Seven for Saturday Sharing

A Fish Card to Brighten Several Lives — and so many joys in life!

Sharing some Medium news, a good news story, a laugh for the day, a moment of joy and more!

MEDIUM NEWS

Want some good tips on how to use your Medium profile for maximum exposure? Hudson Rennie has some great ideas here. I had to save it so I can go back and reference this again so I can go tweak a few things on my own profile.

FEEL GOOD NEWS

This isn’t really a Feel Good News. But it’s not a Laugh for the Day either. It’s more of an AWWWWWW MOMENT clip. But I don’t have an AWWWWW MOMENT category, so it’s going here under the Feel Good News. Our friend Jan Sebastian 🖐👩‍🦰 has been posting fun YouTube videos. And this little midnight bandit was adorable. So, I wanted to share him -or her — with you.

LAUGH FOR THE DAY

Srini has a great article here. I think I laughed through the whole thing.

GRATITUDE & THANKFULNESS THIS WEEK

1. Ice cream used to be one of my 5 Major Food Groups. But in cutting back sugar, and eating healthier, ice cream has been one of the things to go. I doubt I have two pints a year anymore. But — with these weeks on end of 100–108-degree days….there just comes a point where it’s time to treat yourself. I couldn’t decide which flavor. So, I got both!

2. Going through some old boxes this week I found these two coin sets in one box, 62-cents in another, and a Christmas stamp in another. Every little bit adds up! Cha-ching!

3. My friend Cindy and I both love stamps and we share stamps back and forth. When I found almost $50 worth of old stamps a few weeks ago, I sent half of them to her. This week a sheet of the new John Lewis stamps came my way.

4. I’m not on the phone every day. I think I’ve joined the world of ‘it’s easier to text’ people. But sometimes those nice, long heart-to-heart calls are the best. This week I had two. A 2-hour call with my bestie in California, and an hour-long call with my sister on another day.

5. A lady at work, more a friend than a co-worker, needed a drive to Denton last week. Maggie’s 10 years older than I am, and she doesn’t drive out of town if she doesn’t know where she’s going. She asked if I could take her. I was happy to be able to do that for her. And we stopped on the way home and she bought us lunch and ice cream. What a fun afternoon it was.

A MOMENT OF JOY

Another friend in California, that I’ve known since I was 14 years old, makes the most beautiful cards. A few weeks ago, she sent me one that she’d made. But rather than writing ON the card itself, she wrote a note and tucked the note inside the card, leaving the card blank still so that I could re-use the card and send it to someone else.

So, I did the same. I wrote a note and slipped it inside the blank card and sent on to my friend Cindy in New York. And then Cindy did the same and sent it on to her niece.

One little card. One moment of joy, that went on to have at least a 3rd life, and possibly a 4th. I haven’t heard if Cindy’s niece did the same or not. It’s been so much fun seeing one little creative card brighten so many lives as it travels along through the United States.

MY WRITING JOURNEY THIS PAST WEEK

· MEDIUM: I wrote 7 stories this week, one going to The Wind Phone.

· NEWSBREAK: I published one story in Newsbreak this week.

· SUBSTACK: I posted one story in Substack this week. About the ebbs and flows of a writing life.

WHAT I’M READING

Party Pooper: Growing up with Anxiety, by Grace Kathryn Ehlers (Grace Bianco)

Knowing Grace Bianco here for most of the past year, she’s always been very open about her struggles with anxiety. But I’ve only seen her as the grown up who has a good handle on this battle. Reading her book and seeing how she’s struggled with this since a young child — even though I’m only up to the 4th grade part of her journey — all I know is that I admire her even more. Reading about some of the trials she’s had since being so young, and seeing how she’s worked with it and is taming the anxiety-beast into submission makes me think even more highly of her. Kudos to you, Grace!

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