MSI Press Blog

    excerpt from  How to Stay Calm in Chaos  by Julie Gentile Wednesday Stay Realistic You’ve reached the point of the week. Do you have realistic expectations for how your day and the rest of the week will go? As a recovering perfectionist, there are still some days I think I can get more things done than I realistically can. I accept that. Although my schedule can be unpredictable and I usually want to resolve everything I can as quickly as I can, I’m learning to be more realistic and to give myself grace when the things I think should get done don’t.   You can’t expect yourself to do it all, even if you think you should, so please don’t hold yourself to your pre-crisis standards. Accept what you can do today and let that be enough. The least important to-dos will have to wait. Like me, you’re likely not able to accomplish things in the way you’re used to, so be a rebel and set your own standards and boundaries.   To stay realistic, I anticipate a few thi...

  Precerpt (excerpt prior to publication from the forthcoming memoir,  In with the East: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life  by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver Animals of Acton: Sanctuary, Scavengers, and Sentiment Acton had its share of animals—some wild, some domesticated, all woven into the rhythm of our lives. The deer were the most majestic, but in a humbler way than the moose. During hunting season, they’d gather in our swale, grand creatures with 8-point racks among them. Somehow, they knew our land was safe. It was posted  No Hunting , and so was my uncle’s. But that didn’t stop the out-of-town fools from skulking in the woods and firing into the fields. One year, one of them shot my uncle’s prize Guernsey cow—brown, unmistakably not a deer. My uncle caught the man trying to make off with the carcass, certain that he had just bagged a deer, and grabbed him by the ear. And then the captive had to listen to a tongue-lashing! We paid a price for being a deer sanctuary. The deer...

  excerpt from  Learning to Feel  (Kris Girrell) --  3 We See the World as WE Are Let me start this with a little true story: When I was a child, my family lived in Germany on a military base. We kids played outside on the stoop and sidewalks since there were not any playgrounds to speak of. On one particular day I was on the landing outside the entrance playing with a truck or some cool toy. The others were scattered around the sidewalk three or four steps down from the landing. When asked if I would share my toy with the others, I refused and was very possessive about it. This set the other children off and they started teasing and mocking me for being “stingy.” The more they taunted me the angrier I got until I hit some sort of breaking point. I was as enraged as a four-year-old boy could be. Standing up, I noticed one of the bricks—a half brick, actually—along the side of the steps that was loose. In my anger, I picked it up and threw it at the other kids and it ...