I grew up in the country and a lot of people would have categorized my family as poor when I was really young.  My parents were really young, came from poor families (by anyone's standards) and were building their own house from the ground up (literally because they built the hill that they built the house into).  We had hand-me-down or hand made clothes.  We grew a lot of our own food and lived off from canning a lot of it. I never knew what I was missing and I had a beautiful...

In my 34 yrs on this planet I have done a lot of thinking on the subject of happiness.  A lot of people who know me think I am just "naturally" happy.  I think the key to happiness is learning and embracing what truly makes you happy.  Sounds simple doesn't it?  I don't think it really is. I myself have fallen victim to questioning my importance which leads to a drop in happiness.  I have learned that I am happiest when with family and friends and being domestic. ...

A lot of things about this time of year, especially this year due to the election, produce religious discussion.  A lot of people assume that my family is christian due to our morals and values.  One friend even thought I had been raised Catholic.  When I reveal that I am not christian, things often get uncomfortable.  It was even questioned how we could have morals and teach them to our children without being christian. Just because I have not been able to accept that Jes...

Like many people, my life has been touched by cancer.  I am not personally a cancer survivor but have had family and friends who have dealt with cancers of all sorts.  Some beat it, many didn't.  It is a constant threat lurking.  My view of the world has been touched by terrorism.  I haven't been personally attacked by a terrorist but the attacks of 9/11 sure felt personal.  Before 9/11 I thought terrorism was something that happened in other countries.  No...

I grew up in a small, rural town where everyone did everything everyone else did.  There were no minorities of any kind.  Everyone was pretty much the same. My kids are growing up in a very diverse area.  They don't think anything of someone having different colored skin or a dot between their eyes.  They have grown up next to Italians, Indians, Africans (and I mean straight from Africa), Asians, you name it, they probably know something about the culture and someone who c...

I have had the past experience of having people comment that they enjoy my blogs except my political ones.  I then asked myself the question "Do I let a person's politics affect my opinion of the person over all?"  In general, the answer would be no.  However, I think in the blog world it depends on what my initial experience is with the blogger in question.  If my first experience is a negative political blog, I might form a hasty opinion that will be difficult to change. ...

I remeber once when I was looking at a photo album with my mom when I was about 12yrs old, she said "I sure miss that little cutie pie", referring to a picture of me when I was a toddler.  I was puzzled at the time because I was sitting right there.  She explained that life is a progression where the infant becomes the toddler, the toddler becomes a preschooler, then elementary school age, teen years, young adults, middle age and elderly.  She had already lost the infant, toddler,...

The death of Dana Reeve really touched me deeply.  That family suffered such hardship, such tragedy.  Their young son has learned the 'life isn't fair' lesson in a very brutle way.  How can such wonderful people suffer such tragedy when so many horrible people sail blissfully through life? This is a question I simply can't get passed.  I have seen it day in and day out during my 35yrs of life.  Life can be so unfair.  It just doesn't make sense. I have ha...

I am a happy person by default.  I generally need external forces to make me unhappy.  I say generally because even I am not immune to the effects of hormones or simply just a bad mood on occasion. Just because I am naturally happy doesn't mean I take it for granted.  I do a lot of thinking about what makes me happy while others seem to always be looking for things to "make" them happy.  I wish I had answers.  I do know that I take pleasure in the small things.  ...

Many of us find guidance in religion.  For those of us who don't, there are a couple of rules that I have found to be helpful in my life so I will share them. First:  Before you speak, write or act, consider what you hope to achieve and whether or not that action will achieve that goal.  For instance, someone says something nasty, your instinct might be to lash back but how will that make you feel in the long run?  Through trial and error I have found that lashing bac...