Raising a 13 year old has given me a lot of reason to think about control and how little of it I really have. And since Malaika is adopted I have been appreciating how much heredity and the environment play into life. Do we really have control? We do have the free will to make […]

Last week, we had a 25 year old cottonwood tree taken down. It was very gnarly and the roots where far enough out of the ground to trip over and make mowing difficult. I have been wanting to take it down the past couple of years, even though I will miss the shade. I told […]

  Each day we generally follow a routine, at least I do. I get up and have my quite time, then get the family up, work out, go to work, come home, walk Mav, have dinner, read or watch TV and go to bed. Sounds kind of boring, doesn’t it. But it’s not. I try […]

  We will open the book. It’s pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and it’s first chapter is New Year’s Day. – Edith Lovejoy Pierce For the first time this year, I got a New Year’s Card instead of a Christmas card. The words […]

“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” I’m not sure where I found this quote, but it said something to me. So many times I have failed and decided to try again without stopping to think about what went wrong. How can I possibly succeed if I don’t stop and evaluate what […]

  For many of us, 2009 has been a difficult year. Many of us, including me, are anxious about their investments and their retirement. Millions have lost their homes this year and millions more are unemployed. It becomes easy to see this as a dark, cold, dreary time. We understand that the Solstice has come […]

 If you are like me, once the Winter Solstic has passed, you want the light to arrive NOW. I think we should have at least 30 minutes of light more each day. I know that is unreasonable, but it doesn’t keep me from wanting it. I read in the paper that the sun will continue […]

For many of us, 2009 has been a difficult year. Many of us, including me, are anxious about their investments and their retirement. Millions have lost their homes this year and millions more are unemployed. It becomes easy to see this as a dark, cold, dreary time. We understand that the Solstice has come and […]

If you are like me, once the Winter Solstic has passed, you want the light to arrive NOW. I think we should have at least 30 minutes of light more each day. I know that is unreasonable, but it doesn’t keep me from wanting it. I read in the paper that the sun will continue […]

One of my favorite TV shows is JAG, which stand for Judge Advocate General Corps, the Navy’s legal branch. I have nine of the ten seasons, and that’s only because Season Ten doesn’t come out until next May. While I was wrapping presents I decided to watch all the Christmas episodes. My favorite one is […]