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Coffee Drinkers Rejoice: Java is Now Good for Your Health

May 04 2023

We have been cultured to believe that drinking coffee is a bad habit. And that sipping tea is the healthy way to go…think how herbal tea is labeled: antiinflammatory, immune-boosting, calming. However, there is a large body of powerful research that supports imbibing in a different kind of brew. Coffee drinkers rejoice: java is now good for your health. A Guilty Habit? Many of us agree: coffee is delicious. And I like it strong and black, thick enough to stand a spoon in. A couple of mugs every morning, and I feel my day is off to a good start….

Ill in New Zealand: What I Learned About National Healthcare.

Apr 20 2023

“We need to fly you to Christchurch this afternoon,” the doctor on the phone said. “Take some time to pack a bag and then come to the ED,” he continued. “The plane is on its way.” I was stunned. And felt fine…more than fine. I had done a 45-minute HIIT workout the day before. Plus, I was in the middle of making waffles for my kids. How dare anything interfere with waffles. I couldn’t reconcile my (apparent) fitness and need for breakfast pastry with having a serious medical problem. I numbly packed some necessities and reported to the emergency department….

Be brave enough to suck at something new.

Mar 31 2023

What’s your passion? Let’s find your passion! I’m passionate about… Plenty of well-meaning people use the word passion to describe that “thing” that makes them come alive. But I hear passion and my stomach clenches like I’ve heard nails on a chalkboard. Passion was a trigger word frequently used in the multi-level marketing business (MLM) I was briefly an “independent contractor” for. The idea of finding their passion as a part of the MLM drew people in, enticing them with community, a white Mercedes and a fabulous high-heeled lifestyle. Passion manipulated people and kept them cogs in a money train…

Our labra-dork came to New Zealand with us.

Mar 21 2023

Store. Ship. Sell. Every item needed one of these three labels and handled accordingly. It was no small task. Hundreds of little choices cluttering the international moving process. Decisions about bowls and pillows and books were scattered amongst obtaining visas and work permits and airline tickets. Even so, there were plenty of items we couldn’t label store, ship or sell. There were the intangibles that elude decision and couldn’t be packed away in a box and saved for later. We all know the adage you can’t take it with you. But it turns out, you do take some things with…

Teen Friendship Breakup: How to Help With the Trauma

Mar 09 2023

The end of an era. Friendships come and go, as adults know all too well. We’ve been through those ups and downs and growings-apart more than we care to admit. We know the drill. But our children don’t. So when the best friend since Kindergarten drops a bombshell, it feels like World War Three in our child’s life. When friends break up, we need to help our teens cope. “I don’t want to be friends anymore.” Those seven words. And then she walked away. Not a great beginning to high school. When I think back to my 9th-grade year, that…

Mar 02 2023

This week my twin boys turn 18. The good news: they get to register to vote in U.S. elections. The bad news: they have to sign up for the U.S. draft. And the interesting news: they can legally buy alcohol. In other words, turning 18 in New Zealand means the partying turns real. My generation of Americans and younger may find this to be crazy or cool, or somewhere in between. The minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) in the U.S. has teeter-tottered in the last 100 years: in the early part of the 20th century, it was 21. Then it…

Feb 23 2023

The post I had planned for this week is just not going to happen. So instead, I bring you The Post Without a Title. No time spent on focus keyphrases or headings or ALT text for images or on improving SEO rankings. It’s just not that kind of week, but I hope you’ll stick around and read this anyway. My kids are finally experiencing high school, for real. One of them experiencing in-person, in-classroom learning for the first time since fifth grade (or, the equivalent of 6th level in the New Zealand school system). Learning differences, COVID and our trans-Pacific…

New Zealand kids don't graduate. Here's what they do instead.

Feb 16 2023

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The quality, the vibe, that makes New Zealand different from the U.S. Then, on a car ride along the vibrant Tasman coast, my mother-in-law hit it on the head. Life is simpler. Not as a euphemism for backward, far from it. Simpler as in less burdensome, less effort to keep up with the Joneses. Things just are. In an authentic, take-it-or-leave-it manner. I wrote last week about my boys’ Last First Day of school. In less than a year, their senior year (or as it is called in New Zealand, Year 13)…

The Last First Day shot of our twin boys.

Feb 09 2023

This week I posted on social media the photo and caption I’ve been fearing. TOW* tall figures stand half-smiling, full sets of straightened adult teeth barely visible, hands hanging stiffly at their sides, empty of the sweet signs announcing which grade they are to start that morning. TOW Mom gets to say: Last first day. Last first day. Milestones Our twins were just eight years old when I started pulseonparenting.com, and if we had stayed in the U.S., their graduation from high school would have been within days of pulse’s 10-year anniversary. Not by design, which makes this a meaningful…

Holiday Homesick: Finding a New Way to Cope

Dec 15 2022

You know cocoa And mittens And snowflakes And fireplaces Pine scent And dark skies And hard cold And icicles But do you know what’s…the hardest about Christmas afar? It’s so very different. In so many ways. We’re holiday homesick and finding a way to cope. Missing Christmas in Winter I’m a hygge girl and half introvert, so any reason to be home is a welcome one. I read. I write. I journal. And at Christmas, I bake and decorate and light pine-scented candles. My daughter and I play our version of “Name That Tune,” called “Andy, Bing or Perry?” So…

Category - blog

Coffee Drinkers Rejoice: Java is Now Good for Your Health

Ill in New Zealand: What I Learned About National Healthcare.

How to Know When You’ve Found Your “Thing.”

Turns Out, You Do Take Some Things With You. Now and Always.

Teen Friendship Breakup: How to Help With the Trauma

Turning 18 in New Zealand: the Partying Turns Real

The Post Without a Title

New Zealand Kids Don’t Graduate. Here’s What They Do Instead.

The Last First Day: Endings, Milestones, and New Beginnings

Holiday Homesick: Finding a New Way to Cope