#6) Share without pretending. (Ephesians 4:15)

When I share, it's generally from the heart without anticipating anything in return. I don't expect reciprocation, keep tallies, or ask "what's in it for me?"  I would hope that most people are the same way. We share because it's human nature to be altruistic and to empathize with others. The only thing I will sometimes ask in return is to pay the favor forward. For example, when I've provided genealogy information for a distant relative or friend and they ask how they can repay me, I will simply request that they do the same for someone else when the chance arises.

I can think of lots of ways that I share with my family, most of them involving the contribution of food, time, or money. I visit my mother every day, do small chores for her, and bring her dishes that I know she likes to eat. I send food and money back to school with my college-age daughter, and I go to Dr. appointments with my pregnant older daughter and help her prepare the baby's nursery. I order my husband's medications and help him save money for the car parts he wants to buy or car shows he wants to enter. I share with my co-workers by telling funny stories to lighten the mood, listening, or occasionally bringing in treats. I share money and raise funds for charitable causes like the United Way, the American Heart Association, and United in Pink (the local breast cancer group). I also donate to the ALS foundation in honor of my friend George, and the National MS Society in honor of my friend Janet.

But often times, I think it's the random acts of kindness that mean the most to both the giver and the recipient. These are selfless acts that are often spontaneous and usually involve strangers. Random acts of kindness don't take a lot of time or effort, but they significantly improve someone's day and often serve to lift their spirits. I used to belong to a Random Acts of Kindness internet group which was started by my cousin, but it's been awhile since I put any thought or effort into it. Tomorrow I vow to find a way to surprise a stranger with a random act of kindness. In fact, I look forward to it because I know that in addition to helping someone else, it will improve my day and bring a smile to my face as well.

#5) Answer without arguing. (Proverbs 17:1)

Yep, some of these principles are definitely refrigerator worthy! I'm guilty as charged on this one. I'd like to think that I always answer without arguing, but that would be unrealistic. When I'm approached in an argumentative tone, I often answer in the same manner. I'm also guilty of misinterpreting a completely innocuous remark and responding negatively.

I think it's important for partners to air their disagreements before they eventually turn into big blow-ups down the road. In other words, get rid of the rain clouds before they develop into thunderstorms. However, it's crucial to conduct respectful disagreements, rather than destructive "my way or the highway" arguments.

It's also important to keep the end goal in mind at all times during disagreements. The intention should be to resolve the conflict rather than to win. The goal shouldn't be to beat your partner into submission, but to make the cause of the argument go away.

Sometimes the only viable resolution is to agree to disagree, and that's OK too. However, this solution takes a lot of self-restraint--it's often hard for me to take off the boxing gloves and suppress that natural urge to "win"!

#4) Pray without ceasing. (Colossians 1:9)

I'm not sure I fully agree with this principle in the Ten Ways to Love. It assumes that praying [to God] is a necessary step in loving relationships. I think that too many times, people use God and religion as an excuse to slack off on personal responsibility. "It's God's will" can be an easy way to let yourself off the hook from taking blame or putting forth hard work. Not to say that everyone is guilty of doing this by any means, but I've seen it often enough. Right now I'm watching someone slowly destroy her life and her kids' lives by putting everything in God's hands and trusting 100% in an unrealistic miracle, rather than taking a logical and reasonable course of action. It's heart-breaking to witness.

I'm a true believer in reaping what you sow. I recently ran across a quote by Dick Van Dyke that I really love:  "To live a life of love and compassion and to care about your fellow human beings and do no harm--I think that's a religion right there."  So rather than praying, I will substitute contemplation, introspection, and self-evaluation without ceasing as principle #4 in the Ten Ways to Love. I will try my best to be a good, caring, loving person so that I'm worthy of receiving all the wonderful things that life has to offer in return.

#3) Give without sparing. (Proverbs 21:26)

Maybe I should plead the fifth on this one. Rich would tell you that this is where I fall short. He feels that I don't give him enough of my time or attention, and he's right about that. At the end of my long days, I like to take the leftover scraps of time and use them for myself. In fact, I often come in the door, say a quick hello, change my clothes, and start doing whatever project or chore that's on my mind, neglecting to stop and give him a kiss or even a hug. It's embarrassing to admit, but I just don't think about it. Every once in awhile, the thought will surface to the top of my brain and I'll make a conscious effort to pause and show him some sign of affection. It usually takes him by surprise and is very much appreciated.

Most of the time we spend our evenings at opposite ends of the house, doing completely unrelated things. He's usually watching TV or sometimes doing a household chore. I'm on the computer, working on a project, watching a different show on TV, or doing another household chore. Never the twain shall meet. It's a sad state of affairs and every once in awhile Rich reaches his limit and calls me out on it. Of course, I remind him that it's a two-way street! Thus my efforts lately to plan fun weekend excursions and adventures for us to do together. I figure that there just isn't enough time to work with during the week, but the least I can do is make an effort on weekends.

I guess the syndrome I'm describing is emotional distance. A lot of wives complain that their husbands are emotionally distant, but it seems to be more unusual in reverse. For myself, I can say that it's mostly caused by an accumulation of hurts over the years without complete forgiveness at a deeply subconscious level. It's something I really need to work on if I want my marriage to succeed.

#2) Speak without accusing. (James 1:19)

When Rich and I were going through a painfully difficult time in our relationship, we went to marriage counseling for awhile. Actually, it started out as family counseling for a few sessions and then dwindled down to just the two of us. One of the things the therapist had us practice in her office was the classic method of mirroring. One of us would begin with an "I" statement; a simplistic example would be "I feel angry when you don't pick your clothes up off the floor." The other person listens and repeats what their partner just stated ("You feel angry when I don't pick my clothes up off the floor"), then asks if there's anything else. This pattern is repeated until the first person has said everything they want to say, then it's the other person's turn to begin talking with an "I" statement.

At first this routine seemed awkward and repetitive. But I began understanding its value when I realized how often we failed to mirror back correctly. We'd put a slight twist on the other person's words, or add a little of our own interpretation which might or might not be correct. It wasn't as simple as we had originally thought. It was also difficult to be the one doing all the listening with no chance to respond until the other person was done talking. And it was harder than it seems to start all our thoughts and sentences with "I" rather than the accusatory "you."

Mirroring is actually an important relationship and communication skill, whether it's actually done verbally as above or silently. It doesn't allow for accusations. Instead, it fosters the ability to experience the world through your partner's eyes, while still holding on to your own perspective. If you can't mirror what your partner says, you can't relate to the other person's internal reality; you only relate to your version of it.

In my head I know its value, but I have to admit that I haven't thought about it or consciously used it in a long time. I need to start putting it into practice once again.

TEN WAYS TO LOVE... Through writing, explore your personal relationship to each principle: #1) Listen without interrupting. (Proverbs 18)

I thnk when this set of 10 questions is finished, I need to pin them up on the refrigerator--for both Rich's benefit and mine!

In the heat of the moment, the courtesy of listening without interrupting gets completely thrown out the window for us. When we disagree, we're each guilty of either attempting to drown out the other person or getting in the last word. This is aggravated by the fact that he naturally has a very loud, deep voice. It takes a conscious awareness for me to take a breath and let Rich finish what he's saying before stating my own feelings. It also takes a conscious effort to really HEAR what he's saying rather than busily planning my own response.

When Rich doesn't extend me the same courtesy in return, the anger rises and the cycle of interrupting starts all over again because I feel I haven't had my say. I've actually walked away in frustration at this point. I've also written him a letter on a couple of occasions when I felt there was no other way to state my feelings without interruption.

Curiously, I don't act this way during disagreements with anyone else other than my immediate family members (husband and on rare occasions, daughters). I'm much more polite to friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. I guess that's human nature. But shouldn't it be just the opposite? Shouldn't we treat the people we love the most with the utmost courtesy and respect?

What do you find sexy...?

What's sexy to me is an internal, from-the-gut reaction that's so intensely personal, I'm not even sure I can do justice in describing it. Plus I think my idea of sexiness constantly changes over time. But I'll describe the most recent man who caught my attention.

I'm a fan of the show Dancing with the Stars, and this season has featured a celebrity dancer named J. R. Martinez. I wasn't aware of him before the show, but I really sat up and took notice of him the week the dancers had to tell a personal story through their dance. His dance routine was dedicated to the U.S. troops who were killed in action and never made it back home. He's a 28-year-old Hispanic man who served in Iraq and suffered burns to 40% of his body in a landmine. His performance channeled all the heartache and pain of his wartime experience into an emotionally riveting dance. I simply couldn't take my eyes off him.

His face is very scarred and somewhat distorted, and he's not the type you would typically associate with sexiness. But to me, he represents positivity and optimism combined with humility, which are all very sexy qualities. He overcame his own private despair and became a motivational speaker. He has a genuine personality, a sharp sense of humor, and is very articulate. It doesn't hurt that he also has a good body and a keen awareness of his body image, which translates into being an awesome dancer.

Yeah, I'm a big J. R. Martinez fan for now. Ask me again in a month and I may be focused on someone completely different!

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science." ~ Albert Einstein Describe something mysterious.

Something recently happened to my husband which was both mysterious and downright creepy. Rich typically leaves for work at 5:00 am when it's still dark outside, and the first part of his route is along Highway 80, which is split in the middle by a median, with two lanes going in each direction. When the weather is nice, he likes to take his motorcycle.

This particular morning he was on his Harley and he was leading a small pack of cars behind him traveling down Hwy. 80 in the darkness. It had been awhile since the highway department had cleared the brush along the sides of the road, so the bushes, vines and kudzu that the South is famous for were growing right up to the shoulders of the road.

Suddenly and with no warning, a man appeared immediately in front of his headlights, rising up out of the brush at the roadside. He was African American, dressed in dark colors from head to foot, and began striding purposefully across the road with absolutely no expression on his face. There was no sign that he could hear the roar of Rich's motorcycle, no flicker of recognition that he could see the army of headlights heading straight for him.

Rich fought his natural instinct to jerk on the handlebars, knowing that would spell disaster. Thinking quickly, he avoided the impending tragedy by barely, almost imperceptibly, flicking his handlebars to the left. He missed the man by mere inches. He said the man's face was almost right above his, and it was zombie-like, as if he never even saw Rich. As if Rich and the cars behind him didn't even exist.

It took awhile for his heart to quit racing, his body to stop trembling, and his adrenaline to cease flowing, and Rich was so busy trying to calm his nerves that he never looked back. The odd thing was that he expected to hear brakes screeching, tires swerving, and horns blaring from the cars behind him... but inexplicably, he never heard anything. He has no explanation for how that could be possible. He says he can still picture the man's face in his mind, and the vision haunts him. It was a true Twilight Zone experience.

A few days after this incident we went to Charleston for a long weekend to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. While we were there, we signed up for a candlelight ghost tour one night. Rich is normally very skeptical about such subjects, but it got him to wondering.... had he truly seen a ghost on that early August morning?

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." ~ Dr. Suess Describe a time when you expressed how you felt... no matter the consequences.

I used to work with a lady named Tricia who was head of accounting at Wells Fargo. Tricia had an extremely difficult personality, which is putting it mildly. She frequently grated on people's nerves and she could be downright cruel and insulting at times. When my friend Josette was hired to work in the same office with her, Tricia made things so unbearable that Josette burst into tears one day. She had a penchant for wearing low-cut, cleavage-showing blouses. and maybe that's why our mostly male engineering office put up with her antics for so long. I remember with amusement when one of the older ladies who worked with us handed her a safety pin one day and told her to cover herself up.

Like everyone else, I put up with a lot of grief from Tricia. On the day that sticks in my mind, I had gone out for lunch and bought some office supplies, including a large piece of plexiglass to put under the typesetter sitting on a big, metal flat file in my office. Not only did the plexiglass cut down on the noise from the rattling metal, but it also kept the top of the file cabinet from being scratched by the constant shaking of the equipment. I had grown accustomed to buying the supplies I needed for my own office without any questions being asked. We were on the honor system, and my boss trusted each of us in this capacity.

When I turned in the receipts, Tricia lost no time tracking me down and hurling a barrage of questions at me. What the hell is this $30.00 piece of plexiglass for? Who gave you permission to buy it? Do you think you can just go out and buy whatever you want without having to account to anyone? She was very insulting and loud, and I knew that the three engineers upstairs with me could all hear what was going on. She was attacking my honesty and integrity for no good reason. The more I explained, the more she attacked, until I finally had enough. Just as loudly, with my voice straining, I told her to GET OUT. She stood and stared at me, dumbfounded. I repeated, GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!

I have to say that it felt really, really good and satisfying to order her out! It's the only time in my life I've ever done anything like that, other than throwing my little brother out of my bedroom when he was being a pain! After she left, one of the engineers came to my office doorway and applauded. Tricia later told my co-worker Steve D. that I was immature, which actually made me laugh. Wow, pot calling kettle! It wasn't much longer before she had crossed too many lines with too many people in our office, and she was "transferred" to the central station in Los Angeles. She later filed unfounded harrassment charges against her new boss (not hard to imagine with her personality) and she was out of there as well.

So yeah, it doesn't often happen that I completely lose my cool, especially at work. But that's the story of how I actually grew some cojones and ordered someone out of my office one day!

"When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world." ~ Eckhart Tolle Sink in to your inner stillness. From there, write... 10 minutes.

It's a quiet morning shrouded in a heavy mist in my little corner of the world. What is it about the mist that makes things seem so eerie and mysterious? I'm alone in my house and all is silent.

I need to conquer my natural resistance to the silence and stillness. I need to shut off my mind's running commentary.

I concentrate on relaxing my neck and shoulders where I hold my tension.

I concentrate on my breathing, making it slow and even.

I allow my thoughts and emotions to settle; I quiet the agitation.

I let down the layers of filmy veils in my mind, muting the sharp definition and clarity of my visually distracting surroundings.

I enjoy the solitude and tranquility; the time without noise.

I rest in the stillness.

I drop the anchor deep to the ocean floor; watching it sink in slo-mo.

I'm drifting with the natural rhythm and gentle rocking motion of the ebb and flow.

It's peaceful.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive." Describe a friendship that opened up a new world to you.

I'm so fortunate to have many friendships that are each valuable in their own way; I can't possibly focus on just one. Here's a list of my top friendships over the years “in order of their appearance”:

Lynn--my first childhood "best friend." When I was 6 years old, we moved away from my grandparents' apple farm in Novi to the suburbs of Farmington. It was a big change for me because we were pretty isolated on the farm, where I had only my brother and cousins as playmates. Lynn lived across the street from our new house and befriended me immediately. We played school, paper dolls, and wrote stories together for hours upon hours. She introduced me to the worlds of roller skating and bike riding. It was a very sad day when she moved away when I was 10 years old. Lynn was extremely instrumental in teaching me the meaning of friendship.

Joy--I first met Joy when she was 3 and I was 6. Her family lived next door, and the 3-year difference seemed extreme when we were younger but became insignificant as we grew up. Her family was very active outdoors and they had a membership at a local lake. Some of my favorite childhood memories involve going to the lake with her family. I honed my water skiing skills behind their big wood Chris-Craft boat. Later they moved to a lake in Fenton and I spent many enjoyable weekends there; I got my first major sunburn when I fell asleep on their raft on the lake. In our married years, we’ve spent several carefree houseboating vacations together. Joy and her family taught me the value and fun of living an active outdoor life.

Teri--Teri and her family lived on the other side of Joy. Her mother abandoned her when she was a baby and her father died when we were 9 years old, leaving her and her siblings at the mercy of her stepmother. I was afraid of the stepmother and well aware of the emotional abuse that went on in the household, but I didn't realize there was also physical abuse until years later. She hid the secret well. Teri and I walked home from school every day; but I rarely saw her afterwards, when she entered her house of horrors. At 17, she moved into her own apartment and put herself through college at the U of M. To this day, Teri is undergoing dental work, foot surgery, and counseling due to the abuse. Teri has kept in contact with her stepmother and has somehow let go of most of the anger and resentment. She's an amazing example of independence, resilience, and forgiveness.

Sue--By luck of the draw, Sue became my suitemate during my sophomore year at MSU, and then my roommate/apartment-mate during my junior and senior years. We've been the best of friends ever since, moving to California together after college. My high school and the community where I lived were full of hoity-toity types (don't you love that word?) who were generally narrow-minded and unaccepting. When I met Sue, she was the exact opposite of those things and a very much needed breath of fresh air. She's an open-minded friend who shares all aspects of her life with me and reciprocates by listening to me without judgment. She's a fun-loving individual who delights in exploring new activities and ideas. She's the person who introduced me to the worlds of scrapbooking, cycling, and who knows what else over the years. I'm extremely blessed to have her in my life and I know that we’ll always be there for each other.

Teresa et al from Rocky Mountain Park--I've always loved the outdoors and when I worked in Colorado for two summers, I found a group of adventurous friends who had similar interests and have stuck with me through the years. We spent many happy hours hiking and camping together, at one point successfully climbing a 14,000-foot mountain. Teresa is my "green" friend and I've become much more conscious about environmental issues due to her influence. With her as my role model, I recently quit buying the plastic water bottles and purchased a Brita filter and nalgene bottles in my own small attempt to improve the environment. My life wouldn't be nearly as fulfilling without my outdoor friends.

Steve D.--Steve and I were co-workers at Wells Fargo, where I worked on and off for almost 15 years. Our relationship was always strictly platonic, but I could unfailingly count on his loyalty. His companionship and support were invaluable to me when I had a bad break-up with a long-term boyfriend. He eventually rented an apartment in Hawthorne, CA which was literally in my backyard at the time, so we became close neighbors. His quirky personality always kept me entertained and amused, and one of my fondest memories is coming home for lunch and watching Mr. Ed on TV with him. Another show we watched together was Cheers; he did a great impression of Norm. Steve is a music lover with a vast knowledge of a wide variety of music. Traditionally, I attended the Playboy Jazz Festival every summer at the Hollywood Bowl, and the time he and I went together was educational as well as enjoyable.

Janet--Janet was my next door neighbor when we lived in the smaller house in Lake Elsinore. Despite having MS, she started a Welcome Wagon business in our neighborhood of newly constructed homes. I watched through the years as she gradually lost her sense of balance and her ability to walk. Through it all, she was upbeat and cheerful. She spent hours on her front porch reading to my daughter Michelle when she was a little girl. She and her husband moved away from CA before we did, but we still keep in touch. She can no longer speak or hold her head up, but still she perseveres. Her husband tells me that my Christmas letters are one of the highlights of the season for her. I'll always admire Janet's humility and grace in the face of a devastating disease.

Lynn--I must have a special bond with females named Lynn! This Lynn was my next-door neighbor after we moved up the street to the big house in Lake Elsinore. (Yes, we lived in two different houses on the same street.) Because our husbands both worked nights and we each had two children around the same ages, we “hung out” together often. We spent hours on the phone despite the fact that we were in houses right next to each other. We’d clean our houses while talking on the phone. Lynn has a great sense of humor and can imitate different accents extremely well. Her husband plays in a band and she sings, so we spent many fun evenings out with them. Our husbands began calling us Lucy and Ethel. The special thing about Lynn is that she usually approaches life with wild abandon, or as the saying goes, she “dances as if nobody’s watching.” When life gets too dull, serious, or depressing, Lynn is a great friend to have around.

Wendy—Every woman needs a friend who will honestly tell her what hairstyle looks best on her, give her makeup tips, advise her about what clothing styles to adopt and what to stay away from. You get my drift. Wendy is that friend and my own personal stylist. I met her 11 years ago when I started my present job, and I had just left a very conservative job working for the school system. She saved me from my “schlumpy” stage. (You might have eventually caught me on “What Not to Wear” if it weren’t for Wendy.) She’s also a crafts person/decorator extraordinaire. She helped me immeasurably with planning for my daughter Michelle’s wedding. Wendy introduced me to her long-time friend Kim, an ex-hippie and my hairdresser who I love. Every woman should have a Wendy in her life.

How has not telling the truth imprisoned you? How has telling the truth freed you?

There's an advantage in not always answering these prompts every single day: I can combine the above two questions into one writing!

I was 33, Rich was 35, and we were unmarried when we discovered we were pregnant. I had been using the sponge for birth control and was well aware of its flaws and the risks we were taking. But the truth is, I could hear my biological clock tick-tocking loud and clear. When I got past the initial shock of the pregnancy, I knew I was ready for a baby. And even though I wasn't absolutely certain about Rich's abilities as a husband nor my abilities as a wife after one divorce apiece, I was as sure as I could be that both of us would be great parents. I had witnessed firsthand how Rich loved and cared for his daughter Brianna, and how much she adored him in return. I wanted my baby to have a father who was present and involved, so I decided to propose to Rich. It wasn't my intention to put any pressure on him, but I did explain that I wanted this baby and that I was determined to give birth regardless of his response to my proposal. He told me he hadn't really planned on marrying ever again, and he had to think about it. After warming to the idea for a couple of days, he accepted my proposal.

It was awkward meeting Rich's parents for the first time under the circumstances, but they were kind and accepting. Where my hang-ups laid was in telling my own parents. My dad and particularly my mom had always been uncomfortable, embarrassed, and silent on the subject of sex. Neither of them ever had "the birds and the bees" discussion with me or my brother. Once when I was in college and home for a weekend, I accidentally left a birth control pill sitting out on my dresser. My mother let me know that she found it and was disappointed in me. She felt that my boyfriend was taking advantage and coercing me. She said, "Someday you will meet someone who loves you for the person you really are." She was refusing to admit that I was a willing participant in any kind of an intimate relationship. A few months later, when I was planning to work in Glacier National Park for the summer, I drove back to school to visit that same boyfriend before I left. My parents refused to lend me their car for the trip, so I made arrangements to borrow my cousin's truck. When my mother realized I was going anyway, she relented and let me drive her car. My dad was so upset he didn't speak to me again before I left for Montana. He didn't even say goodbye when I left, which really hurt me. So that's the attitude I was dealing with and the valid reasons behind my fears about being honest with them.

For two months I stewed about telling my parents the truth about my pregnancy. What should have been a joyful period of time was being spoiled by a big black cloud of uncertainty hanging over me. After lots of deliberation, I decided to write them a letter. That way, my mother would have time to consider her response. I just couldn't face any type of immediate negative reaction, or risk hearing voices tinged with disappointment and disapproval. I only remember the last sentence of my letter:  "I'm happy and excited about my choice to marry and have this baby, and I hope you will be too."

Interestingly, my mother chose to write me back in return. I wonder why to this day. Maybe she realized that couldn't trust herself to keep the disapproval and hesitation out of her voice. Maybe she was avoiding her feelings of embarrassment and discomfort by choosing the option of writing and keeping a distance between us. Her words on paper were supportive but restrained at the same time. The uncontained excitement that I longed for wasn't there, but I didn't really expect it anyway. That simply wasn't her style. Instead, there was a general feeling of resigned acceptance. She did question why I wanted to wait until August to have the wedding (undoubtedly thinking of the embarrassment of an obviously pregnant bride). But she concluded by saying that she and my dad would always love me, and if I was happy, then they were happy for me.

My feelings of relief were palpable and washed over me like a wave. I was starting my second trimester of prenancy and was finally free to enjoy the excitement of planning a wedding and the birth of my first baby. I could experience the wide range of emotions that every bride-to-be and first-time mother deserves to feel, unclouded by distress and worry over my parents' reactions. And by the time nine months rolled around and Michelle was born, their initial hesitation had evaporated completely. They were as excited and thrilled as any first-time grandparents could be.

"If society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." ~ John F. Kennedy, Friday, January 20, 1961 What is your view on the current grass-roots movement 'Occupy Wall Street'?

My understanding of "Occupy Wall Street" is admittedly vague, even after reading an article recommended by my friend who's participating in "Occupy Traverse City." I do know that it's a grass-roots movement based on frustration with the downfall of our economy and the corruption in government and big business.

Like most people, I personally know individuals who've been affected in very adverse ways by the economy. My stepdaughter and her fiance live in Biloxi/Gulfport, an area hit by a double whammy. This part of the country has never recovered from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and the current recession just makes a bad situation worse. Brianna and Ryan have been in and out of jobs ever since 2006, when they returned to South Mississippi after the hurricane. My friend Lynn and my niece Whitney both studied diligently to earn their teaching certificates, only to find no teaching jobs when they graduated one and two years ago, respectively. It's frustrating and disheartening for both of them, and who knows when that situation will improve? I have two relatives, a female and a male, who are members of the armed forces and stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They're both committed individuals, but even they are asking why our young men and women are still over there, working on rebuilding those two countries when our own people at home need so much help.

My own personal eye-opener happened last weekend when I attended the Bike Fest in Columbus, GA. Columbus is city that used to be full of bustling, productive factories. Now the factories are huge, vacant, hollow buildings which are skeletons of what once existed. We camped in front of one of these factories and used the inside for our bathroom/indoor camping facility. It really struck me as such a terrible waste that most of the time those buildings sit empty and useless. And of course I've seen all the photos and youtube videos of the devastation that we used to call Detroit. Outsourcing has brought about a slow, painful death to American manufacturing, and with it the American middle class. I honestly shudder to think about what my future granddaughter's life will be like if something isn't done to bring jobs and the middle class back to America.

"You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever." What do you put your trust in?

Well, I've never been a big God person; something I don't often freely admit here in the Bible Belt. In fact, I'm really on the fence about any sort of higher power at all. Religion makes me uncomfortable, which tells me it's not a good "fit" for me. As a child, I attended Sunday school in a Lutheran church, and then I was baptized at the age of 12 (a horrible experience) in a Presbyterian church. But I remember being skeptical since day one regarding the religious stories I was told about Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, Moses parting the Red Sea, and Noah loading the ark. They were good, entertaining tales, but I always thought of them as fiction rather than reality.

What really stuck with me from Sunday school was the lesson about the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This was also a principle reinforced and modeled at home by my parents. I think the idea of karma is an extension of the Golden Rule. Karma is a cause and effect cycle, where all of my thoughts, words and deeds affect my reality and reflect back on me. I receive what I give, and I am in control of creating my own destiny. I like that idea.

Karma is fluid; I can change my karma by changing my thoughts, attitude, and behavior. This is the opposite of luck, which presumes that what happens to me is random and uncontrollable. It's also the opposite of both fate and destiny, which assume that everything that happens to me is predetermined. For me, fate is a horrible notion which leaves me feeling trapped and confined.

I think there's something to be said for trusting my gut as well. It's a natural sixth sense that can help in making better decisions, sizing up other people, and assessing motives. I can think of many times when my gut instinct, in retrospect, turned out to be correct.

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." ~ Albert Einstein What is your intuition telling you?

Lately I feel as if I've turned a corner in my outlook; almost as if I've come to an epiphany of sorts. After years of worrying about a multitude of situations both real and projected, my intuition is telling me that everything's going to be OK. It's a wonderfully freeing release, and I'm feeling much happier than I've been in a long time.

In pondering my list of worries:

• Finances have troubled me for years, but I've worked out a clear plan to pay off debts and can definitely see slow but steady progress in this realm.
• My mother has been a big worry since my dad died in 2002. The stress of losing him caused her macular degeneration to progress rapidly to the point where she's now almost completely blind. But I've moved her closeby in the past year, to a place where people check on her well-being daily and there are facilities for her to move into if she loses the little independence that she still has left. I no longer have to worry about her from afar anymore, which only added to the strain. I feel that a viable plan has been worked out for her, no matter what should happen.
• All has not been smooth sailing over the years in my marriage, but I'm seeing many recent improvements. We're planning more activities together, embarking on more weekends away, and finding more common ground. On our recent trip to Biloxi we were together for hours in the car, and I began reading humorous excerpts aloud from the book "A Walk in the Woods." It sounds like a small thing, but it felt really good to laugh together over many parts of that book. It was something I wouldn't have thought to do until recently; I simply would have read in silence while he drove.
• Who hasn't worried about their children? All three of mine (I'm including my stepdaughter), have definitely given us some gray hair at various times. Brianna and Ryan continue to struggle economically ever since Katrina, but they each have infectious personalities and great abilities to "win friends and influence enemies." Once they find their path in life, I really expect them to take off and accomplish wonderful things. Michelle is our loving, nurturing, nesting child, and she will be a great mother. She and Craig have struggled with finances as well, but he has a large, loving family who are local to this area, very supportive, and can be counted on in a pinch. Michelle and Craig will be all right in the long run. Julie is a lovable spirit full of adventure, ambition, and unrestrained zest. She's taken a few wrong turns in the road in the past, but has a clear idea now about where she's headed and what she wants to do. In my gut, I honestly feel that all my kids will not only be "just fine" but they will thrive.

My intuition is telling me that all is well, and that's a truly fabulous gift.

Has there ever been a time when you sought revenge? (Or wished to?)

As I mentioned before, I'm not really a person who loses her temper often, and hand-in-hand with that, I've rarely considered the possibility of seeking revenge. Probably the closest I've ever come is wishing revenge on a particular clique of "mean girls" in my junior high school. I went to a school in Farmington Hills, MI which was comprised mostly of upper middle class kids. Many of their fathers were white-collar executives in the automobile industry, and they lived in spacious homes in suburbia. Several of my classmates had brand new cars in their garages, ready and waiting for the day they received their drivers licenses. Interestingly and perhaps predictably, the clique of "mean girls" didn't come from this upper echelon of financial stature. They lived in the middle class neighborhood where I lived, in smaller brick homes, where the fathers were blue-collar types.

The group of "mean girls" was perhaps 6 to 8 in number, and their mission was to belittle, humiliate, and make everyone else's life generally miserable. My mother was friends with the mother of one of their ringleaders. She was well aware of her daughter's bad behavior and would say with her teeth gritted, "I'd just like to put Cynthia on a slow boat to China."

Their mean-spirited antics were numerous and I've undoubtedly forgotten many of them over the years, but some were bad enough that I'll always remember. One day in 9th grade I was walking home with my friend Teri on a late winter afternoon. The sun was out and it was one of those Michigan days where the snow was melted to a dirty, messy slush. Our road was typically full of potholes from the harsh winter that had just passed. The mean girls came careening by in an older sister's car, deliberately hitting a pothole adjacent to us that was full of muddy water. You guessed it, we were left covered with dripping, muddy slush and all we could hear was the high pitch of hysterical laughter as they drove away.

Denise, a friend of mine, had beautiful, long straight hair down to her rear--the type of hair that every girl wanted back then. One day in the hallway at school, as everyone was leaving for the afternoon, the mean girls snuck up on her from behind and each smashed a wad of gum in her hair. When she got home, her parents determined the only thing they could do to fix the mess was to take her for a haircut. I remember that Denise didn't come to school for a couple of days following that incident. She shed lots of tears and hated her shorter hair.

Another friend, Marilyn, was short in stature, very curvy, and somewhat overweight. The mean girls teased her mercilessly about her weight. One of them, Therese D., was extremely skinny and knobby-kneed herself and was particularly relentless in hassling Marilyn. I'll never forget one night when I was over at Marilyn's house and we were telling her dad about Therese and her antics. He suggested a retort to the next unkind remark: "If it weren't for your Adam's apple, you wouldn't have a figure at all." We thought that was hilarious!

There was one poor, friendless girl in junior high named Karen H., who received the brunt of the harrassment. We were all in gym class together and she huddled in a corner of the locker room as she dressed for gym and received a barrage of insults daily. She was tall with buck teeth and a head full of very short, dishwater blonde, tightly-curled hair. The mean girls nicknamed her "Steel Wool" because of her hair. The rest of us hung back quietly, wordlessly dressing for gym class and just glad that we weren't the focus of the ridicule. It was terribly cruel, and a wave of anger wells up through my chest still today as I remember. I'm sure that Karen, wherever she is, has never forgotten it.

Although my friends and I spoke of revenge many times, we didn't carry through and Marilyn never even used her father's retort. We knew that it would just aggravate a bad situation which was already almost intolerable. However, as adults we've had some conversations about our good ol' junior high days, and we've come to realize that, in a roundabout way, we did get revenge.

After she graduated from college, Marilyn stopped at a Denny's restaurant for coffee one morning on her way to her first teaching interview (she ended up getting the job). She had lost weight, was dressed up and looking good, and the waitress who served her was Therese D. The thought still makes me chuckle. When the 10-year reunion booklet came out, Jane B. received "honorable mention" for being married the longest and having the most kids. She was 27 at the time--not an "honor" I would have wanted at that age! I've learned through my mother that Cynthia M. is a hairdresser in Miami, FL who has been married and divorced several times. And from pictures of our recent 40th class reunion, I could see that Susan A. is now extremely overweight and looks to be about 70 years old rather than 57.  Now there's some really bad karma. :-)

I can only conclude after all these years that revenge is ours!

Tell me the story of your first car...

My first car was a brand new brown Chevy Nova that my parents gave me as a college graduation gift in 1975. They let me pick out the car I wanted (within reason). The color brown disappeared for awhile in the automobile world, but I've noticed it seems to be making a comeback lately. I sporadically referred to my Nova as "Nellie," although most of the time I didn't call her by any particular name.

Nellie's first big trip was from Michigan to Colorado, where I was spending my second summer working in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was an uneventful trip and she still had that new car smell at the time. My mom didn't want me to drive that distance alone, so she rode with me and then flew back home to Michigan.

The first time Nellie experienced being pulled over by the police was in Denver, Colorado. I had a car full of female co-workers from the park, and we were on our way to see James Taylor in concert at Red Rocks Ampitheatre. We were unfamiliar with the area and I made a sudden left turn from the righthand lane when I thought the coast was clear. Well, it wasn't. The officer listened to our explanation of being lost and from out of state, and let us go with only a warning. Whew! Ah, the benefits of being young and female!

I ended up staying in Boulder that winter, and that's when Nellie was in her first accident. We'd had a snowstorm and I was on my way to work at the pizza parlor, traveling down the hill on University Ave. Nellie hit a patch of ice and did a couple of 180 turns down the slippery slope, finally coming to an abrupt stop when she hit a light pole at the bottom. In fact, she hit the pole so hard that the light at the top came crashing down beside the car. Not realizing that, and being really dumb about cars, I surveyed the damage and called my brother back at the apartment, telling him, "The front end is smashed and I think a big part came off my engine." He has never let me live that down!

The summer of 1976 was a big one for Nellie--she transported me from Michigan to California. My friend Sue and I followed each other across the country; she in her yellow Nova. Twins!

My dad made me a list of the typical routine car maintenance, like how many pounds of air should be in the tires and how often to change the oil. But my first lesson in replacing the spark plugs came from Sue's dad, Howell Burke, when we were living in their Rancho Palos Verdes, CA condo. I was having trouble starting Nellie, and found a note from another condo owner complaining that I was waking them up early every morning when I went to work. Howell said that I needed to change the spark plugs, and he taught me how to set the gap, take the old plugs out and put the new ones in. I've never had to do it myself since then, but I appreciated the lesson!

Eventually, Nellie started balking whenever she had to go out in the rain. I remember being stranded once on Pacific Coast Highway in rush hour traffic, and another time on one of the on-ramps to the 405 freeway during a downpour. Nobody could seem to diagnose the problem and I was starting to dread rainstorms! In 1979 I decided it was time to upgrade and traded in Nellie for a new $7200. Mustang. Thus started a virtual lifetime of car payments. Nellie was only 4 years old when I sold her, but she served me well in that brief time and brought me safely on my journey across the country from Michigan to Colorado to California. Hopefully, there are no rainstorms wherever she may be resting in peace.

What are you fed up with?

Without hesitation, one word comes to mind: negativity. I'm feeling good about myself and my life lately and I have little patience for the "doubting Thomas" personalities who always seem to add their negative two cents worth whether asked or not.

Oh, there's plenty of pessimism around me these days. My job is a hotbed of negativity. As the state-of-the-art football stadium goes up and we suffer through layoffs, budget cuts, and hiring freezes, it's hard to keep a positive state of mind. I'm thankful that I have the ability to leave it all behind me when I shut the door and head home each day. Last night I received a complaining text message from one of my co-workers and I just wanted to scream, "Enough already! I'm on my time now!"

My husband has his moments of pessimism as well. "That will never work" and "That's not going to happen" are two of his often-used catch phrases. He gets mad at me when I point out that he's being negative. The other day I started telling him about how Obamacare will now let us add our uninsured and pregnant daughter back on to our medical insurance policy. Before I could finish the statement, he was cutting me off saying, "They'll never let us do that because she's married now." I squashed my feelings of irritation and simply stated, "That's funny, because I called today and put her back on the policy." There was complete silence.

My mother, bless her heart, has always been a pessimist and something of a killjoy. I'll always remember the time I called my parents from college, thrilled to pieces because I had just gotten a letter of acceptance for working in Glacier National Park over the summer. My heart quickly sank upon hearing my mother's immediate reaction: "Oh, I don't think that's a good idea at all." It took lots of persuasion on my part and backup from my dad to change her opinion. Just recently I remarked to her that I had written a letter to the man whose dog caused my bike accident, detailing my out-of-pocket expenses from the accident and asking for his help in paying them. Her remark upon hearing this was, "Well, you'll never hear back from him." Once again, I reined in my frustration and replied, "Probably not, but I figured it was worth a try. Without even trying, I'd never know."

So to all the nay-sayers in my life as of late, I have just one thing to say, "Quit raining on my parade!"

Don't think too hard... go with the first memory that comes to mind. The word is: FEVER.

Why is it that whenever I get a question like this, a song comes to my mind? Remember that old sultry, burlesque type song, "You Give Me Fever"?  A female sang it--I can't remember who it was. "Fever all through the night..." It's going through my head now. Gonna have to resort to Google or it will drive me crazy!

Anyhow, after the song, the first memory that comes to mind is my bout with the measles when I was 6 years old. My mom was trying to get me to drink lots of liquids to help bring down my raging fever, but all I wanted was juice. We were out of juice and there had been a massive snowstorm going on outside--typical for a Michigan winter. Mrs. Olfelt, our neighbor across the street, was going to the store and offered to buy some juice. She had to throw it over a big snow bank in front of our front door to get it to my mom. When my mom got back in with the juice, she found me laying under my bed trying to get the screws out of the bedframe with my bare hands. Yep, I was delirious from the fever. Fun times!

My brother scared the heck out of me once when he was delirious with a fever, too. It was my parents' bowling night, and we were old enough to stay home alone and fend for ourselves. My brother had been in bed sleeping and I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when he suddenly got up and started opening and closing all the doors in the hallway. He kept muttering something about the door frames being crooked, the hinges bent, and the doors not fitting right. I was getting a little freaked out but finally talked him into going back to bed.

It's kind of funny now that I think about it. What is it about fevers and hardware in my family?

P.S. Peggy Lee. "Fever when you hold me tight."

Describe a time when you kept your temper in check.

This is a hard question for me to answer because I don’t often react in anger—even when I should. Even in situations when many people would lose their temper. Instead I get my feelings hurt. My husband tells me this is typically a “girl” thing to do. He says that guys are a lot more direct and when they get angry, the offending party knows it immediately. Women, on the other hand, take it more personally and internalize their anger. They may talk about it to others, but often they don’t directly confront the offender. There's probably a lot of truth to this.

Perhaps life would be easier if I’d learn to express my anger more often rather than to bottle things up and react with hurt feelings.

I’ve written before about one of my blunt, bossy co-workers and I can recall one time in particular when she really pushed my buttons. One of our student assistants wanted to show me and Wendy (another co-worker) some pictures she had on the computer. The three of us were huddled around her monitor and she was telling us about her family when Jennifer came out of her office.  She immediately reprimanded us, saying loudly, “You all need to get to work.”  Now, keep in mind that Jennifer is our peer. She’s on an even “playing field” with Wendy and me, and the three of us are supervisors to the student assistants. My instant reaction was a flash of anger, but typically I bottled up my feelings and we all scattered to our respective offices. As soon as I sat down, I realized how ridiculous the situation was. We were being treated as children and we were responding as children, rather than handling things directly.

I went home and thought about it overnight. I planned exactly what I was going to say to Jennifer the next morning when I got into work. I hate confrontations of any kind, but I decided that I just couldn’t let her get away with this behavior, especially in front of the student. When I arrived at work the next morning, I let her know how rude and belittling her remark was to all of us. I knew that Wendy felt the same way. I was tempted to ask who died and appointed her queen, but I decided that might be carrying things a bit too far!

Her reaction startled me.  She began to cry. She told me that Wendy and I were the ones she considered her friends at work and she didn’t want to lose our friendship. (Hmmmm, a funny way of showing friendship!) Later in the day, she wrote emails of apology to both of us. Did she change? Well, for about a week. Then she was back to her same bossy, reprimanding self, apparently proving that a leopard can’t change its spots.

So the fact that I kept my temper in check in this situation wasn't unusual. What was more uncharacteristic for me was that I drew a line in the sand and let the other person know that they had crossed it. I was glad I did, even if it wasn't permanently effective.

"How many haters does it take to change a light bulb? None. They fear change, even if it can make the world a brighter place." ~ Unknown In what way are you embracing or resisting change?

Well, rather than answering either "a" or "b" to this question, I would like to answer "c" -- all of the above. In this phase of my life, heading down the road toward retirement, I'm both avoiding and embracing change, whichever suits my present needs best.

For example, in my job situation I find myself avoiding change and simply waiting it out. Even though I'm frustrated and unhappy much of the time with my present situation, the thought of "learning new tricks" at this stage of the game just doesn't appeal to me. Change seems like more trouble than its worth. I'm constantly telling myself, "You can hang on for just a couple more years."

On the other hand, I've consciously been making many changes in my personal life. I've planned more activities, trying to find common ground with my husband and striving for more feelings of togetherness. This change first started a year ago when we took ballroom dance lessons together in preparation for Michelle's wedding. Rich has never been interested in dancing, but he admitted he didn't want to look like a klutz at his daughter's reception. To my delight, he thoroughly enjoyed the lessons. Someday we will start them up again. I initiated entering a motorcycle poker run which culminated at The Big House in Macon, the former home and now museum for the Allman Brothers Band. I plannted a trip to Charleston for our 25th wedding anniversary, and a trip to Gulfport/Biloxi to visit Brianna and Ryan and attend the Cruisin' the Coast car show. Those turned out to be fun activities for both of us. On my way back from the Bike Fest in Columbus, GA last weekend, I noticed a directional sign pointing toward a covered bridge that I never knew about before. I've suggested a motorcycle ride to check it out.

My barometer for judging the success of these endeavors has been in the reactions of others. Rich himself has mentioned that we've done a lot of things together lately and he's been having more fun. Other interested third parties (my mom, our kids, friends and co-workers) have observed that we've been busy doing fun things and we seem "more together." I'm heartened to see the improvements these changes have brought to our relationship. When one of my co-workers/Facebook friends (she's a lady a couple years older than I) came into work the other morning, she said, "I want to be Sharon when I grow up!" We all laughed and I had to smile. Life has been pretty good lately!

"Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash." ~ George S. Patton Describe a time when you took a calculated risk.

When I was newly married for the second time (and young and naive, I might add), I took a calculated risk that almost backfired on me big time. It was 1986 and Rich and I were expecting our first baby. We were also wanting to purchase a home for our "starter family." I had saved $3,000. but we needed quite a bit more than that for any kind of a down payment.

My friend and co-worker, Steve D., told me about a quick-turnaround deal that he had just invested in. Steve grew up in Japan, and the guy whose company he was investing in was a friend from high school. He assured me it was legal. In fact, they had a whole circle of friends from Japan who had already invested and profited in round one. This was round two of the deal, and my $3,000. could triple in three months if I decided to take the risk.

I weighed my options and decided that if I really wanted to be moved into our own home by the time our baby was born, my only hope was to invest in this deal. I knew that Steve wasn't a rash person, and in fact he was one of the investors who had already profited in round one. If he trusted his friend, then I could trust him too.

Well, three months rolled around and there was no word on the money. Steve started inquiring with his friends, and found out that things may have gone south on the deal. Nobody had gotten any money yet. I was getting anxious and asked Steve for his friend's number so I could call him directly. I called the guy daily. Sometimes I'd get an answer, sometimes not. I chatted him up, explained my goals and what I planned to do with the money. He promised me that he'd at least give me my initial investment back, but kept putting me off as to when that would happen. I was starting to lose hope of ever seeing that $3,000. again, and Steve was feeling guilty for getting me in on this fiasco.

Finally, one afternoon the guy called me at Contel where I was working and arranged to meet me there in the parking lot. I remember taking a co-worker with me, because at this point I wasn't sure what to expect. The Japanese mafia, perhaps? Well, not only did he show up, but he gave me $9,000.--my original investment plus the profit I had hoped for from the beginning! I could hardly believe my luck. Steve couldn't either!

Rich and I went house shopping and ended up buying a small 2-bedroom, 1-bath home in North Long Beach. It cost $94,000, so we added an additional $400. to my investment money and we had 10% down. We bought the house in November 1986 and our daughter Michelle was born two months later in January 1987. We lived in that little house for just two years, but it was the perfect "starter home."

To this day, I don't know why I was so lucky. I'll chalk it up to good karma. Steve told me that nobody else he knew got their money back on round two of that deal--I was the only one. The investor friend disappeared into the woodwork shortly afterwards. Knowing what I do now, would I invest in a similar deal ever again? Not on your life!

Don't think too hard... Go with the first memory that comes to mind: The word is JOINTS.

I have too many joint memories, I can't go with just one.

·         Humphrey Bogart joint:

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”  When I was in my 20s, I met my first husband Stan in one of his favorite joints, The Flagship. Located in Hermosa Beach near the pier, it was a smoky, dimly lit, noisy hangout where playing darts and drinking beer were the favorite pastimes. Unsurprisingly, the marriage didn’t last. What was I thinking?

A joint I remember fondly was called Fat Face Fenner’s Faloon, also in Hermosa Beach. I chose to celebrate a couple of my birthdays in this joint. In addition to their large selection of beer, they were known for their fat hamburgers, and I always ordered mine piled high with cheese, mushrooms and guacamole. Yum!

·         Don’t bogart that joint:

I remember being amazed when my friend’s mother smoked a joint with us when I worked in Rocky Mountain Park. Now that I think back on it, she was in her 50s and about the same age as I am now. From this perspective, it just doesn’t seem quite so mind-boggling as it did then!

During that same summer, a group of us were camping in Mesa Verde when a downpour hit in the middle of the night and we awoke to a river running through our tent. We scrambled into my trusty Nova, cracked the windows and decided to light up a joint.  Or two or three.  Afterwards, we promptly went to sleep. The next morning we awoke to the sound of tourists chatting outside the car, and the tell-tale sight of dried-up roaches plastered to the car windows!

My friend George had a low tolerance for pot and there were many times we’d tease him in our Boulder apartment when he got that dazed, staring-into-space look on his face. “Earth to George!”

The last joint I remember smoking was with my next door neighbor in California. Her husband’s band had briefly switched from rock to country music, and we wanted to learn to line dance. After we put the kids to bed one Friday night we smoked a joint and cranked up a “how to line dance” video. Fun, silly times!

·         Sore joints (a sure sign of my age):

I knelt on a sewing needle with my left knee when I was 9 years old, which was followed by knee surgery and a month in the hospital.

I crashed on the back of a motorcycle one New Year’s Day and landed on a metal stake in the ground with my right knee, which was followed by three months of physical therapy.

I suffered through tennis elbow in my right arm for over a year, entailing three cortisone shots into the elbow.

I crashed on my bicycle and landed on my left shoulder/hip, lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital by paramedics. I still have a sore left hip joint.

As I grow older, all these joint injuries are coming back to haunt me!

Courage is fear that has said its prayers. ~ Dorothy Bernard Describe a time when you relied on your inner strength to let go of your fears.

This is just a small thing in the scheme of life. But ever since my bike accident, I have to talk myself into getting out there and riding again. I hate being fearful, but I'm having a hard time letting go of those fears.

You see, I live in an area where the laws are sketchy, and the enforcement of those laws is even sketchier. For example, I've never heard of anyone getting a ticket in these parts for not wearing a seatbelt. I've literally been beside a car where the kids were all jumping around in the back seat and the officer in the patrol car behind them did absolutely nothing. So it follows that even though there are leash laws, many people here simply let their animals roam and nothing is ever done about it. On the web site for the local Central Georgia Cyclists, there are always postings like, "If you're pedaling Rogers Road today, watch out for a white pit bull on the loose."

Three years ago, I was pedaling up a fairly steep hill in a neighborhood when a dog ran out in the road and bit me on the calf. The redneck-looking owner was standing right out in his front yard, watching. I later came to find out that this dog owner also got his kicks out of posting internet want ads for Asian women to give him massages in his jacuzzi. True story! But I digress. On all my bike rides, I'm always vigilant for dogs on the loose and I've come to expect being pursued by snarling, chasing dogs. It's pitiful, but after the dog bite incident, I started planning my routes to avoid the aggressive dogs I've encountered.

Anyhow, one June morning I was pedaling down a road in Macon that's always been fairly deserted. It has very little traffic and I had come to trust the road as sort of a safe haven for riding. It has a long, slow downgrade, so I was cruising along at a fair clip. I had just checked my speed and was going somewhere between 20-25 mph. I rounded a bend in the road and surprise! There was a man walking his two dogs. Before I hardly knew what was happening, one of the dogs began barking and running across the street at me. I have no memory about what happened next, but remember the TV show Laugh In? Artie Johnson played a character in a raincoat who rode a tricycle and always fell over sideways and crashed. Well, that's exactly how I crashed! I went from 23 mph to 0 in about two seconds. When my husband later picked up my bike, my bike shoes were still clipped into the pedals. The police officer who came to the scene couldn't figure out how to unclip them, so he just took my feet out of the shoes!

I was unconscious when the paramedics took me to the hospital and was slipping in and out of consciousness the entire time I was in the emergency room. I spent 2-1/2 days in the hospital with vision problems, severe road rash on the shoulder and hip, and a couple of broken ribs. I had two places where my brain was bleeding and had a total of three catscans before they were satisfied that the bleeding had stopped. My bike helmet was cracked and I was told it probably saved my life. I was out of work for about three weeks and slept alot at home, dealing with double vision and vertigo problems.

It was three months before I got on a bike again, and then only when someone accompanied me. I've still just gone on two rides by myself. The sound of a dog barking at me while riding starts my heart racing! I'm determined not to let this experience stop me from riding my bike. But silly as it sounds, I really do have to summon up my courage and subdue my fears every time I ride!

"Your time is limited. Don't waste it living someone else's life." ~ Steve Jobs How can you more fully live the life you're meant to live?

When my brother and I were having our war of words, something he told me in the barrage of hurtful accusations really hit home. He said that I needed to stop and smell the roses more often. Most of the things he said I could chalk up to his defensiveness, or feeling less than, or trying to get a rise out of me. But I saw a good deal of truth in the roses statement.

Yes, I’m guilty of being so busy with the “shoulds” and “need tos” in the routine of day-to-day living that I don’t stop and enjoy just being.  I’m so concerned with crossing things off my to-do list (I’m relentless at making those endless lists, just ask my husband!) that I fail to savor the small moments and pay attention to the little things. I forget that it’s about the journey, not the destination.

There’s something to be said for venturing out of your comfort zone occasionally. For giving everything you’ve got just to see what you’re capable of doing. There’s definitely fulfillment in pushing, and satisfaction in accomplishing. But if you’re constantly scrambling and racing through life rather than occasionally sauntering or meandering, everything becomes a blur and you’re missing out on all the exquisite detail and beauty that living has to offer.

When we were recently in Charleston, a field of wildflowers caught my eye. Normally, I’d take notice of their beauty in passing, while continuing to drive to my destination. This time, I had my husband stop the car. I got out and took pictures. I sat among the flowers and admired them for awhile; smelled their scent and savored the tranquility of the moment. When we were in Biloxi last weekend I was admiring the white sand beaches from afar and noticed some huge sand tricycles. Despite the fact that we were on our way to a car show event, I convinced Rich to park the car and we took our shoes off and walked in the sand. Then we rented a couple of the tricycles and had a blast tooling around the water’s edge.

 I want to savor these moments in everyday life, not just when I’m on vacation. I want to quit counting the days until the next chapter starts in my life. I want to stop saying, “Life will be better when…..”  and simply appreciate the here and now.

Share a time where you danced with uncertainty...and won. A story where you felt the butterflies, the anxiety and fear, where you thought about turning back, maybe you even did, but then turned back around and ended up creating or becoming or doing something amazing. It could be about art, business, love, health, life, whatever. It just has to be real, no fables here.

I’ve never done anything this dramatic and certainly not heroic. I’ve lived a pretty low-key life. But a time of great uncertainty and fear came when I was pregnant 24 years ago with my oldest daughter, Michelle.

When I was close to being five months pregnant, I went to a doctor appointment for one of my regular check-ups and blood was taken for an alpha-fetoprotein test (I’ll never forget that name).  A day later I got a phone call and the nurse asked if my husband and I could come in to discuss my test results with the doctor. Dr. Wasserwald was an older, kindly man—a very caring doctor. As gently as possible, he told us that my test results showed a level of alpha-fetoprotein that was very low, and this could indicate the possibility of Downs Syndrome. Those were scary words to hear, but his gentle and honest way of delivering them helped to calm our fears.

The doctor proceeded to conduct a short interview about our family history. Rich’s parents had an infant son who died as a baby. They rarely talked about him; just the mention of his name brought tears to their eyes. Rich and his brother quickly learned not to ask any questions and to avoid the subject. We didn’t have a clue about how or why the baby had died. When we explained this to Dr. Wasserwald, we could tell it added to his consternation. He scheduled an amniocentesis in order to determine if our baby had the extra Downs chromosome. He explained that it would take a week and a half to receive the amnio results, and Rich and I needed to discuss our options. If the baby did have Downs and we decided to have an abortion, it would have to be done quickly because I was getting too far along in my pregnancy. The alarm bells were starting to ring now, loud and clear.

Rich and I were on painful opposite sides of the fence. He said he absolutely would not be able to take it when people looked at our Downs Syndrome child with pity in their eyes.  If the baby had Downs, he wanted an abortion. I had a couple of school friends whose siblings had Downs, and I knew them to be sweet, loving children. I questioned how we could possibly abort just because our baby didn't meet some arbitrary standard of being "perfect." We simply could not reach an agreement about what to do.

That week and a half of waiting for the amnio results crawled by interminably slowly and I could hardly sleep or eat. If I aborted our baby, how could I live with myself? If I had the baby, would Rich  walk away from us? And if he did, could I handle being a single mother to a disabled child?

I finally received that dreaded phone call one afternoon at work. Tears of relief ran down my face as I was told we had a healthy, normal baby. We had indicated we wanted to know the sex, and our baby was a girl. So as it turned out, I didn’t have to make what would have been one of the hardest choices of my life. As we rode that roller coaster of emotions, we didn’t have the option of turning back. We simply held on with white knuckles, finished out the ride, and in the end we created an amazing baby girl. Had the results been different, I know that our baby girl would have been just as amazing, but our lives would definitely have been altered forever.

#12 How would you describe the way your communicate?

This question could be interpreted in a couple of different ways, but I’ll address my methods of communication. It amazes me when I really think about how much this has changed for me in the last 20 years or so.  I’m a member of the generation that has transitioned from snail mail to email; from phone calls to texting. Many times, face-to-face interactions are replaced by Facebooking or texting. My daughters’ generation has basically grown up on technology and the majority of my mother’s generation has never braved the new technology, so my generation is unique in experiencing both sides of the coin.

I’m  in the camp that sees these innovations as a positive thing for the most part. Social media has enabled me to foster new relationships and rekindle old friendships. I feel more engaged with my friends and more connected to the outside world.  I love checking Facebook in the morning and seeing what challenges and delights face my friends for the day, reading an insightful, thought-provoking blog, or signing in at the end of a long, tiring day and having my mood lifted by reading a humorous status. I can keep in better touch with my daughters, who may not answer their phones but will respond to a text (go figure). And I even found a new local cycling partner through a friend of a friend.

As for the negative points about social media… we’ve all heard the horror stories about identity theft and cyber stalking. We’ve heard that people have lost their jobs over comments or photos they’ve shared with the world on Facebook. Well, that's what the privacy settings are for and it's always imperative to use discretion in postings. It’s true that all the instantaneous gratification can potentially spell trouble if you’re not careful. It’s awfully easy to embarrass yourself by accidentally hitting the reply button rather than forward (voice of experience here!).  It’s tempting to send off an angry email or make a negative posting in the heat of the moment, before fully thinking about the consequences. On the flip side, by writing rather than speaking, I have a chance to more carefully formulate my responses and get my wording just right, without having to speak “off the cuff.”  I never was too great at thinking quickly on my feet!

Even so, every once in awhile I still find myself picking up a pen and paper to write an old-fashioned letter. There’s still something appealing and personally satisfying about conveying thoughts in my own handwriting. And I feel a deep appreciation when others do the same.

#11 In what ways do you stretch yourself?

There hasn't been a lot of stretching going on in my life lately. Unless you count stretching before a work-out. Or stretching myself thin--I do a lot of that! Somehow, I don't think these types of stretching are exactly what the promptress has in mind, though.

I've done things out of my comfort zone plenty of times in the past. Things like going away to college. Like traveling alone to a summer job in a different state, where I didn't know a soul. Climbing a mountain. Moving my family across the U.S. from one coast to another and starting a new life in an entirely different culture. My first cross-state bike ride was definitely stretching myself. Planning my daughter's wedding last year was a big stretch for me as well; I had never done anything on a larger scale like that before. In concert with the wedding planning, my husband and I took ballroom dance lessons--another stretch.

I suppose I've done some small-scale stretching lately. I started taking a Zumba class, which is dancing to Latin music and involves a lot of hip shaking and shimmying. Way out of my normal comfort zone! I went ziplining with some friends last spring, which was a scary unknown at first. I'm teaching myself to crochet and thus learning a new skill; I guess that's a small way of stretching. Just last week, I volunteered for a long-term project at work involving the cataloging of manuscript collections and personal papers for the archives of the University--something I know little about, but will learn as I go.

As I've written this, I've noticed that most of my stretching involves physical activity and not so much educational/intellectual/spiritual activity. Hmmmm... what does that say about Sharon? I probably need to broaden my horizons and bring a little more balance into my life.

#10 What do you do that's playful?

This is a subject that's near and dear to my heart. To quote George Bernard Shaw, "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." I'm most playful when I'm at home in my comfort zone. I've been known to spontaneously burst into dance routines, jump on beds, talk in accents (Swedish and Brooklyn are my favorites), and make up crazy nicknames. I once discovered a relative in my family tree named Dovie Ladosia and it struck my fancy, so I'd often call my daughters by the name (they didn't quite see the humor like I did). When Brianna lived with us after Hurricane Katrina, she and I used to have lots of fun watching the show "What Not to Wear" together and giggling at the contestants.

The funniest moments are usually unplanned. I remember once amusing my daughters by putting an orange slice in my mouth and making it my "smile," when suddenly it popped out and landed smack dab on top of Julie's head. There was just something about that moment that tickled all of us. We were laughing uproariously and Michelle ended up literally rolling on the floor in hysterics. Another time my mother was telling us about trying to take up golf but never quite getting the hang of it. She described hitting a tree with her golf ball and did an imitation of the chipmunk poking his head out of a hole in the tree to see what the heck had just happened. The source of this entertainment was so unexpected, the girls and I laughed until tears rolled down our cheeks.

My job can be a place that's often too serious, but one of my co-workers is great at imitations (especially at imitating the boss) and she can really get us belly laughing sometimes. Once in awhile when things get too quiet, my next door office neighbor and I will tap on each other's windows, stick out our tongues and waggle our fingers in our ears. Silly, but it effectively breaks up the monotony. Lately, Zumba on Fridays at noon with a fun instructor has been a great outlet for my playfulness.

To me, playfulness is a sign of emotional health. I can never get enough of it.

#9 Are you living in alignment with your values?

I think of my values as constantly shifting and fluid, rather than static. I’m the type of person who establishes my goals first, before realigning and prioritizing my values in order to try and meet those goals. I once read a good analogy for this process:  when you’re flying an airplane, you have to determine where it will land first before setting a course. So, I guess the answer would be that I do try to live in alignment with my values, but they frequently change.

For example, after moving to Georgia, I really wanted my family to fit in here. It’s a smallish town, a lot of people have lived here for their entire lives, and I knew it would be a difficult place to break into. I cringe now, but the values of belonging and conformity suddenly rose dramatically on my list of priorities. Our first Christmas here, I decided to have a party. We had only lived in Georgia for four months, and in our house for one month. At the time, our neighborhood had the tradition of lining the streets and walkways with luminaries. I decided that this would provide the perfect vehicle to host an open house with snacks and drinks, Christmas music, and strolling the neighborhood to see the lights. We printed up invitations with a map to the house, and Rich and I invited our co-workers while the kids invited a few friends they were just starting to make.  To make a long story short, only three people showed up--a husband and wife that Rich knew, and my daughter’s sixth grade teacher. Bless that teacher’s heart, she turned an embarrassing situation into a fun evening anyway, and we became friends. But after that demoralizing experience, I realized that fitting in wasn’t something I could force to happen, and the values of conformity and belonging went back down on my list.

So what’s on my values list at the current time? Well, here are some of the goals I’ve established both large and small, immediate and distant, with their accompanying values:

·    Goals:  to get out of the mindset of working more to achieve more material things; to pay off bills; to get ready for retirement.  Values:  freedom, financial independence

·    Goals:  to be physically fit enough to continue long bike rides, possibly start section-hiking the Appalachian Trail, and (this is slightly embarrassing to admit) to wear a bikini again because, dammit, I just bought one as a source of motivation and I’m determined to wear it before my sixtieth birthday.  Values:  discipline, health, vitality and yes, some courage!

·    Goals:  to pursue more writing in my spare time, to do more scrapbooking. Values:  creativity, craftiness.

·    Goal:  to reduce clutter. Value:  simplicity.

·    Goals:  to do volunteer work, participate more in charitable events. Values:  compassion, empathy.
·    Goals:  To plan more weekends away, to start camping again. Values:  adventure, fun.