image by naassomz at Pixabay  You may be feeling unsettled or discontent in your current job. Preparing for your next transition while working on solving problems, managing conflicts, or lack of communication, can help keep you motivated to do the work while seeing hope for your next transition. Prepare for your next job or career change by keeping notes on your current or past work in a file or binder so you will be prepared for your next change.  Keep notes on conflicts at work.   ·        What Happened ·        What you did ·        Who else was involved ·        The result Make note of how you made decisions. ·        The decision ·        Steps you took ·        Who was involved ·        The result Know how to talk about yours...

I researched vegetables, including the carrots, green beans, tomatoes, and bell peppers, when writing my children's book, Vegetable Kids in the Garden .  I was especially fascinated with the history and versatility of carrots.  Early carrots were purple or yellow. Each color of carrots has slightly different nutritional benefits.   If you Missed History ,  “The earliest cultivated carrots were purple and yellow. Purple carrots get their color from anthocyanins — the same pigments found in blueberries and red cabbage.”   Carrots have been used as a dye among many other uses. Orange carrot or purple cabbage juice make fun natural food coloring for frosting. “orange dye from carrots was sometimes used to color butter and cheese, which created a commercial incentive to grow them in large quantities.” Missed History Carrots cooked, raw, or blended each have their own unique nutritional value.  “When blended, the fiber in carrots is broken down, making the nutrie...

The Dream of Country Living:  A healing life story by Nancy J. Miller   Following a dream (not mine) our family bought five acres, had a house built, and moved to a unique rural community thirty miles south of Sacramento. Downtown consisted of a store and a post office. The park was the center of family activities and Herald Day. Future Farmers of America (FFA) for young people and raising or breeding horses was popular for women. With great anticipation, we walked down our gravel road to see our new house being built amidst the brown weeds. Our seven-year-old daughter asked why there were dead birds hanging from the wire fence next to our gravel road.   What kind of place is this?  My heart sank as I warned them that it is an electric fence and told them not to touch it. I couldn’t really explain why the neighbor was electrocuting the birds, but this was my first clue that this adventure wasn’t what I was expecting.   After moving into our new home, one of the ...

  Bring Joy to Your Life and Work with Color Your journey to finding your joy begins with you. You can take joy to the world when you first find joy in yourself. It is not hard to go a full day or week focusing on what went wrong, a critical word, feeling ignored, and taking in all of the negative thoughts and emotions. Research has long shown we are naturally prone to noticing and holding onto negative thoughts and experiences; what is often called negativity bias. This tendency to notice and dwell on the negative may have been developed in our brains to avoid danger. The problem is that in our busy lives, we often perceive physical danger driving to work, emotional or financial danger when we feel uncertain about our futures and our jobs, or when we feel a lack of support. Living in joy won’t solve all of our problems but it will inspire health and happiness. One way to tap into joy is by identifying and using your natural strengths. Working in your natural strengths gives you po...

The reason for working may seem obvious. You want to get paid. But there are many other reasons for working besides money. Hunger in your heart, mind, or stomach will motivate you to work. Here are just a few motivators.   Play – You love doing the work whether it’s the process, accomplishment, or just being and doing. Purpose – You are passionate about solving a problem or producing a result that fits with your beliefs and values.  People – You live and grow by working together with others. Pay – You need a level of pay to maintain the standard of living you desire.   “[Work] is about a search…for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor,” - Studs Terkel from his book, Working.   Playing for fun   Curiosity, learning, exploring, creating, and building can all be play if the work is done for enjoyment rather than primarily for pay. Play is all about stimulating the body, mind, and senses. Fun lo...

  This simple Shoulder Shrug exercise is amazing for releasing tension anytime or anywhere bringing stress relief to your shoulders where tension is often held.  Benefits of the Shoulder Shrug Exercise. Can have a calming effect on your sympathetic nerve “fight or flight” response. Along with a  Calm Breathing Exercise , the Shrug Your Shoulders exercise can bring stress relief.  It can open your bronchial passages to inhale your broncho inhaler more deeply. The fibre article,  Stressed? Shrug Your Shoulders and Relax , describes the Shrug Your Shoulders exercise.  Shoulder Shrug for stress and tension relief: Lift the top of your shoulders towards your ears while bringing your shoulder  blades together (feel slight tension in your neck and shoulders). Hold this feeling of tension for 3 to 5 seconds. Relax your shoulders into their normal position. Repeat steps 1 – 3 at least two more times. Alternate Shoulder Shrug to open bronchial airways while...