musings, life lessons & poetry from Theresa Jarosz Alberti

Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 14)

Poetry Challenge Day 12: “Not Too Late”

No poem yesterday. In an attempt to slay my own perfectionistic tendencies, I’ve decided to relax my goal of doing a poem a day, if a particular day doesn’t work out. To be honest, my drive to be accountable makes me cringe and feel anxious at the idea of NOT achieving the goal I publicly committed to, and yet when I finally let myself off the hook, I was able to relax. So this is progress for me! I still want to try to write a poem a day this month, but if it doesn’t work out, I’m not going to beat myself up.

That said, today’s poem is actually one I wrote in the poetry challenge of 2018. It has recently been popping its head up and I’ve had a few people express interest in hearing it. So I will post it here– it’s a message that I myself need to be reminded of again and again. I hope it may be helpful to others too.

Not Too Late

Continue reading

Poetry Challenge Day 3: The Best I Can Do

Getting in my Day 3 poem a bit late in the day. I’ll keep this introduction brief– I think the poem says it all!

The Best I Can Do

Today
is one of those days
when the writing prompt is “delight”
and my mind is a blank.
Outside my window
it is still crusty gray winter in April.
Spring seems far away
and I’ve been dragged through
some hard times for quite a while.
Haven’t we all?
My mood is low
and the cruel weasels in my head
are too loud. Continue reading

Remodeling… My Life

I’m sitting here with an itchy nose from extra dust flying through the house as loud sawing, drilling, and other power-tool vibrations rattle through the house (really unsettling for Loki-the-cat who hovers around me needing more reassurances and soothing). The construction workers for this current project– a major remodel of the main floor bathroom– started two weeks ago.  We are in the Messy Middle: a few months of living with one upstairs bathroom, workers in and out of the house every weekday, noise, dust, and random inconveniences (like the water being turned off for most of a day). It’s a hassle, exciting to see dramatic changes, frustrating, hopeful, all of the above. On the other end will be something a lot better than what was there, so it’s worth it. Continue reading

The Bear Awakens

Greetings from the doorway of my cave of hibernation. That’s what it’s felt like for the last many months, hunkered down in my house, Okay, maybe I wasn’t really sequestered in some self-imposed solitary confinement or sleeping the winter away, but I was definitely going through some big shifts that kept me from poking out my head much on social media. I was still staying social by zooming with friends and seeing family, running some basic errands, but the winter was kinda brutal and I stayed home a lot, grateful for my youngest son living with me and being around to talk and hug.

Spring wasn’t helping much either. Instead of being a hopeful time of new greenness, we had so many cold gray days that it felt like a continuation of winter. It’s only been the last two weeks where we’ve gotten some sun and warmth (YAY!), and in that all-or-nothing climate-change way, of course it jumped right into the 80s and even 90 last week. Sheesh! But this post isn’t really about the weather. My own internal weather is more like it. Continue reading

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