For most of my life, when I approached anything I wanted to have or achieve, my self-talk prepared me for how I’d feel if I didn’t get it. I talked myself out of winning, sometimes out of even trying, because I wanted to prepare myself for the sting of failure and disappointment. It was a …
I slumped in front of the counselor with a full-on ugly cry, confused and struggling. A few short months after my ex-husband and I had separated, my counselor asked me how I saw myself. I didn’t know how to answer her. Shamefully, apart from my ex-husband, I grappled to define who I was. She challenged me to discover my identity as a …
il dolce far niente the sweetness of doing nothing I’ll admit, when I was first introduced to this classic Italian phrase, I was wrapped up on my couch in my pajamas in the middle of a Saturday afternoon eating ice cream. Last summer was the first time I had ever seen Eat. Pray. Love. — …
I am a city-girl, which probably makes me the least qualified person to talk about bulldozers. But I am going to anyway because the image just won’t leave me. I was sipping a nonfat latte in the new downtown Starbucks last week, in my city-girl dress and matching boots (see, completely unqualified). I was catching up …
Walls… Doors keep people in or they keep them out. But walls…walls protect us from the elements. Walls protect us from heat and cold, from wind and rain…from storms. Walls take a long time to build. There must be planning and design, gathering of materials, and weeks or months of construction. But they can be brought down in …
Five Minute Friday is a weekly writing challenge in which hundreds of people participate. Everyone writes for five minutes on one word issued every Friday at 12:01am. Unscripted. Unedited. Real. The challenge for me is not the first five minutes of writing. It is to abandon perfectionism in the minutes that follow… Laundry I dropped the basket …
Honeysuckle. Mid-June. I was out for a run. I passed by a home with thick honeysuckle overtaking the back fence, and the fragrance was intoxicating! It’s intriguing the way it aggressively climbs all over, yet has these tiny delicate flowers. Strong, yet sweet. I just had to have some! So a few days later I …
|Author’s Photo Credit: Pinwheel Photography| This is an especially meaningful post for me. It is marking an anniversary of sorts – kind of a geeky one – but nonetheless a significant milestone in my life. Dually, by posting this piece on my blog, I entered the writing contest: ‘You Are A Writer. When Did You Know?’ held by …
Life is good. Even when it’s hard, life is good. For me, this always comes in the form of gratitude. When my heart hurts, or the voices in my head get all grouchy, when I am running like a hamster in a wheel – that is what stops me in my tracks. Gratitude. It changes …
*big exhale* God is a Planner too. His words, not mine: ’For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord… Well, it’s a good thing, because I don’t. Life has a way of unexpectedly knocking us on our asses every now and then. In my case, it was the end of a …
