It is negative 4 degrees outside.  That is not the windchill Tat is the temperature in Fahrenheit in the Midwest for crying out loud.  That gets me thinking about vacations, preferably to somewhere warm.

My family was a vacation family Mostly, we went camping at The Cabin in the woods.  It was way fun when we were kids and didn't care about things like electricity or flushing toilets or not finding mouse turds on your pillow.  However, we did take some actual vacations to other places occasionally.

We always drove to ny destination anywhere we went.  The highlight trips I remember the most are a trip to the Smoky mountains in Tennessee, a trip to Washington DC and the outer banks of North Carolina, a trip to New Orleans, and a trip to Texas and into Mexico.  I actually may be thinking those trips were separate, but maybe we did Louisiana and Texas all in one.  Anyway, I have very specific memories f each.

Tennessee must have been a pretty early one, because memories of that one are a little sketchy.  I remember visiting some of my mom's relatives.  I was totally enamored with my cousin (2nd or 3rd or once or twice removed)  because she had a really cool rainbow painted across the wall in her room.  I also remember that there was an international grocery store or something along those lines,  My dad bought some smoke, canned octopus tentacles.  This product bore no resemblance to calamari.  I remember having little suction cups sticking to my tongue while we were trying to chew them.
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Ialso remember going hiking in the mountains.  While I am sure it was beautiful the thing that was the most memorable (sorry Paul) is that my brother really, really, I mean REALLY had to pooh.  and seeing as how we were on the (semi) pristine side of a mountain, there were no little rest stops in the general vicinity.  Eventually, my dad took him off the path and returned with a much happier, and more comfortable, little brother.

After yesterday, I was thinking I wanted to write about lies, (The kind you tell and that George Washington did not).  But I have been sleeping a lot lately and my leakage issue (figure it out.  I am not expounding) has been out of control.

You may think that extra sleep is a good thing, and normally I think sleeping well is highly underrated.  However, I have been close to narcoleptic in the evening, and after nearly  pulling an old lady all-nighter ( only having to get up once to pee), I am sleeping till 6:30!  If I was going to bed super late, that may be acceptable.  But I am basically falling asleep on the couch watch TV at 7:30 or 8.  I 'm not talking about a light snooze, either.  I'm talking full-blown REM-wake-up-up-knowing-where-you-are type sleep.  Sometimes I feel too tired to go to bed!

My worry, as always, is that the insidious worsening of scar tissue in my brain is again making a ploy to make living life even harder.  I have already graduated from a cane to a walker.  No one ever questions my need for handicapped parking, and I have become a connoisseur of incontinence products.  I'm 52, and I see ads for AARP with women in high heels and mini skirts, or men climbing around on rocks, or couples dancing  the night away and I get pissed.  Even if I could do any one of those things, I couldn't stay awake long enough to enjoy them.

I am aware that, in the grand scheme of things, I am pretty lucky.  I have truly amazing, caring doctors.  I have a supportive family, and I am able to drive and maintain a semblance of independence.  I am aware of other people with MS who struggle through sub-par healthcare and unrestrained symptoms.  But sometime, I just want to whine.

I'll got off the pity pot tomorrow and tryto be interesting.

I love it when things are empirically validated!

Empirical validation means that someone somewhere did some kind of study and found that the resulting information, within a good range of certainty,  supports or does not support something that people want to know such as global warming is real and trickle down economics doesn't work.

Here are some of the things that have been empirically validated that I personally think are really cool

1).  Marijuana is not a gateway drug.  Actually, you can't prove a negative so what is really empirically validated is that there is no evidence to support that pot is a gateway drug.   So smoke away.  Unless you are a teenager.  It is also empirically validated that early use of marijuana is correlated with development of schizophrenia as an adult.  Of course corelation does not equal causation, but why take the risk?  Put down that joint, you preteen kids who shouldn't be smoking anything anyway!

2).  Complaining is good for you.  It helps you to get things out of your head and examine them.  It actually lets other people know that they aren't alone in their dissatisfaction and that can lead to camaraderie and connection.  Of course, maybe t's not such a good idea to complain about your boss to your boss.  But complaining about your boss to your co-workers lets you feel more in charge of the situation and your feelings and can lead to finding solutions or some resolution to manage the situation differently. But be aware that...

3).  Classic brainstorming doesn't work very well.  Group brainstorming is having everyone bring all their ideas to the table and then have everyone mull them around.  Everyone is supposed to let lose with all of their ideas no matter how crazy.  The problem is, people are not necessarily going to let everyone hear that their best solution is to have a singing gorilla deliver a telegram to let someone know they are fired, or that the thing to do with all those extra donated office chairs, is to paint them and auction them off at the next dinner dance. (That one was my idea that no one liked).  People don't want to expose themselves , and people think that, when they are in a group, it is someone else's job.

I could come up with a billion things that have some kind of empirical evidence.  Some things are useful. some are not.  It is also possible to go overboard.  In my field everyone is all about best practice.  That's great, but it means that some types of interventions are discredited and others are put on a pedestal.  Other types of treatment become so obsessed with being done correctly that they become lost as viable options.  People have let me know that Play Therapy doesn't work because it has not been empirically validated.  So does that mean that everything that has not had a university research-based study done to prove that it works, actually is ineffective?

You also must look at who did the research and what is their motivation to do it.  Did a cigarette company do research to support that smoking actually does make you look cool?  You also have to look at risks outweighing benefits.  Are you willing to look cool at the risk of developing cancer?

Also, don't forget that correlation does not equal causation thing. Kids who love to read have been highly correlated with having parents who own lots of books.  However, that doesn't mean that if you want your kids to read,  you should fill your living room wall with shelves of encyclopedias and romance novels. Remember that things being correlated does not mean that they is any relationship to causality.  I love to read, but I don't ever remember seeing my Dad's book collection and thinking "Oh, maybe books are fun!"

So, be aware that some of the thing that are accepted as true may be proved wrong through research (like telling kids they are smart all  the time is just settiig them up to be neurotic about failure)  Some research is crap (like the guy who found that vaccines cause autism admitted to faking data and outcomes), And finding out something is empirically validated, doesn't necessarily make it better than something else or mean it's good for everyone. I probably wouldn't take my 98 year old grandmother for her yearly mammogram, or tell her to quit smoking even though those things are absolutely proven to have positive benefits,

In the long run, research is important to make life better and make thing work for the good of all. Now, can someone please empirically validate that binge eating chocolate chip cookies while watching a Harry Potter marathon in you pajamas is actually good for you?

Today is a day for taking down Christmas decor.

My  husband has a vendetta against stuff.  He is always on the lookout to throw stuff away, especially my stuff.  Now his problem with stuff has latched onto my Christmas stuff.  I don't even unpack a lot of it, and he still thinks we have too much.  I will admit I'm a pack rat and tend toward being a hoarder, but when I lived by myself, I always managed to keep my clutter limited to a spot on the kitchen counter or my desk.  My office tends to be messy (the playroom part) because I don't always have to energy to put everything away after each session, but the kids don't mind.  The other clutter is confined to a box under my desk, or in file cabinet, and it is otherwise pretty orderly.

Much of my clutter...er, stuff is relegated to the guest room, because the only storage space in the house is the garage since we have no basement.  However, the garage is now my husbands workshop and office so there is effectively no storage at all.  The Christmas decor is in a small storage shed in the back yard.

This year, we have all new storage boxes, and I am pretty sure that anything that doesn't fit will be fodder for the trash, and I am worried.  Many thing have mysteriously disappeared in the past.
I had a giant blowup Godzilla that I bought for five dollars at the now defunct Cut Rate Toys (may it rest is peace).  It was a fabulous Halloween decoration.  It was probably 7 feet tall, and I am sure it was a movie theater promotional prop or something.  I had it for exactly one Halloween, and the next year it was not in any of the Halloween decoration boxes,  I am fairly certain, he went straight into the trash, with the hope that I wouldn't remember I had him at all.  How does one forget a 7 foot blow up killer Godzilla?

Eli had this fantastic set of wooden blocks in a bag.  I think they were a gift from my sister.  Now, if anything screamed "future play therapy toy" that was it.  However, during a spring cleaning of Eli's room, they were a victim of an over-zealous trash-bag-filling rampage.

I could list many times when I will say "Where is that such and such I had in this closet, or on this shelf, or in that storage bin?", only to hear, " Uhhh, I ...never touched it.".  This probably means he used tong or something to throw it away rather than his bare hands. He thinks that, because he has no memory of my stuff, that I don;t remember it either!

I trust my husband with my life, but not with my stuff.

So now, he has sort of begun to understand that, if is not his, he absolutely must ask before he tosses.

We are going to go through the  Christmas decorations.  I am going sincerely ask myself if the item has meaning, or if it is just around because it's always been in the box of Christmas items.  I am going to make a concerted effort not to smack my husband, and I am going to appreciate that he told my son that nothing gets thrown out without mom's approval.

Ahh!  Progress!

Here is my husband's website.  Watch the video to see my former garage.  http://www.danahoferbrassrepair.com/

It's only the 2nd of January and I am already on a slippery slope of not wanting to write. I woke up late, (for me) and had physical therapy early, so my morning routine was all discombobulated.  And, truth be told, I am not all that interesting a person.  In other words, I ain't got much to say.

However, a goal is a goal, and I aim to make this one a habit.  I have heard conflicting info about how long it takes to form a habit- anywhere from five days to several weeks, but regardless of how long it takes, it won't happen unless it happens!
Since I am out of ideas, I think I will just talk about my new years goal of figuring out my career goal.

I love being a therapist.  I love connecting with people.  I love getting into their heads with them and sharing feeling and thought.  Sometimes, when I tell people what I do, they say,"Don't you get tired of listening to people's problems?"  Listening to people's problems is really the smallest part of what happens in a good therapeutic session.  A good session is so much more about relationship and empathy and unconditional positive regard.  Of course, it is also bout listening and knowing what questions to ask, and understanding human psyche.  A smaller part is understanding psychological theories and systems and how to use them.  Even though our whole system is geared toward treating a particular diagnosis, and you can even find books that tell you EXACTLY what to do for particular problems, it will never be effective if there is no real relationship with real empathy and genuine connection.  Of all the things that a good therapist needs, the ability connect and form a relationship is the most important.  This is the piece that cam't really be taught.  You either got it or you don't.

I am a pretty good communicator.  I'm a good student.  I can memorize and spit out all kinds of crap (except math).  I like to learn new information and I am fairly open minded about new stuff.  All of those thing help me a good therapist, too.

What I am not good at, it marketing.  I am not organized enough to keep track of billing crap and other things you need to be good at to run a successful business.  This is the stuff that I told me ex-business partner from the start.  This what I trusted her to manage.  This is the stuff she got mad at me for not doing.  Go figure...

Now I am at true crossroads. I love being a therapist.  I hate bushiness crapola.  I have a chronic illness that makes me tired keeps me from being able to maintain a public sector mental health job.  (Not to mention the fact that I wouldn't necessarily want to back to a 9-5 type job anyway.)

So right now, I am maintaining my tiny private practice in my smallish office, If there comes a time when no one wants to come any more, I will have to figure out what to do from there.  Then I will have to figure out what to do with what I am good at doing.  Until then, I will have to keep figuring out what that is, and trust that I will be able to make the best of whatever the future holds

Happy new year morning

It is frigid outside, but at least the sun is shining!

I have decided that I am not making any new year's resolution  (Resolution defined::a firm decision to do or not to do something.)  That seems too harsh and extravagant. .
Instead of making firm resolutions, I am setting goals (Goal defined;  the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.) That seems more manageable to me.

So here are my goals:

!.  To write something everyday- (you already knew that one) 

2. To be more organized by being more mindful and focused (Zen)

3.  Maintain my exercise routine  (Personal trainer on Monday until my sessions run out,gym on Tues, Yoga (since I found a class I love) on Wed., gym in tha a.m. on Thurs and yoga on Thurs night, physical therapy on Fri, rest on Sat, and Yoga on Sunday.  Seems like a lot, but I want to stay on my feet and out of a wheelchair as long as possible.  Not scraping my knuckles on the ground is also appealing.

4.Go digital with my calendar since I still use a date book.  Hello 21st century

5.  Do a Spanish lesson on Duolingo or Babble for at least 15 minutes a day.  I got through high school and college without ever taking a foreign language.  I would like to be able to say more than, "mi casa es su casa".

6.  Figure out what I am doing with my career.  Commit to it or get off the pot!

There are zero other-focused goals on this list, so I need to add one about service or giving or something.  Since my attempt at volunteering was cut off by the shingles, I want to figure out some other way to give back.  

I think I would really like to speak to people about something inspirational or informative, but I would have to make sure my body is up to it.  I really miss speaking to an audience.  Does that make me a little odd?


Anyway, I will try to keep you informed of how I am doimg with reaching my goals!

Have a very happy day

Happy new year!

I'v'e decided not to make New Year resolutions.  Instead, I am setting goals.  The goal for this blog is to write something every day to make this a true blog.
That means that you will be reading a lot of brain drool/free association.

In the mean time, here is something I started a few weeks ago.  It is a good rundown of my year

I want to be present and creative.  I want to share and connect.  I think, at my best, being able to make connections  is my genius and being able to inspire is my calling.
However, at my worst I am lazy and whiny and a little self-centered.  I am working on being more self-aware and less paralyzed by my own pity parties.

So this returning blog is to be purge of demons keeping me safely mired in my worst traits. There are two things that have left me wrung out, angry and self-absorbed. First off, my health has been just awful this year.  In addition to the obvious chronic and subtly progressing MS, there was the Shingles and more recently, arthritis in my shoulders.  This may seem to be no big deal, but is makes my biceps ache all the time and disrupts my sleep even more than in the past.  Sleep is highly underrated!

Did you know that scientist can't explain why our bodies need to sleep?  Recently, an experiment on mice suggested that certain cleansing chemical in their brains were released during the deepest sleep stages, carrying away toxins which developed during the day.  So it is likely that this same process occurs in human. (My scientific knowledge comes from National Public Radio, so it may be a little slow and only partially correct, but deal with it).  So, to me, the question is: which came first?  Poor sleep habits, leading to disease, or the disease disrupting sleep keeping the brain from cleaning itself out thus creating more disease?  I guess I don't give two hoot in reality.  I just know I hate not sleeping.

Most recently I had acute appendicitis (that is acute not a cute) so ended up in the hospital AGAIN for an emergency appendectomy. Fortunately, I was able to have the surgery laproscopic-ly so I didn't have a huge recovery.  I have been told that this was REALLY fortunate since a could have been sliced wide open and had, like a month of recovery.  The worst things were:

1).  I despise being a hospital patient, just like every other sane person I know
2)  I hadn't eaten anything for 12 hours before I went to the ER and was whisked to the OR.  After any surgery, one is not aloud to eat until they have passed gas.  I have never yelled "I farted!"  with such glee since I was in the first grade and was trying to get a rise out of my sister,

The only thing that made my stay a little interesting, was when I pulled out my IV,  I guess my appendix gave my surgeon a hard time and got all stiff and ready to blow and didn't wan to come out.
Consequently, due to how long I had to be in surgery, they put me on massive quantities of  IV antibiotics.  I was getting fairly adept at making the IV pole another appendage, but I guess I got a little over-confident.  I reached for something, heard a pop, and watched as blood began to gush from the hole in my wrist where a needle had been.  I drug my self to the bathroom and pulled the panic cord and prayed I wouldn't bleed out in the meantime.  It looked like pints of blood were pouring from that tiny hole!  The nurse came and got me cleaned up, but there was blood everywhere!  They sent up housekeeping, and the sweet Latino lady who was stuck with the job, just kept looking at me and saying :Bloo-da!  I thought she might have been calling me a bruja (witch).
The nurse on the next shift ask me how I was doing and said she heard it looked like a murder scene in my room.


The other thing that has been bothering me much more than my poor health even (if that's possible) is the derailment of my career and the role of my ex-business partner in the situation.  She really knocked me off course!

When I was at Lifelink years ago, one of my child clients went home to her foster mom and told her I had "touched her privates".  Even though the family knew me pretty well and did not feel this was something I would do, the statement was taken seriously and soon I found myself being reported to child protective services.  I was suspended from seeing children in therapy even though no one ever thought this was a credible report.  Fortunately, the investigators were very responsive and expunged the report as soon as possible.  At the time, I thought this was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. After all was said and done I had a delayed physical reaction and couldn't physically function for a couple of days.  I think I didn't really let myself feel the full extent of how stressful this situation was until after the fact.

I think the situation with my ex-partner has been impacting on me that way.

I was going to run through the whole situation, but I think I just want to move on and leave all that stuff behind in the new year.

So you WILL hear from e tomorrow.  I am (sorta) confident that the new year will be smooth sailing...at least until it isn't!


 Happy new year everybody!