Sunday, October 19, 2014

Breaks

My niece Samantha was knee deep in an epidemiology paper this afternoon and about to go postal on the neighborhood. She's in the final months before graduating in May.

Jilda knows how to soothe the angry beast when she rears her ugly self in our mild-mannered niece -- she bakes chicken and her favorite rice.

When she walked over with her son Jordan, she was wound tighter than the short strings of a harp.

But I had new-age piano music playing and the table was set with glasses of ice tea with ice ticking in the glass.

Outside, the mama deer with twin fawns strolled up to feed. The little ones started running wide rings around the mama. 

It was the type of show that could make the most stressed person on the planet smile.

She seemed to be a little taller when they walked out headed home. A while later, her paper dinged in my email.

Jilda and I always scan her work to catch any obvious faux pas. It read as if it had been written by a graduate student. 

It's interesting what a break can do for you.




9 comments:

  1. I can understand with that combination, any beast could be calmed. Sounded like the perfect setup for 'sooth'. Good stuff as always. Thanks for a good read

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  2. This definitely sounds like a recipe to lessen stress in a person! Rick, I may call on you to help me when I'm stressed in the future!

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  3. Working daily on the farm when all kind of emergencies happens can be stressful. I could use your calming tricks sometimes.
    JB

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  4. A great way to de-stress a situation.I wish someone would go to the trouble of de-stressing ME.

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  5. Amazing how good fellowship accompanied by sights, sounds and delicious food can calm the soul.

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  6. Stepping away for a while can really help the writing process quite a bit. I used to tell my students that and more often than not, it would help them.

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  7. How nice for Samantha that she has you two! I'm sure this was a welcome reprieve.

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  8. A break can make all the difference to a person

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  9. Who isn't knee deep in an epidemiology paper? I have that problem all the time.

    Love,
    Janie

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