These hands. These arthritic, gnarled, wrinkled, soft and loving hands belong to one of my most favorite people, my grandmother. One year ago today, marks the passing of my sweet grandmother, Margaret. Affectionately called Marge. She was one month shy of her 98th birthday. We journeyed nearly 40 years together. I grew up down the street from her, spent many days with her, playing games and cards and piano together. We made meals together, sang songs way off key together, played jokes and laughed a whole lot.
{recipe} Apple Crisp
I never thought much about menopause until now...
What I wish I had understood years ago is that as a woman, I was on the menopause journey from Day One. That my experience of menopause would be highly influenced by my whole hormonal experience. That the health of my hormones when I was 16 and 25 and 38 and all the years in between, would be intimately tied to my experience of menopause.
And let's just be clear that I had a lot of years of hormonal havoc instead of hormonal harmony.
Because your relationship with food is a journey...
7 years ago, Mary walked into my office. After years of caring for her own children and everyone around her, her physical and emotional health had taken the last seat on the bus. She was tired, wrung out and emotionally eating and drinking her way through her days on sugar, low fat carbs and diet drinks. I cannot remember the catalyst for her to pick up the phone and schedule an initial consultation with me but I do know she wanted to lose 25 pounds and make some sense out of the decades of chronic dieting that had sent her on a wild roller coaster ride of counting, depriving, weighing, approving and disapproving of her body. She wanted help sifting through the confusing and frustrating messages about how to lose weight healthfully and be happy in her body.
Life Lessons: The Cute Guy from Gaylord
It was the early 90s and I had worked my tail off subbing in a local school district and putting in lots of extra hours teaching special programs. All in the hopes that the decision makers would see what a great hire I would be for the district. For over a year, I worked my tail off along with another new teacher who went on to become one of my dearest life-long friends.
Simple Meal Ideas + a Really Good Pancake Recipe
She walked through security and the tears came...
My tears started flowing as soon as she walked through security at DTW. She's 17 and last January we said "yes, of course, let's make it happen" when she proposed the idea of going to California by herself for a 9-day leadership program. I encouraged her every step of the way. When she had doubts about whether she wanted to go or would be able to earn enough money to go, I did my best to reassure her. The excitement I felt for her sometimes overwhelmed me.
She took a deep breath and let it go...
We're taking our own advice and enjoying some downtime with family these few weeks. Angelle has been enjoying beautiful Northern Michigan for a couple weeks with her family and Jill will be leaving soon to vacay in Boston & Maine with her family.
So in reflection of taking a "breather", we're re-sharing a blog post from last summer on the one powerful simple tool you can use to reduce stress in just 30 seconds. Not only that, it's a hum-dinger of a tool for weight loss. No joke. The best part? It's available to you all the time and it's free. (This post is a small excerpt taken from our free eBook we wrote over a year ago on the 7 Ways to Nourish Your Life Everyday + 7 Recipes You'll Love. You can snag a free copy of that eBook right HERE for more self care tips and 7 delicious recipes.)