Phone Etiquette, It’s about being Present

It’s Time to have a little talk about phone etiquette. I realized this when I was in a restaurant with my husband yesterday. These two women seated next to us were finishing their lunch and one woman pulled out her phone. It was almost as if she were saying to her lunch date, this lunch is now over and I have more important things to look at. The lunch date pulled out her lipstick and mirror vs. her phone. And I thought; good for her, because that was so rude..

One of the worst examples of rude phone behavior is when walking by someone who sees you and knows you but does not want to say hello; They will pull out their phone  as a snub and pretend they are talking to some one to avoid you and a conversation with you. How much easier it would be to just smile and say hello..

We flew out to California to visit my son a few years ago when he was in college out there. The phones were relatively still a novelty but he kept looking down at dinner and I realized he was texting under the table. I quietly told him we did not fly all the way out here to watch you text and talk to everyone else..

We drove up to an ice cream place in town and I noticed three older people in their 60’s all sitting together eating ice cream. But as we got closer, I realized they were all texting on their phones to someone else.. I thought wow, it’s not just the kids that are doing this. We are all a victim of phone distraction..

Men are no better than women. I was on a boat two days ago with my brother and my husband. They both kept looking at their phones. I don’t know what they were looking for out in the middle of the ocean. Or who they needed to talk to. But I actually felt like throwing the phones in the ocean.. The idea was to get out there and get away from it all. Eventually, I took my phone out and started taking pictures with it…

I try to keep my phone out of the way when I am with other people unless I am using it to meet someone. I keep it in my pocketbook while I am driving so I will not even be thinking about it or be tempted to text from behind the wheel.

Also as a passenger, I keep my phone in my bag so I can talk to my driver and be in the conversation. 

I suggest you all start trying this. It’s not very nice to always be looking over someone’s shoulder via your phone for someone better or something more stimulating.. it makes the person your with feel alienated and dismissed..

                                                                  Time, do you have any?

What is time? Most people measure it by the hours, minutes and seconds in a day when really -- they should measure it in moments..

It seems to me people started feeling like they had no time when computers entered our worlds..The machines were supposed to make our lives easier and save time.. However, I do not see the world that way at all in 2012.

I even moved to a slow farming state, 15 years ago, hoping people would have more time. And even though the days and hours seems to go much slower than in the city or the suburbs, no one ever seemed to have any time there either..

I wonder if it is just an excuse people use to avoid other people. I watch curiously as those around me continue to over schedules their lives.. Work for one things seems to dominate everyone. Even people who have a lot of money and a fantastic job do not seem to have the time..

“Climbing up your money tree you’ve got to hurry, Monkey do or monkey see, you’re on a one way street and you’re speeding, missing the signs you ought to be reading, passing things you will later be needing..”

These words are from a song titled "I believe in Love" and was sung by Kenny Loggins and Barbara Streisand.. I think this describe what we are witnessing at this very moment in time..

I know it is important to work and have a job if you need to support your family.

But if you are sacrificing interpersonal relationships and great memories for more money, then it is not time you are lacking but love and connectedness which you cannot buy -- by the way..

When sneaky People get Caught and Phonies get Found out..

“It’s time for the takers to start giving back, the givers are exhausted by your greed.”

No one can stand to be lied to, cheated on or stolen from; especially when it is from someone close, a family member or a friend. The trust you once had for the person is completely demolished when you catch them in a lie, sneaking around trying to take, constantly take the advantage..

DO they think we are stupid? When family members act sneaky about money and other things, it is so sad that they feel they must behave this way.. especially when we all have so much..

They try to come off as peaceful and good.  Meanwhile they are constantly trying to get an edge or advantage whether by not paying their due or just being cheap and always looking to take instead of give..  

I can always tell when someone is lying to me, being a sneak or being generally dishonest. It comes with the experience of being a mom.

Now that Lance Armstrong has been found out., maybe the rest of the phonies will be exposed.. Who doesn’t hate phonies, moochers or any other kind of takers out there.. It’s time for the takers to start giving back.. The givers are exhausted by your greed..

Whether you steal kleenex or someone’s idea, that is stealing. If you copy it, that is plagiarism and if you make money on it, that is just absurd.. and know that hell is eternal and is waiting just for you..

                           “It is the act of making art that heals the broken creative heart.” 

                                                                Julia Cameron

                     Real Love rises above all of the petty things people let break them down..


We hear alot about LOVE these days. Yet we see very little of it outside of our own lives.  
Bad news tends to sell more newspapers and television advertisements!! But thanks to Facebook
and all of its new authors, LOVE is starting to shine through all of the bad media and quiet down
all of the naysayers..

I was fortunate to grow up with two very loving parents who died married 55 years. They hugged, kissed and laughed alot with all of us.. and as a result I have been very spoiled with lots of loving family and friends in my youth. The love my parents gave to us and other people as a doctor and nurse had a lasting impression on me.

I saw that change as I ventured out in to the world.. When I got to high school, love was being talked about and sung about in all of the songs of the 70's.. Roberta Flack wanted to know "Where is the Love.." Olivia Newton John declared "I Honestly Love you", the Beatles taught us "All You Need is Love..." and  "Love Love Me Do.." and Barbara Streisand said "Love is ageless and ever green seldom seen by two.."

With all of this talk about love, people still have a hard time with it. The divorce rate has skyrocketed in America in the last 30 years with the first marriage having a 75% chance of breaking up and the second a 68% chance.. Why is there so much confusion about love.? We have more information, more access, more communication, counseling, and more choices for self improvement..

So why are people struggling so much with love, commitment and marriage?? I think it may just be the reasons I mentioned..more information, more access, more communication, more out there..

My heart aches for the many people I know who are all alone or split up..Not every marriage is perfect..even the perfect ones are not perfect.. But when you listen to those words and promises you repeated at the altar or in front of a judge, they have a lot of power and meaning..

In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, in good and in bad, for better or worse .. Isn't that what love is about? Accepting that person for whatever experience comes to pass and working through the issues rather than just tossing the whole relationship..

Til death due us part.. Were you not listening?

I am sorry I just don't get this trashing of the family thing..and it does affect the whole family, not just the family of the divorcees.. If you have children, you are never going to be rid of your spouse. so why not just work it out and find the love that started YOUR family. The alternative is the train wreck of a life and a community created by all of this cheating, division and unhappiness. I lived in a town where divorce was more popular than staying married.. it sucked..

I think there are alot of selfish people out there and maybe they are incapable of love..Maybe they put too much emphasis on stuff instead of time which will never make them happy. The stuff takes over and reduces the amount of time and in that scenario, there is little room for love..

I may not know exactly what love is But I do know what LOVE ISN'T..It isn't dumping your spouse for someone younger, better looking, more interesting, richer, or thinner.. It isn't cryptic emails or Facebook statuses or games of hide and seek.. It isn't sneaking around on your spouse or flirting with everyone who comes to call. It isn't trying to control someone so much that you drain their love away..

No -- Love is a feeling for someone that is so strong that it never goes away.

It is all of those things you said and promised when you were getting married.. Those words represent love not just to your spouse but to your entire family; your Mother, your Father, your sisters, your brothers and all of your children and your grand children you will have in your future.

Real Love rises above all of the petty things people let break them down..

On Pets

Pets brings out the child and the best in everyone.


My brother called me last week and told me his cat Louie had passed. My heart skipped a beat because he has had Louie for about 14 years.. They were roommates. When pets die, a flood of life’s memories come rushing forth.

Louie and Rick lived through a lot together. He works in the emergency room at the local hospital on twelve hour shifts.  So Louie had the job of watching the cabin.. And he was a big cat. I am sure his departure made Rick realize how much they had shared as pet and man.

When we were teenagers, I used to hear my mother in the kitchen talking out loud having a conversation. And I would think; who is here so early in the morning? There are no more milk men or Charlies’ Chips deliveries. Who is she carrying on with at 7 a.m.??? Our dog.

She would talk to Winston von Weedenhof, our St. Bernard, like he was another one of her children.. And in fact he was like our little brother.. He went everywhere, and anywhere he wanted.. all 155 lbs of him. People stopped to talk about him or to him on most of our adventures.. He was one of the family.. Everybody loved Winston..

Since I have been married, we have had lots of dogs..And each time they died, I was filled with incredible sadness and a huge void.. So much so that when we got our last set of dogs, I tried
not to get too attached in the beginning ..

But over time those two beautiful labs took me for incredible walks in the Vermont woods .
And I was talking to them also.

Dogs are people’s friends. In our town, they even created a quiet path so people could take their dogs for walks.. Dogs and cats are truly the best addition to any family or household. There is something magic about the relationship of a pet and a child.. And a pet and an adult because;

Pets brings out the child and the best in everyone..

I live on a beach now and after Labor Day, it becomes open to the dogs.
It is a beautiful parade of people walking dogs and dogs walking people.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

                                                October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

My journey of breast cancer awareness began in 1979. At that time, I was a college senior and knew very little about cancer except that; mostly old people were beginning to die from this insidious disease. 

In 1979, my mother was diagnosed with a very small tumor in her right breast. At the time, chemo-therapies and radiation were not being implemented as treatment. And I believe this saved her life. The doctors performed a masectomy without reconstruction as it was early in the breast cancer business.. 

My mother lived another 30 years without any re-occurrence.. She did develop diabetes 2, which her father had, but managed to play golf, travel  and live a full life without any visits to the hospital related to breast cancer. She died at the age of 82 of sadness and heart failure after she watched my sister and dad struggle through their illnesses and die..

My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 40. She tried every treatment available; chemotherapy, radiation, the shunt, and numerous pharmaceutical drugs that are now being recalled and taken off the market because they do not work and they KILL people.. After 7 years of constant doctor appointments, hospital visits, rounds of radiation and chemotherapy, my sister drew her last breath at the young age of 50. 

It is heart wrenching to watch someone you love die of this disease and to have it keep happening is hard to keep up with. We lost another sister this week to breast cancer after a hard fought battle..When God wants you, you should not fight it, you should go with the flow like my momma did..no drugs, no radiation just live with it and see what happens..

She lasted 30 years by just living with it and controlling her diet and alcohol intake..alcohol intake is a key factor in this disease, I believe.. as is sugar, flour and all processed refined carbohydrates and soda..

I pray for all of the women that are suffering from this disease and I know I am going to live my life a lot differently than most-- because I have lost so many people in the last 9 years to their untimely death assisted by the medical community trying to fight their “diseases”.. 

I don't believe there is a magic pill to cure all ills.. But I do believe in proper nutrition, rest and exercise and not too much of anything or anybody..

Except maybe prayer and spirituality...Another subject for another time..

Remembering all of our mothers, sisters and friends who have passed.. forever you'll stay in my heart.