TJ Hirst

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.

March in Minnesota brings spring a little bit at a time. Our water comes in the form of snow showers. Despite what it looks like outside, I have been able to open my windows once or twice and let some spring air blow in. The smell of spring (and the spring cleaning) rejuvenated our house and me.

With all this renewal of nature, I thought it appropriate that I began a health challenge:

Drink more water this week.

Water has a lot of health benefits and my attempts to drink more of it as a health habit have been a lot like March in Minnesota. So, I need your suggestions. How much is more water for you? How do you keep track of how much water you drink? What do you do to remind yourself to drink more water?

Meanwhile, I am just beginning my biography for the March Reading Challenge. I’m going to spend my spring break reading about Dolley Madison.

Do you want 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.

^{Have you taken my poll on Finding What Inspires? I would love your feedback.}

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.

When I created a challenge to smile more often, and invited you to participate with me, I didn’t expect to be opening more than my mouth. But I discovered that whenever I set out to improve, I am opening myself to change more than just a habit on the surface.

As I first reported, for the first few days of smiling more often, my children said, “You are creeping us out.”

I smiled because I was trying to smile. Obviously, they could tell it wasn’t wholly genuine, yet. I could feel that, too, when I gritted my teeth through a grin during a disagreeable situation.

When I am in the beginning stage of change, I often try too hard. I have been known to try to make change happen, instead of letting change happen.

Even so, I actively committed to smiling genuinely from the inside out. As Minna said, sometimes we have to “fake it until (we) get it right.” Usually, the desire to get it right does win out.

It did for me. By the third or fourth day, I recognized that a genuine smile is not generated by circumstances, it is generated by genuine hope. This is not the hope in which we wish for our circumstances to be worthy of a smile. It is hope that we can look forward with a confidence.

And so, I continue to smile with hope and encourage you to Try It With Me!

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Have you chosen and began reading a biography for the March Reading Challenge? Some have asked for suggestions. Do you have any to offer? Leave a comment and tell me what biographies you would suggest.

I am reading A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation by Catherine Allgor.

Here’s what some others have chosen or suggested:

The Story of My Life by Hellen Keller

The Reagan Diaries by Ronald Reagan

Other people to consider: Clara Barton (the founder of the American Red Cross), Theodore Roosevelt, Benjamin Franklin.

Everyone has a story, and that makes biography inspiring. Do you want 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.

My habit of listening to classical music in the car started with my dad. One semester in high school he drove me to my driver’s ed classes before the regular school day began. And classical music is what he listened to in his old Mercedes-Benz.

When I eventually passed my driving test and shared a car with my sisters, I turned up the radio and opened my windows and let everybody listen to my 80’s music with me. During my senior year I secretly returned to listening to classical music, albeit only when I was on my own and with my windows rolled up.

And this is how I still love to listen—in the car, but not in secret anymore. That is where I discovered the Farewell Symphony (Symphony No. 45) by Jospeh Haydn and its intriguing story.

Do you know this story? Haydyn and his musicians were kept by Prince Nicholas at his summer palace, Esterhaz, in Hungary, longer than usual one year and were getting anxious to go back to the city to be with their families. Haydn composed this symphony in which each musicians leaves the stage one at a time. At the close, just two violinists remain. 

Anna Harwell Celenza wrote this story into a children’s book, The Farewell Symphony, and here is an equally good review of it.

The music, not just the story, stirs my imagination about experiences when external pressures conflict with our real desires and personal commitments. The music stretches out, like the musicians stay has been stretched out, and creates a somber feeling of longing. It reminds me that it is longing for something beyond our superfluous external circumstances that motivates us to act creatively to attain our truest priorities.

Sickness has kept me from posting thus far today. I didn’t think you wanted to Try that With Me. However, I do have the next Try-It-With-Me Tuesday Challenge—a reading challenge. It won’t be as intensive as the last reading challenge. But I hope it will be doable and inspiring for all who Try It With Me.

During the month of March choose and read a biography of someone you admire.

Then, before Tuesday, April 1st, (no fooling), write a post on your own site telling what you read and what inspired you about this person, send me the link and I will publish it in the body of my April 1st Try-It-With-Me Tuesday post.

If you do not have a site of your own or would rather, just leave a comment on the April 1st post telling what biography you read and what inspired you about this person.

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Now, a report on last week’s Try-It-With-Me Tuesday:

Minna at Dyer Family Blog tells how Smiling Makes it Better. Minna is a great photographer and has a cute photograph attached to her post. She has also started photo assignments on her photography blog, Miriam Lovell Photography. These assignments are designed to help her improve and as a way to share her knowledge of how to create better photos.

Since sickness doesn’t have me smiling right now, I will share my smiling experiences next Tuesday. But let’s just say that for the first few days of smiling more often, my children said, “You are creeping us out.”

It’s not too late to let us know what happened when you smiled more. Just a leave a comment!

My new year begins in September when my three children go back to school. I get an impulse to buy new notebooks, read new books and start new writing projects. This “new year” I set a goal that was not only completely self-directed but also highly self-involved; I began writing my autobiography. I have written 50,000+ words and am just finishing high school (in my book, not real life). Yet, now, as I approach the real new year of 2008, I am considering (by thinking out loud) my desires, purposes, and audiences for writing. I am influenced by these words by Elder M. Russell Ballard, a leader in my church:

“Words create conversations, and conversations create understanding. There is truth in the old adage that ‘the pen is mightier than the sword.’ . . . May I ask that you join the conversation by participating on the Internet. . . . Talk honestly and sincerely about the impact the gospel has had in your life, how it has it helped you overcome weaknesses or challenges, and helped define your values. . . . the power of words is incredible. “

Elder M. Russell Ballard
speech given at
Brigham Young University-Hawaii’s
graduation ceremony on 15 December 2007

Words are deep and powerful, and I seek that in my writing. For that reason, up until now, I have hesitated to use this medium as fully as I could. Thanks to my husband’s generous Christmas gift of a domain name, his technical skills to set up this site, and his abundance of encouragement, I am beginning tjhirst.com. As my introductory tagline reads, “Not the usual stuff, (but I’m still figuring it out).” For now, my site will include answers to The Question, biographies of everyday people, and media reviews. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and while my spirituality influences my content, my site is applicable to a broader audience and not geared specifically toward other members of my church.

Just as good writing gives ordinary words “incredible” power, a new perspective uplifts the seemingly mundane. Writing is my discovery process, and I invite you to discover with me.