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Welcome

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Make yourself at home. Put your feet up. Grab your favorite beverage and prepare to enjoy the reads.
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Friday

Letter to the Google Powers That Be

I received a notice from My Health Online. It was to inform me of a message regarding a recent blood test result. I take a medication called Lamotrogine. The result of the test revealed that I had low levels of the drug in my body. This means, though I am taking my medicine, it is not being absorbed properly. This is no surprise to me. I have Leukemia and I am taking a chemo drug which causes me to have a constant upset stomach. This is not well controlled because the usual nausea meds conflict with the absorption of the chemo drug.

It is necessary that I take the Lamotrogine because I have a seizure disorder, plus it works well for another medical problem I have. In fact it works better than any other medication I have ever taken for that condition. Therefore, when I learned I was not absorbing it properly, I did a Google search to learn more about it. As usual when I do a search like this, I am so fascinated with the facts that one search leads to another and another and another. I just enjoy learning so much that I'm like a bee gathering pollen.

I soon became frustrated because I felt things were not moving fast enough. Like a little kid, I just want to ask, "What does that mean?" and be instantly satisfied by having the answer. So, I wrote a letter to Google. I didn't send it. I'm sure the answer will come to me.... But, I'm posting it here, just in case someone has an thought on the question.

(Though, now... as I am finishing up this post, I realize I could easily use my Droid to speak the new search term and get the answers I am looking for faster than using the computer!)

This is the message to Google:

Dear Google,

When I am reading something in my Kindle and come across a word I am unfamiliar with, I can select it, click on it, and get a description of what the word means.

I would like to be able to do that with Google, too. If I'm reading a website, for example, come across a subject I would like to know more about, I would like to be able to automatically Google that word (or phrase) and have Google search results pop up.

I know I can copy and paste the word or phrase I'm looking for into another browser page, but that takes extra steps. Is there some way, I can just click and have an instant Google search response?

Thanks,
Elizabeth Munroz

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday

Willow Weep For Me

I remember lying on a blanket on the ground by the creek while my mother hung wet clothes on the clotheslines. I was mesmerized as i looked up through the labyrinthine branches and watched them weave and breathe their peaceful magic over me. As I listened to the soft murmur of the wind kissing the air above me, the clotheslines, the wet clothes in the basket, and my mother all disappeared from my little world.

My willow and me, about 1948-49
8124 West Rivershore Drive, Cayuga Island, Niagara Falls, NY

The weeping willow, her green skirts hanging down sheltered me. I didn't know the streams of leaf filtered light caressing my face was not part of her.

Perhaps I was swaddled. I had no desire to turn my back to the beauty, to roll over or crawl away. Perhaps I was younger than I imagine. Born in June, that first four months would have been the time this early memory occurred. If I had known there was such a thing as God, I would have been sure it was the Weeping Willow.

The next year my mother tied me to the tree. The blanket was my boundary again. I could toddle a bit, yet she hollered and screamed at me so much to be still, to not go in the direction of the river, and to not walk myself around and shorten my tether that it was easier to just sit. I would reach out and grasp at the long threads gracing the grass and get lost in the veins lining the leaves. When my mother wasn't looking, I would bite into a branch and taste the bitterness. I liked the crunchy chewiness of the pulp. I knew the weeping willow didn't mind. She was my friend.

The following summer, there was no more hanging clothes on the line. A big white box sat in the basement in the laundry room. My mother would stand at the washing machine fishing the clothes out of it to squeeze them between the rollers. I was not allowed in the that room, but could stand in the doorway to watch the drying machine go around in circles. I was easily bored by the whole process. Much to my mother's consternation I wandered off to explore other parts of the basement.

Our forays into the backyard to my weeping willow tree were few by that time. I remember when Daddy and Davy brought the kitchen table outside. It was a hot day and my cousins were there. Later, Mommy and Aunt Laura laid on the blanket in the sunshine wearing their swim suits. They didn't go into the creek to swim but sat talking and giggling while Nona and I sat under the magic tree playing with her little dishes with teenage cousin, Myrna watching over us.

"Don't go near the creek" I was warned so many times, I sang a song to the tree. "Don't go near the creek. It will take me away forever. My tree will really cry. Don't go near the creek." And I didn't. But, Dickie Culp did, and Bobby Baker did. They sat on the edge of the cement wall.  Willow had provided them with their pretend fishing poles which they held out over the water. Bobbie went home when his mother called him. Then, I watched when Dickie arched his back, dropped his fishing pole shaking his arms and fell into the water with his eyes open, not blinking, not moving and began to float away. I ran along beside him for a while calling his name. But, he did not answer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recently, I used Google to look at the location where I lived as a little girl. I was disappointed to discover my willow tree is no longer there.




Wednesday

WORKSHOPS AND CLASSES WITH ELLEN BASS


Near Big Sur on Coastline of California
photo by Elizabeth Munroz


9TH ANNUAL WRITING AND KNOWING POETRY WORKSHOP
with Ellen Bass, Dorianne Laux, and Joseph Millar
August 4 - 9, 2013
Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA

There is a world inside each of us that we know better than anything else, and a world outside of us that calls for our attention. Our subject matter is always right with us. The trick is to find out what we know, challenge what we know, own what we know, and then give it away in language. Mainly this will be a writing retreat—time to explore and create in a supportive community. Though we’ll focus on poetry, prose writers who want to enrich their language will find it a fertile environment. For more information, click here.


WRITING FOR OUR LIVES
September 28 - October 5, 2013
La Serrania, Mallorca, Spain
In this small, intimate workshop, you have the opportunity to create writing that is more vivid, more true, more complex and powerful than you've been able to do before. This will be my seventh year teaching at La Serrania and it's always a deep pleasure to return. La Serrania is remote, gorgeous, and inspiring. If you'd like a chance to sink deeply into your writing, enjoy delicious food, go to sleep in a simple, yet elegant room, wake to sheep bells, this is the place. For more information,click here. For information about La Serrania, visit www.laserrania.com. To register, contact La Serrania. If you have questions, you can email me.

Saturday

Limping

Today the limping is not so bad. I don’t feel it is noticeable to others. But the pain is there just the same. Today the pain is in the front of the left thigh radiating down past my knee and the side of my calf; pain level #4, tolerable, and able to ignore. I’ve been functioning in a daze. The migraine meds I took in the middle of the night still have hold of my brain. The headache was the worst I’ve had in a long time; Up to a pain level #8. But, now the temporal artery is only swollen and throbs when I walk in the heat. Doctors say that migraines run in families and that they start at an early age. They’re right about the first part. I was a bit disdainful of my relatives when they complained of migraines until I had my first at age thirty five.


I digress.... back to the thigh. Today the thigh, yesterday, lower back, day before that--I forget. Sounds like a hypochondriac. Right? I used to hate my body for being weak, for hurting me like this. I questioned my sanity, too. How real is all this pain? Why does it fluctuate, and change so? Could I just be imagining it? As a teenager, I only had to worry about the hereditary bone-bumps (benign tumors) all over my body, as being unsightly and nothing more. Time has taught me what scientific research has revealed: that muscles, ligaments and cartilage were not designed to wrap around these cauliflower-like growths without stress and strain, thereby resulting in a chronic condition very much like a cross between arthritis and fibromyalgia. Most of my family has inherited this condition, too. Mine’s a little different. One of my bone bumps became cancerous and I’ve had numerous surgeries over the years beginning in 1967, to try to keep it at bay. I haven’t had a recurrence since 1980. But, the damage is done. About one quarter of the pelvis has been removed. That includes the right pubic ramus and right ischium, all the way from the center to the hip joint with no prosthetic implant to hold things together. Doctors said I’d never walk again. What do they know? I forgot what they said, and walked, albeit with a limp.



But they never told me that one half of my pelvis would flap in the breeze like a hinge on a gate without a lock. They didn't tell me of the years of excruciating pain while the bones rubbed against each other until they wore down the cartilage and began to fuse together. They didn't tell me that the muscles on the side, without the support, would shrink and spasm and need constant stretching. They didn't tell me about a lot of things. I’ve had to find out for myself. Its not too obvious to most people, this gaping hole in my anatomy. Even doctors who don’t know my history, don’t really understand the long term effects. Occasionally, I’ll run into a really good Physical Therapist who documents all the bio-mechanical reasons for my difficulties. Then I produce those records to any new doctor I might have and get some understanding. I’ve made it a point over the years to survive without being drugged. The first couple years I lived in a not entirely pain free stupor. It wasn't worth it. I’d rather feel the pain, cope with it the best I can, and feel alive. What annoys me most are the judges of my life, well meaning friends, family and strangers, alike, not living inside my body, who, when I have made monumental effort to climb a flight of stairs without wincing, say something like: “You look like you do just fine to me. Maybe you’re over-reacting!” I never know whether to cry or strike out in rage. I usually do nothing. I’ve often thought if we were all born with a simple purple dot on the forehead that would intensify in color indicating increasing pain levels everyone would know exactly how everyone else was feeling.



Thursday

What's in Your Garage?

How easy it is to come up with reasons why we are unable to let go. The older we get the more stuff we accumulate, it seems. A group of us were having a cup of coffee at my local Starbux the other day. We began to talk of trying to minimize our lives.... getting rid of stuff.

"We did that clearing things out once, but, and there are so many things I need--like my pressure cooker and canning equipment" This said by a woman whose grown children have moved far away and no relatives live nearby. I wondered how much canning she does these days. "Not as much as I used to," she said. "But my garage has enough jars of home-canned pickles.... And has never seen a vehicle."

We then got onto the subject of chock full garages and how much money we would make if only we'd get out there and have a garage sale!

Another friend said he and his wife had been forced to minimalize because they sold their 10 room house and downsized to a 5 room house with garage. They had two auctions and several garage sales. And gave some stuff free through freecycle. But once they moved in, they found it easier to leave the boxes unpacked and they are still sitting there stashed away in the "guest" room.

When I open the garage door, I get overwhelmed and just turn around and go back into the house and attempt to clean out a kitchen cupboard or two.

Monday

A Day in the Life

Big day today. Went to pick up free herb plant (Epizote) from Freecycle friend. It is supposed to help with gastrointestinal issues I've been dealing with for much too long. I hope it works.


Then off to Starbucks where we ran into a group of Impala enthusiasts. They were all wearing Impala Bike Club T-shirts. Lots of kids were there with their bikes. Adults were there with their classic Chevy Impalas. I love old cars and had to take pictures. Struck up conversation with a lovely young lady, Alexandra, and hope to run into her again, soon.

Afterwards we ran into our friends, Rob and Lisa, and Rob's new pooch, Anna Banana. He reminded us of Patty's big yard sale, so we gave her a call to find out if she was still "open" and went over to hang out. It's amazing the amount of wonderful stuff she had... lots of china, silver, glassware, copper, art and other collectibles. One of which is something my grandson, the pilot, might find interesting, a print of a painting of a 1936 Spitfire done by artist, Jim Mitchell. (the photo does not do it justice)


It's been a long day. I was pretty dizzy and lightheaded throughout most of it. Really wondering how much is due to low blood pressure. If so, then what's causing it? Or is it due to the recent bouts of pancreatitis I've been experiencing. I have some GI tests on Tuesday and appointment with the doctor on Friday. If all of this is due to leukemia and my chemo, I don't know how I will cope if this is how life is going to be.

I hope whatever it is will be treatable!

Wednesday

Courage and Fear

Digital art by Elizabeth Munroz
So often over the years, people who learned about my original bone cancer diagnosis and subsequent recurrences over eleven years, would say how courageous I was. I would deny that I was courageous at all, thereby, denying their opinion of me. (almost like calling them a liar or fool)

It wasn't until one very old man told me that there were just two people in the world who he admired more than any others because of the courage they had due to succeeding to live a life with suffering and not taking everybody down because of it.

The first person he admired for his courage was his own father who had been crushed between two cars of a train and carried to the station where a doctor sawed off his leg (it was the early 1900's. Thats how they did things way back then). This man lived out his total of 86 years with, at first, a very heavy wooden for forty years. Then he had a surgery to correct the first botched one, and a new artificial leg was provided. This man worked a job until the day he died. This man was his own father.

The second person was me. This little old man, age 90, was my own father who told me this a few months before he died. I cried to know my father had kept those secret thoughts about me for so long, but terribly grateful he told me.

Sometimes I wanted to die, sometimes I thought I would go crazy, but I'm still here, so maybe that did take courage to get through it all.

I have learned that courage is in the eye of the beholder, and you never know who admires your courage sometimes. Even though I did not (do not) feel courageous, when others say they admire my courage, I now let them say it and I say thank you, reminding myself that there must be something I do or did that deserved that badge of courage.

It was not easy in my own eyes to think of myself as courageous, but now I can finally see it. I hope others who are told they are courageous will too.

Try to realize that you can be afraid or feeling down and still have a courageous spirit. If life gives us a precarious path to follow and there is no getting off the path, all we can do is keep going even with the fear. That takes courage.

What I try to do is put one foot ahead of the other and keep going. As they say, the only way to out of fear is through it.
Check out the link below to learn more about overcoming fear.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201009/overcoming-fear-the-only-way-out-is-through

Sunday

Living La Vida Loca (What's a Bi-Polar to do?)

The sun rises and the sun sets, but before it sets, the shadows start out ahead of her sneaking across the land, falling upon every plant and tree limb, every building, every face. Sometimes the full moon rises and brings back some light to make the night less foreboding, but mostly the night is dark, the only signs of hope, stars. But, then, there are the moonless nights shrouded in clouds.


My depressions start like that, slow and insidious even when I feel like the sun is still shining. Like a prowler, that shadow spirit haunts me. I feel uneasy, have trouble sleeping. Sometimes there are nightmares, grotesque faces, angry voices, and the moaning of pain. I toss and turn. I awaken exhausted, dreading another day. The sun hurts my eyes. I seek the shade of the trees. I stay indoors, close myself off from the world, sadness and grief my companions. There is no comfort.

Friends say, "Call me when you get to feeling blue. You can lean on me. I'll be there for you." That's the last thing on my mind. Reaching out is not part of shadow self.

"Just think happy thoughts. Watch funny movies. Focus on the positive," well meaning acquaintances say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before. But find myself not reaching out. Who can reach out when curled into fetal position?

It's brain chemistry. It would be like telling a diabetic to produce his own pancreatic hormone by magically inducing healing insulin. Mind over matter stuff only works so far. Ordinary depression that everyone feels at some point in their lives is not a mental illness. It's not the kind of depression that takes over my life like an unwelcome overbearing relative. I was so grateful to science when I learned that I was not to blame for being crazy. It’s brain chemistry! Too bad I didn't know that back then.

Doing without medication to fix my brain chemistry is a big mistake, like an asthmatic doing without an inhaler. Things just get worse. Lives are in danger without psychiatric medication… especially my own. I’ve learned that the hard way.

Though, over the years I’ve also learned, if I can manage to pay attention and focus my awareness. I can remind myself that it's not permanent, that it will eventually go away. Everything changes. Rivers flow. Winter changes into spring. The sun rises and sets. But I need the help of brain chemistry changers to help me get through. Otherwise I'd be dead now. I would have continued to make attempts to end my life. Science. I love science!

Of course medication is not the be all, end all of the problem. Pop a pill and your well? Not exactly. But, at least life is more tolerable and can be productive. With bipolar disorder, which is what I have, one must learn to recognize the mania. By definition mania is "a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels". That's saying it mildly.


I like the elevated moods… feeling happy, especially the ones of my youth. I could go on for weeks like that, loving myself and everyone I met. Smiling and showering those smiles upon the world. Truly everyone loves me when I'm like that. I believe I can do anything I want. I succeed and accomplish whatever I set out to do. My brain is my high caliber engine, racing along, multi-tasking with perfection. I get things done. I am artiste extraordinaire! I paint pictures that sell. I am a genealogy researcher, I speak to large groups and teach history. I'm a musician, entertaining Saturday night clubs and blessing Sunday morning churches with my voice. That was me in my thirties and forties.

I'm also a bitch on edge, fighting off anxiety attacks, sweating and palpitating, afraid my heart will explode. A powerful desperate energy runs through me. I argue heatedly with my spouse. I criticize my kids, frightening the B‘Jesus out of them. I yell at strangers, that woman who took the last purple shirt during the sale, that young gangster guy who bumped into my car. I threatened him with my fist and flipped his hat back off his head. He could have killed me if he wanted. Even when manic, I challenge life to leave me, the Angel of Death grinning hopefully at my side.

I should count myself lucky, I guess. I've got what they call hypomania (Bipolar II). It’s not as obvious as full blown mania, exhibited on a grander scale than what I experience. That's why it took five decades before a qualified psychiatrist properly diagnosed me. I never saw a shrink when I was feeling manic. I thought I was well. I wasn't depressed. Why would I think otherwise?

True Bipolar I patients are a different story. I've seen them in the hospital those times I was there for depression and suicidal ideation. They pace. They cannot sit or stand still. They are not able to stop talking, changing the subject as though someone was constantly switching channels on a TV. Whenever I could catch what was being said by a fully manic person, their intelligence left me breathless.

For example: there was Irene. She had just returned from an exorbitant trip to China and gave me an valuable jade bracelet as a gift because I was her room mate in the mental ward we shared. She thought we were soul sisters within five minutes of meeting me. She knew that for sure. She had been looking for me all her life. She knew we would find others like us and begin our own community on an Island in the Pacific. Her whole trip to China and back, she had charged to her credit cards with no money to pay. When I met her, she was coming down off her expansive high.

Before I left the hospital I didn't recognize her. She had been given a drug called Lithium. We were no longer soul sisters. She was extremely calm. Her eyes were blank. She no longer had a personality. I was a stranger to her. When I tried to give her back the jade bracelet, she didn't recognize it as hers. At the time I didn't know I was a Bipolar, but I swore if anyone ever prescribed Lithium for me I would never take it and I’ve kept my promise to myself.

They used to say that the diagnosis of manic depressive illness was Schizophrenia because there was no medication to control it. That was the doctor told me when I first went for help after my second suicide attempt, at the age of twenty in 1965. He gave me that diagnosis because of the white light I saw when I had a near death experience during the birth of my daughter. It continued to manifest itself for a few months after. Hallucinations… he called them. I called them Visitations, yes, with a capital V. They were the only peaceful place in my life and I wanted badly to be with that light permanently. That’s the dichotomy!

Being the dutiful patient I took the two kinds of sleeping pills he gave me back then, and the tranquilizers, and the uppers to wake me up and get me going through the day. Truly I felt crazier than ever, and eventually flushed them down the toilet. I needed to tend to the needs of both my girls. I needed to hear my three month old baby, if she cried. I needed to know what my older girl was doing. A toddler climbing out of her crib, wandering about the house by herself, opening the door, going down the outside is not something any mother wants to experience!

With today’s medical wisdom we now know my diagnosis was partly post-partum depression. Maybe not the Visitations, though. I still think they were real. That Spirit Light is not something of this earth.

Flushing those drugs… that was a mistake. I didn't know you needed to go off those medications slowly. The mania came upon me then. I cleaned house from top to bottom, took my babies out for rides, buying and selling antiques. I packed up the house and drove 3,000 miles with my husband and kids. We made the trip in record time. He slept while I drove. I needed no sleep.

A few months later in the dead of winter, I was back to being immobilized, unable to take care of myself, let alone the girls. Arguing with my husband ended that day in the car when I opened the door and jumped out. Needless to say, that led to another hospitalization. That doctor said I was in no way a Schizophrenic. I was only despondent and suppressed by a bad marriage. "Get out of the marriage and your life will improve." He was right.

All the anger and irritation that had built up, dissapated and I was energized again, ready to take on the world. Splitting up was easy. Just like sweeping dirt into a dustpan and tossing it in the trash. I never looked back, got a job in a luggage factory sewing seams and zippers. I drove my car too fast, played the radio too loud, left the kids at the babysitters and went out and danced to Motown every weekend. Sleep? I didn't need it. Sitting at those heavy duty sewing machines was enough to put anyone to sleep.

Again there was that wonderful honey flavored life where I was the center of attention. I loved everyone and they loved me. It's not just an imaginary feeling. Studies show there's something about being manic that creates some charisma. People like a happy, magnanimous manic person. Even when irritable a manic can be quite convincing as to the reasons why. People easily overlook those outbursts as long as they are not with that person all the time.

During lunch breaks at the luggage factory, my co-workers would gather around me to have their fortunes told. In my teens I had read a book on palmistry once belonging to my grandmother. Suddenly it all came back to me with clarity as I pointed at lines on palms, the shapes of hands, noting their meaning and told people how many marriages and children they had, what their health and finances were, and even when they would die. I had full confidence I was right, and so did those whose palms I read, especially the woman who had four marriages and seven kids, three boys one girl, the one that had not survived her birth. I had gotten it right. They called me Gypsy.

One can only go sleepless for so many weeks playing the wise woman and  happy Motown dancing girl before one gets into trouble. I hadn't bother to pay bills, except for the babysitter, and before you know it I was evicted. I sold my furnishings, packed what I could in the car. I drove myself and my girls a thousand miles to live with my parents. That was a really big mistake.

A workaholic Dad, an alcoholic mom, a divorced older brother and two unhappy teenagers (my siblings) and a crazy woman with kids is a bad recipe for a healthy relationship.

Tilted Balance Table


Daddy laid the level on

the table and explained

how the kitchen floor

was tilted.


It made me think

about how the

earth was tilted.


Then I wondered if

the tilt of the earth

balanced the table.

Poem by Elizabeth Munroz

Saturday

What Color is Your Love?

Put your arms about your Beloved and swing into a slow dance.

Rainbow

I walk to see the darkness
I walk to see the sun
I journey through the ages
return to fit my glove

I look inside and all I find is love

I walk to find the devil
I walk to find a god
wrestle with salvation
tap out to smell the smog

I look inside and all I find is love

now why would I
want more to find than love?

My love’s a Rainbow
many colors deep
a drunken fool
an angry beast
A light too bright for eyes
a black too thick to see
current too strong for courage
a slope to steep to ski

I look inside and all I find is love

Song and Lyrics by Amy Obenski

Another Cup Runneth Over

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself.

“It is overfull. No more will go in!” He said.

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations.

How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Friday

WORKSHOPS AND CLASSES WITH ELLEN BASS

Near Big Sur, Coast of California on Highway 1
Photo by Elizabeth Munroz

9TH ANNUAL WRITING AND KNOWING POETRY WORKSHOP
with Ellen Bass, Dorianne Laux, and Joseph Millar
August 4 - 9, 2013
Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA

There is a world inside each of us that we know better than anything else, and a world outside of us that calls for our attention. Our subject matter is always right with us. The trick is to find out what we know, challenge what we know, own what we know, and then give it away in language. Mainly this will be a writing retreat—time to explore and create in a supportive community. Though we’ll focus on poetry, prose writers who want to enrich their language will find it a fertile environment. For more information, click here.


WRITING FOR OUR LIVES
September 28 - October 5, 2013
La Serrania, Mallorca, Spain
In this small, intimate workshop, you have the opportunity to create writing that is more vivid, more true, more complex and powerful than you've been able to do before. This will be my seventh year teaching at La Serrania and it's always a deep pleasure to return. La Serrania is remote, gorgeous, and inspiring. If you'd like a chance to sink deeply into your writing, enjoy delicious food, go to sleep in a simple, yet elegant room, wake to sheep bells, this is the place. For more information,click here. For information about La Serrania, visit www.laserrania.com. To register, contact La Serrania. If you have questions, you can email me.

Monday

How to Make Mistakes?



"We have all heard the forlorn refrain: "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!" This phrase has come to stand for the rueful reflection of an idiot, a sign of stupidity, but in fact we should appreciate it as a pillar of wisdom. Any being, any agent, who can truly say: "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!" is standing on the threshold of brilliance. We human beings pride ourselves on our intelligence, and one of its hallmarks is that we can remember our previous thinking and reflect on it – on how it seemed, on why it was tempting in the first place and then about what went wrong.

I know of no evidence to suggest that any other species on the planet can actually think this thought. If they could, they would be almost as smart as we are. So when you make a mistake, you should learn to take a deep breath, grit your teeth and then examine your own recollections of the mistake as ruthlessly and as dispassionately as you can manage. It's not easy. The natural human reaction to making a mistake is embarrassment and anger (we are never angrier than when we are angry at ourselves) and you have to work hard to overcome these emotional reactions.

Try to acquire the weird practice of savouring your mistakes, delighting in uncovering the strange quirks that led you astray. Then, once you have sucked out all the goodness to be gained from having made them, you can cheerfully set them behind you and go on to the next big opportunity. But that is not enough: you should actively seek out opportunities just so you can then recover from them."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett is one of America's foremost thinkers. In this extract from his new book, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, he reveals some of the lessons life has taught him

Mellow Yellow is the New Uptown Brown!


Lemony Lemon Brownies


Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup flour
2 eggs, large
2 tbsps lemon zest
2 tbsps lemon juice
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

For the tart lemon glaze:
4 tbsps lemon juice
8 tsps lemon zest
1 cup icing sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease an 8×8 inch baking dish with butter and set aside.

3. Zest and juice two lemons and set aside.

4. In the bowl of an electric mixture fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the flour, sugar, salt, and softened butter until combined.

5. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, lemon zest, and lemon juice until combined.

6. Pour it into the flour mixture and beat for 2 mins at medium speed until smooth and creamy.

7. Pour into baking dish and bake for 23-25 mins, should turn golden around the edges.

8. Allow to cool completely before glazing. Do not overbake, or the bars will dry.

9. Filter the powdered sugar and whisk with lemon zest and juice.

10. Spread the glaze over the brownies with a rubber spatula and let glaze set.

11. Cut into bars and serve.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not sure of the original source for this recipe. It was posted on a friend's facebook. But, I love lemon! So, I'm sharing this.

Sunday

To the Children of My Heart


An open letter to my "Heart Children"

Dear Ones,

I've adopted you over the years as my special Heart Child. (or maybe you adopted me) Perhaps it is because you have no mother, or have an estranged mother, or have had to develop your own "inner mother". Perhaps you have a perfectly wonderful Mom, and I'm happy for you because of that.

Perhaps you walked into my life alongside one of my own Birth-Given Children, and my heart was captured by you because you brought joy to my child. Perhaps you and I are still in touch even though the old ties with my son or daughter are gone. Or you both may have gone your own ways as your life paths diverged. Perhaps you are no longer in my life either. Whatever the reasons, it doesn't matter. You are still a child of my heart.

You've shared your life and loves with me. It pleases me when you have joy. My heart aches when you are discouraged. Sometimes you've turned to me for guidance. Sometimes you've given me guidance. Though we have this special friendship, it is not always expressed. It is understood. But, I sure do love it when you refer to me as your "other mother".

You know I love my Birth-Given Children more than the world itself. They are my heart and soul. But, Dear Ones, there is room in my heart for you, too. I'm sending you my best wishes and love today wherever you are.