projects later, took it out recently to revise, polish and illustrate it.

People always ask writers about their process and where their book ideas come from. Mine often come to me as whispers from people in distant times and places, or else as wisps of poetry or bits of dialogue that float into my consciousness. I will listen, write it all down and wait for more to come. At some point I will realize a new story, a new book, is coming through. I do not really feel that I invent these stories, but I welcome them as gifts and try to do right by the characters and bring their tales to fruition.

The Sorcerer Queen is one of those stories that began with snippets of poetry. I was on my early morning walk one day when the first lines came to me:

“In the land of blue and silver moons
And jasmine scented air,
A just and aging sovereign ruled—
King Sagan, called ‘The Fair.’ “

The words had a haunting quality to them, and I realized that the king himself was haunted, deeply troubled by a curse that boded ill for his kingdom. Not long after that, again on my morning walk, the curse itself came to me in its entirety of eight rhyming quatrains. I rushed home to capture every word and sat back and looked at it. I had not invented this, but now it was my job to decipher it and write the full story. And I realized that the curse not only contained the key to its own reversal, but provided a template for the entire book.

“My curse be on this murdering band
For threescore years and more,
That every time the crown must pass,
The nobles go to war.”

So begins the curse, and so my work began. Who cursed the kingdom, and why? What must the king do to end the curse? Who is thwarting him every time he tries to name one of his three nephews as his heir? Who is the one true heir? Where is the mysterious goldspun weaver, and who is The Sorcerer Queen?

The story began as lines of poetry and became a magical, whimsical young adult fantasy, a tale I had to tell. And that’s what I was doing, telling a story. But as it unfolded, layers of meaning revealed themselves to me, spiritual questions and lessons that I had not consciously inserted but that I realized were underneath it all: What must we do to make amends for old wrongs? How do we make things right and bring everything full circle? What dark nights of the soul must we go through before we come into the light? The answers to these questions came as the story did, line by line, over many months. And so I do believe that this story is not only for young adults, but is a spiritual allegory for all ages.

Look for the book coming August 28! I hope my young readers will have as much fun with the magic and mystery of The Sorcerer Queen as I had in the writing of it, and that it will bring delight, and perhaps a bit of inspiration, to readers of all ages.

projects later, took it out recently to revise, polish and illustrate it.

People always ask writers about their process and where their book ideas come from. Mine often come to me as whispers from people in distant times and places, or else as wisps of poetry or bits of dialogue that float into my consciousness. I will listen, write it all down and wait for more to come. At some point I will realize a new story, a new book, is coming through. I do not really feel that I invent these stories, but I welcome them as gifts and try to do right by the characters and bring their tales to fruition.

The Sorcerer Queen is one of those stories that began with snippets of poetry. I was on my early morning walk one day when the first lines came to me:

“In the land of blue and silver moons
And jasmine scented air,
A just and aging sovereign ruled—
King Sagan, called ‘The Fair.’ “

The words had a haunting quality to them, and I realized that the king himself was haunted, deeply troubled by a curse that boded ill for his kingdom. Not long after that, again on my morning walk, the curse itself came to me in its entirety of eight rhyming quatrains. I rushed home to capture every word and sat back and looked at it. I had not invented this, but now it was my job to decipher it and write the full story. And I realized that the curse not only contained the key to its own reversal, but provided a template for the entire book.

“My curse be on this murdering band
For threescore years and more,
That every time the crown must pass,
The nobles go to war.”

So begins the curse, and so my work began. Who cursed the kingdom, and why? What must the king do to end the curse? Who is thwarting him every time he tries to name one of his three nephews as his heir? Who is the one true heir? Where is the mysterious goldspun weaver, and who is The Sorcerer Queen?

The story began as lines of poetry and became a magical, whimsical young adult fantasy, a tale I had to tell. And that’s what I was doing, telling a story. But as it unfolded, layers of meaning revealed themselves to me, spiritual questions and lessons that I had not consciously inserted but that I realized were underneath it all: What must we do to make amends for old wrongs? How do we make things right and bring everything full circle? What dark nights of the soul must we go through before we come into the light? The answers to these questions came as the story did, line by line, over many months. And so I do believe that this story is not only for young adults, but is a spiritual allegory for all ages.

Look for the book coming August 28! I hope my young readers will have as much fun with the magic and mystery of The Sorcerer Queen as I had in the writing of it, and that it will bring delight, and perhaps a bit of inspiration, to readers of all ages.

I've spoken previously about trying to write a Xoem® a day as part of my daily morning Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®  practice. One of the things I do by way of this practice is to explore the mind-body connection.

A while back I jammed my fingers into the walls of my house three times in two days. Three times really captured my attention. One time might be an accident; two might be coincidence. But three, as far as I was concerned, must be some sort of message. And so with my fingers still throbbing, I set pen to paper to figure out what this meant, before I actually broke one of them!

Here's the drawing I did with my left hand, and the cautionary, completely unexpected words that emerged:
Devil in the Details

Fingers slammed,
Derailed by small concerns.
The major ones I leave to God,
But details are my lightening rod.
Body throbs and burns—
Signals jammed.

A while back I jammed my fingers into the walls of my house three times in two days. Three times really captured my attention. One time might be an accident; two might be coincidence. But three, as far as I was concerned, must be some sort of message. And so with my fingers still throbbing, I set pen to paper to figure out what this meant, before I actually broke one of them!

Here's the drawing I did with my left hand, and the cautionary, completely unexpected words that emerged:
Devil in the Details

Fingers slammed,
Derailed by small concerns.
The major ones I leave to God,
But details are my lightening rod.
Body throbs and burns—
Signals jammed.

We all experience difficulty in our lives. I wrote this Xoem® as part of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® process in the midst of pain.

It reminded me that there is always another way of seeing things. And though I may not be able to change the pain itself, I can change my experience of it. And that can make all the difference.
And Simply Drinks

Flowers bow
Beneath the driving rain,
But one looks up and simply drinks.
This, too, is for the good, she thinks.
She's not immune to pain
But thrives, somehow.

It reminded me that there is always another way of seeing things. And though I may not be able to change the pain itself, I can change my experience of it. And that can make all the difference.
And Simply Drinks

Flowers bow
Beneath the driving rain,
But one looks up and simply drinks.
This, too, is for the good, she thinks.
She's not immune to pain
But thrives, somehow.

What exactly is a Xoem®? I wrote a pamphlet called, "A Xoem a Day Keeps the Spirit in Play", and I do try to write one a day. It's a unique, six-line, circular-shaped verse form which I developed and love to use as part of my intuitive

morning writing process. It can be composed on its own or along with a mandala drawing. I'll be introducing the Xoem in my new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®, which will be published in June, 2017.
Xoem® is pronounced "zō-ĕm," has eighteen accented syllables and rhymes abccba. It's fun and challenging to write, and has a habit of yielding unexpected insights and surprising conclusions.
Here's an example of one I wrote in a peaceful moment one morning in my garden. I thought I would just be writing about the pleasure to be found beneath my palm trees. Instead the Xoem reminded me that life will always bring surprises, some not so pleasant. A touch of whimsy helps, as does acceptance.
Oasis

The palm trees sway.
A welcome breeze comes through.
I sit nearby and let them shade me
And feel a sense of peace pervade me.
Rats like palm trees, too,
Or so they say.

morning writing process. It can be composed on its own or along with a mandala drawing. I'll be introducing the Xoem in my new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®, which will be published in June, 2017.
Xoem® is pronounced "zō-ĕm," has eighteen accented syllables and rhymes abccba. It's fun and challenging to write, and has a habit of yielding unexpected insights and surprising conclusions.
Here's an example of one I wrote in a peaceful moment one morning in my garden. I thought I would just be writing about the pleasure to be found beneath my palm trees. Instead the Xoem reminded me that life will always bring surprises, some not so pleasant. A touch of whimsy helps, as does acceptance.
Oasis

The palm trees sway.
A welcome breeze comes through.
I sit nearby and let them shade me
And feel a sense of peace pervade me.
Rats like palm trees, too,
Or so they say.

January 22nd is National Handwriting Day. Now, I am well aware that many people might consider such a day a relic in the age of the iPhone and the ubiquitous keyboard. Who actually picks up a pen anymore, or connects their

letters in what used to be called penmanship?
Well, it turns out plenty of people, and some who do it rarely wish they did it more. Like one family member who says that sometimes he needs to take hand notes in meetings but twenty-four hours later can't read his own writing. Or the physician who always had the typical dreadful doctor's handwriting but says these days it's far worse: never mind the pharmacist; now even he can't read his own prescriptions! Or the students who are at a complete loss to write out a one sentence honor code on a standardized test. Then there are the students laboriously writing answers by hand in workbooks, itching to get back to their devices, and the poor teachers trying to decipher what they've written.
I could go on, but I think everybody knows the drill by now. Clearly things are changing; we all know we are in the midst of a technological upheaval not seen since the advent of the printing press. But talk of the complete demise of handwriting may be a bit premature, not to mention shortsighted. So, a few observations:
It might be well to think about handwriting not only from the perspective of end result, but of the process itself. Yes, a case might be made that the elegant handwritten thank you note is well on its way to extinction, and that eventually students will simply be typing away taking notes in front of teachers who never knew any other way and are not driven to distraction by the constant clack-clacking. But it's not only about those end points. Among other things, there is on-going research into how learning to connect letters at a young age actually helps kids form new neural pathways in the brain, activating areas that using a keyboard doesn't. Writing in cursive helps train the brain to integrate information; practicing the connections it requires may actually increase language facility. Certainly, it helps develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. And yes, I realize the brains of the young are wired differently and that they, the digital natives, are way ahead of us digital immigrants. But still, before all the evidence is in, do we really want to risk all that brain development that we used to foster in the schools?
And it's not just about the very young. There has been at least one study done of college students wherein one group took lecture notes on their laptops and the other by hand. When they were tested on the material afterward without having the opportunity to study their notes, it was found that the students who took hand notes did far better. Apparently, typing allows you simply to transcribe fairly mindlessly everything that's said, almost like a court reporter; whereas taking notes by hand requires some degree of synthesis and summary, which facilitates memory.
As a writer I feel compelled to weigh in on all this vis-à-vis the creative process. Yes, most writers today, particularly the young ones, probably compose on the keyboard. But not all. There are those, young and pre-digital, who prefer doing at least a first draft by hand. They find that the movement of the hand, the sweep of the pen, allows accessing the creative right brain in a way that the keyboard does not. The keyboard is perhaps a step detached from the intuitive brain.
For my Baby Boomer self, suffice it to say that I love writing by hand. I have, however, lately learned to type some of my essays. I don't love the process, but I can appreciate the efficiency of it. When it comes to composing poetry though, when it comes to creating my stories, only a fountain pen will do. I work intuitively, and the pen, ink and hand are as much a part of the process as my brain. In fact if I'm really in flow, they will bypass my logical left brain altogether!
There is another advantage to writing by hand. Our handwriting has life to it. Years after we've written something, the words on the page not only reveal their obvious meaning but can provide a treasure trove of revelations about our thoughts. A case in point is my new book Lily of the Valley — An American Jewish Journey, scheduled for release in March. Lily was originally written as a poem to be performed at a banquet for Chabad of the Valley in Encino, California. When I decided to turn it into a book more than a decade later, I went back to my original notebooks. And there I found not only stanzas that had been cut in the interest of time, not only arrows and cross-outs that might serve as a roadmap to how I arrived at the finished version. I also found embedded in the lettering itself a record of my thoughts. Why did I put this here? What was Lily trying to tell me there? What was the character feeling in this passage? I found a wealth of information that would have been lost to me had I had only a typewritten version saved.
Back in the day, learning cursive in about third grade was a much-anticipated rite of passage. It was one of our first forays into the adult world. It was one of the ways we sought to establish our identity. Fewer and fewer students have that experience today. Cursive writing is not part of the Common Core curriculum. As one LA area teacher put it, there is very little time for teaching anything outside of Common Core. But if a teacher really wants to, he or she is welcome to try to fit it in. We can all figure out what that means.
My grandchildren attend Jewish day schools, however, and imagine my delight when I found out that they are being taught handwriting! I have two third graders this year in two different schools, and they are actually learning to connect their letters. Both blissfully unaware of any controversy surrounding this new skill set, they are delighted to have reached this milestone.
Perhaps the most interesting analysis I've heard of this whole conundrum comes from a very astute middle schooler I know. She learned cursive in the third grade and says that she used it for about two years but then reverted to printing, which she actually finds faster. Her teacher requires that formal essays be typed, but for other work doesn't care if the letters are connected or not. Gone are the days when "Penmanship" took up a place on the report card. However, this young lady did say to me, completely unprompted, that she likes to write the first draft of her essays by hand. It's easier, she says, to come up with ideas that way. She also has developed a distinctive cursive signature, and she informed me that she and her friends like to dot their "i's" with hearts. Some things, I am happy to report, never change.
And for those who would prefer to buck the current trend, there is help and hope. DeAnn Singh, master calligrapher and founder of Designing Letters in Los Angeles, has a steady stream of handwriting students. Many are adults who come for refresher courses. They have seen their handwriting deteriorate over the years because they spend so much time on keyboards. Yet there are times when they do need to hand write, and they want their work to look presentable and be readable. Still other students love and collect fine fountain pens and want their writing to reflect the respect they have for the art of handwriting. She also teaches children who are not being taught cursive in school and whose parents feel that learning handwriting is important. More than just wanting their children to have legible writing, many parents feel that people still make judgements based on a person's handwriting, and that those with fine writing will always seem more sophisticated and perhaps a bit smarter.
Cindy Abrams, a Handwriting Initiative specialist with a background in occupational therapy, adds a further perspective. She teaches handwriting at various grade levels in the Jewish day schools in Los Angeles. She speaks of handwriting as a way of firing circuits in the brain, and of the fine motor skills it gives young children. She has seen very bright children with great ideas have difficulty getting them down on paper because they were never taught proper letter formation. Once they learn, the fluidity of cursive motion ensures that ideas come more fluidly. Interestingly, she also says that when children learn to write properly, they develop better posture for keyboarding, which will help them avoid syndromes like carpal tunnel in the future. Finally, children enjoy connecting letters as an art form, as a way to express themselves.
Surely that's how it was back in the day when we all eagerly awaited the privilege of learning handwriting. To me it's always been an art form, and a joyful one at that. So even if for many it ceases to be the primary mode of written communication, let it always be one of our most beautiful arts. So bring on National Handwriting Day! Pick up a pen, sweep it across the page and feel the utter delight of creating art out of letters.

letters in what used to be called penmanship?
Well, it turns out plenty of people, and some who do it rarely wish they did it more. Like one family member who says that sometimes he needs to take hand notes in meetings but twenty-four hours later can't read his own writing. Or the physician who always had the typical dreadful doctor's handwriting but says these days it's far worse: never mind the pharmacist; now even he can't read his own prescriptions! Or the students who are at a complete loss to write out a one sentence honor code on a standardized test. Then there are the students laboriously writing answers by hand in workbooks, itching to get back to their devices, and the poor teachers trying to decipher what they've written.
I could go on, but I think everybody knows the drill by now. Clearly things are changing; we all know we are in the midst of a technological upheaval not seen since the advent of the printing press. But talk of the complete demise of handwriting may be a bit premature, not to mention shortsighted. So, a few observations:
It might be well to think about handwriting not only from the perspective of end result, but of the process itself. Yes, a case might be made that the elegant handwritten thank you note is well on its way to extinction, and that eventually students will simply be typing away taking notes in front of teachers who never knew any other way and are not driven to distraction by the constant clack-clacking. But it's not only about those end points. Among other things, there is on-going research into how learning to connect letters at a young age actually helps kids form new neural pathways in the brain, activating areas that using a keyboard doesn't. Writing in cursive helps train the brain to integrate information; practicing the connections it requires may actually increase language facility. Certainly, it helps develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. And yes, I realize the brains of the young are wired differently and that they, the digital natives, are way ahead of us digital immigrants. But still, before all the evidence is in, do we really want to risk all that brain development that we used to foster in the schools?
And it's not just about the very young. There has been at least one study done of college students wherein one group took lecture notes on their laptops and the other by hand. When they were tested on the material afterward without having the opportunity to study their notes, it was found that the students who took hand notes did far better. Apparently, typing allows you simply to transcribe fairly mindlessly everything that's said, almost like a court reporter; whereas taking notes by hand requires some degree of synthesis and summary, which facilitates memory.
As a writer I feel compelled to weigh in on all this vis-à-vis the creative process. Yes, most writers today, particularly the young ones, probably compose on the keyboard. But not all. There are those, young and pre-digital, who prefer doing at least a first draft by hand. They find that the movement of the hand, the sweep of the pen, allows accessing the creative right brain in a way that the keyboard does not. The keyboard is perhaps a step detached from the intuitive brain.
For my Baby Boomer self, suffice it to say that I love writing by hand. I have, however, lately learned to type some of my essays. I don't love the process, but I can appreciate the efficiency of it. When it comes to composing poetry though, when it comes to creating my stories, only a fountain pen will do. I work intuitively, and the pen, ink and hand are as much a part of the process as my brain. In fact if I'm really in flow, they will bypass my logical left brain altogether!
There is another advantage to writing by hand. Our handwriting has life to it. Years after we've written something, the words on the page not only reveal their obvious meaning but can provide a treasure trove of revelations about our thoughts. A case in point is my new book Lily of the Valley — An American Jewish Journey, scheduled for release in March. Lily was originally written as a poem to be performed at a banquet for Chabad of the Valley in Encino, California. When I decided to turn it into a book more than a decade later, I went back to my original notebooks. And there I found not only stanzas that had been cut in the interest of time, not only arrows and cross-outs that might serve as a roadmap to how I arrived at the finished version. I also found embedded in the lettering itself a record of my thoughts. Why did I put this here? What was Lily trying to tell me there? What was the character feeling in this passage? I found a wealth of information that would have been lost to me had I had only a typewritten version saved.
Back in the day, learning cursive in about third grade was a much-anticipated rite of passage. It was one of our first forays into the adult world. It was one of the ways we sought to establish our identity. Fewer and fewer students have that experience today. Cursive writing is not part of the Common Core curriculum. As one LA area teacher put it, there is very little time for teaching anything outside of Common Core. But if a teacher really wants to, he or she is welcome to try to fit it in. We can all figure out what that means.
My grandchildren attend Jewish day schools, however, and imagine my delight when I found out that they are being taught handwriting! I have two third graders this year in two different schools, and they are actually learning to connect their letters. Both blissfully unaware of any controversy surrounding this new skill set, they are delighted to have reached this milestone.
Perhaps the most interesting analysis I've heard of this whole conundrum comes from a very astute middle schooler I know. She learned cursive in the third grade and says that she used it for about two years but then reverted to printing, which she actually finds faster. Her teacher requires that formal essays be typed, but for other work doesn't care if the letters are connected or not. Gone are the days when "Penmanship" took up a place on the report card. However, this young lady did say to me, completely unprompted, that she likes to write the first draft of her essays by hand. It's easier, she says, to come up with ideas that way. She also has developed a distinctive cursive signature, and she informed me that she and her friends like to dot their "i's" with hearts. Some things, I am happy to report, never change.
And for those who would prefer to buck the current trend, there is help and hope. DeAnn Singh, master calligrapher and founder of Designing Letters in Los Angeles, has a steady stream of handwriting students. Many are adults who come for refresher courses. They have seen their handwriting deteriorate over the years because they spend so much time on keyboards. Yet there are times when they do need to hand write, and they want their work to look presentable and be readable. Still other students love and collect fine fountain pens and want their writing to reflect the respect they have for the art of handwriting. She also teaches children who are not being taught cursive in school and whose parents feel that learning handwriting is important. More than just wanting their children to have legible writing, many parents feel that people still make judgements based on a person's handwriting, and that those with fine writing will always seem more sophisticated and perhaps a bit smarter.
Cindy Abrams, a Handwriting Initiative specialist with a background in occupational therapy, adds a further perspective. She teaches handwriting at various grade levels in the Jewish day schools in Los Angeles. She speaks of handwriting as a way of firing circuits in the brain, and of the fine motor skills it gives young children. She has seen very bright children with great ideas have difficulty getting them down on paper because they were never taught proper letter formation. Once they learn, the fluidity of cursive motion ensures that ideas come more fluidly. Interestingly, she also says that when children learn to write properly, they develop better posture for keyboarding, which will help them avoid syndromes like carpal tunnel in the future. Finally, children enjoy connecting letters as an art form, as a way to express themselves.
Surely that's how it was back in the day when we all eagerly awaited the privilege of learning handwriting. To me it's always been an art form, and a joyful one at that. So even if for many it ceases to be the primary mode of written communication, let it always be one of our most beautiful arts. So bring on National Handwriting Day! Pick up a pen, sweep it across the page and feel the utter delight of creating art out of letters.

People often ask me if I have a favorite poet, and I usually say that I have favorite poems rather than one favorite poet. But if I had to choose, then I'd say that besides Shakespeare, who is in a class by himself, it would be Emily Dickinson.

As a sixth grader I remember learning the poem "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" and enjoying the picture it painted so much. Who can forget the phrase "a whiplash/Unbraiding in the sun", or the uncertainty of that "tighter breathing" at the end?

As a college student I still loved the imagery and I appreciated the unique slant rhyme and her subtle adherence to meter. I found her work haunting and unforgettable. Sometimes, as in "My Life Closed Twice Before it's Close", I thought her a little too obsessed with death. But that was before I really knew her.

Decades later I came to understand that she was a mystic, and her poems reflect her understanding of a world most of us cannot see. Rather than obsessing about death, she is telling us that this life is not all there is. Her work is deeply spiritual and very uplifting.

She is one of my favorite poets to teach, not least because of the charm and brevity of her meaningful lines. My favorite Dickinson poem is probably "To Make A Prairie". A child can appreciate it for the picture of that clover and bee. But an adult can understand that the poem is about the extraordinary power of the imagination. The conciseness of such a powerful poem only serves to emphasize how much can be accomplished with so little – just a clover and a bee – or if need be, just the power of the mind.

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she lived all her life. When she died in 1886, she left some 1,800 poems, most of them unpublished in her lifetime. What an extraordinary legacy she left to the world! No matter how many times I dip into her collections, there is always another poem that I've never seen before. She is a constant source of inspiration and delight.

Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson!

Here's my favorite of her poems:

To Make a Prairie
by Emily Dickinson

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.

As a sixth grader I remember learning the poem "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" and enjoying the picture it painted so much. Who can forget the phrase "a whiplash/Unbraiding in the sun", or the uncertainty of that "tighter breathing" at the end?

As a college student I still loved the imagery and I appreciated the unique slant rhyme and her subtle adherence to meter. I found her work haunting and unforgettable. Sometimes, as in "My Life Closed Twice Before it's Close", I thought her a little too obsessed with death. But that was before I really knew her.

Decades later I came to understand that she was a mystic, and her poems reflect her understanding of a world most of us cannot see. Rather than obsessing about death, she is telling us that this life is not all there is. Her work is deeply spiritual and very uplifting.

She is one of my favorite poets to teach, not least because of the charm and brevity of her meaningful lines. My favorite Dickinson poem is probably "To Make A Prairie". A child can appreciate it for the picture of that clover and bee. But an adult can understand that the poem is about the extraordinary power of the imagination. The conciseness of such a powerful poem only serves to emphasize how much can be accomplished with so little – just a clover and a bee – or if need be, just the power of the mind.

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she lived all her life. When she died in 1886, she left some 1,800 poems, most of them unpublished in her lifetime. What an extraordinary legacy she left to the world! No matter how many times I dip into her collections, there is always another poem that I've never seen before. She is a constant source of inspiration and delight.

Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson!

Here's my favorite of her poems:

To Make a Prairie
by Emily Dickinson

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.

May is Get Caught Reading Month 2015, so I thought I'd share a bit of my current reading list. I just finished a best- selling book called: the life-changing magic of tidying up – The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, by Marie Kondo (translated from the Japanese.)

Self-improvement books, though often edifying, are sometimes dense to get through. So it's a special pleasure to find a book like this. It's a delightful, breezy read, but at the same time has a lot of wisdom and great ideas. I'm pretty organized and pared down, but the book made me want to grab a roll of black garbage bags and start going through the house! The book has sections with titles like: "Tidy a little a day and you'll be tidying forever", "Sort by category, not by location", " Arranging clothes: the secret to energizing you closet" and "Don't underestimate the 'noise' of written information". It's a little book that's a great read!
Next on my list is: The Blue Zones Solution – Eating and Living Like the World's Healthiest People, by Dan Buettner. This is a follow up to Buettner's best-selling 2009 book, The Blue Zones. In that first book the author and his team identified five places in the world where a disproportionate number of people lived active, healthy lives into their 90's and even over 100 years old. This included places like Ikaria, Greece and a region of Sardinia, Italy. All well and good, you might think. If you spent your life chasing mountain goats in Sardinia, you might well still be doing it in your 90's. But what about if a good portion of your time is spent sitting on the 405 Freeway? That's where, to me, things got really interesting – because one of his Blue Zones is Loma Linda, California. Yes, that Loma Linda, one of the smog capitals of Southern California!
So now in this new book the author and his team have harnessed the secrets of what he calls "longevity hot spots" around the world to create a viable plan for Americans to live longer, healthier lives. I've always been into nutrition and health and welcome new insights, so I'm really looking forward to reading this book!

Self-improvement books, though often edifying, are sometimes dense to get through. So it's a special pleasure to find a book like this. It's a delightful, breezy read, but at the same time has a lot of wisdom and great ideas. I'm pretty organized and pared down, but the book made me want to grab a roll of black garbage bags and start going through the house! The book has sections with titles like: "Tidy a little a day and you'll be tidying forever", "Sort by category, not by location", " Arranging clothes: the secret to energizing you closet" and "Don't underestimate the 'noise' of written information". It's a little book that's a great read!
Next on my list is: The Blue Zones Solution – Eating and Living Like the World's Healthiest People, by Dan Buettner. This is a follow up to Buettner's best-selling 2009 book, The Blue Zones. In that first book the author and his team identified five places in the world where a disproportionate number of people lived active, healthy lives into their 90's and even over 100 years old. This included places like Ikaria, Greece and a region of Sardinia, Italy. All well and good, you might think. If you spent your life chasing mountain goats in Sardinia, you might well still be doing it in your 90's. But what about if a good portion of your time is spent sitting on the 405 Freeway? That's where, to me, things got really interesting – because one of his Blue Zones is Loma Linda, California. Yes, that Loma Linda, one of the smog capitals of Southern California!
So now in this new book the author and his team have harnessed the secrets of what he calls "longevity hot spots" around the world to create a viable plan for Americans to live longer, healthier lives. I've always been into nutrition and health and welcome new insights, so I'm really looking forward to reading this book!

I have been known to carry a thermos of my green drink just about everywhere. I wrote this poem after yet another grandchild asked to taste it and then ran to spit it out.

The drink is called Bieler’s Soup, after Dr. Henry Bieler, who developed it. It consists of steamed and blended zucchini, green beans and parsley. Nothing else. I love it and drink it every single day. A few friends share my affinity for this delicious, healthful drink. But everyone else does a Baby Sarah and wrinkles up their nose.
What Baby Sarah Knows
Even baby Sarah knows,
Eating jars of glop.
She wrinkles up her little nose
And makes my Mommy stop.
Even baby Sarah knows
That green stuff isn’t good.
She bangs the highchair with her toes
Until she’s understood.
She won’t eat green beans, spinach, peas;
She crinkles up her lips,
But eats her applesauce with ease
And lick her fingertips.
So Sarah shakes her little head
‘Cuz greenish goo is yucky,
And Mommy gives her pears instead –
Boy, aren’t babies lucky!
If I won’t eat that veggie stuff
I don’t get my dessert.
My Mommy makes me eat enough
To make my tummy hurt!
But Nana drinks this big green drink;
She says it’s good for you.
She gulps it down without a blink –
It smells like lizard stew!
“It’s blended veggies,” says my Nana.
“One day you’ll like it too.”
Oh, no! I hope I never wanna
Drink that grownup goo!

The drink is called Bieler’s Soup, after Dr. Henry Bieler, who developed it. It consists of steamed and blended zucchini, green beans and parsley. Nothing else. I love it and drink it every single day. A few friends share my affinity for this delicious, healthful drink. But everyone else does a Baby Sarah and wrinkles up their nose.
What Baby Sarah Knows
Even baby Sarah knows,
Eating jars of glop.
She wrinkles up her little nose
And makes my Mommy stop.
Even baby Sarah knows
That green stuff isn’t good.
She bangs the highchair with her toes
Until she’s understood.
She won’t eat green beans, spinach, peas;
She crinkles up her lips,
But eats her applesauce with ease
And lick her fingertips.
So Sarah shakes her little head
‘Cuz greenish goo is yucky,
And Mommy gives her pears instead –
Boy, aren’t babies lucky!
If I won’t eat that veggie stuff
I don’t get my dessert.
My Mommy makes me eat enough
To make my tummy hurt!
But Nana drinks this big green drink;
She says it’s good for you.
She gulps it down without a blink –
It smells like lizard stew!
“It’s blended veggies,” says my Nana.
“One day you’ll like it too.”
Oh, no! I hope I never wanna
Drink that grownup goo!