Category: Musings
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The Promise of a New Year
Reading Time: < 1 minuteMy absolutely favorite holiday, hands down, is New Year’s Day. Every year when I flip the calendar to January, after the Thanksgiving to Christmas holiday season is behind us, I get super excited about new beginnings. I need to remind myself that no matter what day the calendar proclaims, every morning… Read more
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Sugar Coma
Reading Time: 4 minutesHere it is a couple of days after Christmas and I am seriously craving something green to eat. I don’t mean green as in donuts or cookies with green colored frosting. I mean green as in cucumbers or salad or something (anything) that will give me a dose of vitamins and nutrients.… Read more
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Gray Pride
Reading Time: < 1 minuteBelongingness is right smack in the middle of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs…above food, clothing, shelter and safety, but below esteem and self-actualization. Most people spend their whole life joining groups and organizations that share their interests and help them feel good about themselves. Sometimes the organizations even help them “leave a… Read more
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Legitimate, Honest-to-God Tragedy
Reading Time: 4 minutesRegular visitors to my blog know I’m a voracious reader. Many also know I’m a history buff. My interest in history intensified over the last 15 years as I’ve learned to connect what’s happened in the past to current events. It puts so much in context and explains the seemingly unexplainable. I’m… Read more
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Good Old-Fashioned Paper Books
Reading Time: < 1 minuteXfinity (Comcast) is the major cable service in the area. In many places, 2+ weeks after Hurricane Ian, many people still don’t have cable service. Facebook and Next Door are flooded with people screaming about this. There are reports of residents chasing Xfinity linemen with baseball bats. Randy and I drove… Read more
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Hurricane Ian
Reading Time: 3 minutesFirst, I have to say I am sick of talking about Hurricane Ian. It came, it conquered, it moved on. For a lot of Floridians, their lives forever after will be defined by this catastrophic weather event. I understand. We dealt with something similar in 2003 when we went through a tornado… Read more
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The Cone of Uncertainty
Reading Time: 4 minutesAs I write this, Randy and I are experiencing the approach of our first hurricane as Florida residents. It’s an interesting experience. My sister in Naples gave me some advice last week. She said when they start talking about a hurricane it takes twice as long to get here as they say… Read more
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You Don’t Say…
Reading Time: < 1 minuteOne more thing about listening. Peter Drucker (a prominent management consultant and author) once said, “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” The point he was making is that listening involves more than just hearing. Often people omit things that are difficult to say or they don’t… Read more
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The Magic of Quiet
Reading Time: < 1 minuteWe live in a very noisy world, both literally and figuratively. It can make us feel overwhelmed, exhausted by the clatter and activity around us. Lots of people think they can’t live without “noise” around them. But silence can be golden. Consider this: you can’t really hear yourself think without silence.… Read more
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There’s No Place Like Home
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe older I get, the more I (unintentionally) resemble people I think of as old foggies. Here we are, not even a week into our 10 day vacation to Missouri and I’m ready to go home. Not that I’m not enjoying seeing everyone, visiting former haunts, and eating like I’m on… Read more