Today’s Book Blizzard Bingo pick is I16, One Last Shot by Susan May Warren. One Last Shot and the rest of the books in the Alaska Air One Rescue series were some of the most popular inspirational books checked out at our library in the last two years.
In case you missed any of the posts on Facebook, here are the rest of this week’s Book Blizzard Bingo selections and links to the library’s catalog for more information about the books.
Due to the forecasted frigid weather this weekend, our program with Minnesota author, Teresa Peterson scheduled for Saturday, January 24th will be postponed. The program’s new date is Saturday, February 21st at 1:00pm.
This month, we recognize Mental Wellness Month. It’s the perfect time to shift your focus from the holidays to your own personal well-being. While Mental Health Awareness Month in May concentrates on awareness, advocacy, reducing stigma, and supporting those with mental illness, January emphasizes individual strategies like mindfulness, self-care, proactive self-improvement, and building positive habits. The goal is to start the new year by prioritizing your personal well-being and mental fitness.
Key Themes for January Mental Wellness:
Reset and Recharge. Transition from holiday stress to personal well-being, with a focus on calming the nervous system. This can include sleep, disconnecting from digital devices, and engaging your senses. This is essential to avoid burnout, replenish your battery, and feel more purposeful.
Self-Care and Habits. Develop sustainable routines for emotional balance, such as mindfulness, healthy eating, and regular movement. Exercise, nutrition, and hydration are equally important to your mental health as it is to your physical health. Start the new year by including a new hobby or journaling.
Stress Management. Learn to cope with daily pressures and the impact of shorter, darker days. Limit triggers and include relaxation, meditation, and music in your day. Use apps or quiet time to center yourself. Focus on your breathing and develop inner peace. Repeat a mantra to help interrupt negative thought patterns.
Resilience Building and Connections. Proactively work on coping with life’s difficulties and finding purpose. Strengthen relationships and build a supportive social network with family, friends, and community members. Look for meaning in your daily life and take action. This could be done by volunteering or helping others.
Stigma Reduction. Normalize conversations around mental health and seek support when needed. Provide education and awareness about symptoms and treatment, and dispel myths and misconceptions. Emphasize that these are often treatable health conditions, and not signs of weakness or failure. Encourage open conversations and share personal experiences. Show compassion and support for individuals who are struggling. Be a role model in understanding your own behavior.
So, whether you set resolutions or goals for 2026, please include setting healthy mental health habits for the year! The start of the new year provides a natural opportunity for reflection and fresh starts, making it an ideal time to prioritize mental health as much as physical health. Emotional well-being is just as crucial as physical well-being because they are deeply interconnected. Poor mental health impacts the body, like increased risk of heart disease, and physical issues effect emotions. Neglecting emotional health disrupts the body’s systems, while nurturing it improves physical outcomes through better coping, sleep, nutrition, and reduced stress.
Until next time, stay happy, healthy, safe, and focusing on our mental wellness! ~Sally~
Today’s Book Blizzard Bingo pick is N38, Perennial Ceremony: Lessons from a Dakota Garden by Teresa Peterson. Teresa Peterson is a Minnesota author and she will be at Meinders Community Library next Saturday, January 24th at 1pm!
In case you missed any of the posts on Facebook, here are the rest of this week’s selections and links to the library’s catalog for more information about the books.
Common sense should help us break down big words into bite-sized pieces such as semi (half) + quin (five) + centennial (100) to get the right answer: 250 years. However, if you never learned or have already forgotten how to string together semi, quin, and centennial, you are not alone. Sometimes common sense isn’t so common after all.
So where did the phrase come from, how has it been used throughout our country’s 250 years of independence, and how can we unite through our common experiences as we move to celebrate our country during the semiquincentennial?
Let’s start with the history. Aristotle came up with “sensus communis” as a way to compile information provided by the five senses to get a more cohesive or unifying impression. The sixth sense was born.
More than 400 years later, Cicero took this idea one step further and added the community aspect to it, thus creating a shared, social understanding.
In the 14th century, we see the phrase used to denote an “ordinary understanding” that everyone should agree upon because the impressions are so simple or ordinary to grasp. This said, I’m a firm believe that today’s version of common sense is actually a broken concept–keep reading to find out why.
By the late 1600’s, reasoning and judgement had been added to the mix of ordinary thinking, and common sense took on political import in settling issues or finding agreement.
Enter January 10, 1776. Thomas Paine published his pamphlet Common Sense, arguing for independence from Britain. At this time, Paine transformed common sense from a philosophical concept or political tool into a powerful call to action.
Under Paine’s not so gentle nudging, thirteen colonies reasoned their way to agreement. On July 2, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia and adopted on July 4–a day many Americans celebrate as a day of freedom.
The rationalization for this monumental act of treason against the crown? Common sense, or the “self-evident” truths penned primarily by Thomas Jefferson.
Since then, the phrase common sense has been used as a tool for motivation and condemnation. We bandy the word around with a sense of superiority and disgust when talking about people who should have known better. “It’s just common sense.”
We use it to pressure others to our way of thinking, stating opinion as fact and adding a quick, “It’s just common sense.”
We do this to our family, to our friends, to our coworkers, to those we serve, and to those who serve us. We use it to put an end to uncomfortable conversations and to justify our actions.
I was fairly young the moment I realized the falsity of this phrase in its current iteration. When I was in the fourth grade, we pulled up to a car wash bay with the garage door closed against the Midwest winter cold. My dad told me to open it. I got out and frantically searched for a door knob before crawling back into the front seat in defeat.
My dad shook his head and said, “All you had to do was push the button.” Until that moment, I hadn’t seen the tiny, red button pulsing about a foot over my head. Until that moment, I’d never had/seen/used an automatic garage door in my young life. The only doors I’d opened to that point used a knob. My dad continued, “How are you going to survive if you don’t use your common sense?”
My 9ish year old self inherently understood that I could not extrapolate a “common” understanding for something I had never been taught or experienced.
The second my dad got out of the car and showed me how to open a car wash door with nothing more than his pointer finger, I earned “ordinary understanding” of how automatic garage doors worked. I was inducted into the how-to-open-a-car-wash-and-other-similar-doors-with-a-finger common sense club.
My perceived lack of common sense cost me embarrassment, defeat, a small spark of anger, and a sense of not being good enough or smart enough. All because I had not lived and learned the same “common” journey my dad had. It made me tentative to bump up against new things for fear of not knowing what everyone else in the world could effortlessly figure out. It made me diligent about becoming a life-long learner, so as to never be that inept again.
Two-hundred-fifty years ago, Common Sense started a revolution in its quest for freedom. Since then, we have been a nation that pulls together and pulls apart. We have hurt and been hurt. We have advocated for and we have advocated against our family, our neighbors, our government, and our friends.
While we have traveled far on many different paths, no journey has been common, nor has it been wholly unique. Instead, we have traveled–together and separately–toward a destination of equality and freedom.
This year, America will celebrate the past 250 years. That history is bright, and beautiful, and amazing. It is also dark and damaging, with some chapters hidden so far in the shadows as to be nonexistent. Regardless, it is our history. We cannot change it. We can only understand it and our role within it.
During the semiquincentennial, there will be an abundance of dates and people to remember, celebrations, events, parades, toasts, and speeches. As a semi-professional knowledge seeker, I ask that you tap into Aristotle’s “sensus communis” to use all the information at your disposal to better understand the bigger picture. Take the time to (re)learn what those inherent, self-evident, human rights and freedoms meant in 1776 and explore what they mean to you personally today.
This year, give yourself permission to question before doing. Figure out which moments over the past 250 years you want to celebrate and why. Then, carry on joyously, raucously, and whole-heartedly in the way that feels right to you.
To learn more about the history of America’s independence, stop by your local library or check out the National Constitution Center online.
until next time, keep reading, keep learning, and keep growing~ jody
Today’s Book Blizzard Bingo pick is B9, A Land So Wide by Erin A. Craig. In case you missed any of the posts on Facebook, here are the rest of this week’s selections and links to the library’s catalog for more information about the books.
Stay tuned for more Book Blizzard Bingo next week and stop by the library to get a bingo card and play along!
January means it’s time for the Winter Reading program! Stop by the library to pick up your reading log and a Winter Reading bookmark. All the books you read January, February, and March count, even if you don’t get them from the library.
We are also trying something new this year with Book Blizzard Bingo on our blog and Facebook page. Starting today, every week day in January, February, and March, we’ll post about a book or something else library-related and the bingo number it corresponds to our on Facebook page. On Saturdays we’ll announce one more bingo number and a roundup of that week’s picks on the blog. Everyone gets a prize for their first bingo and we’ll have a prize drawing for anyone who gets a blackout. Stop by the library to get a bingo card and play along!
Meinders Community Library will be closed Thursday, January 1st in observance of New Year’s Day. We will close at 5:00pm, today Wednesday, December 31st.
Meinders Community Library will be closed on Wednesday, December 24th and Thursday, December 25th in observance of Christmas. We will be open normal hours the rest of the week, so stop by for all of your holiday reading and entertainment needs!
The holidays are upon us and not everyone is holly and jolly this time of year. It can be hard to navigate the rough waters of your mental health, especially during the holidays. Some may face loneliness while missing their loved ones. Others may feel stressed about finances or providing for their family. If you’re feeling a mix of emotions, you are not alone. Struggling during the holidays is not uncommon. Here are some things you can do to cope with the “Holiday Blues” and focus on what really matters.
The CredibleMind website is a wonderful mental health resource. It offers hundreds of topics to browse and also has assessments you can take. December 3rd – 31st, you can take the “Are the Holidays Causing You Stress” assessment for a chance to win a $50 gift card! All you have to do is create an account and sign in to be entered. (Your responses are confidential and no individual assessment results will be shared.) By creating an account, you can save completed assessments and also mark your favorite content to look back at later. It is a great place to connect with resources when you need them. Below are some additional resources that you can reach out to if you are ever struggling with your mental health.
988Lifeline. The 988 Lifeline is available 24/7/365 to call, text, or chat online. Your conversations are free and confidential. Whether you’re facing mental health struggles, emotional distress, alcohol or drug use concerns, or just need someone to talk to, the caring counselors are there for you. You are not alone.
Mental Health Minnesota Warmline. The Minnesota Warmline provides peer support and a connection with others. For many people, the Warmline is an important tool that helps them avoid mental health crisis and use of crisis services, 911 and hospital emergency departments. Calls are answered by peer support staff who have first-hand experience living with a mental health condition and are available to listen to you, provide support, and connect you with resources. And if you’re in need of more help, they can directly connect you to the nearest crisis services. Open Seven Days a Week, 9 AM to 9 PM. Call toll free 1-855-927-6546, or text “Support” to 85511.
Wellness in the Woods: Peer Support Connection MN Warmline. It’s a safe and supportive place for people to call and speak with peers who are there to listen and support adults experiencing emotional distress. Open 7 days a week from 5:00 PM to 9:00 AM. Call 1-844-739-6369.
So, whether you are celebrating alone, or gathering with family and friends, I do hope your holidays are holly and jolly and full of cheer! Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe! ~Sally~
