Reclaiming Your Voice
As some of you may have noticed, I’m on a much-needed sabbatical from my main day job and all this freedom has given me the mental space to think. As is my wont, thinking usually leads to writing and in this particular instance that, too, made me think. When I was in university, I used…
Chronic Resilience Essay Contest
Danea Horn’s new book Chronic Resilience: 10 Sanity-Saving Strategies for Women Coping with the Stress of Illness is about a month away from hitting the bookstores and to celebrate, she is holding an essay contest. Who inspires your chronic resilience? Who helps you get through the day? Tell Danea about them in a 1000 word…
Book Review: Rather Outspoken
The news matters. This is the central tenet that runs throughout Dan Rather’s Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News. Woven through stories of 60 years working in the news, Rather has written a passionate argument for keeping the news independent and unbiased. And then he tells you why this is an important topic, but…
50, Sarah and Miss Piggy
For the last 30 years, I’ve battled against the prevailing North American belief that Copenhagen is the capital of Holland and that coming from Denmark makes me Dutch. However, thanks to Marianna, I will today claim some kinship with that other small Northern European nation. Because today is what the Dutch would call my Sarah…
Painless Meme for Rheum mates
Kelly over at RA Warrior came up with a meme about what defines us. Have you done it yet? Here are my answers: What is one thing that defines who you are, regardless of RA? My faith that change is possible. What’s one food you know they must have in heaven? Ris a la mande….
Book Review: The Newsflesh Trilogy
I don’t like zombies. In terms of the traditional trifecta of transformative supernaturals, give me vampires or werewolves any day for an interesting story with plenty of potential for goosebumps. Zombies, on the other hand, aren’t particularly scary. Primarily just gross. I mean, how truly frightening can it be to have somebody shambling after you,…
The Arthritis Society Forum
The Arthritis Society is hosting a forum next week about osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Edward Keystone is the keynote speaker and he is a fantastic, entertaining and inspiring speaker. I heard him speak about a year and a half ago and it made a tremendous impact on me. You can see the webcast of…
The Weird Sisters
Sisters are complicated. Sisters are easy. Sisters shape who we are, reflect and contrast, sustain and annoy. Sisters are essential and elemental. Rose, Bean and Cordy are three such sisters. As daughters of a Shakespeare scholar, they are named after characters in his plays: Rosalind, Bianca and Cordelia, but not surprisingly, their names became shortened,…
A Whispered Thank You
I’m a lucky woman. Thanks to you, my post Sensitive to the D-Wordwon second place in the Best Blog Post category of the 2011 Canadian Blog Awards. Because of you, more people now know about disability discrimination. Thank you. And why the whispering? This is how determined your body can be to make you sit…
The Knife’s Edge
Monday morning, I woke up with a pain in my right big toe. Well, not exactly in the toe itself, but just below the bottom joint. I wiggled it, inspected it closely and then went about my day. It continued to hurt, just at that spot below the bottom joint and it made me nervous….
A Free Spirit with JA: An Interview with Gabi Rojas. And Vitamin D
We’re still celebrating Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month on MyRACentral and I had the opportunity to speak to Gabi Rojas, a dancer: “Gabi Rojas grew up in the circus, traveling through cities in the US, making friends wherever she went. When her mother changed jobs from being a trapeze artist to a dance instructor in Albuquerque,…
Hungry
I’m almost 2/3 of the way through Abigail Adams and very much looking forward to the book club discussion later this month. It’s a fascinating book – easy to read, I’m learning a lot and it’s making me think about a whole host of issues. Despite all that, I’ve been getting twitchy and I finally…