Writing Reality

  Well actually I could've fit right in with the Viking side. My now deceased husband every once in a while used to call me "Cavewoman". Affectionately, of course. I'm a barebones, do-it-yourself kind of gal. As our air-conditioner began to go on the fritz for a second time during this drought driven hot humid summer yesterday. I worried for one of our older in home bunnies.  Lop-eared house bunnies can handle the cold okay, yet not so much the heat. So we've been advised over the years.  Our indoor semi-wild bunny mix would be okay to a point. Our Guinea Pig would be just fine with the heat. With Guinea Pigs it's the cold we would be concerned with. Too, I slightly considered paperwork our youngest may have to do in perhaps possibly hottest room in the house. Then I sighed with relief that she had two practices and one 90 minute meeting outside our home for the day. Her day would be filled with three activities. Her older sister working an opening and a closi

 It's funny, the times I felt compelled to help someone in my therapy business. I didn't concern myself with a payback. I barely thought that they would take advantage of me or lie to me. I saw my business as the need for some selflessness, thinking altruistically.  That being said, about six or seven years ago I had a wicked week in my office. Business was down. Yet, people needed me. So I was busy. I was giving discounts for a variety of reasons. Any excuse i could find to give them to reduce the cost to them I figured. And then the six people of that week who I knew I wouldn't take money from.  I ran my business, like usual as I had for nearly three decades. I knew who couldn't afford me. Or rather my full price. I knew the very elderly may have money, especially those living in my county. However, they also would need finances for living, medications, proper medical care, perhaps a live-in caregiver for a better quality of life versus a riskier lonely one. Too

Incorporating old ideologies with new ones is part of a happy, joyous survival. Change can be and perhaps is often painful. Even if it is intangible to others or even to the one experiencing it. The pain of change remains.  Quite a few people think a new ideology will replace their standards, their morals, values and such. That's the fear. Thats the fear of change.  When there is that fear, which makes us hold onto old ideologies so tight, that there's no room to change. So tight, not a miniscule allowance for change to happen. Then we suffocate the world around us. We do actually harm others, with this unwillingness to change. Although, our science may not be completely thwarted. It's delayed, stymieing growth. Yesterday late afternoon I was speaking with a friend who'd ran into serious health trouble. As much as we are opposites in our lifestyles. We think similarly in raising children, politics and such. He is a hard-working, well-educated, well-read man. As he

  If we treat it right, money makes the world go 'round.  After our youngest and I returned yesterday from her first time meeting with a college counselor. Our oldest arrived home from her second job. Eating a late dinner, we discussed money for college.  Funny enough, my youngest thought that no way could I afford to pay the amount I am paying out for our oldest's college education.  I remarked, "You will have the same monetary ability from me." Stunned. She replied, "How?!" I responded, "Your Dad and I worked our asses off and saved money. Before you were even born we planned. I pressured us to pay the house off early. As well, we cleaned our own home, did our own landscaping. We refrained from expensive vacations before you guys were born. I preferred to make all our meals. So, we didn't order in or go out to eat much." I looked at oldest and remarked, "My dad would be astonished that your Dad and I would pay your way through colleg

Guided by Books If you enter my front door, across from it is a huge wooden hutch. It's filled with mostly books and some small mementos. One of the sections is filled with philosophical and religious books. Enclosed beneath that, more books some religious. Too, there are compartments of books hidden from sight elsewhere in that room.  Nearly every room in our home has books in it. Except the bathrooms. Oh well... There's probably 1,000 books in our house or close to that, maybe more. Many books are hidden or on bookshelves placed so neatly, that you don't recognize that we have that many books. When I had an outside office, I had about 200 books, or so. I lost count. Mostly books medical in nature, some philosophical. I had religious books of various backgrounds as well. They were usually gifts from people well-meaning. I accepted their gifts. And to understand my clients I read some or all of them. When I was with them I wanted to be of their same mind. I wanted to be

  Expectations I remarked in conversation to a friend or two or many others…over the years: “Marriage is harder than raising children.” That is if you plan on truly working on it, remaining in it. Other sayings to keep the relationship going, “Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be happy?” Perhaps those five little words, even if you think your partner is wrong, “You Are Right About That.” Too, “Never go to bed angry.” Are good things to remember. It can bring us down to earth.   My husband used to say, “You’re a product of your environment.”   So many times, I despised that saying. Partly was, I didn’t quite understand what he was getting at. It didn’t mean I was like my parents. It meant, the stressors I dealt with as a child helped mold me and my perception of the world and relationships in it. I’ve had private conversations on expectations of relationships many times. Some with clients. Some with relatives and friends. Then some with the guys I trained with in an all-m

  What’s Love Got To Do With…It? Goal for this week (8/15-8/21/2022) is 80 miles. It's taken me years to get the feeling back and not plod along in my run. I began to feel stressed and burnt out on racing probably in  mid-2006. 2007 in Texas was the first time I got so sick in the US National 24-Hour Championship mid race I had to stop. Between pissing blood, back pain and vomiting whatever I drank. I was a mess.  After a near year layoff of racing ultras and super-high mileage weeks from 1986 through 2006, I did rest running most of 2007. In September 2007 I prepped for the US National 24-Hour Championships in Texas. During the event in November 2007, I called my coach down in Fort Myers, and told him I had to drop and would try to fix my issues in my hotel room alone. I drove to the hotel and arrived in my hotel room bathroom in agony pouring water into me. This time without puking. I called my coach Dante and put him on speaker. “Tell me a story Dante. Occupy my mind. I’m

When I was a child, television was limited. It was limited by my mom. Too, it was prior to cable television. So, whatever was on, was perhaps limited. It remained in black and white. It's what we could afford. Color was for the rich. Regardless, I enjoyed watching certain sports, police shows, nature shows, etc.... For me, it helped give me daydreams, creativity and so forth. I was not a great student. I had undiagnosed learning disabilities. Such learning disabilities things like that were a common occurrence in the 1960s and 1970s. You just accepted the struggle. And if you had a bully for a father. He would tell you, "D is for Dummy." Yes, put downs I would not ever imagine implying to anyone, much less any child, including my own. I saw it and see it as child abuse. Back then the television didn't condemn me. Didn't judge me. It was a pleasant, innocuous, electrical feel good, comfort feel good mental zone. Television was my friend. It would speak. I wo

 New book out... And the book... "An Endurance Athlete's Nutritional Guide " came out last week https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B8SK37F3?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

  It’s ‘Oh Wow!’ It’s been a hec of a summer, weather-wise here on the east coast. I try and think back to when in my childhood did we have such constant heat and humidity. I grew up without many amenities that we now have. The likes of air-conditioning, a washer and dryer. Two bathrooms in one household and plenty of food. All that was so unimaginable to me back then. I had no clue, the inconveniences of my childhood. I laugh as I type such an incomprehensible word. Inconvenience, it sounds so passe. As if I now need to stick my nose up in the air, suddenly. Only the well-to-do had such things when I was a kid. Not a middle-class mom. It was all about the good struggle of life. Pride in pinching pennies. Making your own ades and soda. Faking gourmet food.   And you knew how to polish silver. You could have had tea with the Queen of England, because you learned how to hold a cup of tea. Knowing where all the different extended pieces of silverware went. That you knew. I think this

 In short, today was my 4th time out to meet/eat with friend(s) since June 2019. I think I'm averaging almost once every 5 weeks at this point. I nearly set a record of 3 years not going out for coffee or a meal with a friend or businessoccasion... yet, I was drawn out by my former weight coach getting a bunch of us together back in mid-March.  This time it was my BFF, Nina Bovio who flew in from Michigan to see me. We had a five hour breakfast at Norm's favorite diner. Yes, started after 10:30 am and left at 3:30pm (my alibi... just in case someone is found murdered... it wasn't me.😁😅)   This October makes it thirty years ago we met in the streets of Detroit... after I'd ran a marathon. I missed the moolaaah/$$$$$$$ by thirty seconds. Little did I know I'd been running with fractures in my back and was beginning to have major issues with my right leg... that was misdiagnosed six times.  We've shared much together through writing letters. Then emails. Hand-wri

If we cared enough more than we complained...Quite a few people will take the time to write, explain, so forth... I have written senators, congress-people and presidents. I've had a Senator call my office many years ago. We needed a Stop sign at the end of our road. People up and down the block complained. NONE OF THEM WROTE... One, an elder woman called over and over again. One day about 19 years ago I told her. "You have to write a letter. So, I can do that. Don't call I'll deal with it. The head of NJDOT called my office after I sent eight letters to state senators. I waited. I sent duplicate reminder letters over next two years. Probably a total of 16 letters mailed. Six years later after I'd started my letter writing on this matter... We got the Stop sign put in. It was about three weeks before the elder woman passed. So today...a much faster response here now on people's phone service issue with 5G... What it took....It took 96 miles, two corporate le