Happy Fourth of July All! The day is sure to be replete with lots sizzling fireworks not to mention those sizzling scents from the grill—be it steaks, hamburgers and hot dogs or veggie burgers, corn, and asparagus. This is a day for celebration. And while hopefully no...
Family
Follow Your Christmas Star
I love the night sky. Ever since a child. When little I used to think that the brightest star of the night was there just for me. I never called it my North Star and later I discovered I was right for it was never the North Star I gazed upon but instead Venus—which is...
Healing with Acronyms: FOOL
Forget Others’ Opinions Laugh Even Shakespeare’s darkest tragedies infuse comic relief. Can we say Macbeth and the Porter in unison everyone. The town fool supplying tension-breaking buffoonery is a staple in all great drama. Laughter at follies, and...
Timeless Gift by Stephanie Stevens
Years ago, I was reading the engraving inside of a beautiful antique pocket watch. It read: "To my darling husband, your loving wife and children." The engraved year was dated in the late 1800s. Immediately I envisioned that scene so long ago. When the...
Why Wait for Santa To Come to Town When You Can Be One All Year Round?
It’s that time of year again. Black Friday has passed and hopefully we all survived. Carols don the airwaves. Tree lots miraculous sprouted, and even if you live in a sunny California, as I do, you get frosted trees—bringing at least the appearance of winter into your...
Self Control by Dean Nixon
To truly be the master of our own lives we must first learn to master ourselves. The power of self-control as an ally in the quest for peace is essential for understanding truth. It provides discipline and limits the self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. It is...
The New School Bully; It’s Not Who You Think by Cindy Hogan
There is a new bully in town and it’s not who you think. Our schools have been fighting the good fight for a while now with positive results, but bullying still happens. We hear it in the news all the time about some mean kid launching an attack on a peer and making...
Anger–A Daughter’s Rage at Alzheimer’s by P.J. McIlvaine
We were sitting in a restaurant--me, my mother, and the jerk who eventually became her second husband (he was also the creep who tried to molest me under the guise of fatherly pretense). He went on and on about how much he loved my mother, that my brother and I had...