PLAtime box

10/14/2025

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. This picture and phrase in Launch is one I drew in memory of our two little ones we haven’t yet seen face to face and the years on the tombstone honor my Grandmother because I can easily envision the three of them basking in shared “childlikeness”. The oldest would have turned 18 last month. Their lives taught me deep and wonderful truths of God and showed me His nearness to my broken heart. This did not come quickly and part may always remain tender. As I have aged, I see how uncommon and miraculous it is to have a man and woman cleave to each other over self, over friends, over the world’s narrative of husbands and wives. I also recognize how miraculous it is for God to unite them and babies to be born, how they survive development, the regular falls, as well as illness and super hard things. God is more regularly miraculously sustaining than we often acknowledge! And even when they leave before we wanted, He is with us and them.

09/19/2025

08/16/2025

“Father, help us mean it! Help us trust You with those we love and the plans You have for them, the connections You make between them and others, and Your Ways. Sometimes we don’t understand and sometimes it is what we dreamed, planned, hoped for plus more. Either way the separations can be heavy. Help us hold it all! The excitement AND the missing!”

07/18/2025

Weekend Fun: Go on a laughter scavenger hunt ( with or without a buddy). Meander through a book store, antique store, or boutique and see how many things make you smile or laugh in 15 minutes. Take pictures of at least 5. If you have time, visit several shops each for 15-30 minutes. When you arrive home, select your favorite snack and arrange what you have collected in order of family laughter. If you went with a buddy, share with each other. Then take a moment to examine if you respond more to word play, nature humor, social humor, etc. How much does sarcasm draw you in? See if you can notice a difference in your body with sarcastic material. Add your favorites to your lists from earlier this week and make note of which shops had most humor so you can visit them on a hard day for some doses of laughter.

07/16/2025

On a regular day, not experiencing pain, sadness, or illness:
~ make a list of your funniest memories (review them monthly and use them when you need a dose of laughter)
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~write out a list of the most fun people from your life who you have shared many laughs with you
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~make a list of your favorite funny movies
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~ sit across from someone and make silly faces at them, back and forth; recognize that if you’re in a hard time currently, this is exercise. Going to be hard to start but will be so helpful usually over both people have taken 2 turns.
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~ follow for Friday funnies weekly (for the four years of my stepdad’s illness and hospice journey, he, my mom, and I shared laughs over these every week and mom and I use them as miss-you missions for him in our grief since his passing)
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See the next slide for a web address for an article about Laughter helping patients with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis

07/15/2025

Tuesday’s Tool: Laughter! We can be deceived into keeping laughter out of some of the scenarios where it is most beneficial. Yes, appropriateness must be taken into account, but when sickness is mild or prolonged, laughter must be reintroduced i@tot the care plan. Deep belly laughter aids the lymph system in pumping out toxins, supporting immune function, and oxygenating the blood. It strengthens core muscles for support and assisting decreasing fall risk. Cognitively, it activates more parts of the brain than other emotions and socially, it bonds patients and their caregivers forming team attitudes. For years, laughter doses have been included in care plans for childhood sickness and broken bone injuries but laughter is even more crucial for longer term diagnoses like dementia, Parkinson’s and recovery from brain injury. While laughter is beneficial, particular forms increase these things while mockery and sarcasm actually diminish these. In our current culture, we are honing sarcasm and actually weakening our true humor while also being more attuned to fear and grief through social media. This leads us into more moments of breath-holding, brain and muscle atrophy, and increases sickness which perpetuates the lessening of laughter. Tomorrow we will examine some ways to elicit healthy laughter and build our resilience though humor!

07/14/2025

Monday encouragement: fight for laughter! On the days when it is the hardest to find it, in the doctor’s office, in the hospital, on the days tasks are piling up, the seasons when the grief is washing over you as well as during the sweet times! Tools to elicit laughter in hard places will be in this week’s posts. But today make a choice that you will be a person who will dig for and protect joy. This world is bringing trouble to the table; what are you bringing?

07/11/2025

Weekend Fun: create aluminum foil rivers. They are great tangible experiences to see the beauty behind setting your intention and forming the aluminum foil to have edges to guide the water where you want it to go!

07/10/2025

Thursday’s Thoughts: “I didn’t intend to hurt you that way” is a commonly used phrase. But more often than not, lack of intention is what causes harm.
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Are we being deceived into having zero intentions by the popular saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
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When we prayerfully, actively set our intentions and then effortfully walk them out, our steps in caring for and leading others will be more solid.

07/09/2025

Too often parents have told me they didn’t like the idea of scripting responses for their kids-until they tried it! I can admit when this strategy was simply a speech pathology tactic, I also had my doubts. However, as I grew into my motherhood, I realized that when faced with certain repeated dilemmas, I could not say what I really believed in the moment with my child, especially when I was scared. Anger and fear take the blood flow away from the speech part of the brain. So before the kids could read, I had post-its with prayerfully planned responses stuck in the door of our pantry. As they got older, I moved the post-it’s behind my clothes in the closet and would say “Let’s pause and think in our quiet spaces and come back in 3 minutes to discuss.” And I set a timer. Some scripts were the thoughts I wanted to think and the feelings I wanted to feel toward the children while correcting or redirecting, but sometimes they were literally, word-for-word what I wanted to say. Just reading them changed my heart to correcting with love and hope; they also brought my blood flow back to the actual talking parts of my brain, (but I hadn’t learned that yet!) My favorite scripts come from Scripture itself and nowadays there are wonderful scripts on insta found and for younger kids, and for adult kids. The scripts themselves can be made genuine if they are actively felt and believed not merely repeated out of habit. The active intent behind the words is what is most important! AND the more scripts are used, the more the brain grows beautiful grooves -more beautiful than the grooves in the picture above- that allow for thinking of similar ideas and intentions spontaneously even when flustered. When working with patients with Parkinson’s, dementia, and other diagnoses, their caregivers reported scripts to be extremely beneficial for themselves as well as their loved one.

06/25/2025

Tuesday’s Tool: realizing with most every “yes”, there is at least one “no” attached and with most every “no”, there is at least one yes attached.
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With self-discipline, finding the attached “yeses” can make the “nos” easier to declare.
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With examining personal values, not ignoring the “nos” attached to the “yeses” is crucial.
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Both are necessary for telling time, energy, and money where to go.
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“So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” -Psalm 90:12

06/05/2025

Thursday’s Thoughts: brought to you by my bloom planner .