You see,  in all my other executive positions, Director of Public Relations, Corporate Officer,  Director of Training, not one of these jobs or titles comes close to what I do now.  Sure, I used to be the boss.  I had a job to get done and I learned how to manage teams of Information Technology experts spread across the country, flying from city to city, not seeing my family for months at a time.

I drive to this job every weekday morning.  I sit at one small desk in one small school.   I am the school secretary.

And in my job, at my small desk, I have a chance to make a difference in the lives of children in my school – a school that works with an under served population of children.  A school that has brought me into the lives of these most wonderful, most challenged and most beautiful spirits I have ever spent time with.

Are some of them hard to handle?  Yes.  Are some of them angry? Yes. Are some of them sad, afraid, lonely?  Yes, yes, yes.

But each and everyone of them is special; each is a child with hopes, dreams and desires.  Each of them deserves my respect, my trust and, frankly, my love.

These small ambassadors of life have seen hardships and sorrows most of us will never know.  And they have come through.  They have found a way to patch themselves together, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to come to school against all odds, to come to learn. And I get the chance to reach out and tell them, every day, how special they are, how glad I am to see them, how very much they can do and be.

I have never been a teacher.  I have been taught.  Grade school, middle school, high school, college, and graduate school have exposed me to some wonderful teachers and some lousy teachers.  I wish Rita Pierson had been one of my teachers not because of her subject matter expertise or her curriculum.

Rita Pierson teaches so much more than lessons, words and numbers.  She teaches about the heart, the spirit and the opportunity that every adult in every school, from janitor and secretary to teacher and Principal, has every day to reach out and touch one child’s life.

Listen and learn and maybe take a chance and build some relationships, too.

Rita Pierson: Every kid needs a champion | Video on TED.com.

Please, if you love kids, if you see the cruelty that bullying can bring, if you want to help ease the pain, share this and share the idea of reaching back for each and every child and helping them to know just how very beautiful they are in all of their differences.

it is those very differences that make each and every child valuable, an enriching experience, an opportunity for the future.

If you are a parent, an educator, an aunt, an uncle, a human being….please…listen and learn and try to figure out how you can help change the dynamic that is growing in our schools.

Help stop bullying.  Help save lives and dreams.

Shane Koyczan: “To This Day” … for the bullied and beautiful | Video on TED.com.

For all of you who think slaughter is not happening or is “more humane” – this is an article you should read and a blog you should subscribe to.

There are no graphic pictures in this story, just a photo of a beautiful horse, running in his pasture, on a warm sunny day.  Here’s hoping his last few hours and his death were as painless as possible.

Shedrow Confessions.

I am working again.  And I am doing it again – jumping into the job with both feet, trying to fix everything, manage all the moving bits, save the children and do battle for truth, light and the American way.

Did I mention that I’m tired?

So, I was trying to think what kind of message could I write here that would be uplifting, that would convey the importance of showing up, of being in the harness, of “….getting it done” while simultaneously saying…happy holidays, merry christmas, happy Chanukah, merry kwanzah…get a life.

And I was stuck.  Nothing, nada, no brilliant phrases, no unquenchable urge to write, to tell this story.  Then I read this article.  And I got it.  And I hope that this holiday present from Linds Redding fits you like it fit me.

I have to work, yes.  But I have to find and keep the boundaries that let me live, too.  Thank you Linds!  And happy holidays to you wherever you are now.

A Short Lesson in Perspective – The San Francisco Egotist.

This is an unbelievable list of tips that really do make life easier, get use and re-use out of what could be considered junk and really, really work!

99 Life Hacks to make your life easier! « Pepperbox Couture.

ps – don’t try to print it.  It’s 73 pages long.  Just pass it along!!

and Happy Holidays to everyone.

Rescue a horse without leaving your office or couch.  Buy another calendar this year and help save hundreds of horses from slaughter.

Last year, horse lovers around the world raised $40,000 just by buying calendars.  Let’s do it again, this year.  Let’s save more horses and make a difference in the lives of these wonderful, spiritual animals.

What could be easier?  I asked that question last year…and I’m asking it again this year.

For $19.95, you will get a beautiful calendar and gift and a horse may just get a second chance at life.

Buy one special calendar and you might be able to help save one of the thousands of healthy, lovely and loving American horses that are slaughtered every year.

Offered by Hoofprints.com, the calendar is the result of a group of horse lovers watching horses going to an auction house and deciding to make a difference.   They created a calendar featuring some of the horses they met.

Printed on heavy stock, the photography is exceptional and even more so because of the conditions under which the horses are being held and the pictures are taken.

As with last year’s calendar, each month features another beautiful horse, photographed by well-known professional photographer Sarah K. Andrew.  Every month you meet another horse whose life path should have taken it to fields of clover and sunshine on its back. The horses, thoroughbreds, Appaloosa’s, paints, chestnuts and Belgian, colts, mares, geldings and stallions, are magnificent, proud, standing tall.

Here’s the good bit.  The profits — all of them — are donated to a dedicated fund with One Horse At a Time, Inc.  Money from the sale of these calendars goes to rescue horses — period.

The calendars are available at Hoofprints and only cost  $19.95.  And they make great gifts for anyone who loves horses or just loves animals.

For each of these horses and countless others, the end of their lives is not going to be spent in a warm, sunny field in a forever home.  It will end with a trip to feedlots like Camelot in the middle of New Jersey and a swift trip to Canada or Mexico where horses go to die.  Many of the horses know they are no longer home but they don’t understand what is happening.

The horse lovers who created this calendar understand and are not standing around, watching. They act.

Sarah K. Andrew makes time to photograph every horse sold to the feedlot. Volunteers evaluate the horses the best they can and a large network of horse people distribute photos and descriptions of the horses, from Facebook to feed stores.They work with the owner of the auction to resell the horses who didn’t get a high enough bid to leave the sale.

Since the effort began in November 2009, no horses have shipped to slaughter from the auction house, and well over 2,000 horses have been purchased and re-homed out of just one feedlot.

I can’t buy another horse.  But I can buy a calendar or two.  And so can you.

Please act.  Please help save these horses whose only mistake was being sold by someone who used to love them.

The effect of how they are loved, taught, held, or hurt can be found in the hallways of our schools, every day.

This essay is one of the best I have seen on the power for good or evil that all adults but especially parents hold when it comes to their children.All adults have the power to kill a small child’s life before it ever begins.  Killing doesn’t mean murdering the body; it means murdering the soul, the spirit and the mind of the child before the child ever has a chance to live and love in our world.

This post clearly states the case for all of us to make the effort to make our children’s lives safe and happy places for them to live, learn and love.  Please read it.  Please share it.  Please try to think about it before you choose (and it is a choice, folks) to snap at your child, to slap your child with words or your hand, to do damage to your child that lives inside of them, forever.

My Dad used to tell me this when I started dating.  ”Don’t listen to what they (boys) say; watch what they do.”  This same perspective is what your kids, our kids do every day.  They do NOT do what we say…they do what we do.

Please try to consider the fragility of these wonderful, bright shiny children who arrive so eager, so willing to learn and think about what you teach them.

Think What You Want.

I got some of it.  No, I got a lot of it.  But I just couldn’t get how I could face death and not be afraid.  Not my death but the deaths of my parents, the deaths of my brothers, Mike and Bob.

I mourned like everyone does.  Crying, missing them, wishing they hadn’t died, regretting the loss of time — time I should have spent with them when they were alive.  I beat myself up for lost opportunities to tell them how much they meant to me, how much I would miss them.  I’ve lived the last 35 years with regret.

I believed what Joseph Campbell wrote in one of his most widely known works, The Power of Myth.  ”All life is loss, loss, loss.”

The loss of my parents and brothers was devastating at an almost cellular level.  But here, this morning, in the cool aftermath of violent thunderstorms, I felt something else, some small pull to another view of loss.

In that instant, everything changed. I learned how time works.

It always seemed to move too fast for me.  This morning I discovered that time is neither fast nor slow.  It’s almost opaque.  The word “linear” no longer applies.  It is as though we are wandering through it.  Past, present and future are all there, in the same moment, even when we don’t recognize them.

When I try to analyze this  new relationship with time (having it, losing it, wasting it), I get anxious.  If I just let go, everything I ever thought I knew about time dissolves.

Each moment feels rich, full, amazing.  Listening to crickets chirp now as they always have and always will.  Watching geese gathering now as they always have and always will.  Seeing the meteors of Perseid, Leonid and all the others falling in the late night sky as they always have and always will.  Loving my family — no matter where they are – as I always have and always will.

It is as though this Universe in which we live and die is gently sharing this tiny but profound thought; the ones who have gone ahead are still here, living within the engine of the universe that keeps rolling before, during and after they left this place we call Earth.

It’s funny because for almost half of my life,  I could not hear the Universe at all, could not understand why people so dear to me had to die. The same Universe that just 2 months ago had to hit me in the forehead with a 2” x 4” now whispers to me and I can hear her.  She offers me comfort.  She lifts a corner of the veil of the infinite – the place we came from, the place we will go and lets me peek underneath.  And I soar into it.

Listening to the roar and the sigh of this place, seeing light and dark in their purest forms, leaving this body, being everywhere and nowhere, all at once, knowing, feeling, being  joy.  My very essence, my soul or spirit, if you will,  joins the stream of all others who were and will be.  My body is no longer along for the ride. Aches, pains, cares, shed like my skin as I rise into the infinite.

I went where Jill Bolte Taylor traveled when she had her stroke – part of everything and everything is part of me.  This is what I saw on my brother Bob’s face at the moment of his death.  Ten years old, grinning, blond hair being ruffled in the wind as he turned to wave good-bye to me then walked over the hill behind our barn in Pine Grove.

I knew when I came back to my body, this chair, this room, this morning…I knew that this is the secret of the universe.

I still know.  This is death; this is life ever after.

Now let’s talk about what I call the real villain in this battle of the bulge.

Follow the Money
This is America.  If you can make money off it, no matter what the cost to other people, other businesses and even other countries, we do.  Want some examples?

1. When there were no other loopholes to crawl through and the state’s attorney generals finally insisted that big tobacco companies pay up for all the damage they did with their products, didn’t we just export cigarettes to 3rd world countries?
2. Didn’t a very large consumer brand deliberately develop and implement a marketing strategy t sell its baby formula to 3rd world countries where the formula needed to re-hydrated with clean water and under sanitary conditions, neither of which existed?
3. Isn’t one of the multi-national agri-businesses being allowed to genetically modify basic food crops like corn and wheat and quite possibly adding a deadly bacteria into the mix?

The business of weight is no different.

The Road To The Fat Farm
Companies build brands — supposedly brands we can trust to bring us healthy products or at the very least, products that do no harm.  These same companies then create products with ingredients that are cheaper for them, almost always refined and, if you look carefully, almost always contain at least two types of sugar, one of which will be high fructose corn syrup.

Next, these companies develop strategic marketing plans designed to make all of us (and I do mean all of us) reach for their particular corn chip or soda or cereal.  And reach for them we do.

According to the CDC, one half of the US population consumes sugary drinks…every day.  People drink this dressed up sugar-water even though they know it is linked to Type II diabetes and to cancer.

And we snack…man do we snack.  In fact, it’s estimated that almost 100% of us snack.  And all that snacking is not helping us with our weight problems.   According to a 2011 CNN report, we snack more, now, than we ever did.  Americans are eating constantly.  The same  study showed that the size of the snacks we eat has grown by 12%, right along with our waist lines.

What Really Makes Me Mad
Right behind the companies that make products infused with sugar, refined flours and high fructose corn syrup are the companies hawking easy weight loss.  I don’t like brands that market junk food; I hate companies that market diet aids.

But we buy these products, too.   In 2010, revenues for companies selling weight loss products was $60.9 billion dollars.

And according to the FDA, these weight loss pills and potions don’t meet any of their promises.  Worse yet, the FDA says they often contain dangerous prescription drugs that can cause real health problems like stroke or heart attack.  Anybody old enough to remember Fen Phen?  It worked, if it didn’t kill you first.

How To Lose Weight
So, I’ll go back to my original premise, the one I posted about first, the one learned because my husband has Type II diabetes and we both ended up on his diet.

1. Stop eating all the time.  Did you now it only takes 100 extra calories a day to gain about a pound a month?  Or to put it more positively, as the American Diabetes Association ways, Did you know that it only takes 100 extra calories a day to gain a pound a month?
2. Stop eating snacks that contain high fructose corn syrup, refined flour and sugar.
3. Read labels!  There is sugar in everything and usually in 3 or 4 and sometimes 5 different names are used in the ingredient list including just plain sugar to corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, honey (yep, it’s good for you but it’s still sugar).  In fact, Harvard has a published list of all the variations on a theme of sugar so you know exactly what you are eating when the label says maltose or crystalline fructose.  Yep, that’s right, they’re both sugar.
4. Stop drinking soda!  If you can give one thing up, give this up.  But if you have to drink carbonated brown water, go for diet.  At least you won’t be pouring white sugar down your throat.
5. Cut down your portions.  It is not hard.  Just start measuring so you know what a cup really looks like.  You’ll be surprised.
6. Learn what foods are good for you and instead of having 3 cups of sugar-coated cereal, have oatmeal with a bit of almond butter or peanut butter.
7. Eat fresh and eat local – support your neighbors and get the freshest, best foods for you without supporting an Israeli or California grower who ships thousands of miles and uses some pretty fancy tricks to preserve produce so it can do so.
8. Start walking or riding a bike or dancing, skating, even jumping rope.  You may find out that you like it…and your joints and organs will thank you.

I know it’s hard to think about and even harder to do.  It was for me.  I wanted to lose weight the easy way.  But when my husband got a life-threatening illness, I decided it was time to take the plunge, change my eating habits, clean up what I cook and how and start enjoying the very healthy way of life that we both, now lead.

Give it a try.  You might find out that it costs less, feels better and, in the long run, improves your life immeasurably.

Look around.  Very young, teenage, mid-20′s and on up through the ranks…Americans have tipped the scales and more are overweight than not.

Here’s the bad news.  Being fat is just the beginning of this tale of woe.

Behind all those extra pounds are billions and billions of dollars being spent on diseases that are directly linked to carrying extra weight – diseases like Type 2 diabetes, hip, knee and ankle wear requiring replacements, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and yes, even cancer.

The numbers are there – how many obese, how many associated diseases, how much faster death is going to arrive at your door if your favorite foods are large portions — all fried, dipped in sugar or laden with high fructose corn syrup.  And still, people plow through refined foods like white bread, pasta, and french fries and wash them down with soda.

The numbers on how much obesity is costing this country are almost as staggering as the numbers of people who are overweight.  We spend more on obesity than we do on smoking.

In fact, it’s estimated that, if something doesn’t change,  in just 6 years, we will be spending just under $200 billion (that’s billion with a b) treating the results of overeating.  More than 1/3rd of the US health care budget is going to be eaten up by the preventable diseases resulting from obesity.

If it’s preventable, why are so many people in this country not…preventing it?

That is the big question.  And some of the answers are almost as disturbing as the  problem, itself.

I’m not a doctor.  Not a nurse or a health care professional of any kind.  I am old…er.  I have gained and lost the same 20 pounds for more than 40 years.  I blamed my lightly padded hips on my daughter for 40 of her 45 years of existence.  But I was lying to myself.  You see, I know what caused my overweight condition and, I’m willing to bet, most of the excess weight the rest of us are dragging around.

You aren’t going to like the cause.  I didn’t either.

I kept opening my mouth and inserting food – granted not french fries or hoagies or even donuts (although I dreamed about eating donuts) but I wasn’t eating healthy foods.  Bottom line?  I was, am and always will be the only person responsible for how fat or how thin I am.

This is not a revelation.  It is a fact.  Instead of opening my mouth and shoving food in it, any food, food I thought tasted good, food to fill an idle moment or a sad moment or a lonely moment….I decided to shut my mouth, stop thinking of food as solace and start thinking of it as fuel, energy, a  way to power my body, not soothe my brain.

Guess what?  It worked.  In 12 months, I lost 38 pounds.  And I really didn’t think I had 38 pounds to lose!  But I did and it was easier than I thought it could be.  And my hips don’t ache anymore.  My food bill has gone down because I’m not buying $5 bags of corn chips or cases of sugar water…I mean soda.  And I like walking, riding my horse, gardening  and doing yoga without any pain.

Guess what else I learned?  There are no magic pills that let you eat all you want of everything you want and “…still lose weight.”

Anyone else wake up and realize your weight is directly tied to your hand which is directly tied to your mouth?  Share your story.

And in my next post, I’ll share what really makes me mad about obesity!  Warning: You may not like what I have to say.