Come On Over

Dear Resilient Readers:

I am excited to tell you that www.crylaughheal.com is open for business and I am now posting on this new site.

 

As I mentioned previously, I recently took a blogging class and discovered that Blogger had outlived itself and I needed to transition to WordPress as a publishing tool.  Let me tell you, it has been quite a learning experience and I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I initiated this change.

 

But I can now report that it's all good and I'm rebuilding the site and adding pieces almost every day. 

 

For my fabulous readers who received my posts by email, I expect to have a new gadget for email signup added soon to www.crylaughheal.com.  This BlogSpot address and site will continue to exist but I won't be posting new content to it anymore.

 

When you get a chance, come on over to www.crylaughheal.com and check it out!

 

I'll see you there!  Let me know what you think!

 

Thank you for all of your positive support.  It has really meant a lot to me!

Mary Kate

My Patient Readers

Dear Patient Readers:

For over three years, I have been using Blogger to communicate with you and for me the process of posting Cry Laugh Heal to the internet was working out nicely.

 

From the beginning, my goal was to try and help others who lost loved ones and were searching for resources that could help them find a way to carry on without their precious person.  At Cry Laugh Heal, I  write about my experiences with loss and resilience but always with others in mind.  I draw strength from the stories of other people and I'm sure you do too.  It's about support.  No one should ever feel alone and without hope.

 

So when I recently discovered that my blog was difficult to find from a teckie-internet-google-search engine kind of way, I was told I needed to change to another software and thus also change the look of Cry Laugh Heal. 

 

It has been one big frustration after another and I am writing to apologize for the inconvenience of technological problems on my blog site.  If you have recently logged on to www.crylaughheal.com, you discovered for yourself that the site is changing.  I didn't know that you would be able to see the ever changing look of Cry Laugh Heal but there it is.

It has been very difficult for me to navigate this process and find someone to help me transfer more than three years of blog posts and pictures from Blogger to Word Press and then take the Word Press content and work it into a new template but I finally found a great tech guy.  Unfortunately, it's taking longer than I thought.

I miss my writing routine and communicating with all of you on a regular basis but I am also excited for the new Cry Laugh Heal site to be born.  In the meantime, I am tweeting at @crylaughheal and I have a Facebook page that can be found at https://www.facebook.com/crylaughheal?ref=hl.  You are welcome to join me there and I hope you do!!

Here's to a new and improved Cry Laugh Heal that I hope will see the light of day very soon and give you the helping hand you may be looking for as you work through your loss and embrace your new journey.

Peace.

Mary Kate

South Korea Ferry Disaster

When the unimaginable happens, it is common to ask "Why?" "What if?" "What next?"

Watching the media repeatedly air stories about incredible disasters and accidents, it is understandable that after about a week of constant exposure to the never ending details of these stories that people begin to feel detached and almost numb to the tragedies that have occurred.

 

I'm not saying that the depth of the tragedy isn't felt by others because it is and many immediately respond with aid and help.  I think it's more that the disasters are overwhelming, just too much to take in or process. Two recent tragedies, the sinking of a South Korean ferry killing over a hundred people and the missing Malaysian Airlines flight which disappeared about a month ago over possibly the Indian Ocean while carrying 239 passengers and crew members, are the kind of disasters which instantly spring to mind as incidents that can cause media burnout. 

 

But when the media moves the focus of the story from the bigger explanation of how the accident happened to the more intimate personal story of those victimized by these accidents, the fragility of life and our connections to each other immediately comes to the fore.

Our common bond of vulnerability is exposed.

 

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran a touching story about a South Korean husband, Choi in-soo, and his painful efforts to try and understand the raw reality of losing his wife, Choi Soon-bok, in last week's ferry accident.  This is the kind of story that hits me.  When the person is still in shock and at the same time is trying to describe how it feels to discover that a loved one has died and they will never see that person again.

We all hold on to the last precious moments.  The last picture. The last text message.  The last voice message. The last email.

"I'm sorry I'm traveling without you," Mrs. Choi told her husband by phone when the ferry departed on Tuesday evening.  "That was the last I heard from her," Mr. Choi said. 

 

Here is the link to the Wall Street Journal story:  on.wsj.com/1mBI1gn  

Choi in-soo shows a photo of
his wife, Choi Soo-bok, on his smartphone.
Kwanwoo Jun/The Wall Street Journal

Listening to Easter

All about me are signs of renewal.  Easter is here and with it are the always hopeful signs of rebirth: the arrival of a new season of Spring, Christ's Resurrection, plants and flowers bursting forth in bloom and the feeling of being refreshed; of being given the opportunity to start over.

 

I still make and hide an Easter basket for my young adult son full of chocolates and jelly beans and multi-colored Peeps.  It's a tradition that we both enjoy and these days I laugh as he searches through the house for his hidden basket as I watch and say "hot", "cold" or "warm" depending on where he is in relation to the basket that has sometimes been hidden in places such as the shower, the dryer and the stove.

As my Easter unfolds, the Easter basket search always takes me back to my rambunctious childhood and also to the Easters when my husband was alive.  I know that Easter, and other holidays, are times of great celebration but also are emotionally difficult for those who have just lost loved ones.

 

I know of a woman who just lost her husband last month to cancer after a long and tough fight.  She has two young sons and my thoughts are with them today.  I know that her family and friends will do their best to make sure she and her boys are included in Easter activities but sadly there is no getting around the pain they all are feeling.

 

I think people are aware of others who are dealing with feelings of grief during the traditional holiday season of Thanksgiving and Christmas but holidays in general, whether it is Passover, Easter, Memorial Day or the 4th of July, all tend to carry their own little hidden emotional minefields.  Grieving is stressful all by itself and then when you add the pressure and expectations of holidays, it can add up to unexpected meltdowns because it hard to escape the old sights and sounds associated with these special days.

 

I found these helpful tips from the Hospice Foundation of America and thought they might be good to share:

 

-- Be aware than an approaching holiday might be a difficult time for you.  The additional stress may affect you emotionally, cognitively and physically; this is a normal reaction.

 

--Take care not to drink alcohol (a central nervous system depressant) in excess, overeat (which brings fatigue), or overwork.

 

--Recognize that holidays won't be the same.  If you try to keep everything as it was, you'll be disappointed.  Doing things a bit differently can acknowledge the change while preserving continuity with the past.

 

--Be careful not to isolate yourself.  It's alright to take time for yourself but don't cut yourself off from the support of family and friends.

 

--Talk over your plans.  Decide what you want to do and what can be avoided.

Do what is comfortable for you.  May you find what works for you.

This I Believe -- Book Excerpt

"This I Believe" is a fantastic book that keeps on giving inspiration to me.

 

I recently discovered this book quite by accident.  I was in Richmond, Virginia with my son and his girlfriend and we came upon a local non-profit that was giving away books for free.  I couldn't believe it.  Free. Books.

 

Free books are irresistible to me.  This would be similar to offering the editor of Vogue free clothes and accessories.  A room of tables full of all kinds of books just waiting for someone to come along and adopt them and take them home.  Where do I start?  I immediately wondered how many I would be able to carry to the car.

 

Early in my book grab, I found "This I Believe" and I snatched it up right away because the subtitle of the book said it was about "The personal philosophies of remarkable men and women"  and is also based on the NPR series of the same name.  "This I Believe" features 80 essayists, some famous and some unknown, writing to complete the thought that begins the book's title.

 

 

 

I decided I didn't want to read the essays in order; that jumping around from famous to unknown and back again would make the book more interesting.  One essay, titled "The Making of Poems" caught my eye because beautifully written poetry expands my viewpoint of the world.  Quickly, I found that the essay is really about resilience, one of my favorite topics to explore and talk to others about for never ending periods of time.

 

I love to find out how a person has pulled themselves back together after a personal crisis and what has kept them going.  What fuels their inner strength?  How did they learn so much from the pain in their life?  I think the answer is as varied as the billions of people making up Planet Earth but in this case, let's focus on author Gregory Orr's resilience and his remarkable essay which begins here:

 

The Making of Poems

By Gregory Orr

 

I believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions, and traumatic events that come with being alive.

 

When I was twelve years old, I was responsible for the death of my younger brother in a hunting accident.  I held the rifle that killed him.  In a single moment, my world changed forever.  I felt grief, terror, shame, and despair more deeply than I could ever have imagined.  In the aftermath, no one in my shattered family could speak to me about my brother's death, and their silence left me alone with all my agonizing emotions.  And under those emotions, something even more terrible : a knowledge that all the easy meanings I had lived by until then had been suddenly and utterly abolished.

 

One consequence of traumatic violence is that it isolates its victims.  It can cut us off from other people, cutting us off from our own emotional lives until we go numb and move through the world as if only half alive.  As a young person, I found something to set against my growing sense of isolation and numbness: the making of poems.

 

When I write a poem, I process experience.  I take what's inside of me -- the raw, chaotic material of feeling or memory -- and translate it into words and then shape those words into the rhythmical language we call a poem.  This process brings me a kind of wild joy.  Before, I was powerless and passive in the face of my confusion, but now I am active: the powerful shaper of my experience.  I am transforming it into a lucid meaning.

 

Because poems are meanings, and even the saddest poems I write is proof that I want to survive.  And therefore it represents an affirmation of life in all its complexities and contradictions.

 

An additional miracle comes to me as the maker of poems: Because poems can be shared between poet and audience, they also become a further triumph over human isolation.

 

Whenever I read a poem that moves me, I know I'm not alone in the world.  I feel a connection to the person who wrote it, knowing that he or she has gone through something similar to what I've experienced, or felt something like what I have felt.  And their poem gives me hope and courage, because I know that they survived, that their life force was strong enough to turn experience into words and shape it into meaning and then bring it toward me to share.  The gift of their poem enters deeply into me and helps me live and believe in living.

Seeing Clearly

"Give yourself the gift of time in coming to answers for your life. . . .

 

It takes time, and a lot of introspection and soul-searching,

 

to get clear about what you really want to manifest in your life."

 

                                       ~Author David Emerald

Farmer In The Dell

I love farmer's markets.

 

Everything about them fascinates me.  I slow down and totally lose track of time as I enjoy walking from vendor to vendor and talking to each one of them about the unique products they are selling whether it's veggies, fruits, honey, cheeses, breads, soaps or food being cooked to order.

 

Yesterday it truly felt as if the weather had turned a corner and while it was a bit chilly the sun was bright and increasingly warm as the day progressed.  People with their children and dogs and friends and neighbors strolled and chatted each other up at the weekly farmer's market held in the Palisades section of Northwest Washington, DC. 

 

Everybody was just so darn happy to be outside and enjoying the nicer weather!  You could feel the relief in the easy manner of people greeting each other and the slower pace of checking out the market's wares whether it was sampling apples, biscotti, or asking questions about the young herb plants.

 

 

It's kind of similar to everyone having their own lemonade stand and making a go of it with their best products whatever that might be.  Making time for activities you enjoy can be one of the steps you take when rebuilding your life after a loss.  For me, farmer's markets create a healing feeling.  They reinforce for me that we are part of a larger community focused on being supportive and giving back.  Creating extra special karma if you will.

 

That might sound kind of fruit and nutty to you but I like the idea of people making things with their hands whether it is farming or sewing or jewelry and then coming together to share their talents.

 

People selling at farmer's markets always take a lot of pride in what they've made and much of what is sold at farmer's markets is organic or at least pretty close to it and I feel I'm doing my body and brain a favor when I buy healthier more natural foods that are closer to the sources of where they were grown and in my small way I'm also helping an entrepreneur who is trying to run a small business.

I was especially happy to find a vendor selling peach blossoms which are some of my favorite blooms to have in the house during spring and I also bought a few young lettuce plants for myself.

Score!

Family Time

It's that time of year in my family. 

 

Time to celebrate the birthdays of my parents who are in their 80's.  My Mom and Dad's birthdays land on the calendar exactly a week apart so in the last few years my siblings and I have started celebrating their birthdays together in the interest of harmony, world peace and all that is holy.

 

 

We know we are blessed to have our parents still with us and we definitely don't take it for granted.  Not for one minute.  But sometimes it can be tricky in making sure that each birthday receives the same amount of attention, if you know what I mean.  The healing part of this family get together is that it's great to have a happy reason to gather and just straight out enjoy ourselves which usually means retelling childhood stories, imitating each other and a lot of jokes.

 

One of the presents that was a huge hit was a box of Ole and Lena fortune cookies that one of my sisters had bought at a Scandinavian store.  I had to Google the names of Ole and Lena because I didn't know who they are or why they are funny but apparently they are the central characters to jokes made by Scandinavian Americans particularly in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the rest of the Upper Midwest region of the US.  The humor is rather folk and really silly.

 

Happy Birthday Mom and Dad and we all wish you many, many more!!

 

Mom &Dad Celebrating Their Birthdays In Party Attire

My brother, Tom, and sister, Theresa

My sister, Sheila, and brother, Tom

 

My sister, Maureen, and me in a selfie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Younger Point of View

Just to briefly, and I do mean briefly, follow up on yesterday's post about the ever changing dynamics of going online to share grief and loss experiences, a friend sent me the below link to a fantastic New York Times story addressing this very topic.

 

I loved this story about Millennials and hope you do too because it introduced to me some new websites I enjoyed discovering plus it highlighted the thoughts and feelings of a younger generation in the midst of trying to figure out the best way to deal with their grief their own individual way while helping others who are also trying to do the same thing.   

Here's the link to the New York Times story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/fashion/an-online-generation-redefines-mourning.html?_r=0

I'm glad it's the end of the week.
I'm beat!

P.S.  Yesterday I had a lot to say and the words got away from me.  So sorry lovely readers for going long on yesterday's post. 

 

Have a great weekend I hope you get to do something fun, relaxing or outrageous!!
 

In Honor Of The Oscars

In honor of the Oscars last night, I'd like to give out a personal award.

Last night's Academy Awards speeches seemed to me to be particularly emotional, expressing the gratitude of recognition, the fulfillment of dreams and deep thanks for the years of incredible support that people received while working on their ground breaking film projects. 

It brought to mind for me the role that others play in our lives during difficult times and reminded me that support groups around the country are on the front lines of our communities, doing the nitty gritty, down and dirty and painful work of helping us put one foot in front of another as we learn to live with the unexpected challenges that life has brings us.

 

In my case, I'd like to give out a personal award, The Best  Support Group award to Widowed Persons Outreach (WPO) located at Sibley Hospital in Washington, DC.  The people at Sibley who run this incredible program are the unsung heros of bereavement work and I'd like to draw the curtains aside a bit to reveal that grief support groups are not strange secretive gatherings of people who wallow in their sorrow and loss.

 

Best Support Group Award

No indeed.  They are groups of compassionate people dealing honestly and directly with the confusion that grief brings.  I spent almost two years as a participating member of the WPO support group and then after leaving the support group I spent many years later as a volunteer trying to give back the unconditional support WPO gave to me.

I learned a tremendous amount from the other widowed members of the group and also the amazing people who ran the group while I was there.  One person I would like to give a shout out to is Julie Potter, a calm and patient woman with so much insight that she reminds me of  a wise Buddha.  WPO taught me how to slowly gather the shattered pieces of myself and figure out how to best to put them back together in a way that gave me worked for me.  The group gave me the strength to help myself and my grieving young son.   

 

Whether it's alcoholism, gambling, overeating, drug addiction or grief, I believe that others who are traveling the same unpredictable path as ourselves can often offer the greatest amount of inspiration.

It may seem slow and incredibly painful but I found that when you sit and share your story with others facing the same issues, there is a sense of relief that you have finally found people who understand the depth of what you are feeling and how hard it is to handle.  In searching for a way to begin healing, support groups offer a safety zone because you find you are not alone in your emotional turmoil. 

 

Many people are uncomfortable with the emotional pain of grief.  As a result, family and friends are sometimes unsure of what to say or how to be helpful.  Support groups are the places where we can let it all hang out, revealing the thoughts and feeling we might not want to tell others because they might not get what we are really telling them.

 

You deserve to talk through your feelings and get them off your chest.  It's all part of starting a healing process.  By letting your emotions come to the surface and then working through them, you acknowledge and face your changed life and find others who are also dealing with the same sorts of issues.

 

Each grief may be individual but you shouldn't feel that you have to handle it all by yourself.  Support groups can be a crucial first step when you find yourself unsure of how to deal with a personal crisis.

Ew! It's Funny Friday

What a whirl of a week this had been.  Deadlines. Pressure.  Meltdowns.  Not me.  Others.

 

You're familiar with this kind of dynamic aren't you?  I know you must be because there is no way that this kind of stuff only happens to me.

 

How do I deal?  (Did I hear someone say booze?)

 

No my friends I don't drink but I do make a lot of jokes about being in really awful situations because humor helps me cope.  I constantly make jokes about myself -- and believe me there's a lot of material there -- and I also make jokes about the perceived dysfunction and frustration and sometimes the plain silliness of daily situations that life happens to oh so innocently send our way.

Comedian Jimmy Fallon
Photo Courtesy New York Daily News

 



Instead of making jokes I guess another option would be to steel myself through the rough times, white knuckling my chair and holding my breath until it's over, but that wouldn't be any fun!  No, in fact that attitude would just suck the joy out of most situations. 

So meet "Stacy" and "Sara" and get ready to laugh as they hang out with First Lady Michelle Obama and "the girls" talk about different ways to stay active and eat right:

 

A Navajo Prayer

As we embrace a new day. . .

Contra Costa County, California
Photo Courtesy of Flickr

 

A Navajo Prayer

In beauty may I walk.

 

All day long may I walk.

 

Through the returning seasons may I walk.

 

On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.

 

With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk.

 

With dew about my feet may I walk.

 

Planting Fields Arboretum
 Long Island New York

 

With beauty may I walk.

 

With beauty before me may I walk.

 

With beauty behind me may I walk.

 

With beauty above me may I walk.

 

With beauty below me may I walk.

 

With beauty all around me may I walk.

 

In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty,

lively may I walk.

 

In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty

living again may I walk.

 

It is finished in beauty.

 

It is finished in beauty.

 

 

 

Say Yes to Empowerment

The essence of resilience is bouncing back to a healthy place after you have been counted out.

Emotionally resilient people recognize that some good can come from even the most traumatic events.  Not only are people resilient but cities can be too.  Look at New York City.  In the 1970's, New York City was a dangerous place.  It's economy was on the verge of collapse and its streets and subways were full of crime and gangs and homeless people.  People could not find jobs.  Traveling to New York City today, there is hardly any evidence of its darker and grittier side from that time.

 

This transformation didn't take place over night.  It took years of hard work coupled with coordinated community support and a collective spirit of determination that things were going to get better, that New Yorkers were not going to put up with such a desperate way of life.

People in the midst of loss can feel this kind of desperation too and during their mourning period there sometimes comes a point -- and it's different for all of us -- when they decide they are sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I have felt that dragging sorrow when I was so immersed in in the upside down of my life that I couldn't see the possibility of anything good happening.  But a voice inside myself pushed me to put one foot in front of the other and with help from family and friends I did begin to see that there just had to be something else out there for me, something that was a more hopeful way of life.

Having a sense of hope is crucial.  Tell yourself it could be right around the bend or in the next conversation or in the next day because with hope we can find the strength to hang on and push through, finding a new direction and a new way to rebuild our lives.

Veronika Scott and her sleeping bag coat
Photo Courtesy of ABC News

I write about empowerment today because of my discovery of Veronika Scott on YouTube.  Veronika Scott lives in the infamous yet troubled city of Detroit, or Motown, a city that once was known as America's automotive center but was recently declared bankrupt by a judge.  Veronika Scott cultivates resilience every day, not only within herself but also in others looking for work in Detroit.

This Youtube video featuring Veronika and her project inspires me and I have watched it at least 20 times because each time I watch I am struck by the simplicity of her idea, the passion she has for her work, the hope she is giving to others and the power of a sewing machine.  Please check it out:

 

A Listening Binge

For the past several weeks, I have been on a listening binge and it feels healing.

 

There are a number of family members and friends who are going through various kinds of difficult personal situations and, in trying to be helpful, I have been listening to what they tell me they want to talk about, in particular what it feels like to be in their crisis, what they really wish they could do to solve it and how frustrating it is to have the situation go on and on.

 

Listening may seem as though it is a passive activity but it is definitely not.  I'm not just sitting in my chair staring vacantly at the person talking and letting my eyes roam around the room, thinking about something else that is totally unrelated to the person's thoughts nor am I just holding my phone up to my ear, doodling away on a piece of paper or reading something on my computer screen instead of listening to their words.

 

Pablo Picasso's The Flowers of Peace

I am listening to hear what they intend to say but are not exactly saying.  Listening is another way to show I care, that I am interested in them and invested in their troubles as I focus on the backstory of their words.  As in when they say they are angry about something, I sometimes get the feeling that they really mean to say they are scared.  I'm listening with my heart as I'm trying to understand and support.  It's an emotional exchange because we need each other to help figure out what our crazy creative lives are all about and sometimes we are too close to interpret what's going on. 

I also know that they would do the same for me if I needed to talk to them about my life and that creates a solid unspoken feeling of trust.  We have each other's backs so to speak.

 

Listening is a time to learn about the other person for they are pouring out their thoughts, emotions or sometimes both to you.  I have known some of these people for decades and am still learning new things about them and they way they feel about life.  I try to imagine what it would feel like to be the other person who is trying to deal with whatever the situation is.  And if I'm doing listening well, which I hope I am, then I sometimes feel as if I'm going through the problem too.
 

If you can't think of anything to say to someone who is handling a rough situation, you can always offer to support them through the gift of listening.

Listening is a way of honoring someone's story.

 

Strength Through Sharing

Sharing my stories, and those of others, can entertain, offer strength and inspiration and sometimes minimize the isolation that is felt in relationships or personal crisis.  I share to bond, to reach out, to reveal that I am vulnerable just like you.

No one knows when someone else's story will unexpectedly touch your life and help you gain a new perspective on a subject that you thought you knew enough about but you really didn't.  Someone else's words can bring new understanding to the life and death issues of physical and emotional survival and help you see things differently.

 

My son's girlfriend works at The James House in Richmond, Virginia and through her and this YouTube video below that a friend recently posted on Facebook I am becoming knowledgeable about the amazing work they do in their counseling, bringing hope to the lives of people who are emotionally, physically and sexually abused and/or stalked. 

 

The steady and important work of The James House, a non-profit organization (their services are free and confidential) which this year is celebrating its 25th anniversary, is to heal and to empower and to offer an independent and safe future. 

 

In this video you will meet a thoughtful and articulate woman named Samina Abdullah who is a community organizer at The James House.  Samina is a down-to-earth kind of person who is wise beyond her years and acts as an agent of change for her part of the world.  Or as she describes it, "I don't feel responsible for the whole world.  I feel responsible for my own little bubble."  Don't you love that idea?

 

Her thought makes me realize that I can be overwhelmed by what is happening in the world at large when all I really need to do is to focus on my little part of the globe.  We can start in your own communities, find our passions, whatever they are and follow them.  Do what you can do and do it the best way that you can.

 

When in doubt, just take the next small step:

 

 

Ina Garten's Roasted Eggplant Spread

I am tired of wearing layers of clothing.

Black and grey, grey and black.  Thin T-shirts under sweaters, sweaters over sweaters, vests over sweaters, socks inside socks, scarves over turtlenecks.  I think you are getting the picture of what it takes to stay warm when a polar vortex is happening.  I am more than ready to chuck my winter coat and boots and break out my fun clothes, my jammin' summer clothes.

But the calendar tells me otherwise.  For now, I must go with warmth because snow and ice and brisk winds will still be hanging out in my area of the world at least for another month. 

Besides the bulkiness and weight of the layers of clothes, the other downside of dressing like this is that you feel like you can indulge in comfort food since no one can see you in anything that's form fitting.  I try to remind myself that the food decisions I make today in the cold of February will determine how much I will have to diet in the warmth of April but the calendar's clinical numbers just don't seem to intimidate me.

My healing solution is to get off the sugar wagon and go for healthy, fresh foods that are tasty, yet low in fat, and no one does that better than Ina Garten, foodie and home entertainment expert extraordinaire who is also known as the Emmy Award winning host of the Food Network program, Barefoot Contessa. 

Ina's style is easy and uncomplicated and so are her recipes.  I share with you today Ina's Roasted Eggplant Spread which she says is "not only good, it is good for you."  Ina also says in her Barefoot Contessa cookbook that this recipe has "almost no fat for customers who like to save their calories for dessert."  She's so smart!

We all are trying to work more veggies into our diets and this is one way of doing it.  Ina recommends serving this with hummus, pita bread, Greek olives, feta cheese and stuffed grape leaves.  Check out Ina's recipe and I think you will agree that it's perfect served hot or cold:

 

Ina Garten's Roasted Eggplant Spread
Photo: Melanie Acevedo

 

Roasted Eggplant Spread (Serves 6 to 8 )  

I medium eggplant, peeled
2 red bell peppers, seeded
1 red onion, peeled
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons good olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon tomato paste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Cut the eggplant, bell pepper, and onion into 1-inch cubes.  Toss them in a large bowl with the garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper.  Spread them on a baking sheet.  Roast for 45 minutes, until the vegetables are lightly browned and soft, tossing once during cooking.  Cool slightly.

Place the vegetables in a food processor fitted with a steel blade, add the tomato paste, and pulse 3 or 4 times to blend.  Taste for salt and pepper.

More of Everything

There is always more out there for us to discover and embrace  . . .

Kimmy Kirkwood & Will Stacey's Love Story

The social media giant, Facebook, marked its tenth anniversary yesterday.

 

Big deal, you say?  It's just a place for people to go online and post the silly and sometimes significant happenings of their life? 

 

Yes.  That's exactly it.  Facebook is the world's largest social network, connecting 1.23 billion people to each other and Kimmy Kirkwood is especially grateful that on Facebook she can find a priceless record of pictures and status updates she had with the love of her life, a Marine named Will Stacey.

 

Kimmy Kirkwood and Will Stacey
Photo Courtesy of Kimmy Kirkwood

 

 

Will Stacey posting to Kimmy Kirkwood: "Regardless, I continue to love you like a fat kid loves cake." 

 

Come on.  Who could resist such a romantic thought, right? 

 

Kirkwood and Stacey planned to marry but in the last year of Stacey's deployment to Afghanistan in January 2012, he was tragically killed by an explosive device while on patrol.

 

Facebook has changed forever the way that people around the world stay in touch with each other but more significantly it has also changed the way that people grieve and remember the precious time they spent with their loved ones.

 

"Sometimes when I am lonely, I go back and read everything he sent me," Kimmy writes.  "I didn't think about it much then, but having it all in one place took on a complete new meaning when I lost Will forever."

 

Here is the sweet story of Kimmy Kirkwood and Will Stacey that was featured on BuzzFeed:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/after-her-marine-boyfriends-death-woman-finds-their-story-to?bftw

Peyton Manning

I am writing this post while Sunday's Super Bowl game is being played in East Rutherford, NJ and the Denver Broncos are losing so badly there is hardly any way they can come back from being down so many points.  And then Denver lost.  Badly.

 

Yet Peyton Manning is still a winner to me.

 

This is a guy who gets signed to the Denver Broncos in 2012 after giving his heart and soul to the Indianapolis Colts for years.  The Colts release him because he misses playing during the entire 2011  season because of a neck injury and then undergoes surgery to try and fix it.  Later, after being released from the Colts, Manning picks the Denver Broncos to play with, signing a five year contract.  Manning then has additional surgeries on his neck and a helluv of a lot more rehabilitation work in front of him to gain strength in his neck and passing arm in order for him get back in top playing shape for the Broncos.

 

No doctors gave Manning any guarantees that the four neck surgeries he had would make him 100 percent right and that he would play football at the level he previously had.  But Manning kept on doing the painful physical work, daily gaining small increments of improvement in his exercises and workouts and eventually feeling ready enough to hit the field again as quarterback and play professional football.

 

While it's easy in life, and in particular football, to discover meaning in the positive aspects of your accomplishments, it is difficult to find meaning and purpose in life when sad and frustrating moments hit you.  Those difficult moments could cover a wide range of losses from the death of a loved one to being injured in a football game.  I am definitely not equating the loss of a loved one with being injured in professional sports but I am saying there are all kinds of resilience that we can develop within ourselves throughout our lives.

 

When hit with crushing or frustrating moments, we feel powerless as we enter new territory.  We have no idea what direction our lives are headed and as we try to figure out what is going on we sometimes flounder and then take small steps and try to keep going forward.  Sometimes we make ourselves push forward and go on even though it's unknown and uncomfortable. 

During these trying times, life in general isn't going the way you thought it would and it's terribly crushing.  You almost feel as though your heart is breaking.  But that doesn't mean you stop.  It doesn't mean you quit trying to meet your goals or give up focusing on trying to make things better even though it is very tempting to stop and hide and throw in the towel.

Which is why people like Peyton Manning can teach us something valuable: keep trying, keep working, keep working your plan, exercise all your options and never give up on your dream no matter who tells you it won't come true.

Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos didn't win the Super Bowl.  His team lost and it hurt.  But you still have to try no matter what the circumstances.

He gave it his best shot and that's all anyone can ask of themselves.

Get Lucky

I know the Grammys were Sunday night but the music is still rockin' and rollin' for me.

 

I'm Up All Night To Get Lucky. . .

 

 

The Grammys are a blast to watch because everyone is so out there in their creativity and hopefully your favorite singer, song or group wins something.  I think people like to watch it because they imagine themselves standing there before the cameras singing some of the songs or in my case I imagine myself up there on the stage dancing the night away.

 

You don't think about being in a band and singing any of the popular songs? Come on.  Next, you will tell me that you have never picked up a hairbrush or any other kitchen utensil and pretended it was a microphone and that you don't ever sing when you are in the car or in the shower.

 

It's okay 'cause we all do it!!  I even have male friends who pick up brooms and play them as though they were guitars.  Music takes us to a spontaneous healing place and makes us feel some kind of wonderful.  I think it's almost impossible to  think about anything stressful when you're singing or dancing. 

 

One of the songs that got a lot of attention (who were those two robots?) and more importantly, awarded Record of the Year was Daft Punk's dance song, "Get Lucky."  And just for the fun of it, here's hoping you get lucky today: