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The Influenza Vaccine: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Oct 03 2018

I’d like to interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post for an important public service announcement. I’ve written over time about the importance of the influenza vaccine and the myths surrounding it. Today, I’d like to share more of the latter. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard new rationale against getting the “flu shot” and it’s been a good reminder that one will never hear it all: I’m not getting the flu shot because I heard a woman got pregnant after she got it. You can’t say I didn’t warn you. And it gets even better: a boy in my son’s…

Sep 11 2018

9/11. Seventeen years ago. How can that be? That day will be in our minds forever like it was yesterday. I remember where I was. I remember the crazy-busy workday. I remember believing what a cruel hoax I thought this was, because of course, this couldn’t be happening. I remember the faces of certain patients to the detail. I remember words exchanged. I remember the confusion, the desire for detail our office couldn’t receive because our clinic was t.v.- and radio-free, and smartphones weren’t “a thing” yet. I remember a patient coming in the office and stating that many firefighters…

Sep 11 2018

I wasn’t sure about sharing the story I’m about to share. I don’t like tooting my own horn or sounding that way. If I wrote it, I wanted the post to be vulnerable and relatable. My goal would be a story with a life lesson to share with the kids. So here it goes. I was driving home late one afternoon when I came up on an SUV traveling half on the road, half on the shoulder. It was creeping along, well under the speed limit, and the left turn signal was flashing even though there was no…

Sep 04 2018

Sometimes things just fall into place. Sometimes they fall into place so perfectly it surprises you: like finding two pieces of a polar-bear-in-a-snowstorm jigsaw puzzle that fit together. No, this isn’t about the box I needed for shipping a violin, which isn’t a box one normally has just laying around the house. (But in case you’re wondering, I just happened to have this very rare, but perfectly-sized box in our basement.) Instead, this is about the next step toward living an extraordinary life: I had just begun research into two posts on journaling, one for my readers’ personal guide and…

Aug 29 2018

My daughter, sitting in the cramped airplane seat next to me, sobbed uncontrollably. Even though these tears were triggered by disappointment (she desperately wanted that window seat so she could see London as we flew in), they were really from travel exhaustion. And from coming down with a cold. My son didn’t want to go to his week-long boy scout camp; staying home to play video games seemed a lot more fun. At least that’s what I thought his protests were telling his dad and me. When we arrived to drop him off at the rendezvous point, the floodgates…

Jul 24 2018

You know you’ve found your tribe when everyone in it shares the status of their armpits. Odor (loads or a little to none), sweat (when and how much) and products that work or fail. Now that’s friendship. After this completely transparent (like a deodorant that doesn’t leave white stuff on my tops) text chat, I feel empowered. So much so I will share, unashamed, that I am a sweaty betty. It takes very little heat and stress for me, ironically and otherwise always cold, to glisten in a terribly unattractive way. (Sweaty yoga doesn’t count. Everyone is drenched there.) …

Jul 19 2018

Ok. Full disclosure. The reason for this post is a blood-stained carpet but I thought “How to Get Blood Out of Your Carpet” sounded a bit too Sopranos for my family-oriented blog. Believe me, the guy at the carpet cleaning place was rattled, judging from how our phone conversation started out: Me: “Hi. I need someone to come and get the blood stains out of my carpet.” Awkward silence. Even more awkward silence. Ok. Really? No one has ever asked this guy this question before???? Me (giving in): “My daughter had a nosebleed.” Guy (sounding a little too relieved): “Oh, yes! …

Jun 21 2018

My daughter loves to play games. Clue. Battleship. Uno. (She totally cleans up with the last one, so we’re sending her to Vegas when she’s 21.) And we love to indulge her, being players of games ourselves. But when she pulls out the Game of LIFE, I’d rather play the game of hey-let’s-chose-something-else. Darn you, Hasbro. LIFE is hard. (just like the real deal.) I always need the players’ manual at the ready because the rules are so complicated. (If only actual life had one of these.) And I don’t like the stakes. Whoever retires into fabulousness (chose either “Countryside…

Jun 07 2018

Something was not right. I looked at the packaging on my favorite protein powder to see how it described the Stevia content and saw “stevia leaf extract.” That worried me, being that in my post How to Approach the Sugar Epidemic I stated that only stevia leaf glycosides were approved by the FDA for food use. And that anything other than that, like stevia leaf extract, was not and could cause unwanted side effects. Ok, I had a bit of a panic, as my whole family used the protein powder and loves it. As it turns out, I worried…

Apr 12 2018

In the book The Mermaid of Brooklyn by Amy Shearn the rusalka admonishes Jenny: Why does something good happening to someone else bother you? I read that and the world stopped spinning. Because in just a few brief words, the mermaid spirit nailed it. She told Jenny, a mother of two languishing after her husband abandoned them, to stop comparing. Stop comparing. This is one tall order. Today’s world is submerged in a “sizing up” mentality. Advertisements promote this-or-that over the other, we scroll through albums of friends’ cherubic children and fabulous beach vacations on social media, and not go…

Category - blog

The Influenza Vaccine: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

9/11 and Our Kids

That Lousy Driver

Step Eight for an Extraordinary Life: Write it Down

Crying: Just Let it Out

Are Antiperspirants a Health Risk?

How to Get Organic-Based Stains Out of Your Carpet

the Game of LIFE

A Clarification About Stevia

Step Three for an Extraordinary Life: Stop Comparing