I've had a bad two weeks. I was considering giving up on the whole idea. It started with Mother's Day. My son-in-law took us all out to a family style restuarant for breakfast. I ordered buttermilk pancakes, bacon, and hashbrowns topped with sauteed onions. I ate it a… Read full post »

Afterimage: a visual image or other sense impression that persists after the stimulus that caused it is no longer operative.

    It was a different country then.  Children were raised in homes with two parents, a mother and father, a husband and wife. Usually th… Read full post »

  I was a flute player in school because that was what my mother decided I would be. I really wanted to be an oboe player. Stringed instruments were ruled out because my school band didn't have a string section. I guess we were more of a marching band.… Read full post »

    Charlie was born two months early. He weighed only three pounds at birth and had a heart murmur. He spent quite some time in an incubator before his mother could finally take him home. "I didn't think he was going to live," she told everyone.

    When I knew Charlie,… Read full post »

    It helps to have a powerful motivator. My old classmates from junior high are getting together in late June. I'm thinking I could possibly lose another fifteen pounds by then or at least ten. Seeing my old friends is a reason to want to look good. It would be… Read full post »

    It was spring of my senior year at Franklin & Marshall College. The campus had become radicalized over the conflict in Vietnam and the issue of the draft. There were FBI agents on campus posing as students, we found out later. One of my classmates had won a Woodr… Read full post »

    I finally feel as though I'm making good progress. When I weighed myself this morning, I was at 155, down from 170. Fifteen pounds seems like a big deal at this point.

    I've done some tinkering. Eating just three times a day five h… Read full post »

    There is something about a female archer that teases the imagination out of complacency. A woman warrior inspires. Keira Knightly's performance as Guinevere in King Arthur was so different from that of Vanessa Redgrave's in the musical, Camelot. Guinevere as a warrior… Read full post »

    Sometimes I think the human species is drawn to the experience of pain. We seek it when, given the body's nervous system, we should avoid it at all cost. There seems to be a fascination with pain. As a child I gazed at the image of the crucifixion of Christ with horror… Read full post »

    I fall asleep every night thinking happy thoughts. I have family and friends, after all, and most of my needs are met.

    But always, right around four o'clock in the morning, I awake with a troubled mind. The darkest hour is right before the dawn, the… Read full post »

    I'm not sure I like the tone of your speeches Mr. Romney. When you speak of your success you sound a bit too self congratulatory to me. You have done well, indeed, but at what cost to others?

    You make it sound as though the only people of real value… Read full post »

    I'm very discouraged. I seem to be stuck at 157, down from 170. If I had stuck to a 1000 calorie per day diet these past months, I would be down by 50 pounds. I would weigh 120. Sigh. I was trying to eat about 1200 calories per day but… Read full post »

    When I think of the season of spring my mind travels back  a couple of generations to my grandmother and her sister. Come spring you might find Grandma on her hands and knees in the back yard. She is digging up dandelion greens which she will wash thoroughly befo… Read full post »

    I always assumed I was left brained. I am hyper organized and compulsively neat (a place for everything and everything in its place) and prone to making lists. I'm not sure how I slipped into writing poetry. Perhaps it was just an offshoot of majoring in English and… Read full post »

  Kids dancing to rock music on American Bandstand was harmless entertainment. When I watch old clips of those times, however, I wonder if the youth movements of the sixties didn't really start in the fifties among the pre baby boomer generation, those… Read full post »

    I may be the only person left alive who still does spring cleaning. One should keep their premises clean all year, of course, but there are extra little things one can do twice a year. I have memories of my grandmother bullying my father into dragging her carpets out to… Read full post »

    My weight loss progress has been so slow that I tend to fantasize about living in a bygone era when society was  more receptive to plumpness. Take this painting, "Bather With Blonde Hair" by Renoir, for example.

    She would probably not meet… Read full post »

    I did not even dare to weigh myself this morning. It's because of the ham, you see. Yes, we had the traditional ham dinner for Easter followed by ham sandwiches to die for.

    I noticed that I was drinking a great deal of water. That's when it occ… Read full post »

      This weekend marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the film, To Kill a Mockingbird. There is to be a special showing of the film at the White House and an introduction to the film by President Obama before its anniversary showing on cable T… Read full post »

    The Trayvon Martin story reminded me of something from my days as a college student. One of my favorite English professors was a Jewish man married to a Holocaust survivor. In conversation with him over the years I noticed one day that he made frequent references to "my people… Read full post »

  I don't watch 60 Minutes, but I was channel surfing Sunday evening when a segment of the show caught my attention. CNN doctor, Sanjay Gupta, was doing a piece about the harmful effects of sugar. I've been down this road before.

    I think… Read full post »

    I was jerked awake in the proverbial middle of the night by a blood-curdling scream. What other kind is there? I was already on edge when I went to bed because I had just watched "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark." It was terrifying and pushed all the buttons of my… Read full post »

    I've noticed that some of you close your posts with a copyright disclaimer. I'm curious about this. My impression is that the only valid copyright is one that is filed with the Copyright Office division of the Library of Congress. To file such a claim, one must submit an applicatio… Read full post »

    If you read my weight loss journal last week, you know that I needed to hit the reset button. After going great guns and dropping 13 pounds without much effort, I gained back two.

    I started at 170 pounds on a frame that should support no more than… Read full post »

    Truth be told, I'm a country girl at heart. I love to visit big cities - briefly, just long enough to hit an art gallery or two, maybe a show, a little shopping, a reatuarant. But I'm always ready to go home after a day or so… Read full post »