I’ve decided to create an occasional types of posts that I will use here and on other blogs and sites that I create, write, and nurture.  I do not really care for “hooks” in and of themselves.  I want themes and structures to serve a purpose for me and for those who will stumble upon and linger over, or search out and consume, some concept I have fleshed out and shared.  To me life is about giving. I am learning to accept as well.  This last one, accepting, has been a tough one for me to learn in life, though.  Accepting the gifts that others give, and even accepting those that fall, almost magically, onto the busy paths we walk with a genuine smile and voiced or quiet word of thanks really does wonders, at least it does for me and my outlook on life.  My outlook impacts everything and everyone with whom I come in contact.

My therapist, a wonderful woman who helps me to find and support the healthy me, so that I can continue to heal myself (because healing is something we do ourselves) suggests that I could benefit from learning to take from others, and to believe that I am the most important person in the world.  At first this suggestion seemed selfish, glaringly self-serving, and even wrongheadedly creepy.  It seemed like it was bad or evil.  Perhaps you see why I’m thinking about and writing about this on Sunday.  Our early indoctrination exists as a part of  such a deep layer of ourselves, and is so intertwined with all the layers of self that come to exist later in life as we grow and mature, that it is very difficult to ignore.  While I have found that I cannot alter what has come before, I can change the way I interpret it.  I can reframe it.

Becoming a mother was the most wonderful experience in the world for me.  For my mother I think it was one of the worst experiences, at least after the second or third time.  I will never know if this was absolutely true or not, but I think there was more than one reason I stopped expanding my family with one step-daughter and one biological daughter.  I learned to be in charge of the more permanent framing of my life long before I learned to be in charge of my own perception.

I’m in a new and very active phase of my life, and it is really just beginning.  I’m so excited to be where I am in life.  I’m done nesting;  my little bird has left the nest and is starting to collect her own twigs and build her own nest.  It is just a courting nest.  I learned about courtship nests from hummingbirds!  One little male built one on my back porch, and for two years afterward we watched hummingbirds nest on the Japanese prayer bell hanging on the eave of my back porch.  But I digress.

This new phase is why Reason Creek is being developed, why Done Nesting will turn into a group site or portal with luck and a bit of work, and why I am so focused on writing.  I have several books in me, non-fiction for the most part, but even a couple of fiction stories have been simmering under the radar for years.  I had to be in the right place to do this and now I am and am putting the proper structure in place to help me accomplish my goals. And I have to begin making money from my writing.  I’ve done it in the past and I am now trying to create this same sort of success on a bigger scale, and this will require bigger structures.

One such structure is having well-ordered rubrics (I just love that word!) from which to pin my ideas.  Categorization is key.  Taxonomy promotes sanity in my slightly off-kilter world.  List makers of the world unite! …right after you write it down.  But there I go digressing again.  There is just so much amazing stuff in the world, and my head, that it is hard to stay on task.

This is sort of a spirally, swirlly,recurvice sort of thingy, but by sharing how I help myself, I accentuate and reinforce the helpful behavior in my own life, and possibly help out a person who has a similar need or perspective.  Doing things I need to do is okay, and sometimes I realize that sharing that thing or that way of thinking about a thing might help another person.

So I want to be able to write every day.  Even jotting notes on a legal pad works, although noting them in a well-bound, acid-free journal is even better!  I may not write a blog post every single day, but I will write several a week.  And sometimes having a “hook” will help you to hang some ideas out for airing.  A hook is just a structure.  Structure that helps you accomplish something is good.  Structure for structure’s sake is sicko.  Blog memes are wonderful things, if they are really memes.  If it is just an advertising gimmick I will run screaming from the site.  So I am creating a hook.  I am doing this for myself.  If it works for you that is great, and I will make it into a badge eventually for Done Nesting as I launch it for Grandmama Bloggers, Auntie Bloggers, and Independently Nurturing Bloggers.  It is the theme of Sanity Sunday.

This is not a carnival or hop idea.  Goodness gracious, don’t we have enough “have to” and “need to” and “shoulds” in this life without adding them to our blogging which is supposed to be fun!  Oh, I know that not every blog is a fun blog.  Blogs are business tools as well as where a woman shares her writings, and sometimes they can be both.  But bloggedy bloggers, get a grip, if the hop, isn’t fun and you don’t want to do it, don’t!  Now I love a good challenge more often than not, and that is why I love NaBloPoMo, GBE2, and A to Z-ishness, even if I was too late to get listed on the A to Z site as a participant. *Bleeeeh*  Take that.  But I love those things because I choose to participate.    Some aspect of the participation strikes a cord with me.  And it is finite.  And “YES!” to success,  tomorrow is the last day of the April A to Z blog challenge!  ** confetti **  ** corks popping**  **people dancing**   I quit liking infinite things when my daughter was about 6 years old and fell in love with “The Song That Never Ends.”  “Sanity Sunday” is a concept I will pull up out of my bag of tricks and use when necessary.  You are invited to do the same.

Sunday, ideally, for me is a day of rest, relaxation, reflection, and planning.  Through these actions I try to make the rest of the days of the coming week go more smoothly, and help a sane week unfold.  When I feel like I need to explore a concept to help me for the rest of the week, I will put it here.  When I want to clarify my goals for the week, I will list and evaluate them here.  I won’t do it every Sunday because I don’t like having to do something, anything  just for the sake of doing it!  But when I need to, or want to, or I think it will help me, I will post under the rubric of Sanity Sunday.  It will probably develop into a category.

And for those who are interested, “Yes, I made the button myself, and it is supposed to look like a pointer, arrow, road, or even the nib of a pin (ambiguity intended) with a dawn or sunset.

What structures, lists, hooks, and/or rubrics do you use to help you organize or clarify yourself?