Write with TLC

I grew up not thinking about whether or not I was poor. My parents owned our farm, but some years were tough financially. My earliest years we lived in a trailer until my parents built a house. They paid it off fairly quickly. I don't know how quickly exactly but I know they didn't take out a 30 year mortgage like most people today do.  But... There were tight years. My Daddy worked three jobs most of my life, and all of my childhood. He was a farmer full-time. He logged when the weather permitted. He worked as a mechanic/salesman for Turner Tractor Sales  in the winter months.  He never complained. He worried, but he never complained. He found ways to make it work. Daddy's idea of retirement was to sell the farm where I grew up and buy a smaller one, so he still farms and rebuilds tractors. My Mom was a housewife, but being a farmer's housewife also meant she did her share of gardening, fieldwork, and other farm chores. She also took on other jobs from time t...

Hangs on my office wall to remind me there's no shame in being me! "Don't talk back!" I heard those words so often growing up that they still reverberate through my head far too often. They were a common admonishment when  I wanted to make my point, defend myself, state my case, or otherwise get myself out of trouble . I was convinced that if I could just explain my side, I could show that I didn't deserve to be in trouble. I wasn't trying to "sass" or be disrespectful as was so often thought. I never understood why I couldn't present my side of things yet I eventually accepted the reality that sometimes my side of it didn't change things. Sometimes because I'd done the wrong thing even if I thought it was for the right reasons and sometimes because no one wanted to hear my side of things or cared why I did what I did that got me in trouble. It's strange how that message can become so ingrained that one doesn't even dare...

Last week was No More Week, sponsored by the No More organization. No More's mission is to end domestic violence and sexual assault. I've participated in No More weeks and other awareness activities sponsored by No More several times over the past few years. This year the theme was Change Happens Here - #changehappenshere. I chose the following as my statement "No More valuing the assailant's future more than the victim's." I hated writing the word victim. I wanted to write survivor so badly. Because... Words matter. They really do. The words we choose convey a message. A subtle shift happens when we read one word over the other. I am both a victim and a survivor, but I hate to think of myself as a victim. I hate it. I fight it. I even hide from it. But, there are times when acknowledging that to be a survivor one has to have been a victim at some point is essential to growth and forward movement. This idea that being a victim is bad is a continuati...

I first tried yoga in 1998 after watching Madonna discuss her yoga practice with Oprah while promoting her awesome album, Ray of Light . I was intrigued, so I bought a couple of VHS tapes of yoga routines and tried it. I struggled at first but felt drawn back to the routines time and again.  At first I only practiced once a week. Then I added a second yoga practice each week. Before long, I started looking forward to yoga days because I loved the way I felt after I finished. Today I mostly practice routines on Do Yoga with Me , but I still own a DVD of the first yoga routine that hooked me, Ali McGraw: Mind &Body , which remains one of my all-time favorite routines. Eventually, yoga became my primary form of exercise.  I still love the way I feel when I finish a yoga routine and have grown to enjoy the practice itself - well, at least most days. I love it when I push past that last edge to move into a pose I've never been able to do. As much as I enjoy dancing an...