Wait a minute, I have been everybody but me.  T.D. Jakes I used to love to…  …run.  I wasn’t particularly good at it, it just made me feel whole.  My music and me. Then my knees and hips decided that those days were over, and I accepted this. …spend a lot of time outside.  Summers near the water, winters to lean into the bracing cold I loved it.   Then I didn’t find time for it.  I would… …fill my life up with whatever was the next challenge was.  To mask the pain and emptiness I was feeling, I would fill up on other people’s goals, rather than my own.   Anger and frustration fueled most of ..read more

Well for me it means that I understand that I am a Big Girl and how interrupted I was and can be if I am not careful.   Interruption can present in so many ways.  It can show up on the scale, either too many or not enough pounds.  It can mean that you can’t get out of bed some days and have no idea why. It can mean that you can’t stop thinking about something you said last week, last month, even last year.  It can mean not liking who you see in the mirror. It makes you feel worthless, incompetent, and invisible.  So here’s the thing that I found so surprising! We are ALL Interrupted! Yep all o ..read more

Feelings. Love.  Body Language. Facial Expressions…the dreaded ‘we need to talk’ in relationships that can render even the sturdiest of us uncertain.  Mark Twain’s take on feelings is that …“We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking.” Love?  A temporary insanity according to Ambrose Bierce in the Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary “A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disease.” A more modern expression?  I describe the ubiquitous smiley face as...a tiny qualifier that no matter the intent of words is ..read more

As we say goodbye to the last decade and all that it gave, the things I learned, the people I met, the opportunities that I have been given.  We prepare to embark on yet another decade of possibilities. As in past years, most of us will make big plans for what we want to achieve over the next year.  I watch the news and it’s everywhere! The weight loss, education, employment. We are flooded with ideas of how to better ourselves.   With all that I think that I am going to look at this coming year with 2020 vision! This will be the only time that I can say my nearly blind self can say that I wil ..read more

It always comes back to me.  It is my responsibility to own the life I want to live.  Life interrupted could be my motto for the way my life has unfolded so far.  A beloved father dies when I am too young to understand what is happening.  My mother remarries 9 months later while she is still racked with grief to a man who our family thought was a sociopath.  When it was too late to do anything about it, I would learn that the term was predator.   My life is interrupted by a series of unfortunate events that start in my childhood and continue on, well, to this day.  Life interrupted.  My motto ..read more

Did you know that December 4th is considered National Cookie Day in the U.S.?  I doubt the rest of the world celebrated this day, but seriously who could begrudge the sweet cookie a day?   For me, the rest of December can be tricky.  Intense emotions bounce off people drinking the ‘most wonderful time of the year’ Kool-Aid.  Or beautiful choirs singing of tidings and joy but also of grief because bad things happening doesn’t vacate this month.  The endless movies by Hallmark tell stories that don’t represent any family I know. It all can be a keen reminder of what some families have or don’t h ..read more

When I was in my twenties I had no idea who I was.  I mean I was a mom, daughter, sister, friend, and so many other things but I had no idea who I was. It was 1995ish and I was a single mom.  And a poor one at that.  It was such a scary time. We had moved into a time when things were being blamed on the poor.  That anyone on social assistance was some kind of crook.  For me, this could not be further from the truth.  We had an incoming government that had created a whole platform blaming all the country's problems on the poor. Heck, they even separated the poor into groups.  Some were deserv ..read more

I have so much to be grateful but it’s easy to forget sometimes. So considering the time of year I feel like it is a good time to reflect and remind myself of these wonderful things.  What does it mean to be truly grateful? Well by definition it says grateful is feeling or showing appreciation for something done or received. The definition of thankful is feeling pleased and relieved. So, both grateful and thankful are positive feelings and both grateful and thankful are triggered by some event. So what makes me feel like this? So many things and people.  I am most grateful for my family! My so ..read more

It is undeniable.  I have less time left on Planet Earth than I’ve already lived.  That scale tipped some time ago. 60 is supposedly the new 40. Unless a life-extending eureka occurs (with new body parts, please because the current ones are worn out), I want to choose what I do from now onwards with purpose We are taught to make plans from an early age. Pre-kindergarten teaches that if you start with A, you will get to Z.  You make plans, set a path or roadmap to where you want to go and then imagine what you will be like upon arrival. Tony Robbins made a fortune off this concept.   I frequent ..read more

Moments  Life is a string of many moments that are strung together connecting you to another person or place that is meaningful. Some are sad, many are happy and easier to recall because we find joy there.  Some have caused us great pain, pain that we would rather not remember. I like you have had my share of many moments. Some of them so beautiful that when I think about them I feel my heart fill with joy and I can put myself right in that time.  My most joyful one is the first time I held my beautiful son, all 10lbs 7oz of him!  Here I was 18 years old and had no idea of what would or could ..read more