Write with TLC

Visit Potluck with Judy to check out my recipe for  TLC’s Frozen Chocolate Banana Almond Cream , a dessert I threw together when I had a major chocolate craving and lacked the ingredients to make my usual chocolate desserts. It felt a little like playing "Chopped" in my own kitchen and with my only judge as my husband, who had to like try my concoction regardless. Hope you enjoy! Thanks, Judy, for inviting me to guest on Potluck with Judy !

Start from where you are... Such a simple phrase. Such a simple concept. Such a simple action. Or so it sounds. Yet putting it into practice is nearly impossible; however, when we start from where we are, it is so easy to accomplish our goals. I recently have been bombarded with lessons in the concept of starting from where I am. My life is in major transition mode leaving me with a lot of unknowns. In the past, unknowns would have left me feeling very insecure and even a bit unsafe yet I feel rather excited right now. I have moments of insecurity, but they are fleeting. I know that wherever I'm headed, I will end up in the right place for me. After all, I'll be there... Everything I hold dear is currently transitioning to a new phase in my life, and there are moments when I cling to yesterday and other moments when I'm trapped in the outcome that hasn't happened yet. In those moments, I forget to be where I'm at in this journey. The problem with starting eit...

Several years back I made a conscious decision to live my life from a place of love. At the time, I struggled with this concept because like many I equated the concept of love with the kind of intimacy that creates romantic relationships. I knew, even then, that love is so much more than that, but I also know saying the words "I love you" can be loaded for many people. All kinds of expectations seem to accompany those words. I've been thinking about the concept of love again lately because I'm in the middle of one of life's little transitions. I am reminded how much love changes as we transition through life. It sometimes morphs into something we barely recognize based on what we thought we knew. Even then it holds a comfortable familiarity that allows us to embrace hope. My decision to live from a place of love transformed my life. I let go of tremendous anger and confusion and hurt meaning I freed myself from living in constant drama. I saw my relationships ...

Ever since the news hit the airwaves of George Zimmerman killing Trayvon Martin, the same questions have reverberated through my mind. A lot of speculation has been bandied about as fact though little of it has been proven. I can attribute any words I want to either one of them and without a recording or a written record no one will know if they're true. Even eye witnesses hear things differently. Hell, two people in an argument hear things differently. Recordings prove unreliable. Writing can be forged.  I can scour the Internet for photos and assign them to those involved. I can play games to manipulate the public sentiment. And all this has been done repeatedly and without shame, mostly to malign a teenage boy being a teenager. Trayvon's actions earlier that day or the week before or the month before or the year before have no bearing on this event or how we should view it because Zimmerman didn't know any of that when he shot Trayvon. Based on the events of the eveni...

Given the number of women who have posted the You Tube video, "It's Not About the Nail", to Facebook, I'm fairly certain my reaction to it will be in the minority. I found the video ludicrous. I understand that's it's a metaphor, but it's like comparing horses to fish. I will concede the point that there are many times when people, women in particular, just want to be heard and don't want someone else to solve the problem for them; however, let's be realistic, any woman with any sense whatsoever isn't going to want to talk about how having a nail in her head makes her feel. As I watched it, I remembered an incident in my house a few days prior. Meme, my gray cat, jumped off my lap when my husband made a loud noise. As she jumped she scratched my thigh deeply enough it bled and bruised. My husband asked me in a very caring way how I felt about her scratching me. I replied "Like I need a band-aid." as I left the room to find one. ...

When I started reading  Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead  by Sheryl Sandberg, I was preparing my book, Strength in Silhouette: Poems , for publication. As I read my poems juxtaposed to Lean In, my heart ached and my soul cried out for the women who have struggled as I have to embrace being in relationships without sacrificing themselves and their goals. I felt a new sense of purpose for my work to share the idea that women don't have to give up femininity to be strong or sacrifice marriage to be successful or deny our place in the world because it makes someone else uncomfortable. Lean In begged me to examine my life. I took quite a long time to read the book, probably twice as long as it normally would have. I read a few pages, took some time to think about what I read, read some more, and sometimes went back and re-read passages. As I read through the poems under consideration for Strength in Silhouette, my thoughts repeatedly drifted back to Sandberg's words....

When I started tapping into my inner strength to deal with some challenges in my life, it reawakened a need in me to not only be strong but to empower others to embrace their inner strength. I blogged about strength quite often during this time period, but I found my struggle with inner strength pouring into my poems. Poems filled page after page. Pretty soon I realized I had written enough about inner strength, empowerment, and women's innate struggle to be strong without losing their femininity to fill a book. That book is not now complete and available for purchase in both trade paperback and Kindle! Enjoy!