A Novel Creation www.WatersWords.com

It’s the Getting There That Counts   Here we are in week three of strengthening the brain. By now you have a list of dreams and possibilities. Some of my readers are anxious to jump in to “get things done.” It’s okay if you’ve started tackling some of those goals. I understand. Some readers want to take this one-step at a time. That’s okay, too.    All I ask is that you read each week’s challenge and mull it over. Let it soak into your being. Write it down. In fact, I recommend you journal your way through the rest of this experience. It need not be a fancy, leather bound journal. A spiral notebook will do. You have already listed the items on your bucket list and organized them in a meaningful way. You are already “journaling.”    This Week’s Challenge: In this quest to strengthen our brain function, we started week one by listing dreams we would like to see fulfilled and ideas we wanted to see come to life. Last week I asked you to organize and assess the item...

  Last week I invited you to join me in increasing your brainpower. I’ve been referring to it on Twitter as the Jumpstart Your Brain Challenge. I asked you to   “write down any and every dream you have.”   Any and Every.  It’s why it was the only assignment. Write them down, even if they seem a bit out of reach. A bit.   I created my list. We’ll talk about that later. First, I want to address why this is important to have dreams and goals in order to build and sustain brainpower.    Our brains are wired to problem solve. We need challenges to continue to strengthen our brainpower. There is evidence that strengthening our brainpower serves us in many ways including maintaining memory function.  If you’re interested in the synapses of the brain and more scientific explanations, CLICK HERE. For this exercise, I prefer to keep it at the more pragmatic level.   We were created with the ability to think and create. We can see new uses for objects....

I’m seeing a plethora of advertisements on television and social media for gym memberships, online physical training apps, weight loss programs, and in-home exercise machinery. I get it. It’s January and with the New Year (along with the guilt from too much holiday candy) comes the resolve to get in shape.    A New Day. A New Year. People long to become physically fit. They want to feel better and look better. It’s a given. So much so, the companies selling these products and services know this is a peak sales season for the fitness world.   This year I am launching my own fitness program  free of charge . It is a program to exercise that muscle you may have been neglecting: Your Brain.    Why listen to me?  Certainly many of my readers know me as an author. In truth, I have this "other life." My doctoral work at the University of Cincinnati was in Educational Foundations with an emphasis in Psychological Foundations. I have served as both a teacher in...

  The Word for the 2021 is ….   My readers know I choose a word for each year. A single word.    It doesn’t have to be a special word when I choose it. It may be a word I keep bumping into in various places. Sometimes I’ve chosen a word from my morning Bible reading. On occasion it has been a word I heard on television or a word that met my mood at the time.   I never actually have a clue how that word will play out through the year. It is always different. It is always a time of learning and growing for me.   Sometimes my blog posts or journal entries reflect how the word is surfacing in my life. I don’t keep a daily journal about it, though. Somehow doing so would sort of box in the word; kill it.    I would be forever mindful of that singular word. Intentional. I am sure it wouldn’t be the same experience I’ve enjoyed for the past several years. No, choosing the word and letting it take its own shape and meaning is best for me.    And...

  How will you remember 2020?     Some people are ready for the year to simply “be over.”    I get it. It has certainly been a strange one. I don’t want to downplay the horrific death toll due to COVID-19. I am not insensitive to the racial injustices weighing on our citizens of color. I have been frustrated by the politicizing of anything and everything in sight.    My family has been gravely impacted by the novel COVID virus. I have many friends of differing racial backgrounds and ethnicities who walk an unbelievable tightrope in their everyday lives. And politics? I am fully aware that even though the election is over, there are those still stoking the fire.   Yet as I look back on 2020, I also see some good coming out of it.   Quarantine mandates were rough on many. For some, it brought out the worst side of dysfunctional family life. From others, however, I’ve heard testimony of people  enjoying the unexpected time with family ....

  A Thrill of Hope…The Weary World Rejoices   You probably thought this would be a post about the COVID-19 vaccine.  No. It is far more serious. More serious than death you ask? I know the virus is life threatening. A vaccine is celebrated. I totally agree. COVID-19 makes people ill. And it kills.   The promise of a vaccine fills us with hope that this awful virus will be eradicated. Okay, at least slowed down. And weary world? Definitely. We are all weary of 2020. They call it quarantine fatigue. I get it. But that is not the weary world of which I speak.    “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices” comes from a Christmas carol called  O Holy Night . The song was penned in 1847. It is about a lost world. A world condemned. A world that is sick. Tired. Weary. A world without hope.    A world without Jesus.   I’ve discovered so many people, despite what they think or believe, celebrate Christmas. They sing the songs and display nativit...

Dance   We met at a dance in the school cafeteria. I was a junior, he a senior. A mutual friend named Anthony introduced us. We shared a dance. One.   After that, for the entire school year, Tommy Waters asked me out. Every Friday.  He would call on Friday and want me to go out with him that evening. I told him no. I told him he couldn’t ask me out at the last minute. It wasn’t respectful. I had no way of knowing at the time that he never knew until Friday evening if he would be allowed to use the family car or not.   Tommy graduated. I managed to run into him in late July. (Another story for another time.) I had moved. He asked for my new phone number.  He called. This time he called on a Tuesday and asked if I would go out with him on Friday.    That Friday night proved to be my last “first date.” Homecoming Chamberlain HS   I was now a senior in high school. When it came time for homecoming, Tom took me. It was our second time to dance. But not...