Benvenuti’s, Norman OK

My first wish was to be in Lincoln, Nebraska visiting my dearest friend and her husband.

We drove up here to make that happen. On our way here we had a great road trip, stayed in a brand-new hotel, and had a delicious dinner in a sexy, little restaurant in Norman, OK.  Who knew, right?

It was some of the best Italian food I’ve tasted in a long time, and better than almost any I’ve had back home in our food-centric city. Sorry, Austin, but I’m spoiled when it comes to Italian food.

My second wish was to experience a white

Although the weather didn’t call for such a thing to happen, we woke up yesterday morning to a fresh blanket of snow covering everything, and it was still coming down. Holly and I drove to dance class yesterday morning wondering if any of her students would show up. A few hardy souls did, and we had a delightful class.  As it turns out, by the time class was over there was more snow and it was both colder and more slippery.

So, we’ve been staying in; cooking, watching movies, playing Cards Against Humanity, and hanging around the fireplace sipping fine bourbon. If this is any indication of what retirement is going to be like – I’m so glad I’ve finally arrived!

XO Donna

I know it’s been a minute since  schools have taken learning to write in script, or cursive, off the curriculum. Bad idea. The thinking is that kids will all be using keyboards, but that’s not necessarily true.

Fast, legible handwriting is a technology that is universally available to all students. Learning to write in cursive engages the brain and improves development in the areas of language, thinking and memory. It stimulates synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres of our brain. This is absent when printing and typing.

Writing in script reinforces  both meaning and spelling when learning words. College students who wrote in cursive for the essay part of their SAT scored higher than those who printed.

Computers won’t teach children to know the difference between what’s  appropriate for a text, or tweet, or how a word is  spelled and used in the real world. Just look at the confusion around “they’re, their and there or you’re, your, and ur.”

And I’m talking about adults now.

A trendy article  lamented a whole year in third grade wasted learning to write in cursive, and the writer’s belief that he will never  need it again. I’m certain there will come a point when those who can write in cursive, and consequently read it, will have more advantages moving forward than those who cannot.

I love receiving a beautiful hand-written note and  I still love to write out holiday cards.  I believe that dispensing with these we lose our connection to others which is forged by the act of thinking about them and writing to them. Will a love-letter on a text-message have the same sensuality, urgency, promise?

We should help the children in our lives work on their cursive and penmanship.  It can be  something we share with them, including  special notebooks and colored pens just for their visits.  We can call it art or lettering. Rather than buying them “things” trying to bond with them, offer them the gift of ourselves, our knowledge and patience.

Accompanied by cookies (nut-free, wheat-free, dairy-free, and soy-free since we are all allergic to something these days) and milk (non-dairy; almond, rice, soy, or hemp) we can do this.

Cookies and cursive. Talkin’ about a revolution! Let’s use our guiding hands to teach them long-hand.

XO Donna

I bought Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, Big Magic, for my birthday last month because #1 – it’s by Liz Gilbert, and #2 – the subtitle fascinated me: Creative Living Beyond Fear.  Is the book just for creative types?  Not necessarily. It’s about living creatively, and her ideas can be successfully applied anywhere,  as I will show.

Our fear has a job to do – keep us alive – and our flight or flight response  is hard-wired into us. But when we don’t have dinosaurs or Zombies chasing us, it’s not helpful to have adrenaline and stress-hormones coursing through our bodies.

These days fear is present in our lives in lots of other ways: career change, divorce, death, retirement, major illnesses, (our own, or that of a loved one) caring for aging parents, sometimes caring for our grown kids.

Most of what we fear never comes to pass, and we spent all of that time and mental-space afraid. Ms. Gilbert said in her book, “The less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes too.”  I needed to keep this in mind.

I had another migraine at work last week. They’re tough when I’m working because during the electric-serpent-neon-light-show that accompanies mine, I can’t see well.
Well, to be honest, I can’t actually see at all.  Being candid led to a great conversation with a client about migraines, why/when we get them, and the idea that they could be tied to having “one foot on the gas, and one foot on the brakes.”

She asked, “Did you read Liz Gilbert’s new book?” I told her I had, and enjoyed it very much.  “Remember the part where she used the analogy of going on a road trip? The part about Fear can come along, and it can have a seat in the car, but it doesn’t have a vote,  it can’t touch the radio, and is absolutely forbidden to drive!”

I’m so glad she reminded me, and I thought about that while I sat in a darkened room waiting for the light-show to subside, and my client relaxed with a cup of coffee and a new magazine. I realized that we all have things going on that scare us.  We need to look at our fear, and see what it’s trying to tell us. We can thank it for doing it’s job a little too well.  We can acknowledge it. But we can’t let it run the show.

When I went back to my client Deanna, she asked, “How’s that migraine?”
I smiled as I replied, “Snake ain’t driving!”

Then we finished up her sexy blonde hair and got her ready for her “next phase” college graduation and career change.

XO Donna