Do you keep going back and forth with one who deceives you?  A short and excellent article at the link .  And they are not all assh*les. Some are just so self centered they can’t take anyone else into account. But you stay despite how he treats you because you’re the only friend he has?? You might ask yourself “what does everyone else know that I don’t?”  Full article here –> http://elitedaily.com/dating/wakeup-call-good-girls-cant-end-things-bad-guys/625872/

The act of writing leads to strong physical and mental health benefits, like long-term improvements in mood, stress levels and depressive symptoms. Researchers found that just 15 to 20 minutes of writing three to five times over the course of the four-month study was enough to make a difference. By writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events, participants were significantly more likely to have fewer illnesses and be less affected by trauma. Participants spent less time in the hospital, had lower blood pressure and better liver function. Writing can make physical wounds heal faster as well. Even blogging or journaling is enough to see results. One study found that blogging might trigger dopamine release, similar to the effect from running or listening to music.  Full article at http://mic.com/articles/98348/science-shows-writers-have-a-serious-advantage-over-the-rest-of-us

Do you know what I learned from writing?  The more personal you are willing to be and the more intimate you are willing to be about the details of your own life, the more universal you are.  When you recognize that pain — and response to pain — is a universal thing, it helps explain so many things about others, just as it explains so much about yourself. It teaches you forbearance. It teaches you a moderation in your responses to other people’s behavior. It teaches you a sort of understanding. If someone truly feels that you understand them, an awful lot of neurotic behavior just disappears — disappears on your part, disappears on their part. So if you’re talking about what motivates this world to continue existing as a community, you’ve got to talk about love… It comes out of your biology because on some level we understand all of this.  Full article at –> http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/02/sherwin-nuland-what-everybody-needs/

Benny’s sacred space is the couch. It’s the only place YinYang won’t go for him. I fell asleep on the couch today with Benny at my feet. I woke up with Ben gone and YinYang on my pillow. In two years she’s never jumped up there. Sorry, Yinnie, you can’t be trusted not to rip off my face or his. I set her in the recliner.

As I was dozing off earlier I had the thought, “Someone new is going to write me a check for $660.” I woke up to an email, someone new asking for a price for her ad for two months (not a typical sized ad.) The price? You guessed it.

“The basal ganglia is thought to contain a sort of gating system. When the gate is closed, the tinnitus is held back — and on mute. When it’s opened, the noise floods through. Cheung and his team believe if they can go in and manipulate that part of the brain, they just might be able to muffle the noise — and provide some real relief.“ I’m going to script a self hypnosis session to close the gate on my basal ganglia!   “This internal sound is commonly used in meditation focusing techniques. Rather than fight or fear it, listen to it. Those that feel they suffer from it and fear it should know that meditation techniques deliberately focus on it. Doing so creates a consciousness of depth, dimension and variety and the sound seemingly becomes louder. In fact, these variations may be auditory illusion. Regardless, the idea is immerse oneself consciously in it to develop concentration skills. Awareness of the sound is also used as a form of warning. One may suddenly be stimulated to hear it due to an internal or physical stress. If it’s an internal stress, and perhaps sometimes too if it’s a physical stress, It’s advised to slow down at that moment, stop and listen to it.”  Continue reading →

Your heartache is someone else’s hope.  If you make it through, somebody else is going to make it through.  Tell your story.  — Kim McManus.  This is why I don’t delete old Facebook or blog posts that tell my journey of how I made it through challenging times. Sure, it tells how unconscious I may have gone in the process but it also shows what it took to find my way back.

MTV’s Real World: Skeletons. Tonight the cast will have 2 skeletons from the past added as roommates. It’s always interesting to see how friends handle people from their past that they’ve never resolved issues with. Your current relationships are only as conscious as your past ones. Everything will resurface years later to be resolved, so do it in the moment and get on with your happy life with nothing hanging over your head. Now there’s a show called Battle of the Exes, a gang of reality castmembers being paired for sports challenges with castmembers they’ve previously hooked up with in former shows. Looks like 2015 will be the year to have secrets revealed so everyone can stop playing games and be real with everyone else. WHO YOU ARE RIGHT NOW IS ENOUGH, no pretense needed, no phony back stories — they will always be revealed, even 10-20-30 years later. Make it easy on yourself.

My cats both weigh 11 pounds.  Benny is all muscle.  YinYang, alas, is not.  They can both benefit by setting meal boundaries. They won’t eat healthy Hill’s Science Diet dry food, so I give them their beloved Meow Mix.  I’ve overfed YinYang for 14 years and Benny for a year. Now they are balking that rations are cut. Benny used to get a 5.5 oz can of Little Friskies himself and Yinnie would get a 3 oz can of Sheba. The last week, both are boycotting the dry food altogether.  I tried a new cat feeding schedule of 1/2 cup each dry food morning and evening, plus 1/3 can Yinny, 2/3 can Benny in the afternoon. Both cats kept hounding me for more. So I put 1/2 cup of the Hill’s Science Diet dry food in each bowl, figuring that if they are really hungry, they will eat it. Sometimes they do. I can’t cave. The kitties need to shape up for 2015.  And BTW what planet am I on that I thought a cat needed a can in the morning and a can at night and dry food filling the bowl at all times?   The Fancy Feast website says “Feed an average size adult cat 1 can (3 oz) per 2 ½ pounds of body weight daily” which is 4-5 cans a day.  Holy hippo.

I may be watching too many cooking shows. I just spent an hour on the mise en place for breakfast: crispy potatoes, roasted mushrooms, sliced onions, scallions, tomatoes, rosemary and parsley, lemon zest for the gremolade…  Am I watching too many cooking shows?  Or am I just beginning to organize my kitchen as though I cook there twice a day?

I seriously hope no one important calls with an automated message because I hang up as soon as I hear it’s a recording. Thank you callers but I don’t need to consolidate debt and I don’t need a collection agent since my clients all pay on time.