Then and now, there’s no place like home
My kids were 15 and 13 when I first began writing my column in the Villager. At that time, the name and the theme of my column was “No Place Like Home,” and I thought of it pretty much as a “Mom” column. Hearth and home was my headquarters, and family events and activities – my family’s, and those of families in general – were my main topics. At that time, whenever I wrote about my kids – my husband, [...]
Anything can happen if you’re open to the possibilities
“Anything can happen if you let it.” There are a few different ways you could interpret that. One is as a cautionary warning, a reminder to set firm limits and boundaries, and to stay disciplined, focused, and attentive. Because if you’re not, if you loosen up a bit or get a little careless, you never know what awful things might occur. I prefer to take it in the other direction, however – the one in which you wander and explore. [...]
Hit the jackpot by looking inside
Imagine that you buy a lottery ticket every week, and that one day you hit the jackpot and win fifty million dollars. But you never cash in, and the windfall doesn’t do you any good. Why? Because you never check the numbers, you just keep on buying tickets. I read a blog post recently that used a slight variation of this as an analogy, and the first thing I did was shake my head, chuckling and rolling my eyes at [...]
A current photo brings back fond memories
I was flipping through the pages of last Sunday’s newspaper when something caught my eye. It was a photo of a toddler sitting on a sofa, kissing the forehead of his baby sister, who was seated in his lap. The young boy was two-year-old Prince George of England, and the baby was his newborn sister, Princess Charlotte. The photo was taken by their mother. The reason the photo grabbed my attention was not because it was such an adorable picture [...]
Casual comments can uncover strong connections
I was at an event last week that included an educational seminar and a two-hour riverboat cruise. (Yes, references were made to Gilligan’s Island.) There was only one person at the event whom I knew ahead of time, so virtually everyone I talked to was someone I was meeting for the first time – starting with the person I met in the parking lot who arrived at the same time I did. As we walked toward the dock, we chatted [...]
Four stages can teach us anything we want to know
Every once in a while I come across a helpful hint, a business tip, or a piece of information or insight so brilliant that I know it’s going to change my life. Often, it’s something that seems so basic and obvious I’m embarrassed to acknowledge that I never thought about it before. It happened again recently when I read about the four stages we have to go through when learning anything new. “Ignorance is bliss” is a good description of [...]