Posts Tagged: family

4 Bodacious Roses

September 15th, 2014
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These days, I am all about finding natural ways to calm and quiet my thoughts.  Being around nature, and flowers in particular, has a calming and healing effect on my mood.

Lavender is usually my “go to” scent for calming my jangled nerves but I also love the light and airy scent of roses.  When I take the time to be mindful of roses, each individual delicate petal, its soft colors and position of its bloom facing the sun, I am distracted from the noise around me and slowly begin to discover an inner stillness.  Sadly, at this time of … Read More

9/11: Healing & Resilience

September 11th, 2014
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On the thirteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, my thoughts today are with the people whose lives changed so tragically and so dramatically when their loved ones died. It may not feel to them as if thirteen years has passed since this horrific event.  It may feel as though their loss happened yesterday.  That’s the trick that grief can sometimes play on us.  For no matter how much time has passed, no matter how much work has been put out to move the healing process forward, the anniversary of losing a loved one is a day filled with powerful conflicting… Read More

Someone by Alice McDermott

September 4th, 2014
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Someone  by Alice McDermott was given to me as a Christmas gift but I purposely set it aside because I knew that I wanted to savor every word of this novel.  I knew it was going to be special and I was right. I thoroughly enjoyed reading McDermott’s award-winning book, Charming Billy, and so I was familiar with McDermott’s incredible gift of creating characters that you feel you know, sentences that make you stop and go back and reread them several times and her mastery of quietly leading you into her magical stories. Someone is set in Brooklyn in the… Read More

6 Unbreakable Sibling Bonds

September 2nd, 2014
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Today is a post giving you a little slice of my family life.  A shout-out to my brothers and sisters if you will. I am the oldest of six children.  We are four girls and two boys and are incredibly close in age: there is only seven years between me and my youngest siblings who are twins. I have written a lot about the healing gift of friendship and the important role that my friends play in my life but I haven’t said much about the healing gift of my siblings mainly because I know they don’t want to read… Read More

Plenty of Positive

August 25th, 2014
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Lots of children and parents in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia are waking up earlier than usual this morning and wondering what happened to the easy breezy days of summer.  They are looking at the calendar and staring at today’s date and thinking, “How did this happen?  How could today be the first day of school?” A new school year is time to look forward with a sense of hope.  It’s a chance to do things a little different and a little better.  First days of anything offer the opportunity for a fresh start.  Of course, there may also be… Read More

Baking Zukey Bonanza Bread

August 22nd, 2014
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Many of our most powerful memories are tied to food. A spectacular cake served at one of our birthdays, a delicious meal eaten at a special restaurant, or a dish made by someone we love. One of my favorite summer memories is remembering the dinners I used to have at a beach restaurant that sadly doesn’t exist anymore.  It was a comfortable family restaurant with great food and friendly service and it was a relaxing place to go after a day spent on the beach.  Our son was about seven or eight years old when my late husband and I… Read More

As High As An Elephant’s Eye

August 15th, 2014
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“There’s a bright, golden haze on the meadowThere’s a bright, golden haze on the meadow.The corn is as high as an elephant’s eyeAnd it looks like it’s climbing clear up to the sky.” Lyrics to “Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’ ” by Oscar Hammerstein II Walking among the farmer’s stalls yesterday, my eyes were in search of corn on the cob.  Specifically, the kind of corn on the cob that you can only get in August when the corn is white and oh so sweet and when you eat it it feels like it goes to your very core to… Read More

We Are Love

August 11th, 2014
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Wow!! My weekend certainly went by like a flash!  I visited my parents, worked around the house, talked to a very sick friend in the hospital and got a lot accomplished.  I hope your weekend was everything you planned it to be!! Starting the new work week with good thoughts is important to me because I try to set a tone within myself and stick to it as much as I can.  I am reminded today of a particularly beautiful excerpt from Marianne Williams book, “A Return To Love:” “Just as a sunbeam can’t separate itself from the sun, and… Read More

Can Adversity Be Useful?

August 8th, 2014
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When my world becomes full of too many problems, I look to others for their unique advice, inspiration and strength.  I find socializing is a good positive answer to lifting a bad mood. Having coffee and a long conversation with a friend can help me sometimes see that there is a way out of my stress; that things may feel overwhelming right now but it’s not a permanent situation.  Something better might be right around the corner and I just need to hang in there and ride this bad time out. Besides hanging out with family and friends, I also… Read More