Life has been messy for the past month. Getting lost in a story is one of the best ways to cope with the universe’s stressors. It’s an excellent way to take a break. Characters’ problems are a wonderful break from personal issues. The book ends eventually, and the real world is waiting. Here are ...

Our youngest sister, Juji, was born with her own rules, and demanded everyone follow them. To understanding her logic took some effort, but ultimately, she’d won. By the time she was ten, her combative instincts had been honed through years of academic authoritarianism. When the nursery section of the Sacred Heart Convent accepted her, she ...

Physical touch is essential to our mental, emotional, and physical well-being. When people do not receive any physical contact, their bodies react negatively. Many have never heard of touch starvation, also known as touch deprivation. This condition can occur in anyone because touch starvation happens when you don’t get as much physical touch as you ...

I can’t record audiobooks in this country because of my heavy accent.   When I audited for an organization I support, they said, “In America We employ American accents.”   I said, “I’m an American. My accent is American,” but they wouldn’t hear me.   I have such a lovely voice – Loud, Affirmative Expressive. ...

Have you ever felt yourself emotionally go backwards? Lately, it seems like everything I have been trying to achieve has been put on pause. This being said I am actively working not to slip into my old version of survival mode. The new strategy is to not let myself say, “I’ll do it later.”  Later ...

One of the funniest aspects of my writing is I am a perfectionist. The ideal scenario is that a scene will pop into my head, and I can write it down and fix a few grammar errors. Usually, I have a few plot points to piece together, or I have to discover everything that happens ...

Now that you have two, your time to get out of the house doubles! It’s frustrating! You have double to do and less time to do it in—particularly if you are breastfeeding. So here are some tips to get the process from 1 hr. + down to 30 mins!   Most moms would agree that going ...

The past few months have felt like I was just surviving. The awkward part about it is that nothing traumatic has happened. Everything that happened resulted from my poor decisions. My ankle scraped against my manual chair, and I didn’t say anything until it was painful. My chair only existed because I kept rescheduling my ...

A friend recently told me that there have never been any consequences to my poor decisions. The thing is, there is always a consequence of any action. My consequence is I have to deal with the fact that I’m not as independent as I was when I first moved here eight years ago. This may ...

It’s been a long year and a half since the pandemic hit our shores. There has been a lot of hand sanitizer under the bridge, making the time seem both elongated and truncated. Working from home turned into the new norm. Except, of course, for our front-line workers. Slowly, the rest of the workforce has ...