Living the Sweet Life: There’s a Butterfly Over the Ocean

Have you ever just thought, “Tonight I will be in my bed?”  I know I sure have, and I can remember when I thought it, too. Let’s see . . .  I thought it when I was on stage on pointe in a solo and scared to death while in a dance company. I thought it when I was getting a root canal. I think I must...

Living the Sweet Life: I am going GREEN!  

You and I are nature. We are not some separate entity detached from it. We are in this world to make a positive impact, and it is when we lose our consecutiveness to nature, we essentially lose ourselves and our purpose. I wrote earlier this year about the last of the white rhino and how sad it is that we...

Living the Sweet Life: Finding Your “25”

Did you know that each one of us has about 25 talents tapped or untapped? Some of us find out about the first few during the first years of life, like being more adept at sports or fancying spending time lining things up and organizing. You remember either yourself or perhaps one of your children who always...

Living the Sweet Life: To be or not to be – angry that is!

Do you remember the last time you got really angry? I mean like blood pressure up and all sweaty and really, really mad? Did you know that anger spreads more virally than any other emotion? Expressing anger is super charging to your psyche, too. It’s not like sadness, fear or love. When you get all worked...

Living the Sweet Life: Finding Your Good Stuff

How’s your dream life? Mine is alive and well thank you very much! I think I probably have at least ten children’s books flowing around in this head of mine, and the numbers keep growing. There’s one where I am the head of a ship, and the ocean is filled with screaming babies.  Those littles are...

Living the Sweet Life: 40Years

It’s really amazing how time flies. It seeps away with days passing into months, and months passing into years. Forty years to be exact. Yes, as I look at myself in the mirror each morning and see a fading version of my mother and a transformation of myself, even I have difficulty believing that it could...

Living the Sweet Life: ‘Til death do us part

Did you know that there are many birds that mate for life? One day a few years ago, I was startled by a very loud and persistent chirping outside my bedroom door. I opened the door to find a slightly injured brown color cardinal and her husband screaming from the bird feeder.  The husband was screaming at...

Living the Sweet Life: So much to learn and so little time!

Do you remember looking at the syllabus at the beginning of the year and wondering how you would learn it all? I do. I also remember while in college looking over all of the different sections of classes and wishing that I could just stay and learn it all. Then while in art school, I came across the ultimate...

Let the magic begin . . . here I come 2018!

Living the Sweet Life:  I saw Wonder Woman, and it made me jealous.  Welcome to my new year of Wonderment! Yep, that’s right – 2018 could be yours, too. What I really mean to say is with a little discipline and genuine desire, you can be transformed permanently. The ending of this year is by far better...

Living the Sweet Life: Are you a Bee Keeper or a Bee Helper?

To “bee” or not to “bee” – that is my question.  I am assured that as my faithful readers you guys already know that I have a garden. Many years ago when we first moved into our home, there were large banana spiders weaving gorgeous webs in the trees. There were lots of ladybugs, and most...

Living the Sweet Life:

“It was the best of times . . .in that we have come together to make each other whole. It was the worst of times . . . in that we have seen and lived through such a storm that created devastating loss.” Well my friends, it’s been an ordeal. Never when I went to the Appalacian Mountains as a small...

Two Different, Yet Very Much Alike

I’ve been traveling in my usual haunts, and through the winding roads of the North Carolina mountains, I ran across two houses that once were homes full of warmth and joy to their inhabitants. It’s always weird to me to pass through other people’s spaces since after all, they were not just homes of...

Living the Sweet Life: Needles and Blades!

Have you looked in the mirror lately? That is the question I posed in the cover story with Renew Laser and Skin this month. I know that I personally go years without really paying attention and then bam! I see something that has crept up on me and must be fixed! Sometimes seeing myself on television makes...

Dear My Forever Best Friend . . .

We all have friends. Some of them are always there while others tend to shrink into the backgrounds of our lives when things are going a bit rough. We all know who “those” friends are. It’s not often that you run across people who hold themselves and those around them to a higher standard. They make...

More From Melatonin Than We Ever Thought Before

Living the Sweet Life:  Move over Prozac . . . there’s yet another reason to add melatonin to your daily routine. You have probably heard of melatonin but never knew all of the benefits the supplement could deliver. My first experience with it was while planning a trip to Paris back in 2007. I bought it...