Last week was like Christmas came early for me. My endorphins are still running high as I write this. Last week, after taking 2 months off of water skiing, I got back on the water at Jack’s Travers Ski School in Florida. While skiing well is always a bonus, the way it makes me feel is really why I do it. Skiing is like a reset. Not only do I get all those feel-good endorphins, I also get stronger through the exercise. Between each pass, I rest and recover, going from super [...]

In my blog “Better is Better than Perfect,” I talk about how practice used to make me crazy. As a young girl, I took piano lessons. The lessons were fine. Playing the piano was fun. Learning to read music was exciting. The occasional competitions got my juices flowing. None of that overcame my personal hell called “piano practice.” My mother nagged me and then restricted me and then told the teacher on me. Not that she needed to be told. The piano teacher kne [...]

​Early in my career, I’m pretty sure I was tone deaf. I KNOW I was tone deaf as an elementary school kid, trying to be in the church choir. After the first rehearsal, the choir director asked me to stay behind. I don’t know about you, but I have never really liked getting called onto the carpet. Being asked to stay behind at choir felt like there might be trouble coming. I don’t really remember how he started the conversation; what I do remember is his pa [...]

When I was an adult, I went back to taking piano lessons. This was not some long-held dream or bucket list item. No, this was more of an accidental way to deal with my lack of patience.  We had an old player piano that was way out of tune. It was something my new husband brought into the marriage against my wishes. In fact, I’m pretty sure I stood at the front door trying to keep him from bringing this old dirty thing into the house. It was REALLY old and dusty - and out o [...]

Last week my social media feed lit up with nurses sharing pictures of bloody operating rooms, the middle finger being raised, Sam Elliott smirking about someone being a special kind of stupid and talk about nurses playing cards. Nurses across the country were getting more outraged by the day. I started piecing together the reason for all the kerfuffle. Some woman in Washington State had said something about nurses playing cards all day. Wait, this woman was actually a legislator. &ld [...]

Working together as a Mother/Daughter team can be super difficult. If you have followed our podcast, you've heard some of our dramas. So when you saw that we are "splitting up", you might make up the story it's due to mother-daughter conflict. However, we have a better reason.Jen has started her own business.She is working with the loved ones of people caught in addiction. What Jen realized after talking to and working with hundreds of addicts and their families is the parents need o [...]

Walking through Michael Sherrill’s Retrospective Exhibit at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, it was almost as if I was seeing several artists at work. The exhibit started with mugs – huge, beautiful mugs that I could only dream of making. Soon it moved to other large forms, with Asian and Native American influences. Just around the corner were some of the most exquisite – and in some cases, biggest – teapots I had ever seen. Then came some abstract and totally unique sha [...]