Welcome to the X.

Recently, I learned that I have a serious caffeine addiction. It’s not that I drink a huge amount of coffee, and actually, I can’t touch it after 2 p.m. without it impacting my sleep. Due to the requirements of a medical test, I was unable…

I am blessed with three healthy granddaughters. Unfortunately, one of them, the youngest, is in Chicago, and FaceTime has to suffice until we are together for vacations and holidays. She is an exuberant handful of energy and is completely taken with the movie Frozen. She…

Sometimes I get stuck when I’m trying to develop an idea to write about or a problem I’m trying to solve. As a brain jogger, I put keywords on a page, hoping to pull out ideas from the words. It’s kind of like a fill-in-the-blank…

Now that I’ve reached this stage of life, I see the ongoing war with my tendencies. If that’s confusing, allow me to clarify.  Our tendencies are our default patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings that seem to follow us throughout our lives. On one side…

Everyone has fears. They range from Ablutophobia (fear of bathing) to Zuigerphobia (fear of vacuum cleaners) and everything in between.  For some, it’s flying and for others, it’s spiders. Whateve the case, we all fall prey to a fear or two that sends chills up…

I’ve been enjoying a lovely week at the beach with my family. My three granddaughters are exuberant and active, which has meant lots of pool time with them. As the week winds down, I find myself holding onto the hope and expectation that we’ll all…

One of my favorite movies is Breaking Away. It was released in 1979 and features a very young Dennis Quaid, Dennis Christopher, Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earle Haley. The story follows a group of high school kids from Bloomington, Illinois, trying to figure out their…

I love getting massages and typically choose deep tissue to alleviate the knots in my upper back and shoulders. My wife and I recently marked our 48th anniversary with a day at the spa, and of course, I booked a deep-tissue massage. As the therapist…