Posts Tagged: resilience

Still Life With Bread Crumbs – Fiction

December 4th, 2016
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annas-book

I recently finished reading Anna Quindlen’s amazing book, Still Life With Bread Crumbs, and I can’t stop thinking about the unexpected plot that Quindlen beautifully develops and weaves into the touching story about an older woman, Rebecca Winter, who discovers through various hardships that it is never too late to change up your life when you feel it isn’t working.

Rebecca, like the rest of us, thinks she has an idea of where life is taking her but then life throws a number of unexpected changes her way and things don’t work out the way she thought it initially … Read More

Thankful Hearts

November 24th, 2016
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Wherever you happen to be gathering today, may you be with people who have thankful hearts and giving spirits. The diversity of Thanksgiving menus offered today reflects the healing powers of food, love, family and friends gathering with one celebration in mind.  Lasagna, Vietnamese soup or a traditional roasted turkey with all of the imaginable sides.  Today has been set aside on the national calendar to give thanks for the food and other gifts that are served and shared as a sign of gratitude for the many blessings we have received. While I recognize our desire to be thankful today,… Read More

Let’s Rise Up

November 12th, 2016
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  My late husband, Tom O’Toole, as a young boy   Good Morning Friends: So how was your week? I’m not trying to be flip.  I am genuinely concerned. We live in a topsy turvy world and you would have to be stationed in some unbelievably remote part of the globe not to be aware of the election results in this week’s U.S. presidential contest.  Seriously, it has been quite a freaking week and everyone I know (including myself) is still absorbing what happened. On top of the surprising election results, my family received some sad personal news that I … Read More

Sweet Little You

October 21st, 2016
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      Yesterday morning, one of my nieces delivered her second child and shazam, just like that our large boisterous family has grown by one more! We expected her arrival at any time during this past week with everyone closely following the daily ups and downs of labor; starting, stopping, starting, stopping until the doctors decided that yesterday was the right time to induce and really kick her labor into high gear. At that point, things started happening very quickly and then suddenly Baby Lilly was here! When you are not around babies on an everyday basis, you can… Read More

A Bit of Hairspray Wisdom

October 14th, 2016
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Magical things happen to me in hair salons. My gray hair disappears, splint ends fall to the floor and I love watching clients and hairdressers exchange confidences that make each of them feel a little bit better about what is happening in their lives. This past weekend I experienced a different kind of magic; the magic of connecting and going with the flow of the moment. As I entered my tried and true hair salon, I was looking forward to a much needed hairdo transformation.  It was probably closer to a hair color intervention because the summer sun had bonded… Read More

Peace Out

September 29th, 2016
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We live in crazy times my friends, with election talk this week seeming to bombard us everywhere we go. Since I live in Washington, DC, where politics and government are considered our main industries, I usually don’t bring up the election as a topic of conversation unless someone else asks me first.  People are pretty polarized and the election is not the kind of thing that you toss out casually as you are waiting in line at the grocery story or talking to a bank teller or an Uber driver.   Chatting with someone you don’t know very well about either… Read More

Finding Your Community

September 23rd, 2016
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    You’re in the mood to go out.  Maybe go see a movie.  Maybe get a drink. But as a suddenly single, widowed or recently divorced person you might find that your usual go-to friends are busy and you aren’t enthusiastic about going out by yourself. It’s not that you can’t do it because you’ve done it before.  You’ve done it because you hate to think that you won’t do something just because you don’t have anyone to do it with. You went out by yourself to prove that you could and it was okay but not great.  It … Read More

Awesome Life Stories

September 8th, 2016
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Learning to Surf The Waves of Life Each of us has a story to tell about how our particular and significant lives have developed and unfolded over the years and it can be surprising how others decide to reveal pieces of these awesome life stories to us. The more I listen to people of all ages and cultures, the more I realize that we all have something in our lives that at some point has taken the wind out of us and made us question how we can continue on. Sometimes people tell you about their difficult circumstances over a… Read More

Princess Diana — 19 Years

August 31st, 2016
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Revealing your unfiltered feelings and becoming vulnerable to another person is not something anyone does easily, particularly when you are brokenhearted and trying to talk about the loss of a treasured loved one. I bring up the subject of talking about the loss of a loved one for today is the 19th anniversary of the tragic death of Princess Diana, one of the most iconic women of our time and one of her beloved sons, Prince William, who is now a parent himself, recently had a tender conversation with a young boy who had recently experienced the loss of his… Read More