So I don't know about anyone else but I was exhausted after this election.   No matter what side of the political fence you are on, this was stressful....especially as it continued in.  I'm old enough to remember clearly the 2000 election and had my fingers crossed this election would drag out for weeks like that one did.

This Monday morning, I'm inspired by Kamala Harris.  Again, we all have political leanings and this is not the topic of this blog.  I'm inspired because for the first time in history, we have a Madam Vice President.  And that is inspiring to me.  It is also, in my opinion, long overdue.  

Being the first is nothing new to Kamala.  She was the first woman of color to become San Francisco's District Attorney.  She was also the first woman and person of color to become the Attorney General of California and the second woman of color to be elected to the US Senate.   From there she went on to become the...

Katherine Switzer liked to run.  And she didn't let a pesky thing like being a woman get in her way.  Nor did she let weather get in her way.  She ran during snowstorms in the winter in upstate New York.   While attending Syracuse University in 1966, she discovered the University did not offer a woman's running program, so she began to unofficially train with the men's cross-country team.  

She didn’t set out to shatter women stereotypes and pave the way for women in sports, she just wanted to run a race.  But that’s exactly what she did.

At this time it was unusual to see women runners.  The medical field and society in general held to long standing beliefs that women were were not built to run, and that it could, in fact, hurt them and compromise fertility.   Further, running could create a lean, muscular body which was not considered to be a desirable famine trait.   

While Katherine is not the...

Irena Sendler was a social worker and a member of the underground organization, Zegota, who rescued 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto in Poland during World War II.  She faced a lot of fear and danger to her life in doing this....but she did it anyway.

Using her status as a social worker, she was able to gain access to the ghetto, where she knocked on doors and talked Jewish parents and grandparents into surrendering their children and grandchildren to her care so the children would not die in the ghetto or death camps.  Irena used some very creative means to secretly remove the Jewish children and place them in safely in homes and orphanages that were part of the war resistance.   She obtained fake birth certificates for the children with non-Jewish names and kept secret lists in jars she secretly buried, of the children's real names so that they could be reunited with parents and family once the war was over.  

Irena was...

Most, if not all of us have had situations where we have been unable or unwilling to face some truth confronting us.  It could be something minor, like always adding air to a slow leaking tire because we don't want face the fact that we have to buy a new one (guilty) or something larger, for instance, not going to the doctor for regular checkups because of being afraid of what he or she might tell us about our health (not guilty).

I compete in dog agility....well, I did before Covid that is.  Not many dog agility events going on these days.  Anyway, I went for a few years without a dog to compete with, which made me very sad.  So when I got my new border collie puppy in 2013, I was so excited to get back.  When he turned 2, I entered him into our first competition together.  A friend video taped our first run and shared it with me.  It was very clear from the video that he was uncomfortable with jumping.  I knew he was not a confident...

Isabella Bird got around…in the truest sense of the term.  Born in England in 1831, she made some very remarkable solo travel journeys at a Victorian time when women were repressively limited in what they could or could not do.  However, Isabella did her own thing on her own terms.  She hung out with mountain men in Colorado, she lived with native Hawaiians in Hawaii, and with the Ainu tribe of the Island of Hokkaido in Japan. 

Her travels began after a sickly childhood. Her doctor recommended travel as a cure and at the age of 23 she headed off to North America, spending time both in the US and Canada.  She returned to England and wrote her first book about her travel experiences, “The Englishwoman in America.”

Following her father’s death, she moved with her family to Scotland, making three more trips to North America and one trip to the Mediterranean.  But the travel bug really bit her when she boarded a boat from San...

Ah Fall...leaves turning colors, crisp cool morning, sweater season.  I used to associate each season of the year with certain alcoholic drinks and Fall was no exception.  Fall can also mean a return to routines.  Kids and grandkids are back in school (well….kind of…), and the holidays are right around the corner. 

Which makes this the perfect time to quit or take a break from drinking. 

Um…say what???  Right now I’m guessing you think I’m nuts.  That this is the worst possible time!  The days are getting shorter, it’s getting cold out, the holidays….and Winter is coming!  (Cue Game of Thrones music).  Unless of course you live in the southern hemisphere, or a more tropical environment, but even then there is still the holidays.  How would any of it be bearable without a drink in my hand…Right?? 

Here’s the thing.   We can always find a reason to put it...

Resistance has been on my mind lately, which led to my writing about the woman who has been called "World War II's Most Dangerous Allied Spy."  Virginia Hall was born in Baltimore, MD in 1906.  She walked with a pronounced limp after left leg was amputated below the knee due to a hunting accident.  As a result, Virginia walked with a seven-pound wooden prosthetic.  Not one to let her disability define her, she gave her prosthetic a name, Cuthbert.  

 She was adventurous and after graduating, she applied to the U.S. Foreign Service to see the world.   However, she was rejected for being female.  Undeterred, she was able to obtain a position as a Consular service clerk at the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland.   Later, she transferred to Turkey, where the hunting accident occurred.  Later she applied to the Department of State to be a diplomat, but was turned down due to having a disability.  

Early into WW...

Ah, hot flashes.  I always knew they were a thing with menopause.  I remember my mother having them.  But it wasn't until I had my hysterectomy that I realized that hot flashes were not just a thing....they were a THING.  Body drenching sweat and feeling like I was on fire.  Lasting up to 5 minutes, and then starting over again 10 to 15 minutes later.  I kept deodorant in my desk drawer at work and reapplied it multiple times daily.  A friend told me "welcome to the next 10 years of your life." 

Ummm....what???  Are you saying I'm going to do this for the next 10 years???  Just shoot me now. 

That was almost 7 years ago.  And I'm here to say that yes, it is survivable.  I still have hot flashes today but the duration and severity are much different today from what they used to be.  Over the years I've tried a variety of different methods to deal with my hot flashes.  What I learned is that there is no quick...

Holly wasn't famous.  In fact, it's very likely you've never heard of her.  I knew Holly because our parents went to the same church.  We played as kids at church gatherings and went to Sunday school together.  When we were older, we went to the same school.   

Holly didn't live an easy life.  However she didn't let this define her.  

We attended 7th grade together at a small private school.  It was there, on a sunny spring day that I saw her get into a van after school.   I went up and asked her if she was going to ride the bus with the rest of us but she said no, a friend's brother was giving her a ride home.  I didn't see her again for about 3 years.  

That day, the van she was in had a serious accident.  The driver, her friend's brother, lost control and the van rolled 250 feet over a cliff.  Holly survived, but the crash broke her neck and left her paralyzed from the neck down. ...

I remember vividly the day I found my first gray hair....or I should say that my (now ex) husband found it.  We were sitting outside talking when all of a sudden he reached over and plucked a hair out of my head.  Um...ok.  That was random. So I asked him what in the world made him think that a hair out of my head out of the blue seemed like a good idea?  "It's gray" he said.  "Here, take a look."  

(I feel this might be a good time to clarify that this gray hair plucking incident is not why we are divorced...ok, carry on...)

I was 30 at the time.  As I examined that gray strand, I felt like my mortality was staring me in the face. 

I was 30 at the time.  When I examined that gray strand, I felt like my mortality was staring me in the face. I'm only 30.  I'm not supposed to be getting gray hair. This was when I entered my plucking phase.  Find a gray, pluck it out.  Perfect!  Its like it was...