Packing Hacks: Don't Leave Home without These Tips

Traveling can be fabulous with new adventures to experience, new sights to see. Leaving home can also be stressful if needed items don't leave home with you. I love to travel, and I love to be organized. Here are a few tips to help your next trip go more smoothly.

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An app for all occasions: PacktheBag

This handy tool can be customized, and you can create a list for different types of travel. I have an Austin FB Weekend and a Weekend Retreat, among others. List items can be copied or deleted and can be checked off as you tuck them away.

Keep duplicate shampoo, soap, toothpaste, etc. packed in a small bag ready to go.

I feel secure knowing that all my personal items are ready to go at a moment's notice even though I never actually go anywhere at a moment's notice. This saves me hunting down all the small details each time. Remember to check the latest information on carry-on regulations if you're flying. I never trust my necessities to checked baggage.

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Pack by day rather than by item.

The best way to have everything needed for an occasion is to pack the total outfit at once: clothing, shoes, accessories, jewelry. Then stack each day's clothing with the first day on top. This especially helped on our ten-day, four-hotel tour of Italy.

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Pack a garishly colorful item to mark your charger cables.

Mine is a hot pink acrylic charger shelf that hangs over the plug, but even a purple hair tie will do. The idea is to keep the charger cord from blending into the furnishings. I bought several new cords before I began this practice. I haven't left one behind since.

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Include a three-to-one outlet adaptor for your bedside plug.

Hotels often have one or fewer outlets at bedside. An adaptor can turn one into three, allowing room for the phone charger.

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Take a chip clip or clothespin for the hotel curtains.

The gap between curtains in hotel rooms is almost a given. Whether you need extra privacy or darkness for sleeping in, a little clip makes life much better.

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I hope these little hints help. Please share yours with me. Happy trails!

Posts That Have Helped Rejuvenate my Blog

As my few readers will attest, my blog has been languishing due to neglect for quite some time. With my improved health, a completed move and persistent unemployment, I decided to breathe some life back into it.

The Problogger podcast challenge, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, was just what I needed to begin.

Reading excellent blogs led me farther on the path. Here are just a few of the posts that have taught me, inspired me or lured me into better and more consistent postings.

Neely of It Starts with Coffee shared some of her tips for success in Best Productivity Tips for Bloggers . From her I learned to make a calendar of my postings and stay on a schedule.

In her Blog Tips: How to Maximize Your Content, Paula of Thirteen Thoughts gave me the terrific tip to use Pinterest to generate interest in my posts. I'm a rabid pinner with many followers there, so I'm excited to share my posts there.

For actual content, I drew inspiration from three particular posts. I am an "ordinary life" type of blogger, and these posts helped me see new ways to express myself.

In The Days are Long, Patti of Joy in the Middle reminded me to open up. Share what it's like to be a mother, grandmother and wife "of a certain age." It can be nostalgic and a little nutty too.

Checking In is a post from Over the Backyard Fence that inspired me to post about my upcoming long weekend watching University of Texas football with my husband, This may turn into more than one post since we will have family time, friend time and museum time in Austin as well.

Clover Lane's And Then There is August reads like a day book of family adventures. I have plenty of those.

My future task is to do justice to all of this great advice and inspiration and produce a blog worth reading. Let me know how I'm doing.

Also, please take time to share with me posts from blogs that you believe will help me on my writing journey.

Peace!

5 Reasons American Ninja Warrior is one of my new favorite shows

Disclaimer: I am not now, nor will I ever be accused of being, an athlete. That's not modesty. It's just a sad fact.

My interest in American Ninja Warrior began when my six-year-old grandson told me with great seriousness that he no longer went to the park to play. He went there to train to be an American Ninja Warrior. I just had to see what had inspired him, and the show immediately became one I looked forward to each week.

Why? How does this festival of fitness appeal to an out-of-shape middle-aged woman more comfortable in a library than a gym?

• First, the show is good, clean fun, and I don't mean the big splashes for failed attempts. The emphasis is on healthy lifestyle and hard work. Some of the ninja athletes have made comebacks from illness, injury or tough backgrounds to be positive and successful. That success is emphasized and celebrated, no matter how many obstacles they complete.

• Next, each event is a family atmosphere. Moms and dads dye their hair to support their costumed ninja children. Babies with headphones even brave the craziness. It's a good craziness that is all cheers and no boos.

• The athletes' support of causes is another reason I love to watch. Painting his hair pink, one competitor was drawing attention to breast cancer. Another had a video shout-out to the little boy he was mentoring at home. Many use the national television audience opportunity to express their faith. All good causes are welcome on the show.

•  Fourth, this is an equal opportunity athletic competition. Men and women compete on the same course, with women outshining some of the men. Athletes of every ethnicity and from each of the 50 states compete together. Their mental toughness and physical strength propel them to each new level.

• The most important reason I like the competition is the positive attitude of each ninja. Many cheer on their opponents. No matter if or when they drop from the course, they rise from the water with a smile and a serious lack of tantrums. No need for a handy bleeper button here.

My friend is ill.

A great friend is seriously ill. More than a friend, he's a spiritual father. For many years, I have leaned on his steadfast wisdom.

I love him dearly; but I am not a family member. Therefore, I am not privy to his prognosis. His immediate family only knows me as one of the flock who look up to him. I don't know if he is dying or suffering a debilitating setback.

I visit his bedside several times a weak. Some days he smiles and calls me by name. Sometimes he just smiles. Sometimes he sleeps. He wears restraints and lies in a quiet room, often alone.

When awake, his eyes are peacefully alert. He listens to me and answers some simple questions with a word or two, a nod, a smile, a rolling of the eyes--his sense of humor intact. Then he speaks. The words are soft, a mix of full phrases that drift into one another often meaninglessly.

I feel selfish. I desperately miss his booming voice, his book suggestions, his birding stories, his insights into my own heart. I miss his self. I wonder if he is missing his self as well.

Yet, he is still here, and I will still be there as long as he is.

This is age. This is illness. This is life.

I love sewing...

I love sewing, crocheting, embroidering, anything with a needle or hook. 

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I follow the instructions, pay attention to details and correct mistakes by starting over when necessary.

What if life were like that? It certainly hasn't been lately.

Scripture, Church teachings, and spiritual writings--these are my instructions. I pray over them and follow them as well as I can.

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The details around me have my almost undivided attention: 

my husband and family, my friends and even strangers who cross my path. They receive from me the care and dignity that is their birthright as children made in the image of God.

When I make mistakes, and I do, my priority is to repair any harm I cause.

I unravel sometimes, rip out bad stitching. Then I go back to the instructions and start again. 

Sewing produces a product, more or less as the pattern promises. 

Life doesn’t always do this. Winds whip away designs as I begin to admire their shape. Thieves of time or tragedy transform beauty to dust in a thunderclap or an excruciating slow-motion rumble. No amount of desire can undo or repair the damage.

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I know how to sew, to crochet and to embroider. 

I don't know how to live a precarious life, not even after over fifty years of practice. However, with help of the ultimate designer, I will continue to study and learn. 

What Will You Be for Halloween?

Halloween candy and costumes fill the stores, and my multimedia world is full of email and snail mail notices of vitally important decorating tips for the seasonal romp coming up. Two days ago my older daughter even sent me a picture of her two boxers in their "costumes," poor things.

Then today in my Morning Prayer, I came to a small passage from Romans that put the whole season into perspective: "...put on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 13:14). This is in the midst of Paul's teaching to the young Christian Church: "Wake up!" He tells them, "Live properly as becomes children of the light." 

And what would it mean to "put on Jesus"? To be in his costume, in his likeness? We see this throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke and John--but Jesus boiled it down for us in the Great Commandment of loving God and our neighbor then spelled out our love for neighbor in Matthew 25: Feed the hungry; Give drink to the thirsty; Welcome the stranger; Clothe the naked; Care for the sick; Visit the imprisoned. If we walk around as Jesus, we will convince others (and ourselves) that we are sincere by walking in these footsteps.

But wait, isn't Halloween supposed to be about being scary and frightened? Sure it is. That's what Wal-Mart and Target tell us. But life is about living in the light. That what Jesus and Paul tell us. They probably should carry more weigh with us year round. 

So maybe after the department store costumes are thrown away, we can remember to keep Jesus on permanently. I know I'm certainly going to continue to do my best.

A Hero and Saint in Our Own Time

I'll try my hand at a little book review. I just discovered the story of a Catholic priest who is a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and whose cause for sainthood is under consideration by the Vatican. That in itself was enough to catch my attention on the book jacket at Crossroads. Now, keep in mind, I don't have to work to find books of interest at Crossroads. Just a quick glance can net me at least two must-reads.

This time I saw a book jacket with a photo of a military chaplain in Mass vestments praying with a kneeling soldier. Behind the priest is a Jeep serving as an altar. The book is The Miracle of Father Kapaun: Priest, Soldier, and Korean War Hero. Inside the jacket was a publisher's note comparing the book to works about Fr. Walter Ciszek and St. Maximilian Kolbe. Intrigued, I bought the book and devoured it in just a few days. 

I will say honestly for the sake of my more literary friends, this is not great stylistic writing. It is written by two journalists with more passion for their subject than desire for polished prose. I admit to being a snob about this sort of thing usually. However, the story of this priest is too powerful to make even me quibble about style. Substance certainly wins!

Fr. Kapaun (Ka- PAHN) was as heroic as he was humble. He was a Kansas farm boy called to the priesthood and then called as a chaplain. The soldiers he served tell his story through these journalists with the gritty honesty of combat soldiers. Fr. Kapaun was a POW with these men, and it was in this brutal camp that his Christ-like behavior revealed hope to the men around him. 

I highly recommend the book because we should all get to know flesh and blood heroes before history pins heavy halos on them and we wonder what is really true. Some of the men that told these stories still live on and still remember this modern hero and, just maybe, this saint. 

The century plant is past its prime.

For those of you who didn't make it by the house to see the sideshow in our cactus "garden," it's just about too late. The 30-ft century plant bloom is shaking off the yellow seed pods you see in the photo and leaning precariously toward the driveway. And yes, the other photo with the silhouette against the sky is actually the bloom, not a tree. The once healthy succulent thorny leaves have withered around the base. It looks "done for," in the words of Eliza Doolittle. 

A woman at the Charleston Farmers Market told me that the death of a century plant after blooming was a myth. "Don't throw it out!"

I tried to imagine myself gathering up this 8-ft in diameter mass of thorns from among the deadly mess that was once a beautiful desert garden. However, she was one of those people who answers what she thinks you will say before you open your mouth. Therefore, I smiled and left her to converse alone. 

Since we moved in our house, various visitors have told us that we had a century plant that would one day bloom and die. We have joked and laughed about the idea for years. Then a few years ago, the cactus became so large that it began growing arms into the driveway, scratching our cars with its 4- to 5- inch thorns. At that point, I began telling people that i was ready for the thing to

bloom and die!

Now here we are-the end of an era, but not really. It has produced at least ten more just like it--very healthy and growing well. And of course we have all those seed pods!!