Sophie's Story

   When asked about our relationship, C likes to say that we balance each other out.  I guess that is one way of saying that we are opposites in several ways. He's a former athlete, I'm a nerd. I'm from the frozen north, he's from the sunny south. He likes pictures and movies. I like books. I'm more introverted. He is a rampant extrovert. He likes to be out among people and will talk to anyone that looks lonely. I like to be on the edge of the crowd and watch people. He likes to be silly. I am intensely serious.   This last part is where he says we balance each other out. He'll tell people that I help him to be more serious and that he helps me to be more silly. I'm not so sure this is true. I do have my rare and carefully guarded silly times, but I don't think I've ever inspired him to be more serious.   I have great difficulty being silly. I think this stems from being a pharmacist for so many years. Dispensing drugs is a serious business.  Whe...

   I have a gratitude journal. Every night before I go to bed I write down three things for which I am grateful. Recently I wrote that I am grateful for exercise videos.    I'm grateful to be able to work out again. When I was struggling with anemia, I couldn't work out except for yoga. Anytime I tried to do anything moderately strenuous, I'd get out of breath. It's a little scary to have to stop during workout because of serious lightheadedness. There was even a time where even certain yoga poses were too much to do.    Those days are over now. I'm back to running in place,marching, grapevines and other moves. I've even found the old Tae Bo workouts I used to do 20 years ago. They are on Youtube. It feels good to be up and moving with Jenny Ford, Leslie Sansone and Chris Freytag. Lately I've even been able to keep up with Billy Blanks. (Not brave enough to tackle Jillian Michaels yet.)    The best thing about workout videos is that I can wor...

   Recently an acquaintance on Facebook posted that miscarriages are common and that she had just suffered a miscarriage. She wrote that this is one of those things on the "Things We Don't Talk About" list and for that reason many women who have a miscarriage must suffer in silence without support or help.   I read this post with some surprise and sadness. Surprise, because I wasn't aware that she was pregnant. Sadness, because I've had several friends and family members who have miscarried. It's a loss just like any death, but perhaps a bit worse because there is a loss of hope and dreams. A loss of chances that are missed. Unlike a stillbirth or other death, there's no commemoration. No funeral. No memorial service. No body. Yet, it is a life lost.   Miscarriage is common. According to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology 10-25% of recognised pregnancies end in miscarriage. That means that as many as one in four pregnant women will misca...

   I've developed a rather strange interest the past few weeks. I've been watching presidential funerals on You Tube.    Actually, this interest didn't start out as watching funerals. After watching the movie, "The King's Speech", I wanted to see if there was any footage of the coronation of King George VI. There was and I watched it. From there I looked for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation and watched it. Then I noticed that there were weddings of members of various European ruling families. I watched those. One of them had a voiceover in German so I could understand what was going on. The rest were in their native languages. It became sort of an exercise for me to see if I could figure out what was being said based on what was going on.    Then I watched the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. That was an interesting one for me. I liked watching all the ceremony that attends such an occasion. I especially liked the sermon which was based on ...

   Unless you have been hiding under a rock last week you'll know that the midwest was in the middle of a polar vortex. Temperatures got down to 20 degrees below zero and lower. Wind chills dropped that temperature to -50. Schools cancelled classes, businesses closed early and even the United States Postal Service suspended mail delivery for a day.    C and I stayed in the house. We had plenty of groceries and plenty of work to do. There was laundry to do, cleaning  and organizing. There were books to read and craft project to work on. Unlike most people, I love days like this. These are the days that introverts dream of. No one expects you to go outside. It's not safe to shop or leave the house except in an emergency. It is perfectly acceptable to hibernate and recharge.    I'm no stranger to this kind of cold. I lived in Fargo, North Dakota for five years when I was in college. While I don't remember the wind chills going down that low, it wasn't...

   One of the things I started to do last year is the Young Women's Personal Progress, a program developed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for female teenage members. I decided to do it as there are projects that encourage growth in many areas, not just spiritual. I felt that it would be good for me to do it and finish it on or before my 50th birthday this summer.   There are several values that are explored. Each value has six experiences to be done and then a project. The project has to take at least ten hours of time.    The value I'm working on right now is divine nature. Part of divine nature is the ability to create. I decided that my project was to make a basket using t-shirt yarn made from old knitted shirts and pants that could not be worn or that were unneeded. I would knit the yarn into ropes and sew the ropes into a basket.   I collected t-shirts last year and knitted them into ropes. I spent hours cutting and knitting. m...