Explore What's Next

Good Morning!

A good nights sleep is such a gift.  I slept for ten hours last night.  It felt like a miracle waking up truly rested and truly  awake.   After breakfast I opened my email and a friend sent me this photo.  It's going to be a good day.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
~Anais Nin

Inventing The Rest of Our Lives

Nine Essestials Of True Love

Plug in whatever gender you prefer. Love doesn't care.

• It's not just how you feel about him. It's about how he makes you feel about yourself.

• It's not about losing yourself in him. It's about becoming true to yourself with him.

• It's not about how great he is. It's about how great you can become alongside him.

• It's not about how much you love him. It's about how much he helps you love yourself.

• It's not about his finding room in his heart for you. It's about his finding room in his life for your energy, drive, ambition, passions and interests.

• It's not just about how good he is deep down. It's about how you experience his goodness as you live your life together.

• It's not about how he makes you hungry to be with him. It's about how much he makes you feel at home when you are with him.

• It's not about the love you share. It's about your ability to fully, equally, deeply share your life together.

• It's about falling in like.

Via Women & Love, Finding True Love While Staying True To Yourself, by Mira Kirschenbaum

Photo courtesy Bebulaki

The True Meaning of Memorial Day

Some of us will gather with family and friends, some will go shopping to take advantage of sales and most of us are grateful for an extra day off on a lovely spring weekend.  While we enjoy ourselves let's remember to teach our kids why Memorial Day was created in the first place.

The Best Years of Our Lives

A very cute, sweet video; you've been warned.

Pasta Rules

Some days only pasta will do.  It's super simple to cook my favorite macaroni (stir into boiling water, cook eight minutes, drain), toss in some microwaved marinara sauce from a jar.  Just add a sprinkling of grated Romano or Parmesan cheese and I'm in business.  Comfort in a bowl!
 

Today was a broccoli and pasta day. Easy, fast and oh, so satisfying, it's what's for dinner after a long, challenging day.  I found this recipe a million years ago in a wedding present cookbook, Foods of Italy.  Giuliano Buglialli was a celebrity chef  before the Food Network ever existed, no wait...before cable even existed. Wow.  

To feed four to six people (this dish is great leftover) here's what you do...Gather together:

• Two or three heads of broccoli, cut up
• About 1/3 cup olive oil more if you like
• One pound dried linguine
• Three cloves garlic, chopped
• Basil, fresh is best, dried is fine
• Grated pasta cheese, Parmesan, Romano, Asiago, whatever

Bring a big pot of water to boil for the pasta.  As that heats up, in a little sauce pan, warm up the olive oil with the garlic and basil until the garlic turns golden brown.  Set that aside.  Back to the big pot of boiling water...Snap the linguine in half and throw it in the boiling water.  Let it cook for about five minutes, stirring once in a while.  Then add the broccoli, stir it in.  Let the broccoli and pasta cook together for three minutes or until the pasta in al dente.  Drain it all through a colander.  Put the broccoli pasta mixture in a big bowl, add the olive oil and toss.  You can throw in some roasted pignoli nuts to fancy it up.  Sprinkle the pasta with the grated cheese and mange !

Your Video Counselor Suggests...Babette's Feast

Mid-life Crisis or Men Behaving Badly?

It is in my nature to find the positive in just about anything so it pains me when the evidence is to the contrary and I have to deliver the not so good news...he's just not that into you.

This happened when a woman around my age came to me at the encouragement of the couples therapist she was seeing with her estranged husband.

After twenty years of marriage, and after their youngest kid went off to college, he decided to let her know that he hasn't been "in love" with her for years.  She's a home body, he's a motorcycling hell raiser.  She's a Volvo, he's a Harley.  She's predictable and boring, he's an exciting adventurer.  (Actually he's a dentist in the suburbs.)  Oh, and he's leaving her to live in a loft in the city.

Is this a mid-life crisis?  Maybe, or maybe he's just a narcissistic jerk.  Either way, her life was traumatically torn apart at the point where she was most vulnerable.  While this scenario may sound like a cliche, it's anything but to the women, and men, living through it.  In this particular case, more and more evidence piled up that the husband had been acting selfishly throughout the marriage, while she voluntarily set aside her ego to feed his.  

My advice to her?  Get mad.  And, this is important, use the mad, not to rant at him, but to take responsibility for herself and, even more productively, to find her lost self-esteem.  It took some time, but she managed it.  After the divorce, she discovered her inner travel bug and now thinks nothing of trekking around the Patagonian glaciers with her close (divorced) friends.  Who's the adventurer now?

Video Viewing:  The First Wives Club

[Disclaimer: The characters described above are fictionalized composites of people I have worked with over the past twenty-something years of my career.  Any similarity to real people is coincidence.]

This Mouse Is For You

It's Monday.  Time to get back in the trenches. 

This little guy is on a tiny ceramic dish my sister gave me a year or so ago.    It rests on my home office desk to make me smile if I get too caught up with work.  Isn't she sweet?  Don't you admire her moxie?

                         *****
For all of us who have been knocked around by life (and who hasn't?) and still get up to duke it out another day. 

Watch  The Mouse That Roared

Contractors Can Be People, Too

Here's an interesting article.  It suggests some contractors (usually  men) have sought therapy to help them deal with the "rage, frustration and pain" of customer relations.   Tough guys with power tools seeking the help of a shrink?  Yes.  Just like in every profession there are good ones and bad ones but we tend to only remember the bad ones.  Since I belong to a profession that also gets a bad rap because of a few nut cases (OK, maybe not so few), I understand the frustration.  We're all judged by the actions of the least competent in our ranks.  Because it suggests intelligence and guts, my guess is it's only the top grade contractors who seek the help of a therapist.  The rest just don't bother show up.

Suggested viewing....Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Carpe Diem!

"Seize the moment. Think of all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart." 

~Erma Bombeck, 1927-1996

Suggested reading – Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing From Americas Favorite Humorist