The Glass is Half-Full

"Winter Weather Advisory". "Winter Storm Warning". It's winter. It's Michigan. Snow is going to fly. Wind is going to blow. Temps are going to dive. Yet, the weather-forecasters want to keep us hyper-vigilant to the fact that the snow is flying, the wind is blowing and the temps are diving.  We along the shores of the Great Lakes are especially aware of winter's weather, "lake effect snow" just means winter weather on steroids. We have the Ziggy cloud (for those of you unfamiliar with this reference, the cartoon character Ziggy was often depicted with him being followed by a dark cloud - I tried a Google search but came up empty, so my explanation I hope draws picture enough!) from December to March. My mom will sometimes call from sunny Phoenix referring to the cloud over Saugatuck. One winter we had 20 snow days in a row following Christmas break (that might be a slight exaggeration, but it felt like 20!). It's winter. It's

When in college, I discovered Kenny Loggins' song "Celebrate Me Home". The lyrics spoke to me and that time in my life. I've added the link here so you can read them and here the song: Kenny Loggins - Celebrate Me Home Lyrics | MetroLyrics Now, I'm discovering anew this song and the meaning it has as a mom of three adult children. As I was preparing their rooms, making some of their favorite Christmas treats (only batch of chocolate peanut butter balls), and creating a grocery list (it's a skill with one vegan and one vegetarian) - this song was playing in my head. As I was decorating the Christmas tree, with each ornament that has a story, I began to sing this aloud - loudly and off-key with only the dog to hear. He didn't howl, as this part Bloodhound is known to do, so it couldn't have been too off-key. Wally watched my preparations and I knew that he knew what it meant, his buddies were coming home, so maybe he was simply being extra-tole

I'm especially good at finding lost or missing objects - a skill I attributed to my "ULD" (uterine locating device). This includes my previously lost pounds always inevitably finding their way back to me. Damn them! In an attempt to keep those pounds permanently lost, this time, I had approached my Weight Watchers experience as a lifestyle change instead of a diet. So this time instead of working hard to lose the weight, reaching goal, doing a happy dance, buying new clothes and celebrating the weight loss success by promptly going back to living and eating as I had before the diet and then wondering why the new clothes were getting tighter ( blaming the damn dryer, or cheap fabrics, or temporary water weight gain) - I decided instead to look at Weight Watchers as my own 12-step program. While I'm not a food addict, I don't always make good choices about food- I prefer asiago cheese bread and bagels to Tumaro wraps, and I prefer cheese on just about anythin

A friend sent this article to me today: Are you Old? Infirm? I can relate. Though  I'm not old - despite what the three-year-olds in my Sunday school class say. And I am not infirm - and I'll wack over the head with my cane anyone, repeat anyone , that would call me that. I resemble Nancy in the article. She calls herself crippled. And Mr. Bruni wrote, " I confessed that I cringed whenever she called herself “crippled,” which she does, because she values directness and has a streak of mischief in her." I prefer the term 'gimp' and have also had others cringe when I say that. I like the term they arrived at "limited" but it's not perfect - maybe just a little more politically correct. I have felt that diminishment when in my wheelchair. But being a tad feisty and Irish, I fight that with every ounce of my being. My personality has always been a little on the large side and not very quiet or shy, so I make it a challenge to 'be see