Diet Coke and emotional caffeine.
I love Diet Coke. There, I said it. I know it’s not a particularly healthy thing to ‘love’ in this “we-know-better-so-we-should-do-better” day and age. I get it. And, in my defense, I drink A LOT of water, as well. I promise. I know a lot of you can relate. Caffeine, in some form or another, […]
15 fights … and fogging.
In my “I’m-getting-kinda-old” lifetime of study, experience, and very (un)scientific research, I’ve found 15 things that can be stumbling blocks in marriage/dating/partner relationships. In no particular order, they are: These unsurprisingly common issues also produce unsurprisingly common arguments, discussions, and fights. And someone in these unsurprisingly common arguments, discussions, or fights often resorts to the […]
Satisficers and my friend, Mary.
Seven years into my career at that middle school I’ve told you about, I decided to apply to work in a district closer to my (newly purchased) condo. As an educator in my state back then, you typically had a small window of time to switch districts in order to still be able to take […]
The Second Arrow.
I wrote part of this post last week in small step snippets and over multiple hours with the help of the dictation tool on my computer because for several days of said last week I was more sick than I can ever remember being in my life. Being sick is not something that happens often […]
Decluttering your thoughts – and Ina Garten.
Several years ago when Ina Garten was in her black pants and denim shirt Barefoot Contessa heyday, my sister Marilee offered me four of Ina’s cookbooks. She was “getting rid of some stuff”, as she was prone to do, and thought of me. I happily took them and added them to my growing collection of […]
Fueled by Identity.
The author Brad Stulberg recently wrote that “The Arrival Fallacy was first coined by the behavioral scientist Tal Ben-Shahar. It describes the commonly held illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, whatever it may be, we will achieve lasting happiness and fulfillment. But this simply is not true. We […]
57 degrees and Sunshine.
I live west of the Wasatch Mountains (a range on the western border of the Rockies) in a ski resort-filled area of the Western United States. We usually see an average of 4.0 months of ‘snow’ – typically from November 12 through March 12 – and in those 4 months about half the days are […]
Someone who sincerely praises.
Sometimes, when a client is so frustrated with someone in their life that they practically want to poke their own eyes out, I ask them to pause and do something that, at first, sounds really, really hard. I ask them to give that person a little sincere, authentic praise. They don’t want to. […]
Seasons and a great big table.
When I moved into my first real stand-alone single-family on-it’s-own-lot house several years ago, I had so many decisions to make. So many. Thankfully, I knew exactly what I wanted in the kitchen – a great big table that could fit many, many people. My youngest brother volunteered to build me an 8’ by 4’ […]
Fear. And a really great purse.
One of the things that the people in my life – and probably the 12 of you reading this – used to tease me about is my purse. My particular brand of OCD + my Enneagram 6 phobic personality = an INORDINATE amount of time spent thinking about my purse. Condition #1 – It […]
