I had a conversation many years ago with a mixed race friend about discrimination. She had a brilliant theory that all it takes to change someone’s heart that is hardened against one group is to know and care about one person in that group. This, she suggested was how we overcome bigotry. She said that […]
Author Archives: Weeks
#Giving Tuesday
posted by Weeks
Today has been dubbed “Giving Tuesday” in the US. It follows Black Friday when people spend lots of money to buy things in stores, and Cyber Monday when shoppers take to the internet. Giving Tuesday is a plea to send a bit of all of that holiday money to the organizations that need it the […]
November
22
To Each Her Climate
posted by Weeks
Every time I post on social media a picture of snow, it never fails to yield disparaging comments from people who don’t like cold weather. Many feel the need to tell me the temperature where they live as if there’s a contest and whoever lives in the warmer climate wins. “I just don’t know how […]
November
17
How to have a good day
posted by Weeks
Last week I had just finished my last teaching gig of the year and was sitting at the breakfast table wiped out. Bill was in Tennessee finishing his last teaching engagement and I had piles of laundry, stacks of contracts and dozens of emails that needed responses. The travel and deadlines had caught up with […]
October
27
Superhero
posted by Weeks
Last night at 12:50am, I was standing at the luggage carousel at Midway airport in Chicago having just returned from a very tiring industry trade show in Houston. I had been up since 7am, had to go 14 hrs without eating a real meal because I was by myself and people kept coming into the […]
September
26
Thank You Stephen Colbert
posted by Weeks
I saw something on TV this week that I’ve never seen before that made me very happy. I’ve been battling a respiratory infection and have been pumped up on Prednisone, which makes it very hard to sleep or read. Wide-awake at 3am I often watch recent episodes of late night comedy shows on demand on […]
September
16
In a Blink
posted by Weeks
I loved Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking about the power of gut reactions to situations that can’t always be explained but are often correct. Gladwell writes about the biology behind these instincts and how important they were to survival as we have developed as a species. He also chronicles the […]
September
13
Blessed are the Wounded
posted by Weeks
I learned today that Charlie Petersen died suddenly and unexpectedly this weekend. I met Charlie online when she was part of an online mystery quilt event we did with American Quilters Society and later in person when we were teaching on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Our first encounter was amid a number of people in a […]
August
29
The Real Family Tree
posted by Weeks
My head has been full this week of information I learned about my family tree. Both sides of my family arrived in the US prior to the Revolutionary War. Both sides of my family lived in the South. I learned that my very well-documented family tree on one side has been missing a branch. The […]
August
26
Why I’m in a Hurry
posted by Weeks
I turned 54 today. Truth be told, as a child I didn’t know how long I’d live. There were three separate times before the age of 30 when I thought I was going to die because of complications with my asthma. That leaves a pretty big impression on you when you’re, say, 7 years old. […]
August
25
The Confident Friend
posted by Weeks
It’s been about 5 weeks since we began fostering Caddy, the 7-year-old Schipapom (Schipperke x Pomeranian mix) on the left. She was very ill with Canine Influenza (CIV) and at one point had to return to the shelter for emergency care. Her prolonged battle with CIV mirrored the struggle PAWS Chicago was having containing this […]
August
21
Dear Snake Oil Salesperson,
posted by Weeks
I notice that you seem to send me a lot of emails. I have a few questions for you: I’m interested in the grammar of this ad: when you say that “People are noticing your fat,” I’m curious. Which fat are they noticing? The fat on my legs, the fat on my stomach or the […]
August
17
The Great Start
posted by Weeks
I learned a long time ago the power of the Great Start. In many offices in which I worked over the years I didn’t have Great Starts. In fact, I had Bad Starts. I’d show up and no one would have gotten a desk ready for me. It would be as if they had forgotten […]
August
13
10 Hours for 10 Minutes
posted by Weeks
The following conversation happened today between two friends in our booth at a quilt show. Seriously. You can’t make this up. “I want it all! I want every one of these!” “Me too! (picking up a kit and sighing) The problem is that my husband likes sex and I like to quilt.” “Yeah. He needs […]
July
29
Excused Absence
posted by Weeks
When I last posted at the end of May I had, what I thought was, a garden-variety respiratory infection. I thought I would work my way through it in a week or so and be back at the gym in 10 days. No biggie. Then the night after I published my last post, I was […]
May
31
Grown-Up Love
posted by Weeks
Dear Revlon, We won’t even get into the irony of choosing Halle Berry to represent “true love stories [that] never have endings” because that’s pretty insulting to the two guys she divorced and the guy she had a child with before she married her current husband, but I digress. If you’re going to put up […]
May
30
13
posted by Weeks
Our family turns 13 today. On May 30, 2002, Bill and I stood in a hotel hallway in Nanchang in Jiangxi province nervously awaiting the first time we would meet out daughter. As I saw the parade of 10 foster mothers carrying 10 orphans into the hotel I worried that I wouldn’t be enough and […]
May
29
Will You Remember?
posted by Weeks
When I’m trying to decide whether something is really worth getting upset about I play a game called, “Will I Remember?” It goes like this: is this issue serious enough that I will remember it a year from now? Because if it’s not really worth remembering, it probably isn’t worth my time. Conversely I try […]
May
28
Real Support
posted by Weeks
So I’m guessing that when you see someone on Facebook sharing a “Support Our Troops!” meme, you’re thinking, “Yeah. I support our troops.” Maybe when you meet someone in uniform you might thanks them for their service. There are many ways to support our troops and I’m hoping that if you’ve spent time in the […]
May
27
Girlfriends
posted by Weeks
I realized 24 hrs before we were to host the first of two parties for our daughter’s friends this week that I had a massive respiratory infection and was having a hard time breathing. I began taking steroids and antibiotics per my doctor’s email (my doctor trusts my judgement about my asthma so much that […]
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