By Amy Nielsen

This was my week off, my vacation at home to rest. This is the week I set up months ago to take a little time before the summer season got into full swing to do a bunch of nothing. I have a very active busy, but fun, summer planed. But, it will be anything but relaxing. I had a busy spring and I am feeling the shoulder season hump.

I must have had too many empty blocks on the calendar in a row. My subconscious took over and I succumbed to the cult of busy. I filled in every single one of those squares with something. Something fun and on the outlook relaxing to be sure; a picnic with our homeschool co-op family, a trip to the opening day of a farmers market - even an overnight field trip to a super cool attraction with awesome friends. But, I filled in my down time.

I took away my rest and digest time. Rest and digest is a key process in my life and I am not good at allowing the time for it. That’s why I planned it in ages ago. It’s a time for the body to do the important tasks of repair and processing, but also for the mind and spirit to do repair and process work. I need some time to gather my umph for summer and process the spring.

Warning – mini physiology lesson coming. Nothing gross, just some basic markers so we are all on the same page about what happens where. It’s important or I wouldn’t bore you with it.

So the human body’s central nervous system is made up of nerves that have little light switches along them. The switches are grouped into one of two side-by-side systems. One controls the fight or flight response; think being chased by a bear, or the deadline of your big project at work, or the blankity blank traffic jam you sit in every day, or your mother-in-law’s impending move to a nursing home. That is the sympathetic system.

The other controls the rest and digest part; post-Thanksgiving dinner football “watching”, fishing trips in the summer heat with Grandpa, your dog greeting you at the door, or your cat purring on your chest, or the steady practice of Shabbos on Friday night. This is the parasympathetic system.

I can only remember which is which because rest has an r in it like para. Anyway, these light switches cause physical reactions to occur in the human body depending on the stimuli they are given. When the sympathetic nerves are engaged, your eyes dilate, heart races, you breathe more shallowly; when the parasympathetic nerves are stimulated your eyes contract, your heart rate slows, and you breathe deeper. The sympathetic nerves take a lot more energy to make them fire. The longer you stay engaged in your sympathetic nervous system the harder you are working your body. However, the sympathetic ride is energizing, invigorating, and intoxicating.

So why on earth do we continue to drive ourselves to this state of sympathetic overdrive? Because we get jazzed on it on a cellular level. This is where the mind and spirit get disengaged and the chemical part of us takes over.  Remember that the beginnings of fight or flight feel like a great rush of invincible energy. Those chemicals that make us feel terrific are made during rest and digest.

We use up the chemicals we make in rest and digest during our fight or flight. When we run out of them, our cells try to replace them with similar chemicals any way possible to keep feeling good. Ever have a craving for a double fudge brownie sundae after a really long work week? There are a lot of chemical reactions that go on that make that craving happen and those reactions are the same ones that make you crave busy.

Relaxing however doesn’t look very productive, even though it is as chemically productive to the human body as busy. I would like to change the world view of nappers from inefficient lay-abouts to see them as being the most productive relaxers ever. We should celebrate them. Without productive relaxation you cannot have the well for productive busy.

At a very basic level good sleep is the purest and simplest form of deep relaxation, of being fully engaged in the parasympathetic nervous system. It is also the hardest for many of us to achieve because we are not cellularly ready for deep relaxing sleep. We have put too much stimulus into ourselves and our little cells are still working on processing it all.

I use the word stimulus because I don’t want you to automatically think coffee, though I have a particular beef with coffee. Stimulus can come in the form of too much little blue screen, too long of a gym session, volunteering for seventeen organizations at once, or too much diet soda, too many bags of organic freeze dried wasabi peas (peas are little sugar bombs), or the sixth cuppa of the day.

But I saw the empty squares on the calendar and my sympathetic nervous system took over and said – more stimulus, please. I know many of you can relate. When I originally planned this vacation time, I planned space to be, to fully engage my parasympathetic nervous system as much as possible. I intended to nap – a lot. As we got closer my cells being so stimulated already, kept pushing for more. Sort of like a chocolate craving, I was craving doing. I know I am going to need a vacation from my vacation.

Now I find myself trying to carve out time to piece together some true rest. Next time I plan a rest and digest vacation I will make sure to plan the doing of napping into it. I might even set calendar reminders.

By Amy Nielsen

While I was in school I was introduced to the concept of the side hustle. Now, I am of an age where that term is somewhat shady so it took me a while to reframe the idea into one I could embrace. The word job scares the heck out of me but a side hustle as I discovered, is something right up my alley. Pun intended.

One of the guest lecturers at my school was Nick Loper from SideHustleNation.com. The idea of a side hustle is to use your passions and your strengths, in the in-between time you are spending doing your other work of life, to build a business that supports your fun; and possibly, eventually, if you want – you could parlay it into something full time.

My biggest stumbling block in this whole journey has been my inability to coalesce a cohesive business concept. I like to do a whole lot of different things. I like to teach about the intersection of your cells, your energy, and your environment. I like to teach cooking, meditation, movement, red tent journeying, and so much more. I like to preform given a loose script to follow. I like public interaction. I must travel, even if it is just between areas of the same city every day.

What I do have is a theme that is developing. I am working very hard to make sure I don’t get ahead of myself and jump into sophomoric mistakes of a newly graduated student and fledgling business owner. I am very well aware that I am in that phase of business building where the shiny object that might pay the bills could out weight the common sense of negative cash flow. Every decision I make needs to go back to that theme. As I dig deeper into my post graduate studies and complete the other certificates I am working on, the theme will become more focused.

Yesterday I participated in my second local community market day and flea market. I live in a rural county that seems to at the same time both shun and hold dear our rankings near the bottom of the state lists in just about everything. It is a stunningly beautiful part of the country, rich in natural and anthropologic history. The people are a mix of deep mountain hearts and newly arrived city shine. Sometimes they mix well off the bat, sometimes the nuts are harder to crack. This market day is a true, grassroots, hometown kind of event. I adore it.

My first foray at a booth last month was a success in that I made it to the event, set up, and ran the whole day. I even got a couple of people to stop and talk to me. I may have only gotten two conversations and one email that first day, but I counted it as a huge success because of the amount I actually made it.

I went home, regrouped, made plans and researched a better mouse trap.

To focus myself I decided to use the theme of joyful movement, a topic I want to develop a class around. I changed up my booth structure, added some trinkets to purchase that were on my theme of the day and decided to add some movement oriented toys for kids to play with as they passed by. Enter the hula hoop.

I made my table a mix of parts and pieces of all of the things I like to teach and put out flyers for the class I have already scheduled to start soon. Prominent was the email sign-up sheet. I prefilled the top two slots with my past emails and names of favorite book characters. To my surprise, someone actually knew one of the names and got a chuckle out of it.

Yesterday the weather was not the greatest, but not a complete wash out. The rain sprinkled a bit and I only had to cover the tables once. Once we got set up, I started hoopin’.

I have developed a reputation as being a “walking smile with the white hat” as I am generally friendly and free with joy and always wear my white hat when out. I know the organizer of the event well and she is also not a laid back wall flower. Together we laugh up a storm, calling from booth to booth, working to keep the banter fun and the event light.

My hula hooping became the second hot topic of the day behind the adorable, adoptable puppies running around. People watched me hoop a simple round pattern, nothing showy or fancy, just hula hooping and laughing, pretty much non-stop all day long. How long is she going to hoop for? I used to be able to hoop. Look at the little kid learning to hoop! Is she still hooping? She’s going to be tired tomorrow. Oh the boy can hoop too!

So what did I accomplish by hula hooping all day long - other than one hell of a core workout? Everyone was talking about me. I brought a smile to a whole lot of lips. They will remember the gal in the white hat, hula hoopin’ all day. More people stopped to talk to me. I only collected three new email addresses, but I handed out many more class flyers and personal brochures. I counted twelve conversations that lasted longer than three minutes. Overall, I had many more meaningful interactions with the public.

Success. I collected three new emails. Success. I had more conversations. Success. I worked on more and new language to promote myself and my brand, for lack of a better more elegant term. So the day was positive, even if the only items I sold were the Ugg clogs and one party dress from the batch of yard sale stuff I had brought for good measure. What I collected in data about my community was worth the twenty five dollar booth fee.

Next month I hustle on with another booth - new topic, new mouse trap.

By Jenna Moede

For everyone that has opted to take a break this summer, relax and take it easy on this summer vacation but also engage your brain in fun ways.

I’ve heard it said that we have to work the brain like any other muscle in order to keep it strong, but that feels so impossible when I’d rather enjoy the sunshine or some thoughtless entertainment over the summer.

I never took advantage of breaks during my undergrad years, but I remember how they felt while in high school, and I struggled with motivation.

I’ve had a break now between my undergraduate degree and my graduate degree. I will pick back up with school in the fall of this year, and I’ll work on a certificate this summer. Yikes!

I’ve wracked my brain trying to figure out how to set my mind in the direction of focused learning, and since these strategies have helped me even when I didn’t want to do anything but not think, I plan to whip them back out!  

First I plan to read at least a little bit every day. It seems like a million genres exist so I will pick different types of material like novels, nonfiction, personal development, magazines and the news so that I never feel bored with the topics.

Luckily, I have always loved books so I don’t have to retrain myself to do this one, but I hope that making a habit of reading more regularly will help me find time to read long sections of textbooks when classes start.

With any luck, I might even enjoy the textbook reading when school starts in the fall!

Next, learning new activities or developing old ones helped me overcome losing too many facts over summer vacations in high school so I hope it will work again!  

I like to practice old skills, like playing piano, and work on new ones that have interested me in the past.

This year, I made the most awesome discovery that our local library has not only a free online library, but also free language software for pretty much any language I could ever want to learn. I had to try it out so I have started learning a foreign language.

I practice daily on the new language, and I also use it to brush up on the Spanish that I learned throughout high school and college. I love learning a skill that could come in handy someday and having fun at the same time.

I have such a good time practicing that it doesn’t even bother me when my husband pops his head in the door of my office looking concerned because of my awkward sound repetition.

Moving on, who doesn’t love a good board game or card game? I enjoy gathering my friends or family and hosting game nights. Not only have I met new people this way, but I use different parts of my brain without even noticing.

We play games that range from Jenga to Pinochle. If we feel particularly daring we’ll try to play an entire game of Monopoly without anyone flicking a hotel or two off the board during a heated discussion about the rent on Boardwalk.

I also play two player games with my husband like Mancala. Every once in a while I turn to jigsaw puzzles or word and number puzzles that I can do on my own.

I try to find whatever interests me in the moment and go for it.

Lastly, sometimes I feel super motivated over small breaks, and in those cases, I revisit notes from previous semesters.

I plan to do this moving forward even more than I have in the past because I know I need a steady foundation to build on in grad school, and I don’t want to risk chipping at that foundation by forgetting important facts.

I don’t think I’ve ever really spent enough time reviewing in the past, and I swear if I ever remember science information I’ll have to mark it on the calendar and request a cake. I have figured out that the topics that interest me the least, like science, fall out of my brain space the fastest.

Since not every topic in my undergrad studies thrilled me, and I can expect that to happen again with my graduate degree, I know I’ll really have to focus on the classes that bore me when I re-read notes.

I hope to apply myself more than I ever have before and come out having more applicable knowledge than I have before.

I will desperately try not to fall into a mindless summer. I worry that if I let myself stop thinking, it will take too much time to whip my brain back into shape.

These activities will give plenty of brain activity and entertainment so that I can not only enjoy the summer, but also retain old facts and learn new information.

By Jenna Moede

I love Mondays.

Wait! Don’t quit reading just yet though. Stick with me.

I used to jump on the anti-Monday bandwagon, and I’ve seen the memes and heard my friends complain because, I know, I know, no one likes a Monday.

But, imagine enjoying a Monday, or two Mondays or EVERY Monday.

It worked for me. Let me explain.

I love Mondays now because they represent a new week. Monday feels like a do-over to me. I know Sunday really begins the next week, but honestly, Monday always feels like the first day of a new week to me.

Each new week, I know that I can’t change anything that happened the previous week so I don’t dwell on it. I let the past go and start with a clean slate.

I look at Monday as a wonderful opportunity to fix the mistakes I made the prior week, alter my routine to better fit my needs, and start fresh with the people I care about.

The feeling of starting over each week makes me feel so happy.

That leads me into another reason I love Mondays. I go into Mondays completely caught up on chores, work and school because I play catch-up on Sunday. That means that Monday brings an organized life and a stocked fridge.  

I dread grocery shopping so much that sometimes some eggs sit alone in fridge, so on the weekends, I usually, finally and desperately stock my shelves. Before I do, my meals at the end of the week look like something out of Willy Wonka. Chicken alfredo with a side of licorice anyone?  

But, I digress. At the end of the day, I know I can’t beat the feeling I have when I have organized and finished all the “to-dos.”

Lastly, I enjoy Mondays because a whole clean new week means a whole set of new opportunities. I know every week brings a new set of challenges, but I really enjoy a challenge.

Like the time I played BINGO in a college class without any chips for the O’s and had no idea until no one had BINGO for about 30 minutes.

But really I do enjoy pushing myself to achieve all that I can, try activities that scare me and go so far out of my comfort zone I can’t see it anymore.

I see Monday as the prime day to promise to do all of those things. I can forget any previous failures and start from the ground up again.

Likewise, I can continue building on success I’ve had previously too. 

Monday doesn’t always have to mean starting over. Every Monday, start thinking creatively about how to make a good project, assignment, business or routine better. Don’t hold back!

So if you want to really enjoy every Monday you wake up to, try to start with a good attitude. I know from experience that it’s awfully hard to come back from a cranky Monday attitude coupled with spilling coffee on your work clothes and forgetting it’s garbage day so don’t let it start out that way for you.

Let the bad roll of your back and embrace the good. Make someone else’s day better by your cheery mood. We all know a person who could use a laugh on a Monday or just a smile, so try to do that for someone you know. Not only will it help them, but you’ll feel happier too.

Never feel discouraged on Sunday night because you have to go back to the grindstone, push yourself to learn and accomplish all that you can, face your fears and set out confidently as the best version of yourself.

I’ve heard that if you can change your attitude, you can change your life. I think that even if you don’t dislike Monday’s, you can probably do something to make them even better. I challenge myself to that every single week, and I can honestly say my life has changed.

Pancake Zen. Yes, it’s a thing. Or it is now because I am going to make it a thing. I am going to teach Pancake Zen. It is going to be my intro to meditation through food class. I just came up with it this morning, while making breakfast. This blog is going to touch on two seemingly different topics but I promise that they are really speaking to the same theme. Those two are meditation practice and creating the space in your business for creative process.

I am days away from graduation from my intensive year-long programs. I have been working really hard toward this goal of completing this step. I have been so focused on this date, this end, that I sort of lost sight of the fact that this end is also a beginning. I realized this last week when someone asked when my first real class opens because she wants to sign up for it. I didn’t have an answer.

Thus began a week of bouts of frantic research into what graduate school has a program that meets my state’s online accreditation requirements, peppered with moments of sheer panic at the possible necessity self-employment, altered with deep drops into the universal Pandora’s Box of entrepreneurial possibilities. Frankly, I was a mess.

In my research for follow-on graduate studies I discovered that the program I had intended on using to get my Masters doesn’t accept students from my state for distance learning conferred degrees. In English that means, New York’s Board of Education won’t certify the online degree from the school in Maryland. Which means that I have to either find a school in New York that will accept my certificate credits, or I have to figure out how to spend one weekend a month for the next eighteen months in Maryland.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Maryland. I have lots of terrific friends in Maryland who I would love to hang out with once a month. I even have an RV I could travel and live in for the weekends away. But that doesn’t solve the ten thousand other minor details about this plan.

I had three very interesting prospective jobs come up this week, two of which are not going to pan out for me right now. The one prospect that does want me isn’t really the best option for me either and I think I am going to have to rescind my application. It was a disappointment to be on the verge of something then to realize it wasn’t the right fit.

I had more success working on my long-term options over the week. I was able to connect in person again with a few people who work for the organizations I think I want to focus my efforts on. I discovered a few new opportunities I can volunteer with that will keep me active and in front of these folks doing what I want to be doing with them professionally. These meetings, though late in the day and often after a long day, already had me more energized than any of the paying job interviews I went on.

It was a hectic and emotional week. So when the last job called to cancel yesterday I took it as a sign that it was time to hang it up for a bit and let someone else steer. I let the kids stay up late to watch a silly show while I spent a bit of time journaling about disappointments and missed opportunities.

I spent a bit of time thinking hard about what it is that I really want to do. I thought, “Self, you teach meditation and flow and how to change your stars. So, it’s time you practice what you preach.” I went to bed with the intention to listen to what came up for me today.

I took the time to set my intention for space. I set up my mind to allow creativity to flow. I allowed myself the right to see grand possibilities in mundane things.

Now my work involves food, nutrition (not the same thing as food), and meditation. When I started to cook breakfast, I found myself in a state of zen meditation, while cooking pancakes. Who says you can’t meditate about pancakes. A very wise teacher told me recently if you can’t meditate, be meditative. What the what, you ask? If you are having a hard time focusing your mind on what you want it to meditate on, try focusing on what your mind wants to meditate on. Thus was born Pancake Zen.

Pancake Zen. Watch the bubbles, listen to the sizzle, smell the burn, feel the flame, taste the success. When cooking pancakes you have the opportunity to be aware of the sight of the bubbles rising in the batter, forming perfect little circular stream vents. The smell of the caramelizing batter as it cooks becomes a soothing aromatherapy. One can be mindful of the heat of the flame as it rushes energy into the pan. And of course there is the ultimate taste of success. There are layers of meaning to delve into here. Both on a culinary, and meditative level.

Your work may involve accounts payables. So how do you find space for creative zen practice in something as exacting as actuarial accounting? I can think of a myriad of ways. Do you find a rhythm for your fingers on the keys when adding long strings of numbers? Does the computer heat up and produce a specific smell when you really get crunching those ledgers? Perhaps those senses can lead you to find those missed keystrokes leading to the missing pennies. Use your five senses to help lead you to the solution. Allow that space in your subconscious to exist for long enough that you can get out of your own way. The solutions are there, they just need space and quiet to be sensed.

So in my space of peace and quiet, after allowing the chaos to be set aside, I found my class. I know what I can offer that will be fun, teach both meditation and basic culinary skills, and be easily accessible to a wide audience. Because who doesn’t like pancakes? So I challenge you – what is your Pancake Zen?

By Amy Nielsen

I am very proud of myself. I didn’t chicken out. I ran my first informational booth at our season opener, community vendor fair.

The monthly event allows anyone who pays $25 to host a booth. The spread included Mary Kay sales, the local insurance agent, wildlife rehabilitators and every Pinterest DIYer imaginable.

I had to work on a shoestring budget. To put it bluntly, I had literally no money to spend on this adventure. I scraped together enough to buy the second least expensive knock-off shade tent andbusiness cards that better reflect my current iteration. Everything else was what I already owned, or could find for free.

Luckily my husband works for an employer who doesn’t tally every single copy and we were able to print and copy my flyers and brochures for free. I knew I didn’t need tons of them so I bought a ream of paper and sent him to work to make copies.

I needed some sort of sign. Hey, I can do that. I’ve made how many homecoming signs in my life? I rifled through the kids’ sheets, found a suitably unstained, more or less white one. If you have kids of a certain age, you have a box of those little two ounce acrylic craft paints hanging around like I do, so those came out too. I went to town making a sign that matched my business cards as close as I could manage with my rudimentary skills. It turned out pretty well because I chose a very simple design for my cards.

Since it was Easter weekend, the event organizers asked the vendors to participate in the egg hunt. I agreed to fill one hundred eggs with – something. I found the fruit leathers we had just purchased for summer treats, added slips of paper with happy sayings on them and set the kids to stuffing. I decided to add a basket of eggs with sayings and chocolate kisses to my table to entice people to come talk to me.

The morning of the event came and insanity struck our house. The dog had gotten into the basket of eggs and eaten as many of the chocolates as he could. I still had to pack the car and get to the event site.

My husband came to the rescue. So much for his nice quiet morning. We swapped car seats, loaded my stuff up in my car, loaded the kids and puking dog in his car and headed off to opposite ends of the county.

I arrived at the event site, wrestled the shade tent into submission, set up my tables and was ready to greet the public well in advance of the opening time. Then, I remembered that my breakfast and lunch were sitting on the kitchen table, along with my water for the day.

My car was tucked way back in the outer reaches of vendor parking, and there is nothing within walking distance. This is a vendor fair, not a food fair, so there are no treats to go buy either. Whoops.

I am a new vendor so I didn’t get the front side of the row on the main strip. I am on the back side in the middle. My booth site is set between a fun pair of gals selling handmade beaded spiders and dream catchers, and a husband and wife team who seem to have gotten a great deal on a coupon match-up for shampoo and conditioner at the supermarket and is now reselling them at a profit.

Luckily, my back door neighbor never arrived, so we ended up with a little path between us, which brought me a little extra traffic.

Being the first event of the season and before most of the summer crowd arrived, the traffic was steady, but not heavy. Since I didn’t have anything to sell, my booth was more often passed by.

My little affirmation eggs were not quite interesting enough.

I have ideas to remedy my traffic flow for next month. The eggs I had on the table (the ones I was able to save from the dog) went over well once people realized they were free, so I am going to continue to have them with different things stuffed inside each month.

Cute as they are though, they are not enough.

For this kind of vendor fair, I feel like I need to have a theme. To that end I am planning to follow what I will be teaching in my monthly sessions. This month I taught about the space of being and of starting and beginnings. Next month is focused on doing and movement. I am researching hula hoops, jump ropes and ribbon wands to sell in order to foster movement.

I am also going to change what I have on my tables. Rather than the flyers for my classes, I am going to have take-aways with movement oriented activities on them, instructions for hop scotch, directions  to local short hikes and maps of local playgrounds and such.

I did have a chance to work out my language with people as they walked past. What words did I use when calling out to them that made them look twice? When someone did stop to talk to me how did I introduce myself? I tried all sorts of different ideas and those that rang true I will use again.

At the end of the day, after depositing the kids with me, the dog to home (not much worse for the chocolate), and before heading off to work, my husband’s observation was that I was the happiest he had seen me in ages. My biggest take away from this event was that it is the right place for me to start.

I have a few changes to make to get the kind of traffic I want into the booth. I need to make my space an active space not a passive space. Once I connect with a few more people on a more active level, then I think this will take off and bring in the class bookings I am looking for.

And when you are starting a business, this is what it is all about.

By Christine Cioppa

A recent report’s introductory line says what every military family member already knows: “The families of military personnel are a resilient group of men, women, and children who endure many hardships for their country.”

What most people don’t know is how those hardships may harm the health of military children and spouses.

Thanks to a new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), now, we know, at least a little more.

The constant moving, along with the absence of a spouse on deployment, as well as other hardships, may influence wellness, researchers say. Now, though, more information on the extent of the increased risk is known.

In this first-time-ever report, produced by the SAMHSA, experts compared female military spouses (ages 18-49) and children (ages 12 to 17) to women and children from the general population. The report, released in November 2016, uses data from 2015 and involves 910,000 military spouses.

Here’s what researchers found:

Military wives were:

• Less likely (by 3%) than all married women to use marijuana.
• No more likely to use illicit drugs than married women in the general population.
• No more likely than other married women to be receiving substance use treatment.
• No more likely than women in the general population to receive mental health treatment.
• More likely to use alcohol than all married women in the last 30 days (68% versus 54%) and more likely to binge drink (9% more likely) than married women in the general population (however, it is suggested the figures skew higher because of the younger population; more military wives were between 18 to 25).
• More likely to experience any mental illness (29% versus 20%), however, no more likely to have major depressive episodes in the past year than women in the general population.

The report found military children ages 12 to 17 were no more likely than children in the general population to use substances or have mental health issues.

“It is vitally important that we do everything possible to meet the behavioral healthcare needs of people who have sacrificed so much for our nation,” said SAMHSA Principal Deputy Administrator Kana Enomoto, in a statement released by SAMHSA. “This report will help SAMHSA and others in the field offer programs better designed to address issues that affect military wives and children.”

SAMHSA specifically tells Salute to Spouses:

“The report demonstrates SAMHSA’s ongoing commitment to tracking and responding to the behavioral health needs of our nation’s military and veteran families.

“SAMHSA’s Service Members, Veterans and their Families Technical Assistance Center (SMVF TA) has been working to ensure that states and territories have the skills and support they need in creating culturally competent, behavioral health systems ready to address the unique experiences that our military and veteran families face by helping them to develop a behavioral health workforce that is ready to serve them. To date the strategic planning work the agency has been providing to the states has reached 49 states, 4 territories and the District of Columbia, with the final state joining this year. Much of the focus of the technical assistance is on meeting the needs of military and veteran families, addressing substance use and suicide risk.

“SAMHSA, alongside our partners at the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs, have been working in conjunction to share federal resources aimed at reducing barriers to seeking care and increasing access to quality behavioral health services for these families. Together the three agencies offer a one stop location to learn about the resources that support our families.”

Students should also take note of SAMHSA’s report for other reasons. It’s important to know how hardships affect health since being on top of preventing and treating any health issues may make for more productive and successful learning.

By Amy Nielsen

Yesterday I took a trip down memory lane, on a quick and somewhat unannounced visit to my relative’s house.

We recently moved closer to home than I have lived in nearly 15 years. Many of the people I saw yesterday had never met my daughters, who are school age now. In bringing my daughters to meet family in this unassuming way, I was apprehensive of the reception we would receive. My extended family can be overwhelming, and overwhelmed, upon first meeting.

My daughters had no idea what kind of living fairy tale they were walking into. You see my family is as unique as they come. Full of epic tales of lofty princes and self-made, men of great invention, of grave danger and suffering, of brilliant joy and great riches, and a fair many improbable people in unbelievable situations doing unimaginable acts of oddity.

I am the second youngest of a large group of cousins from aging, sibling parents. Our parents, like so many of yours, are downsizing to smaller more manageable homes. They are in the process of deciding what is a family heirloom and what is better as a photo and a few dollars in the yard sale. It is excruciating, delightful, impossible, and in some cases, downright obnoxious.

I am not the daughter of the parent downsizing this time, but, I have been through it before when my parent downsized substantially. We made some mistakes in that move and I am hoping to help alleviate or mitigate some of those potential errors for my relatives. I can’t take much into my small home, but I have room for a few things to be kept safe, dry, and most importantly - in the family, albeit extended.

Today, as I put new-to-me family trinkets away in my house, I am reminded that my definition of family has evolved over the years that I have been away. That evolution outside of my immediate and first tier relations has made it easier, and in some cases even possible, for me to reconnect. I am deeply grateful that I have an extended family who I love and want to be part of. It was an eye opening, humbling, and brilliant day.

My memories of the times in the house we were going through were vastly different from my relatives who lived there full time. I was the younger visiting cousin of the younger sibling of the parent. We visited on holidays and weekends, stayed for extended summer vacations, and were often in the area.  We had a smaller vacation home we stayed at when we visited, but we live on the other side of the state.

I looked up to all of these people and their great adventures with the artists, intellectuals, world class musicians, business moguls, and glamorous people that rotated through the house regularly. At least I thought they were all totally glamorous. As it happened, I had no clue who most of them were at the time. I am only now learning what opportunities I experienced.

We, as a family, have a history of working for, by, with, around, and sometimes in direct competition with our greater relations. What I am here to say is that unless you have a supremely well adapted and equipped family, if you are ever tempted to go into business with one of them, don’t. Period.

That said, many of the most amazing adventures we have had, have to do with the various and sundry business exploits both sets of our parents embarked on at different times in our youth. We spent several happy minutes when a cabinet was opened to reveal stacks of magazines and documents pertaining to past corporate ventures. Some wildly successful for a time, some an unmitigated disaster from the very inception. These were exactly the kinds of treasures we were out to collect from the crannies of a house that has been stuffed to the gills over decades of collecting.

In the midst of some silliness I was reminded that personal nature doesn’t change easily or readily, especially in times of crisis or deep personal stress. The discussion was short but the effect was profound. My response, borne out of years of work, was completely different from what was expected by the other party and it gained me a measure of personal respect for myself and my hard work that carried me through several other potentially difficult conversations. The change in my personal conduct was tested and I rose to the occasion, dug deep, and was able to use techniques I have been learning for years.

My daughters came away with a new found sense of identity and history. They understand a bit better when I tell stories to our friends of my time at the big house. The have a much better feeling of what makes me who I am and by extension who they are. That is invaluable.

I am so pleased that they were finally able to meet the people who helped, in large part, shape who I am and my philosophy of the world. They are not only family, they were and are friends. Our kids now are connected in a way that they will never forget. That is Ohana.

As I processed the day in all of its glory, on the drive home with the snow falling like Star Wars hyperdrive over the Hudson River and through the Connecticut woods, I settled on four lessons I learned.

The first was that we as a collective have been part of some pretty amazing adventures and I wish I remembered them more clearly. I was just a few years too young and a bit too removed to remember them well.

The second is my reaction to a specific situation was, in the blink of an eye, changed by my personal decision to rely on several years-worth of training to act like a duck.

Third, I learned that if I want to know those stories and be able to pass them along to my daughters, the best way to do it is with their help.

Finally I learned the true meaning of the line from Stitch, “Ohana means family and family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.” Even and especially those who move along the path ahead of you.

By Amy Nielsen

I have been going full tilt buggie for the last few months and my candle is truly nearing its middle.

However, in the last 24 hours, I was given the rare opportunity to not be in charge, and instead, focus only on my daughters as we headed to another of my youngest child’s out of town medical appointments.

It also gave me a chance to learn to be a passenger, which I never am.

The main reason I drive everywhere is that I get horrible car sickness if I do so much as glance to the side rather than straight out the front window if I am not in control of the vehicle I am riding in. I took this trip as a challenge to try to beat car sickness once and for all.

I am working on a class to teach calming meditation to children. So, I said, “Self, it’s time to meditate your belly into submission. I know people can sit in the back of a car. Look at those two!” I whipped out some of those lessons from my cranky brain and went to work on calming my unhappy belly.

Because I could not drive this trip, and because the vehicle we were riding in was a passenger van, I sat in the way back behind my girls in the middle seats. In the exact center. For three hours there, and three hours back.

I got to see the trip from a new vantage point, which was fascinating. It gave me time to figure out how I was going to make it to our hotel and then home again today without being totally miserable. Once I did that, it was delightful watching my girls enjoy the trip from their usual vantage point. It was like being a big kid myself.

I use my sense of hearing a lot when I drive. I rarely play the radio except on roads I know well. Sitting in the back was like hearing the music from speakers turned the wrong way around. It felt like everything was a half second in the wrong direction. I never realized how connected my sense of hearing the road was to my sense of movement, which triggers my car sickness.

I found that this imposed rest time, as I focused out the window, traveling on well-known roads, gave me a chance to find an interesting groove. The roads we travelled are not the greatest for adequate cell service for music downloads, so I had to find music in the rhythm of the road. I love these roads, they are fun to drive once you learn them well. They will teach you respect if you are sloppy though.

My meditation let me feel the rhythm of the road, hear it and know when the tactile sensation would come in relation to it. Learning to hear that timing was what helped me be able to not get sick. I was eventually able to interact with the girls, look out the side windows, and even do a little crocheting by the time we reached our destination.

I was exceptionally proud of myself that I didn’t barf in the van. In fact, I felt only a little green.

When I drive, it feels to me like I physical put the vehicle on, like clothing. I have driven a lot of different vehicles in my time, including some larger trucks. I love to drive. I had to learn to put the vehicle on from a different position.

I created tapes yesterday in my head that allowed me to know how the vehicle sounded under certain conditions and how that related in sound to my location in the back seat, then into my body. I found that if I kept the window cracked I could hear the speed better and I felt less sick. It didn’t hurt that it let in a bit of fresh air. I also found that if I sat near the center I felt better than on the sides.

It has always caused me a bit of annoyance that I always have to drive. I envy those passengers the rest time to do things like read, write or crochet. I get plenty of thinking time when driving, and I see some extraordinary stuff that they miss by looking down, but I would like to be able to nap or watch Downton Abby or read my friend Tony’s new book.

The ride wasn’t as successful as I would have liked. I am definitely a bit more groggy today than I was yesterday. And I think crocheting will have to wait. But then I’m still learning. I know that I am much calmer from working so hard on meditating for such a long time. I know that the forced rest where I couldn’t Facebook, or read, or be mentally elsewhere from my kids meant that we got a chance to talk about all sorts of things we were seeing. We got six hours of connected time that we otherwise usually use differently.

I learned that in cases like this I can manage to be a passenger. I think the front seat might be a better option, but I can do it. It gives me hope that in time I might be able to be a good passenger. Kind of like a good customer. If you are a good customer then you will get good service. I know what it is to be the one who has to drive, I know what it takes to be a happy driver. As a good front seat passenger, I can help a good driver be really comfortable.

So if you are one of those souls who is blessed with the ability to be a passenger, be a good one when we unfortunates who have to drive are cranky and sleepy. No, you can’t offer to drive, unless you sedate us or make sure to have a very large waterproof bag. And if you are a driver, there is hope that you too, someday, may be able to let someone else drive. Maybe.

By Amy Nielsen

My mother was chief executive officer for an international corporation for most of my childhood. She traveled extensively on a global scale, often for more than a month at a time. Summers, when we were out of school, my sister and I travelled with her. She had her ducks in a row and was able to make it look effortless. She never seemed to over pack or forget anything. Every upset turned into an adventure.

I travel a lot myself now, usually by car and almost always with my kids in tow since we homeschool. This past week was no exception. On the itinerary were: stops to return our foster dog to his owner after a long deployment, routine medical treatments for my daughter with her specialist, and a little gathering called the Women's March. We were traveling from Maine to Virginia and back over 10 days.

I made a grave error when we left last week by forgetting my computer at home. We were  packed tight on this trip since the dog was with us and I missed grabbing my school/work bag. All I had was my phone. At least it is a smart phone. Ok, smart might be a bit of a reach, but it is more tech savvy than I am.

Many of my work obligations involve heavy research on the web and online client meetings via messenger style apps. Easy peasy, right? I mean it's a smart phone and all. It is, until you try to write a 1,000 word blog with your thumbs. Research I can do. Conversations on messenger apps, I can do. But typing that much is beyond my patience level. I tried. I got thumb cramps.

My school lectures are all web based. I made that choice specifically when I was deciding on how to pull together an education that supports my career because I knew that I would be traveling. I work in a field where certificates and very specialized training are important. Somewhat like having a card deck of programing language certs, I need a library of credentials behind me. I am currently working on four different certifications at once. Most have several hours of lectures to watch, moderated online live discussions and lengthy exercises to remit every week.

I was optimistic that I would be able to at least listen to the lectures while driving. My route wasn’t taking us too far into the boonies and I have a decent service plan. What I didn’t realize is that listening to music in the car requires  a vastly different attention level than listening to a school lecture.

As it happens, this trip had it’s own little hiccup when the rear tire of my car disintegrated at 50 miles per hour. It pushed our schedule back several hours and made us change vehicles. My car doesn’t have Bluetooth. The rental, a super fancy presidential limo suburban thing, had more bells and whistles that I could ever imagine. It also had Bluetooth.

My 15-year-old niece was able to get my phone to connect and I was excited to be able to try and get caught up. Not so much, the kids didn’t want to listen to lectures about business plans and client coaching. I tried listening with headphones but that was impossible for me.

I tried to listen and write when we stopped for meals or for the night but by then I was usually  too distracted or too tired to concentrate on the task at hand. I got a few small lectures and assignments done, but not nearly half of what is still on the list.

I had a client meeting scheduled for one of the evenings we were away. I met with this client online via a messenger app so that I could send documents and research to her in real time. This meeting was the most successful of my work endeavors this week. Turns out the phone wasn’t too shabby at completing the tasks I needed. I learned a lot about the device and I feel a little more confident that if a client needs me when I am not near my computer I can adequately accommodate them. I wouldn’t say it’s my new preference for meetings, but it is nice to know it can work.

The upshot of this trip was that I learned while I set myself up to work exclusively online, if I can’t access the web effectively, it is useless. I also need to reevaluate the amount of time I need to spend working on school and make it a priority rather than something to slip in when I have a free moment.

Right now I am working on my mom’s computer at our last stop before heading home tomorrow.

In talking to her, I realized how much extra planning and time she put into what my childhood eyes saw as an  effortless summer. Her first trips with us were bumpy too. She forgot important things along the way and missed some obligations.

What made it look so easy was her attitude. My ducks look an awful lot like squirrels and they are certainly not in a row. I don’t think they are even in the same state yet. And I know we won't hit every mark, make every appointment and we will occasionally miss commitments.

However, I also know that every trip we take will be more organized and better planned than the last one. If I can muster the courage to have a good attitude about the missteps, it will all work itself out.