Great Life Gifts

Danny, my four-year-old, had the right idea to buy birthday cake. After all, it was my mother's 78th. This time last year we celebrated her birthday with a phone call to her room at an Iowa nursing home. This year, we celebrated it in her apartment at our house. We are among 51.4 million  American families  who have two or more generations living under the same roof. Some ethnic groups, such as Hispanics and Asians , have always encouraged these type of living arrangements. It is a cultural strength to maintain strong family bonds.Caucasian Americans have become more accepting of the arrangement as a consequence of the economy and, in the last two years, multi-generational housing arrangements have grown by 25 percent, My mother grew up in a multi-generational household with her parents, two brothers, and my great-grandmother. When you ask my mother who taught her to knit, she'll tell you her grandmother. While this arrangement might have had its challenges fo...

When it comes to life's character building moments, I can be such a pansy. And like a pansy, I'm really good at putting on a bright flowery show as if I have an abundance of  inner strength. But I'm really only one strong wind from having my blossoms blown off. There are times I wish I had the steady inner oak tree fortitude that some of my friends seem to possess when faced with challenging circumstances. They might be scarred by a bolt of lightening but they're still standing as strong as they ever were. Instead, a strong freeze could wither my roots if I don't pay attention to the temperature of the soil I'm grounded in and spend time providing protective cover. This last year has been particularly marked by circumstances which haven't gone as smoothly as I would have preferred. My preference for life is like the pansy's: full sunlight in moderate temperatures with plenty of water. Lately, though, several blustery winds and extreme dips and ...

My jet black hair introduced me to Kim. It was a chance, desperate meeting, but one that began a two-year relationship. I followed her everywhere until it became impossible to continue. Kim would become one in a series of relationships that started out promising but left me abandoned. I met her on a Sunday afternoon. My "it costs a little more, but you're worth it" color job cost me a helluva lot more. My $10 bottle of Fonzie-black hair was appalling and it was unfeasible I would go to work on Monday looking like I did. I drove to the mall and gingerly travailed the distance from the parking lot to the second level for the Regis Salon . All my hair was pushed up under a cap. I had called ahead so Kim was waiting for me. Two hours later and $150 poorer, Kim had faded my hair back to the chestnut brown that I had originally sought. Afterwards, I was smitten and devoted to Kim. Three haircuts and two hair colors into our blossoming hair affair, Kim announced she was...

Three people currently owe me money: the neighbors, my renters, and Crazy Sheila. The neighbors owe me money from the emergency room visit I made after their dog bit me in the calf when it was running wild in the neighborhood. The renters owe me money, for, well, rent. And Crazy Sheila owes me money when I was a renter 20 years ago. If Crazy Sheila is precedence, I may not get my money from the renters or the neighbors. The Sherman Hill District where I once lived.   I met Crazy Sheila when I was looking to move out of the then edgy Sherman Hill District . It was just beginning its Phoenix-like revival into the trendy artist's neighborhood it is now. When I lived there its crime-riddled reputation was such that my mother had her best friend call me at work to talk me out of moving into the apartment I had leased. Of course, I moved right in. But after about six months, I was looking to improve my surroundings as I had found people who would give me some furniture ...

Our negative thoughts can become like runaway horses.   F.E.A.R. Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Receive or Recover What does FEAR mean to you? And if you're in the first category, how do you move yourself to the second one?  First, you have to determine what methods you use to run. Do you zone out by spending hours on your I-phone or computer. Do you escape by going through your local drive through or stopping at the convenience store and loading up with a bag of chips, candy bars, and other food  to stuff yourself with? Or, maybe, you run away by gambling, drinking, shopping, or taking to your bed and sleeping. Once you have identified what you use to help you run away, then the action you take is stop. Put the plug in the jug or its equivalent. Then, once you have done that, then you get down to the busines of "facing it" but not in the same spirit as you face your boss when you are called on the carpet. No, you ...

With a mid-week holiday, it can be challenging to feel the at the top of our game when we return to work Thursday and Friday. As the year winds down and you begin making commitments for improvements for your lifestyle, consider drinking more water to be one of your top decisions for 2014. Start Thursday and Friday as an experiment and see if it doesn't help diminish some of the sugar plum and Santa cookie hangovers you might be experiencing. With all things being equal for new year's resolutions, drinking plain water everyday is the simplest action we can take to make an overall improvement in our health across the board. You'll know you're drinking enough water because when you pee your urine will be of no color. If it's yellow, then you're too mellow with your water.  Here's a partial list of reasons to drink more water. 1.   Improve exercise time and lose weight--water is a temperature regulator during intensive exercise and it's an appetite su...

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”   ----from  A Return to Love , by Marianne Williamson . When I was a little girl I played with Suzy. Everyday was a play date with Suzy as we ran up and down the stairs of the white wood frame farm house where I lived. In all ways, she was the best type of friend a 6-year-old girl could have: she let me choose all the games we played, she always did what I told her, she never hurt my feelings, and I always got to go first.  Was it the skill of her parents that taught Suzy to be the ideal friend? Or perhaps, at 6 years of age, she was...