Category: Noony’s Blog

personal posts, life, seasonal notes

  • C Is For… Corresponding with Someone

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    When people find out that I like to write letters, a question I often get is,

    \”What do you write about?\”

    Here, then, are some suggestions:

    Start with a Draft

    You can do this old school (on paper) or in a document you keep on your computer. I like to do this on paper because I find that handwriting my ideas slows my brain down. This serves two functions: one, it\’s a form of mindfulness; and two, it lets me see the shape of my thoughts and really sit with them, allowing them to develop.

    Jot down things you want to include in your letter – three things you want to mention

    Why three? I find that if I can get to three, I can get to infinity. One is too few, it doesn\’t leave me anywhere to go. Two is adversarial: this, or that. Dark, or light chocolate. But three, three allows me to suddenly make connections, create a shape, get three dimensional. Try it and see what happens for you.

    Have Three Questions

    No one likes someone who only talks about themselves, right? Then don\’t be that kind of correspondent! Show an interest in your penpal, and ask them questions. One of my favorites: \”What\’s new in your world?\” Another one is, \”Describe for me what a normal day is like for you.\” You can also go on Google and look up \”good icebreaker questions,\” and pick some to include.

    To Enclose or Not To Enclose

    Some penpals insist that one must include something in their letter as an enclosure, and I\’ve seen all sorts of rules for what kinds of things to include – and they rarely agree with each other. Me, I\’m more of the middle way: if I have an enclosure I want to include, I will; otherwise, I\’ll let my words and thoughts stand on their own.

    But what kinds of things work as enclosures?

    • A packet of tea
    • Ephemera like small slices of decorated paper
    • Maps
    • Menus
    • Washi tape
    • Stickers
    • A handmade woven \”mug rug\” that I wove on a pin loom (I\’ve used this as an enclosure multiple times)
    • Bookmark

     

    It comes down to what you feel comfortable including, and how much postage you want to spend. A note of caution: be sure to weigh your letter; you don\’t want the recipient having to pay for extra postage in order to read your letter.

    What\’s the most unusual letter you\’ve received?

  • B Is For… Blogging!

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    If you\’re visiting from the A to Z Challenge, then chances are you know a lot about blogging. Today, I wanted to talk about one blog in particular: the Postcrossing blog. You can visit it, here. Their tagline is, \”Stories about the Postcrossing community and the postal world.\”

    Postcrossing is an international community of penpal afficionados. It\’s an interesting concept: members send postcards to members around the world. The blog discusses news from within the community, and also postal mail in general. One recent article highlighted the Malta Postal Museum.

    The thing I love about Postcrossing is that it\’s not a big investment. Writing a postcard is a tiny bit of text, and a small amount of postage. You can decide whether to mail members just in your country, or whether you\’re willing to write to folx in other countries.

    Each month, they send you a list of your \”stats\” – to which countries you sent cards; from which countries you received cards; etc. I use it as a way to keep the pump primed, as Julia Cameron would say.  In the process, I\’ve even made some friends along the way. Not every person in Postcrossing is interested in a more extended correspondence, but I\’ve met a few. It\’s the best of both worlds: a quick note to someone new, and a few longer, more crunchy letters.

    What about you, Dear Reader? Have you tried Postcrossing?

  • A Is For… A Letter!

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    Welcome, friends! And Happy April!

    Every year, in the month of April, there is an international blogging challenge called the A to Z Blog Challenge. I\’ve done it in previous years, but as with many of my writing friends, the last couple years have been difficult. Between the pandemic; war in Ukraine (Slava Ukraini!); the George Floyd riots and subsequent awakening of the American people to the continuing evils of racism, misogyny, and homophobia; the climate emergency; and the rise of Christo-fascism in the U.S. and around the world, it\’s been a difficult climate in which to be a creative. It\’s easy to feel lost in the midst of all of the onslaught.

    I think it\’s important to remember that we are physical beings. We aren\’t avatars, and we don\’t live in social media: we are flesh and blood beings with physical bodies and THAT is where our connection, our reality, must live.

    And therein I found my theme for this month\’s blog challenge. I decided to join at the last minute; I literally wrote the theme out yesterday and had to ask myself, \”Am I nuts? Do I really want to do a 30 day challenge right now after coming off a severe dry spell?\” In answer, my brain\’s squirrels awoke and not only was the answer yes, but I got ideas for my other sites and themes.

    Thus, here I am.

    Which brings me to today\’s subject: letters!

    What do you get in your physical mailbox? Do you get garbage mail, paper spam, bills, and nothing interesting? Nothing uplifting? Connecting you to people from far away?

    Well, I LOVE getting \”non-bill\” mail. It turns out, you get what you put out there, and that\’s doubly true for receiving letters. If you write letters, you will get letters back. Pretty magical, nu?

    And so my theme this month will be around my love of penpalling. I\’ll share some pictures of letters and postcards I\’ve received (never with the sender\’s address visible), and I\’ll talk about how I meet other penpals and snail mail aficionados. I\’ll even talk a little bit about mail art. While I don\’t consider myself a mail artist, I am fascinated by it and have participated in a couple Artist Trading Card swaps.

    But for today, I\’ll simply close with an invitation. Would you like to be my penpal? If so, please drop me a note at a.catherine.noon AT gmail DOT com and include your name, how you like to be called (if your nickname is different than your given name), and your mailing address. International folx welcome – I just got in a new set of international stamps. 🙂

    Tell me, Dear Reader, what do you like to receive in the mail?

  • Welcome To October – 31 New Days, Autumn To Savor, and Two Full Moons

    \"\"Well, it\’s October, Dear Reader! I\’m not sure how it happened either, but here we are. 31 fresh new days, two full moons, and #artober.

    Why #artober?

    Because art for art\’s sake is good for you. Putting your focus on something other than the dumpster fire is also a good thing.

    If you decide to play, please share your IG handle with me in the comments.

    If you want to watch along, go to Instagram and look for the hashtag #artober and follow artists you enjoy.

    Okay, but what is #artober?

    It\’s a daily art challenge designed to help us get back into the habit of daily art practice. I\’m doing mine probably mostly with calligraphy, but I go by the seat of my pants so you could be in for anything. I\’ll be posting it on my Instagram @a.catherine.noon.

    What other ideas have you come up with to keep your focus on your creativity and off the dumpster fire? I\’d love to know.

  • Self-Care September – Everyday Bodycare

    \"\"Sundays are a good day for pampering, and if you\’re in the States and have the luxury of tomorrow off for American Labor Day, all the better!

    Here\’s what you\’ll need:

    • Cornmeal
    • Honey
    • A warm shower
    • A half hour to an hour

     

    Optional:

    • Music (something calm or spa-like would be perfect)
    • Candles
    • Essential oils or a room spray that you like
    • A warm, fluffy robe
    • Slippers or warm socks

     

    Start your shower and let the warm steam fill the bathroom. Start your music and candles, and spritz your room spray. If you have essential oils, you can drop 5 or 10 drops in the back of the shower to create an aromatherapy shower for yourself.

    Set the cornmeal on the edge of the tub or somewhere outside the shower where you can get at it. Also get the honey and set it close by.

    Instructions:

    • Put about a teaspoon\’s worth of cornmeal in your hand and add enough honey to make a paste.
    • Start at your feet and rub in a circular motion. Pay particular attention to your heels.
    • Then, moving up the calves, continuing in a circular motion, massage the skin.
    • When you\’re done with your thighs, rinse your skin.
    • Then starting with your hands, move up your arms toward your shoulders. Pay attention to your elbows.
    • Rub circular motions along your stomach – in a counter-clockwise direction around to the left.
    • Get what you can reach of your back – or, have a friend help. 🙂
    • If you have long hair like I do, the thick goop will make a mess in your hair so you may want to put your hair up for this or just keep it out of the way as you\’re working.
    • When you\’re done, wash your body and make sure you get all the cornmeal off.
    • When you get out, use a light moisturizer and then wrap up in a warm robe with slippers and rest.

     

    If you try it, I\’d love to know how it goes for you! Please share with me in the comments.

     

  • Self-Care September – Saturday Socials: Craft in the Time of Coronavirus

    \"\"September Dates:

    • Saturday, 09/12/2020
    • Saturday, 09/19/2020
    • Saturday, 09/26/2020

    If you are interested in attending, drop me an email and I\’ll get you the log-in info. Email noony AT acatherinenoon DOT com.

  • Self-Care September – Foody Friday! (Yes, I Know, It’s Sunday…) – Menu Plans!

    Sorry for falling out of flow with my schedule, but Friday turned out much busier than planned. I\’m back to share some ideas about menu planning with you.

    It\’s very easy to get into a rut with our weekly shopping and making meals. Instead of letting that determine our reality, it\’s helpful to get intentional about our daily round. What we eat daily is what becomes our body. We know that, but putting it into practice can be challenging.

    What works for me is to use my favorite cookbooks and pick meals from them that I\’m familiar with. I use those as a generic palette to choose my weekly meals around, and then plug in other things like vegetables and pre-biotic foods.

    If you need a good starting point, I hope you find this useful: Menu Plan. It\’s a word document that uses tables, and I print it out weekly and put it up on the fridge.

    Here\’s how I make it work for me, though: I don\’t just plan the week, I make notes about what worked and what didn\’t. This is how, for example, I figure out when particular meals take too long to prep on nights when I have other commitments. For those nights, we\’ll put in, say, tuna salad instead of roast pork.

    We also plan large meals once a week for Sundays, typically, depending on our hiking schedule. That lets us drag out all the old favorites: roast chicken, pork loin, mashed potatoes, and all sorts of goodies. Don\’t forget desert – with a little planning ahead, pies and fruit crumbles aren\’t difficult to make.

    What\’s your secret for your daily round? What works for you?

  • Self-Care September – Social Media Trackers!

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    To What Do You Pay Your Attention?

    It has been said that attention will be the next most sought after commodity. In the modern world, we have FAR too many distractions. From doctors and psychologists to technologists all warn of the dangers of too much social media consumption. Problems ranging from confirmation bias to truncated attention spans and an inability to concentrate are all blamed on our addition to scrolling.

    It helps to recognize the word \”pay\” in that question.

    Attention is a limited commodity. We only have so much of it before we become fatigued, get bored, need to rest or eat, or have other responsibilities intrude on our time. When we\’re thinking about what we do all day vs. what we want to be doing, it\’s a useful mental tool to recognize that attention, like money, is something we pay – and that once it\’s gone, it\’s gone. Unlike money, where we can theoretically make more of it, attention is something that can\’t be gotten back.

    I challenge us to track our social media consumption.

    Again, there\’s an important word in that statement, this time, \”consumption.\” Just like a steady diet of junk food and soda makes us sick, a steady diet of junk media clogs up our brains and makes us sick. So what if we were to take the bull by the horns and really work to curtail that scrolling? Is there a way to help technology help us?

    Indeed there is, and it\’s called a social media tracker or monitor.

    Available on both Android and iPhone, many are free. The one I use is called QualityTime. It gives me daily reports on what apps consume the most of my time and is directly responsible for me removing Facebook from my phone altogether. I just don\’t need the negativity in my life, and I don\’t want to waste the amount of time I was spending on the platform. I\’d rather be making something and writing books.

    Here are some other suggestions:

    1. Moment, available on iPhone.
    2. Forest, available on Android and iPhone.
    3. AppDetox, available on Android.
    4. Offtime, available on Android and iPhone.
    5. ShutApp, available on iPhone.
    6. SPACE, available on iPhone.

     

    It\’s worth noting that there are multiple apps that help us to accomplish the goal of scrolling around less, which should tell us that many people are – rightly! – concerned about it. Social media addiction is of growing concern to mental health practitioners. Even the venerable Mayo Clinic has sounded the alarm, stating that 25% of youth are addicted to phones.  The mental health impacts aren\’t just on our attention, either: it\’s been linked to increased rates of depression. anxiety, stress, and poor sleep. In fact, they state that it\’s even more concerning than substance abuse.

    Your Challenge, Should You Choose To Accept It:

    Download one of the tracking apps and use it this week. Use it without judgment, just with openness and curiosity. What is your most-used app? How much time do you spend on apps? What would you like to be doing more of?

    And I think you\’ll find, as I did, that there are many benefits to becoming more intentional about our social media consumption.

    Tomorrow, join me for Foody Friday and see what I\’ve got up my sleeve for you!

  • Self-Care September – Writer Wednesday | Journal Tools – Future Visioning

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    Future Visioning

    I\’ve been keeping a journal for almost as long as I\’ve been alive. I started with one of those silly little ones they give small girls with a dopey lock that doesn\’t really lock and only about a paragraph\’s worth of space for each day. Such constraint! I\’ve tried all sorts of things in the intervening years, settling on my trusty Strathmore 400 Series 9 x 12\” spiral bound journals with the hardboard cover, because I can use it anywhere – on my lap on the bus or train, on the ferry, in a park, at the beach, in my office, on my balcony out back, in my car… (Dr. Seuss anyone?)

    There are many, many different ways of keeping a journal, too – from the straight up \”Dear Diary\” type of chronicle, to bullet journals, listing, the unsent letter, and all sorts of methods in between. Today I want to talk about Future Visioning.

    What Is Future Visioning?

    Future Visioning is between creative writing, narrative non-fiction, and journaling. It\’s a way of spending time in our minds, fleshing out what we want to create and making it real to our creative brain. Like writing a book, we create the setting and characters and see how they interact. Like narrative non-fiction, it\’s telling a story about real or imagined real events. Like journaling, this is meant to be private: between ourselves and our imagination, and not for the eyes of anyone else.

    How Do You Do It?

    I recommend setting a timer for ten or twenty minutes. Grab your favorite journal notebook or a keyboard and fresh document. It\’s up to you whether you prefer to type or write by hand. I prefer (and recommend) writing by hand because there\’s something kinesthetic that happens when we do that, but use what works best for you. If you\’re not sure, they both and keep what method you like best.

    Then, write down what you\’re wanting to create. Let\’s say our statement for today is, \”I am a prolific author.\” So I\’d start by writing that at the top of my page. Then I take a moment or two with my eyes closed and breathe deeply. I imagine what does me being a prolific author look like? I imagine it\’s this time next year, on a Wednesday afternoon, and I\’m on my balcony with the birds singing. When I have that image clear, I open my eyes and begin to write.

    It\’s a Wednesday afternoon and the sun is out. It\’s not too hot outside and the breeze feels good. I\’m so pleased because I\’ve finished my blog posts for the day and I just hit \”send\” on my newsletter. Our next book is ready to be uploaded, since I just got it back from our book packager. This will be our sixth book in the series and our twentieth book overall. My body feels calm and grounded, and there are no butterflies in my stomach. Writing is so deeply satisfying, and I\’m so grateful that I finally allow myself to do it.

    Let your timer be your guide, and just focus on getting the picture as clearly as you can in your mind, and write down what you see. Try to incorporate all five senses. What are you seeing? What does it feel like in your body to be in this new reality? What are you hearing around you, and from others in your orbit? What are you thinking as a result of your new reality? What in your life is easier?

    We spend so much time complaining that it\’s easy to think that\’s the only thing we can do. But with a little creativity, we can use our journal as a potent tool for positive change.

    Tomorrow, join me for our first September Challenge!

  • Self Care September – Theme Reveal

    \"Calligraphy

    I don\’t have to tell you that this year has been challenging. Between the pandemic, learning new terms for windstorms like \”derecho\” (which is a land hurricane, if you hadn\’t heard it before, and occurred in Iowa and left devastation in its wake), the fires in California, not one but two hurricanes in the Gulf, shootings and protests and rioting, it\’s a wonder that any of us can sleep at night.

    Which brings me to my theme for this month: Focus on what I can control.

    I can\’t fix the weather, and I\’m not a doctor so my job as regards COVID is to stay healthy and stay out of the emergency medical system to the extent that I can – which means, wear a mask, social distance, and avoid travel. I haven\’t really left the house since March other than to walk, go to the community garden, and essential shopping – and I\’m stir crazy!

    Which got me thinking: I can\’t be the only creative, highly sensitive person out here with these challenges! I suspect there are a lot more of us than any of us realize, partly because when we\’re overwhelmed we don\’t communicate as loudly about our personal reality as we might during times when things aren\’t falling down around our ears.

    And thus, the image at the top of this post. Did you know, there\’s such a thing as \”faux calligraphy?\” Here\’s how it works:

    • Write out a phrase or statement, leaving extra space between the letters than you normally would.
    • On the descenders of the letters, draw a second line next to the line of the letter and then color it in – I used the same color for my letters but you could get really fancy and color in the spaces with different colors, even using a colored pencil!
    • When you cross the \”t\’s,\” be extra intentional and make a wavy line. You could even add flourishes if you felt called to.
    • Voila. Calligraphy. Who knew it could be that easy?
    • If you try it, please link me to your Instagram or other place you share your images; I\’d love to see!

     

    And in the meantime, tell me in the comments – what does \”self care\” look like for you? And I\’m not talking here about mani-pedis, necessarily. I\’m talking about really caring for yourself. What does that look like?

    And be sure to come back throughout the month while I share some ideas, challenges, and suggestions so that we can make September a great month together. And on September 3rd, I\’ll be back over at Delilah Devlin\’s blog for a guest post – watch for the link to come visit with me!

  • Anxiety

    \"Growing

    Anxiety sucks. It tells lies. It feels true. And it is constant.

    Why is it there?

    That’s a complicated answer. I am not a psychologist, so I can only tell you what I understand about my own anxiety. I am a survivor of child abuse. My mother was mentally ill and my father is a malignant narcissist and psychopath. These aren’t descriptors, in that I am not saying them to be insulting. They are factual statements based on evidence of behavior. While I am not qualified to diagnose either of them, I am able to evaluate their behavior over years of evidence and those two statements fit the evidence.

    Because of their prolonged brainwashing, I now struggle with regular, daily existence. I have a hyper-developed sense of danger, sometimes referred to as “hypervigilance,” which is one of the symptoms connected with Post Traumatic Stress. Anxiety is one of the symptoms as well.

    The thing about anxiety is that it uses all your brain’s faculties to create scenarios that feel incredibly real, yet aren’t. It can take someone’s failure to smile in line at a Starbucks or in the office break room and build an elaborate scenario about how they hate you, want to get you fired, and are dangerous.

    Take the coronavirus situation. I live in Bellevue, Washington State, the epicenter in the United States for the current outbreak. The hospital where the first recorded deaths have occurred (and are still occurring) is five miles from my house. Closer to my office.

    So of course, my anxiety brain thinks I have the virus, even though I have no symptoms and to my knowledge, have met no one who has been exposed.

    This, then, is a conversation with my anxiety brain:

    I HAVE CORONAVIRUS.

    No, you don’t. You haven’t met anyone with it.

    BUT I COULD HAVE.

    Yes. That’s true.

    SEE? I HAVE IT!

    No dear.

    THERE! I SNEEZED! SEE? I HAVE CORONAVIRUS!

    It was dust.

    YOU CAN GET CORONAVIRUS FROM DUST!

    No, you can’t. Dust is dust. Or cat hair. Besides. If you get it, you’ll be fine. You just saw the doctor yesterday.

    BUT SHE COULD BE WRONG.

    Shoo. Go write something.

    WHEN I DIE OF CORONAVIRUS, YOU’LL BE SORRY!

    Yes, that’s true. But in the meantime, write some words.

    NO!

    You could write about coronavirus. Write a romance in a post-apocalyptic world where there’s a continual quarantine.

    …

    Hello?

    I’M NOT TALKING TO YOU. I’M SICK.

    Okay, you go be sick. I’LL go write something.

    CAN YOU WRITE WHILE YOU’RE SICK?

    Yes. It’s a superpower.

     

    If you struggle with anxiety or other issues, I urge you to seek help. Psychology Today has a great therapist finder on their website, here.

  • Happy New Year! – Thoughtful Thursday

    \"\" I\’m glad it\’s the new year. It\’s an election year here in the States, finally, and I am optimistic about our ability to get ourselves back on the right track. It\’s funny, though; many years I feel called to set intentions or resolutions and I\’ve felt none of that this year. I\’m more interested in taking it easy and working on my mindfulness practice, which ultimately seems to be helping me with productivity. I feel like that\’s logically backwards but I\’m also superstitious enough to not want to mess with it if it\’s working.

    Writing

    This is still like pulling teeth. I trust that fallow periods are necessary, and things are starting to crack loose slowly, but man. Slow sucks. 🙂

    I\’m working on drafting Ambush, and playing with a couple other things. One involves crow shifters and that\’s got both Rachel and I excited. I\’ve been messing around a little with poetry and memoir, and those are satisfying. I\’m re-reading Deena Metzger\’s Writing For Your Life, and it\’s been a good thing to revisit the silence of my own mind and thoughts. I like her ideas about writing and life, self expression, and psychology.

    Community

    One of the local writing organizations here has put out a call for Writer In Residence and I\’ve decided to apply. I think it sounds like a lot of fun and a great way to give back to the writing community while having a more structured place and time to specifically write.

    This weekend, we have our first Soulwoman Circles of the Salish Sea event and I\’m excited. The SoulArt Pocket Vision Journal session still has spaces open and we\’d love to see you there on Saturday, January 18th. More info is on the link.

    We\’re overhauling the Writer Zen Garden website and have a new forum and chat function available, which I\’m stoked about because I want to move off of Facebook. I don\’t like their practices or interference in our elections here in the States, and want to have an alternative for our members when we offer workshops and other events.

    Day Job

    I think working writers don\’t talk enough about working and writing, and it leads to the persistent myth that a) writers can easily make a full-time living by writing and that b) if one isn\’t doing so, one\’s writing isn\’t successful. Most of my colleagues who write full time have spouses who support them and pay the mortgage and other bills. It\’s rare that a writer can make a full time living. The Author\’s Guild just did their annual earnings survey and earnings have sharply fallen due to the consolidation of publishers, rise of independent publishing, and many other factors.

    I work a day job in the insurance industry and have found it useful from several standpoints, one of the most important is that it grounds me on the left side of my brain. I can go to work and when I leave, I can leave my work at the office and not drag it home with me.  That allows me to focus, without pressure, on my writing and other creative pursuits, knowing my bills are taken care of. I like to write in the mornings before work, and I used to write extensively during my commute on transit. I no longer commute that way and am trying to figure out where to fit that writing time in my current daily round.

    Art

    I\’m knitting like a fiend. I\’ve got a blanket going as well as two sweaters and a shawl. I find that deeply satisfying and meditative.

    What about you, Dear Reader? What do you like to do to fill your creative well? What\’s new in your world? Tell me in the comments; I\’d love to know.