Why , oh why do I not live somewhere just the weensiest bit warmer?  I may as well be living in Alaska..or Fargo.  Well, it's a moot point so I will just relive memories of warmer places.  Cue the Scooby do hand wave....

Those vacations/road trips always included boredom, lots of fights in the back seat and tons of singing.  My sister and I literally (not figuratively) sang 100 bottles of beer on the wall all the way through 100 to 1.  We started to go into negatives, but my mom put her foot down on that one.  Instead we played a round of "See who can be the quietest"  This was an obvious ploy for a blessed moment of silence, but it  just resulted in us kids trying to make each other laugh so we would "win".  My mom's a saint.

We played a lot of the alphabet game-trying to find a word on a bill board that started with each letter of the alphabet in order.  This is a good game for urban areas, where there are lots of billboards.  Not so great for those long stretches of rural nothingness with only mile markers and exit signs.  Burma shave signs would have been great, but I think they quit being a think by the 70's. We also tried to spot license plates from as many states as possible.  Never did see one from Hawaii.  Go figure.
At least once we made up our own song. Iowa is a beautiful state, but we were driving through the flattest part where the only break from monotony was trying to figure out whether we were driving through corn fields or soy beans.
So, we wrote a song that  went like this

" We took a boring trip on day
Tra la la la la la la lay
Nothing interesting came our way
Tra la la la la la la lay
So we all decided to say
Boring !!! "  (with the lat boring  drawn out with a trill, ala Joanne Worely on Laugh-in )
Obviously none of us ever hit the big time as lyricists

I also remember having to have all of the tires on the car replaced.  Apparently our steel belted radials decided to warp,  Knowing my dad, they were likely the very cheapest tires available, and they did not stand up to the hours of driving in the heat of the south.  I'm pretty sure that was the Tennessee trip.  So four new tires later, our vacation budget was seriously depleted, and we had to stay in the very cheapest hotels we could find. Oh, wait.  That would have happened anyway.  

That's my limit for the day.  I may write more at one time in the future, but my goal is to write everyday,  not to write prolifically everyday

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