Sophie's Story

     Over the years I've been taught that the best way to get anything done is to make a list of goals. Then you prioritize the goals and come up with action steps and benchmarks for completing each goal. This has always sounded like too much work. I have trouble thinking that far ahead mainly because something usually comes along and disrupts everything.     Finishing Personal Progress before my birthday was the only goal I'd set for myself. I figured that barring some major catastrophe I could get it done and I did. Now I find myself wanting to take on another project. Nothing really big and nothing that involves needing help from anyone else. Something I can work on.    As many of you know I've become interested in yoga. Not enough to want to teach it, I'm too scared to even leave my house to do it publically. One of the things I've noticed is that starting my day with a little yoga makes me feel good. I don't feel tight and flabby. I feel stret...

   Today is my birthday and time once again for the annual Birthday Lunch. Every year I take at least one friend out to a nice lunch. Today I'm being a little extravagant. I'm taking several people and going to a rather expensive restaurant. It's more than a little out of budget, but we have savings and this is important. It's my 50th birthday and a milestone.    I've been asked several times over the year why I take people out to lunch. Isn't it tradition to be taken out to lunch? It's my birthday so why should I pay? I'd like to answer that today.    Part of the reason why I do it is because I was taught that it is impolite to invite someone to a meal in a restaurant and ask them to pay unless it is understood that everyone pays for themselves. It's kind of like inviting someone over for dinner at your home, but expecting them to bring their own food.    The main reason why I do it is out of gratitude. I've been given another year of life,...

   Since we were not able to celebrate our anniversary on our actual anniversary date, we celebrated yesterday. Since both of us have been spending a lot of time indoors,we decided that a bike ride was in order. We decided to bike around the lakes in Minneapolis. I like Lake of the Isles. It's a pretty area with a lot of nice homes. We also decided to bike around Lake Harriet and Lake Bde Maka Ska. The bike paths are very good and the walking trails are separate from the bike path.  It gets pretty crowded on the weekends, but yesterday was not so bad. There were a few other bikers and people on scooters all enjoying the nice weather and the view of the lakes.   We biked around Lake of the Isles first. We wanted to go all the way around but part of the trail was underwater and too deep to bike through. We cut across to Lake Harriet. There is a small snack stand there. We stopped to get a treat. We got some ice cream and ate it while looking at the sailboats on the...

   C and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this week. Actually we didn't really celebrate because we were both working and then did some volunteer work at church. I used to joke that the reason why we are able to stay happily married after all these years is because we do not share a bathroom.     That changed at the beginning of the summer. Two plumbing issues affecting the shower in C's bathroom and the toilet in my bathroom has caused to share. I wasn't bothered by it too much. After all we can share for a few weeks until we can get one of these things fixed. Right? Well, a few weeks has turned into a couple of months which may turn into a couple more months.     I'm learning something. The reason why we are still happily married after 15 years has nothing to do with seperate bathrooms. I know it sounds silly but I really thought that this was something that helped. The fact is that we are still happily married despite several months of shar...

       Those of you that read this on a regular basis know that I've been working on a program called Youm g Women's Personal Progress. It is a program developed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to teach young women about their faith and other important values in spiritual and temporal life.     Older, or should I say more experienced women, like me can also do this program. When I started this in March of 2018, I felt like I was in a spiritual rut. I needed to do something different. I remembered Personal Progress and thought I'd give it a try.     Now I am almost at the end of it. I'm working on the last value which is virtue. Virtue according to the dictionary I pulled up in Google, means,"behaviour showing high moral standards" similar words are goodness, integrity,honor and propriety. It's fitting that that value is at the end of the book. It's the one that ties all the others, faith,divine nature,individual worth,kno...

   One of the things that attracted us when we first bought our house is that it is located within easy walking distance of a library. As a kid I loved the library. I went at least once a week to check out books for most of my childhood. I participated in the summer reading programs. I liked reading books about nurses. I wanted to be a nurse when I grew up.    In my teen years I still loved the library. Books were really the only friends I had. I discovered my favourite book, Ivanhoe, after seeing a really bad TV movie. I also read as many Scarlet Pimpernel books as I could find. This was along with the Cherry Ames series, Sue Barton series and the Trixie Belden series.   I have always been several years above my age group when it came to reading. I was in junior high when I started getting books out the adult section. I discovered Perry Mason books and the wonderful Agatha Christie.   That ended when I got to college. I didn't have time to read for pl...

   The physician that owns the clinic I work in wants a pharmacy in the clinic. We had talked about this many times as he was making his plans and discussing what he wants to do. He envisioned a pharmacy where his patients could leave with the medication they need so they can start treatment right away. That sounded like a good plan. I began to do research on what was needed for a pharmacy.    Almost immediately I ran into a problem. It was floor space. The rules specified a certain amount of floor space. That was not going to work in the tiny clinic. The pharmacy would be located in a spot with less than half the amount of floor space than required in the rules.    This meant I was going to have to ask for a variance. A variance is permission to operate outside the rules. You have to explain why compliance with the rules would not be possible. You also have to explain why your solution would work and not cause public harm. I put together my license ap...

       For the past few months I have been helping out an ENT doctor establish a pharmacy in his new clinic. My intent was to help out at clinic and to continue to work as a relief pharmacist. To me it was the best of both worlds, the chance to establish a novel practice and keep my hand in in retail.     The chain I had been working relief for abruptly closed leaving me with one part time job. No worries. I could handle this.    Or could I?    One thing I know about small businesses is that everyone has to pitch in. You have to be willing to do what needs to be done even if it isn't strictly in your job description. Earlier this week I found myself riding in the car with C going on a shopping trip. We had a long list and not a lot of time. Our first patient was due at four o'clock. We had to get some special disinfectant, cleaning supplies and a set of black scrubs. The scrubs were for me. Our patient care specialist had walked o...