I was getting my hair cut the other day and Billy Jo, my stylist (hair cutter) got a call on her cell phone in her apron pocket. The conversation went like this:

“My Shop, Billy Jo speaking.”

I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end so you’ll only get Billy Jo’s responses, although you can kind of hear between the lines.

“I’m cutting a client’s hair.”

“Fine, but I can’t talk right now.”

“I’m busy until 5. It’s 2:15, did you take your pills?”

“Okay take them now. I’ll be home about 5:30.”

Billy Jo disconnected the call and put her phone back into her pocket. She rolled her eyes as she picked up the scissors and began cutting my hair again.

“That was my mom wanting to know how I am. She acts shocked when she hears I’m working and she never leaves a message if I don’t answer right away.”

It made me think about my mom getting frustrated when her mom would call her when she was busy and how distracting it was when my mom would call me at especially busy times. She too would never leave a message saying: “I hate those damn machines and I refuse to talk to a machine.” It made me think about what I do to my kids. For one thing, I quit calling them when I learned how to text. That gives my kids an easier time to put me off when they’re busy. And just like my mom and Granny, I have no idea when my kids are busy, so I understand the chain of unwanted calls through the years.

I wonder what they did in the olden days when there were no telephones. One thing, the old parents lived with the adult children in many cases so an aged mother could see that her adult child was busy and could leave her alone. Two, with the whole family living together, I’d think there’d be a tendency for every member to want to seek more private space. These days we live apart from each other and so, in my opinion, we need connection more than our ancestors did. 

I was at the store a few weeks ago and I watched the reverse of a mom seeking connection with her adult child; it was a four-year-old seeking attention from his mother. She was reading the label on a cereal box and he was looking at the pictures on a box of Corn Flakes which was at his eye level. It went like this:

Thank you to all of you who prayed for me through some very dark times. I’m so grateful for all the positive energy that was wafted my way and especially in the hospital as I had to be in there alone. Never did I feel alone. I felt the presence of love from all who prayed for me. I’ll be forever thankful that you took the time to pray for me.

I’m still in a beautiful bubble of gratitude for another day with a normal heart beat. I was supposed to go on television yesterday, “Afternoon Live” in Portland, Oregon via Zoom. I put make-up on for the first time in nine months! An hour before the show I discovered our internet service was down. I couldn’t get to the producer (we email) to tell her our problem. When I called her number at the studio, I got her voicemail. All dressed up, drenched in television make-up; I walked out of range of our internet service, and was able to send an email telling what happened. A half hour before my segment, they were able to rearrange the show.

Since I looked better than I have in nine months, I told Terry he needed to take me out to lunch and celebrate another afib-free day and the fact that I can clean up pretty good.

I thought it’d be good to share what I was going to do on “Afternoon Live,” “Getting Along During the Pandemic.” I told the producer, “I’m not an expert in the field of marital health and I need to warn you I’m on my second marriage, but I do have some good advice.”

This is a great video from my dear friend Kathy Roberts, professor at Tidy Tudor University. If you've been itching to dig in and let go of stuff you don't use, don't really love, but keep holding onto, this video will work like a laxative. 

Go watch the video.

Have you ever had a really, really bad pain, like say you were in labor, and when the pain was over and the baby was out, you became aware of a secondary pain that was camouflaged by the primary pain? The first time that happened to me I had viral meningitis accompanied by the worst headache I’ve ever had. I was so sick, I moved into my sister’s home with my three little kids so she could take care of me and the children. As I began to get over the meningitis, and the headache started to subside, I became aware of a pain in one of my big toes. The more my headache dwindled the more my toe started screaming for aid. Finally I asked my sister to check it out (I had socks on) and when she pulled the sock off she was shaken at the sight of that toe. It was double in size and the nail was black. When she pushed on the nail, it fell off and junk from the infection spewed everywhere!

That’s sort of what happened to me in the last week and I’d like to share with you the circumstances surrounding it. As you may know, I’d been dealing with an extreme condition of atrial fibrillation for months, assisted by drugs that were supposed to help with the condition. I was taking the maximum doses and the episodes were getting worse by the day. It all started at Christmas time; in fact we didn’t celebrate Christmas. No tree, no presents, no family, no dinner, no cheer.

In March, I was scheduled to have what they call an ablation on April 8, but COVID-19 came and the ablation was considered an elective surgery. I had to wait four months with my symptoms worsening by the day. I had no desire to write, sing, laugh, cook or dance, and I didn’t sleep most nights. Several times I heard myself say, “I don’t want to live this way.”

At this very moment, you are creating your tomorrow with your habitual thoughts and behaviors you have today. If you love the consequences of these habits, you’re on a magnificent journey through this life you’ve been given. But if you don’t particularly like the way your life is going right now, you have the power to choose new thoughts that’ll create wonderful consequences for your tomorrow.

Do you know who Ordelle Daily is? She’s a fictitious character I drummed up to explain what a BO (Born Organized) is.

Ordelle is a powerhouse of habit. Here’s a poem I wrote about her. I’ll warn you ahead of time; it’s got a sad ending.

ORDELLE DAILY

If you've gained some weight since the quarantine, it just might be that your inner child has been a little down. They don't call "comfort foods" comfort foods for nothing...they're comforting. Along with comfort food, there's sick food. That's what you got when you were a child and sick. My childhood sick food was ice cream, 7-Up and popsicles. Although I haven't been sick during this time, I do have a heart condition (atrial fibrillation) and because of COVID-19 I've been unable to have what they call an ablation because it's considered an "elective" surgery. It has a 70% success rate and I've been scheduled to have it July 29! It was originally scheduled for April 8, and I've been waiting all this time.

Nelly (my inner child) has been extremely upset by this and has insisted we have "sick" food. That one notion has put two half gallons of chocolate ice cream in our freezer and ultimately in me in the last three months. ICE CREAM, full of sugar, full of carbs.

One of my mottos is: "If you don't buy it, you can't eat it." It's at the point of purchase where all your power is. So if you've been a little depressed and felt sorry for yourself, when you go to the grocery store you need to have a parking lot talk before you go in. Say something like, "I know these are hard times, but buying carbs will not change anything except the size of your clothes." When you get out of a store without succumbing to your inner child's demands, you'll get home with a sense of power and you'll eliminate many power struggles you'd face having a half-gallon of ice cream in your freezer. I think Nelly and I had 10 fights per gallon.

Remember In the course of three months you could easily put on 10 pounds and here are the three main reasons why. 

Years ago my good friend Carole shared with me a turning point in her life. I don't remember the circumstance that prompted her life-changing experience. It could've been the day she fell through the ceiling rummaging around in their attic looking for a special box of cherished, but stored, keepsakes. She was eight months pregnant (that unborn is now in his 50s). Or it could have been the time she got locked out of the house with the bathtub running and half the house flooded. I could call her and get the reason, because she'd remember, but it's 5:00 am and she wouldn't appreciate the call. Anyway it's not important. What's important is she was at one of those extremely hard times we all can experience as humans.Read on to see what she said.

A great snack or side dish 

This video will show you how easy deviled eggs are to make. They're a great snack to have in the fridge or to serve with a big salad. When you finish making them,give a lucky member of the family a spatula to scrape the bowl and consume what didn't go in the eggs. If you have a beater licker handy, he/she will enjoy licking the beaters.

Enjoy!