If you are a blogger, have ever considered blogging, or just want to meet some folks from the blogosphere, join us for Bloggers BeLOnG on July 20th 6:30-7:30 p.m.
This Zoom event is sponsored by the Missouri River Regional Library and will be hosted by Melanie A. Peters of www.intetengy.com. It’s free and a terrific chance to build your blogging network and practices.
We all know life is messy. Many of us feel like there is just too much going on in our lives. Our mole hills really are mountains and a simpler existence would make getting through the day so much easier.
This month let’s make our mess less.
Each day in March, I encourage you to toss out, donate, or give away at least one thing that you no longer use or that just takes up too much space in your place. Once you start the process of picking out the excess, you will find the act of eliminating the unnecessary empowering.
Consider your closet or dresser. Anything you didn’t wear in the last year is perfect for purging.
Give the kitchen cabinets a sweep. Gadgets, pans, or expired products provide instant pitches or pass alongs.
What about your catch-all drawer? I am certain there are some Box-tops to go to education, coupons that no longer count, or just some stuff that would benefit from being organized.
A large part of March makes up the Lenten season and I always use this season as a chance to challenge myself to get rid of the excess in my home. Continue reading “March Positivity Challenge – Make Your Mess Less”
You in Print = Your Imprint – Blogger Melanie Peters of Intentergy.com shares strategies for adding productivity and positivity to your life through writing. With ideas for blogging, social media practices, and journaling this presentation is geared to helping individuals make a positive digital footprint through the development of composition practices. Traditional writers and composers of the digital age alike will find Peters’ approach to positive methods insightful and inspiring. Individuals who are looking to add positive energy and organization to their lives, as well as writers who are looking for ways to develop their craft, will find this presentation helpful and entertaining.
By: Melanie A. Peters
While the leaves of fall turn their colors naturally, change does not come so easily to rest of the world.
For this month’s positivity challenge, I want you to consider one change that may allow you to enter into a new season of beauty in your life.
A season of beauty doesn’t necessarily have to do with changing your physical self. It can include changes in faith, patience, humility, acceptance, or simplicity. Choose to do something that brings a more beautiful light or outlook to your existence. Brighten your daily encounters with a more hopeful view or a greater appreciate for the diversity that you experience in others.
Some simple but significant changes to consider for your spiritual or emotional self include:
We can’t consider change without including a few healthy, physical progressions. With physical change, gradual will get the job done most every time.
Continue reading “The Leaves of Change – Monthly Positivity Challenge”
Humanity is a colorful lot; not just in skin tones but in the relationships we build, the actions we take, and the habits we form. Within each realm of humanity there are always those assigned to protect and supervise the masses. Who better to observe the practices of other humans than someone who is responsible for keeping them safe?
Through my blogging exploits I have made some tremendous writing friends. One of the individuals who I am proud to call my friend is Lucy Brazier. While Lucy and I have never met in person, we have exchanged comments and compliments via our sites and I am excitedly close to finishing her first book A Portergirl Novel: First Lady of the Keys.
As the book points out, we Americans believe porters are just people who carry bags, but in England porters are guards of a sort and protect and manage the safety and security of properties as keepers of the keys. Through the adventures of Deputy Head Porter, the first ever female porter at Old College, the idiosyncrasies and interactions of those in a most unusual academic setting are brought to light. It is in her chapter “Suited and Booted” that I found an exceptionally powerful statement about the importance of understanding and being an active part of humanity.
54 steps… that is how many steps it takes to get to my aunt and uncle’s lake house.
54 long, tall steps.
From the dock to the house it is 54 steps. That equates to a lot of hard work for a spot that is supposed to be relaxing.
Time at the lake house is so refreshing. We eat, sleep, drink, and play there with no other purpose than to get away from the exhaustion of everyday life. As we head from the house to the dock, we pack everything we can into our arms and hope we don’t fall forward on the descent. (Did I mention it would be 54 long, tall steps down?)
Once on the dock, time seems slower. The sun shines brighter. The breezes massage our worries away. The fish and birds provide breaks in the calm of the waters. The occasional boat or jet ski add speedy bursts of entertainment to the scenery. It makes those 54 steps worthwhile.
There are a lot of things in life that are worth effort. I would like to extend an Intentergy effort challenge. Choose a task that challenges you but will make your life easier in the long run.
Just as climbing those 54 steps gets my heart racing, hopefully the challenge you choose will fill your heart with energy and excitement. Whether it be heading down those steps or up, I always know that where I end up will be a good place to land. Know that you will have the same optimism if you choose a challenge that is impactful for you. So take a deep breath, grab all the stuff you will need to make the change, and take that first step. It will be worth the climb.
By: Melanie A. Peters
P.S. Take a flashlight if you go before dusk. Those 54 steps can be scary without a light. (or be smart enough to turn on the outside lights before heading down)
P.P.S. Check with your physician before climbing 54 steps a whole bunch of times. Some of us are a bit out of shape and may need to ease into the process. 😉
I would love to blame my inability to successfully focus on the phases of the moon, or my kids’ schedules, or the incurability of freckles but the reality is that I have failed to give myself focus and therefore my energy has gone spastic this summer, but I’m working on it.
Spastic energy results in ineffective effort.
Ineffective effort results in failure on epic levels.
What is wrong with me????
Nothing. Continue reading “Focused Energy…Where Does It Go?”
Goodreads.com is a home for book reviews, book recommendations, book lists, book clubs, and author bios and I am now obsessed with it.
If you already enjoy Goodreads, you might find humor in my newness or appreciation for the joy the site has brought to me. Please comment about any features you like or dislike on Goodreads. I had read about Goodreads from a number of other bloggers’ sites, but until our local librarian recommended it to me recently, I had not given it much consideration.
I checked out the site on Thursday and Friday created my account. Now I can’t stop reading reviews, searching for books that I have read or want to read, and am so enthralled by the give-aways, book clubs, and Goodreads blog that I am having trouble concentrating on what I wanted to type here.
There are many features to this site that I find beneficial. I love how the genres are organized. The search options are everywhere. I can even automatically search for the books I get from Amazon.
One of the best features for me is the ability to make a “Book Shelf.” I created a Book Shelf for the book club I sponsor at my kids’ school. I was able to find all of the book on the Mark Twain Reading list and add them. This will allow me to rate and review the books as soon as I read them. I can refer students and parents to this list and the sharing grows from there. Now I just have to get my hands on all those books. 🙂
I had the local library’s website open in split screen yesterday so I could start requesting some of the books that intrigued me from the Goodreads site. There is a way to find your local libraries and their catalogs through Goodreads and request your books. (I may wear out that Request button.) I still have to set the library request feature up on my account; searching for books and authors has prevented me from dedicating enough time to it.
Goodreads is on Twitter (of course) and I have really enjoyed the prompt posts they have published and found some very positive reviewers and followers in the Goodreads’ throngs. Continue reading “goodreads.com – My Newest Obsession”
My childhood chores involved babysitting, folding laundry, doing dishes, baling hay, milking cows, and whatever else my parents needed.
We no longer milk cows. My kids are too small to bale hay (and we no longer square bale anything). Many of the jobs that were considered okay for my generation and generations previous are considered unsafe for children to do today.
The thing that is most unnerving to me is not that chores are unsafe, but rather the fact that we are raising future citizens who don’t know how to fold their own shirts.
Recently, I overheard two women talking about their teenage children. They were 
discussing the fact that they don’t let their kids do the laundry. The reasoning for this was that they didn’t have the patience to teach their children how to use the washing machine and that the kids never folded the clothes the way they (the moms) like it.
Okay?!?
If we don’t demonstrate patience for our children, how will they know what the skill of being patient looks like? If we don’t teach them how to use the washing machine, who will? Some nice lady at the laundry mat?
Secondly, how can our children improve their skills, in things like laundry folding, if we don’t guide them? I don’t mind if my shirts are a bit sloppy when folded, at least somebody folded them.
Another time a mom told me she didn’t know how I had the patience to let my kids cook with me. “They are so messy, and I am already tired when I get home. I don’t want them underfoot when I am trying to get dinner on the table,” was what she told me.
Cooking is messy. Learning is messy. Kids are messy. The cool thing about cooking 
with my kids is that they are learning. They learn how to make food. They learn how to clean up. They learn how to work as a team preparing, making, and serving our meals. Plus, my time with them is so precious in the evenings; it is nice to be able to do something productive.
I am not gonna lie. We don’t cook together every night. I don’t let my kids put the clothes away all the time. Sometimes I am too tired to be patient with them and sometimes they are too tired to work with me. But we still try most of the time. Continue reading “Childhood Chores”
Just One Trash Bag (at a time) via Daily Prompt: Filter
Recently my friend Cami shared her desire to do a Lenten purge of unnecessary things. Her goal was to filter through her life and remove one bag of unnecessary stuff a day. I thought this was an AWESOME idea, so I borrowed it for myself…
…Only I have failed.
The first day or two of Lent I did alright cleaning out a drawer and a closet, but I have come to the sound conclusion that filtering out unnecessaries takes a really, really, really long time.
How do things add up so quickly? Seriously?!? Continue reading “Just One Trash Bag (at a time)”
Intentergy 