Wouldn't it be nice if I could claim credit for my kids' convictions? I admire their commitment to their personal positions in life and wish it had been my doing all along.

Case in point...I mentioned before how texting has taken on a viral impact on how we communicate, how we construct our words and sentences. My 21 year old son and his girl friend both recently made me aware that they hated it when people abbreviated things in their text messages. Oops! Despite my own adverse feelings about it, I have been known to use the occassional "u" versus "you". It struck me as odd that young people who are immeshed in technology still acquired an aversion to people degrading the English language in the interest of speed. Then again, maybe that is why my son doesn't text me back very often....too laborious.

My son also convinced me I was hurting the environment by buying bottled water, and this was before it was "green" to have such notions. His convictions resulted in us using a Britta filter instead, which we use to this day.

Then there is my 13 year old daughter who, at the age of 8, decided to become a vegetarian. Well, technically a pescatarian which means she does eat fish. We had watched the movie Food Inc., and that is all it took. Now mind you, we live in the Midwest, so meat eating is very much a way of life. My children were no strangers to bacon, brats, & burgers.

I accommodated my youngest, all the while thinking this would probably not last... a phase. Afterall, my daughter loved her chicken fingers and Happy Meals. Well, I believe that was the last year I took my kids to a fast food restaurant. Even though my son & I still ate meat, I had to find places we could go when we dined out to accommodate everyone. That was our first step towards healthier living and all because an 8 year old decided there was no way she was going to consume animals after seeing how they are mass produced for consumption.

Surprisingly, that young lady has stuck to her guns even when being teased by classmates. The result has been that I learned to cook healthier meals and find creative alternatives that both my kids enjoy. I no longer eat red meat myself, and as a family, we have discovered so many new foods that are healthy and tasty.

So, I guess the lesson I learned is that our kids can actually teach us parents a thing or two. But I sure am looking forward to seeing what convictions their kids spring on them!

Like many middle-aged Americans, I have done my fair share of dieting, losing weight only to gain it back over time. After my ex husband vacated the premises...oh yeah, stories there...I lost 75 pounds, did my first Triathlon, and felt healthy and young again. But sadly, after my job changes created a more sendentary life style and medication after cancer surgeries, I gained much of the weight back. I have been religious about exercise most of my life but have found consistency is my enemy with the Midwest winters and the physical battles. Wow, how is that for excuses? Yup, have to fess up to relying on excuses for my couch potatoe butt. So, I recently signed up for a 12 week Survivor Program at my gym. Started with 68 people and we are down to 23. The worst part is every Sunday night I dream that my scale somehow isn't calibrated right and that I'm going to get to the gym and will have gained weight.

This morning I hit 35 pounds lost and have survived elimination for another week. I could technically say 35.4 pounds, but who am I kidding? One look at a Starbucks Frappucino and that .4 would be history.

On the Intermissions page I have included some website links and some things I have found helpful along the way.

Two years ago, at age 44, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, not an uncommon diagnosis nowadays unfortunately. It is hard to believe it has been that long. I remember my oncologist warning me it was going to be a long 2 year battle and thinking, "Two years...that's such a long time!" Then realizing I should be thanking my lucky stars my odds were favorable.

I have chronicled many of my stories from the "cancer" phase of my life which will be showing up on Retro Wednesdays. Rather than "hump" day, I have chosen to designate Wednesday as the day to share with my readers past humorous encounters with cancer and other demons and angels.

But today, I have to acknowledge that being diagnosed with cancer changed my outlook on life. I'd like to say it helped mellow me out, but my kids might differ with that assessmment. It has made me keenly aware of taking care of myself. I think I have perhaps watched too many Dr. Oz episodes, done too many cleansing diets, tried too many diet supplements, and taken too many exercise classes that don't seem fit for humans...TRX being my last endeavor. Yikes! But what I discovered is no secret to the medical community or to the general public. I eat less and exercise more and I lose weight. Eliminating sugar from my diet was my oncologist's suggestion to avoid future cancer. Bonus? Also, helped me lose weight.

So, I have now embarked on hopefully rejuvinating this poor beaten up body of mine. I have lost 3o pounds in the last 12 weeks with about 30 more to go. And then it is time to finish reconstructing the boobs. For now...I celebrate 2 years as a cancer survivor.

I know this conjures up a multitude of images which I can only leave to the reader's imagination, but under my circumstances it has so many levels of importance. See I have not really needed a regular bra for almost 2 years with the cancer and reconstruction surgeries and the breast expanders. I finally bought myself some pretty bras to make myself feel good.

The other day, as we were preparing to move, my teenage daughter ended up throwing away a lot of her old clothes. Around the same time, I was trying desparately to find the new black bra I had just purchased. It was not an expensive purchase but somehow became very important to me. It was a symbol of me finally getting on with my life. My daughter saw me rummaging through my boxed clothes and inquired why I was so upset. I explained to her about the bra. She looked at me quizzically, "You mean the black one you put in with my clothes? I thought it was old and threw it away with my other things in the dumpster."  I don't know what made me more upset...the fact that she threw the thing away or thought it was old. Either way I was not going down without a fight. Yes, I climbed into the dumpster at our apartment building and fished out the new bra...now covered in coffee grounds.

Is this what it means when they refer to hitting rock bottom?

Today I heard a dear friend's father passed away. Having just turned 65, he accidentally fell off a roof. My friend and I had not been in touch for a couple of months, not out of any malice but out of letting our busy lives carry us in different directions. I felt unsure how to reach out to her but knew I had to.  This woman was a strong support when I went through my breast cancer treatments and I knew I had to show support somehow, but what is the right thing to say? We have exchanged e-mails, me issuing forth my condolences and offers of support, and her somehow managing to e-mail how she was coping. The absolute sudden loss of a parent is unfathomable to me, and I have found myself in that sudden familiar place again of realizing how brief and uncontrollable our stay is on this earth.  My friend's last e-mail concluded that she missed my humor, and that's when I realized how humor is the one thing that keeps us moving forward through these darkest hours. Ironically, another acquaintance just alerted me to the fact that he lost his mom a few weeks back. His last conversation with me also ended with the utterance, "If we can't laugh, there's just no point anymore." Of course in the face of death, tears flow, but then we get to remember the person who has departed. It is then we can slowly feel are lips form into a smile, thinking of how our lost loved one put a little extra light in our lives.

A real live bookstore. A dying breed. How sad. I started this blog in part as a way to communicate with family and friends other than texting and e-mailing. Texting and e-mailing has resulted in the ultimate slaughter of the English language. I can only assume technology has had similar influence on other languages. It pains me to see the abbreviation of entire words down to a single letter and whole phrases captured using 3 letters of which, other than OMG, I am at a loss deciphering. Don't get me wrong, I am an avid texter, albeit not very good at it. Certainly texting and photo sharing has made it easier for me to communicate with my family and friends of whom most live out of state, but I grow weary of trying to tell a story using sound bites rather than beautiful sounding words. Yes, I still love an old fashioned book store with books that have paper pages. Going to a book store is an "occassion" to be relished as is reading a good book with real words, not abbreviations or anograms. I pray we never lose our ability to enjoy how luxurious the written word can sound when constructed in a poem about love or loss or both. Somehow TTFN and BFF do not cultivate the same images.

It's amazing what moving from one city to another can do to your psyche...even when the cities are literally less than 20 minutes apart. We just moved from a suburb of Milwaukee into the City of Milwaukee. People thought I was nuts. "Why on earth would you want to move into the city? There is crime, traffic, no open spaces, and people of mixed races."  I sigh.  Having grown up in DC and Los Angeles, I found being in the suburbs as bewildering as these people seem to find city life. Ironically, I have probably spent more time walking and in open spaces in the last 2 weeks than I did in the suburbs...ever. The reason? There are sidewalks and now we are 2 blocks from Lake Michigan. And last time I looked, that is possibly one of the biggest open spaces in the Midwest. No, we did not walk in Lake Michigan, but there is sure one hell of a stretch of beach, parks, and city life to explore.