions and knowledge I initially felt and also gain new understanding from it.

What important benefits have you gained from memorization?

Even though my goals (and yours) to memorize are valuable, for me to actually memorize this document will require diligent, almost vigilant, daily attention. A deadline (April 29th) helps. Being accountable to another person (anyone who reads this) also helps.

Here’s what else I am doing and plan to do to help me memorize:

I write each paragraph out on a note card.

I study the first card until I can say it without the card.

It takes me at least a day or two, sometimes even a week, to learn each card.

When I know the first card, I move on to the second card and study it.

I actually study my cards while I exercise or wait.

I try to say both cards together before I move on to the third card.

When I think I know each card, then I study the document as a whole.

I try to recall each paragraph, one at a time, until I can say it all together.

Then I rehearse it in front of the mirror, and finally say it to my family.

This is not a proven method, just what works for me.

How do you memorize?

Your tips and these tips for How to Memorize will be a help to me and those who want to try to memorize something with me this month. Good Thinking to You!

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Note: I did not post my review of the biography from the March Reading Challenge on Saturday as I promised. (I am sure no one was anticipating it). But my change of plans is an interesting insight. I was reading the biography on Dolley Madison with my mom, who lives in another state. She is listening to it on audio tape as she drives home from work. I finished reading the book last week. When we had a brief conversation about it, I was reminded of my desire to try it with her and connect through our discussions. I am going to wait to post my review until she has finished and we have had more over-the-phone book discussions. Those connections are as important to the process as the end result.

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link.