Great Life Gifts

Pumpkin pie, Aunt Mable Dallas Cowboys Washing dishes 4 a.m. shopping More pumpkin pie When it comes to the holiday season, overload is an American pastime. If you ask many Americans, they will tell you that while they like the time they spend with their family, they don't like what they perceive as the requisite activities. By the end of a what is supposed to be a day of experiencing gratitude for the non-material aspects of our lives, most Americans are exhausted, short-tempered, and ready for a second nap. So are we obligated to drive ourselves batty in making sure we arrive at the mall parking lot before the sun rises. Our actions seem to say we do. Maybe this won't be the year you will live up to your vow of simplicity for the holidays. That's okay. You can still monitor your sense of well-being by taking a short inventory of your physical and mental status. Take a H.A.L.T. Hungry Angry Lonely Tired If you feel any of those things, then b...

Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Hebrews 13:2 No doubt about it, these two Sister Angels showed hospitality and love to a stranger: me  This week, one of the sisters passed on to  entertain  the angels in heaven. I met the Sister Angels six years ago when I worked for the small college in the new town I had moved to. I was as lonely and homesick as I had ever been and spent many early days wondering what I had done to deserve this banishment to the remote desert of Southeast New Mexico. As a New Age Northern Liberal, I wondered  if I would ever again come across people who might satisfy the longing for connection I felt my new home lacked. Then one afternoon, Sister Angel Number One walked in to sell me advertising. Not an unusual solicitation for the position I held, but the aura about the sales rep made me take a few extra minutes to inquire about her work.   Details of the initial con...

The Process of Changing a life-style is more important than reaching a goal or measuring a performance--Theodore Issac Rubin What is a process? It's a series of steps or stages and it's most definitely the mixing of a variety of independent elements to make a new creation. So, the individual aspects of the process are important because the quality of them will determine the quality of the goal or performance. I pray that on a daily basis my individual interactions with others add up to a whole, quality life. SierraTradingPost.com, Great Deals. Great Brands.

Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 Has your life knocked the breath out of you? No wonder, as multi-tasking has been tagged as the the working person's holy grail when it comes to getting it done.  But for all of the star treatment multi-tasking has garnered over the years,  efficiency experts  are now learning that focusing on one task at a time is more productive than attempting to complete many things. If you find yourself distracted and scattered throughout the day, spending a few minutes in paying attention to your breathing can bring back your focus.  According to integrative health physician  Andrew Weil, M.D. , "practicing regular, mindful breathing can be calming and energizing and can even help with stress-related health problems ranging from panic attacks to digestive disorders." Breathing by its very nature is a sing...

We posted the electric lift chair on Craig's List for $500 with my cell phone number as the contact. Two separate parties sent a text indicating their interest and one asked if we would be willing to accept a check and the extra funds on the check would be used to pay for the shipping to their location.  When the postman came yesterday, he said the envelope was postage due: $7.11. What went through my head when I paid the postage due? "This is an elderly or disabled person who is of modest means and didn't adhere enough stamps to the envelope." The postage was not a problem for me and I thanked the courteous postal man for delivering the letter to me instead of returning it to the sender. When I opened the envelope, this check was inside: Whoa! That's a lot of extra money to pay for delivery of a chair. But my momma didn't raise no fool (at least not a complete one)! A Google search for Granite Planet in Tulsa, Okla., brought no hit and a call to ...

Mind Full of Eating "If you eat less you'll feel better," is a common piece of advice well-meaning friends and family give to people struggling with overeating. Their meaning is that the aforesaid individual will feel more healthy by improving their food choices. But to the food dependent individual, overeating has become a management strategy to manage distress experiences and "feel better." Mindful Eating is a popular approach in psychology and counseling to help people move to a more intentional way of nourishing their bodies. However, to transition to this concept, skills and strategies must be developed to get people away from a "Mind Full of Eating." Like other dependencies, food addiction develops over a period of time when people turn to eating to manage distressful emotions that can occur through everyday experiences and relationships.  As a result, the body's natural mechanisms for controlling food intake become damaged and physio...

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." Sun Tzu, The Art of War My co-worker Bobbie* refused to talk to me unless she absolutely had to, so I made a point every day to make sure she had to talk to me. We shared an office and I thought her tenacity in refusing to acknowledge me was inspiring. It wasn't that she was a quiet, reticent personality. Whenever a family member or friend came by the office she could chat cheerfully for 20 minutes at a time. So, as a challenge to myself, I made a point to always speak cheerfully to Bobbie and ask her how she was. She begrudgingly answered my cordialities but her demeanor made me think I had forced her to drink vinegar.  There were days, however, when I just couldn't be cheerful any more and I would try to play the game by her rules and not speak to her, either. Typically, I caved by the first morning break and asked "how are you doing, Bobbie?"  So, what did I do, you may ask, to ...