Success in the New Year will come 15 minutes at a time
My New Year’s Resolution is going to take exactly 15 minutes to complete. The catch is that it’s going to take 15 minutes on each and every day in 2013. I’m taking the 15-minute number from an organizing and decluttering expert who calls herself FlyLady, and who insists that you can do anything for 15 minutes. And she’s right. No matter how busy you are, how many projects or activities you’re juggling, or how exhausted you may be by the [...]
Corrections for Christmas songs and symbols
The StarTribune published an article last week about Christmas music. The point of the article was that most people today are annoyed with how early, how often, and how much they are assaulted with the sound of holiday music in stores, on the radio, and pretty much everywhere they go throughout the months of November and December. What caught my eye and captured my attention most, however, was a little fine-print detail you almost had to read between the lines [...]
A foggy morning clears the air
It was extremely and unseasonably foggy last Sunday morning – the kind of fog that feels surreal if you’re out driving in it because at times it is so thick that you can’t see anything around you. Even the deacon who delivered the sermon at Mass commented on it, noting that he had to be extra careful while driving to church from his home that morning. “What it really did,” he said, “was make me slow down.” He went on [...]
Hitting the big time starts with hitting the small time
The first order of business this week is for me to let you know when you can watch the episode of “It’s a Woman’s World” that I mentioned in a column a few weeks ago. I was one of three writers on the panel that day, and in addition to discussing writing issues and attitudes, we each read an excerpt of our recent work. I read one of my Villager columns. If you’re in the metro area of the Twin [...]
What to do when it’s difficult to give thanks
“Finding the Treasure in Our Gifts from God.” That was the title of my speaking program in Uganda this year, and it’s one I’ve been invited to present several times since coming back to the States. Part of the program focuses on our talents and traits – the skills and abilities that come naturally to us that we don’t always appreciate and sometimes don’t even realize that we have. Another part of the program calls attention to the gifts that [...]