by Sue | Jan 12, 2020 | Books & Writers
I believe a universe of neurons sends messages across synapses in writers’ brains as they work. What fuels our creativity? What blocks it? What connections within each of our worlds fuel our writing? My friend Pat is a superb writer who writes her first draft in...
by Sue | Jan 5, 2020 | Care Giving
Sometimes a little help here and there makes it possible for the elderly to remain at home rather than move into a facility. I spoke with Mary Terwilliger, Executive Director of Living Well Companion Care, about this service line of Jewish Senior Life. Jewish Senior...
by Sue | Dec 29, 2019 | Body & Soul
Are you feeling over-stuffed after the Holidays? If you are like me, you left the ranch and grazed on lots of sugar, salt, and fat that made everything taste oh so good. Now you eye the scale and look to January 1st as the day when you will “eat right” and undo the...
by Sue | Dec 22, 2019 | Faith
Two things occur in the next few days — the astronomical winter solstice in the northern hemisphere on December 21 at 11:19 p.m. EST and Christmas. While we experience the least amount of daylight on the 22nd, Christmas is bright and joyful. We fill our homes with...
by Sue | Dec 15, 2019 | Books & Writers
At our last writers group meeting, I mentioned I find it harder to find novels that hold my interest. Some seem trite and others are poorly written. Steve said it was because writers recognize bloopers that somehow get past editors, or the authors skip professional...
by Sue | Dec 8, 2019 | Care Giving
I raised my voice, as if I my friend could understand me better if I turned up the volume. Turns out, there are far better ways to communicate with the confused and demented, as I learned from a presentation sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Association. The...
by Sue | Dec 3, 2019 | Body & Soul
No one argues that we need Vitamin D. Although we call it a vitamin, our bodies also produce Vitamin D, along with melatonin, when we expose our skin to sunlight. According to Patrick Quillin PhD, RD, CNS, in his book Beating Cancer with Nutrition, both Vitamin D and...
by Sue | Nov 24, 2019 | Faith
“I believe I’m supposed to share this,” Joanne told me. I smiled at my friend. She is a woman who weathered the premature death of her beloved husband, cared for her father and mother for years, and recently cried at her son’s memorial service. To look at her, you...
by Sue | Nov 17, 2019 | Books & Writers
Occasionally our writers group pens what we call a “Round Robin.” It’s great fun, since none of us knows what literary masterpiece (or mess) will evolve from our blended imaginations. We each draw a number and wait for the writer who drew #1 to send us the first...
by Sue | Nov 10, 2019 | Care Giving
Hearing the first two lines of “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and Papas takes me back to the Poor House, a popular watering hole when I was a nursing student in Syracuse. The song’s beginning phrases about brown leaves floating in a grey sky put me right there...
