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The Doctors Doctor
September 19, 2009 at 1:53 pm 10 comments
It wasn't even Sunday and I got that feeling in my stomach that happens when you know you are supposed to go up during the altar call. The very same butterflies that urge you to speak out on something important. The unrest that does not settle until you take action. I'm sure you've felt the same feeling in one situation or another. But this was the middle of the week. No pastor preaching, nobody challenging my ideals just me driving my car down the road in peace and quiet! Maybe that was the trouble, I'm usually unable to think, let alone pray with my Thinglets poking each other and Pee Wee squealing along with them, my radio blaring to try to drowned out the noise.
I knew what it meant. We have a new neighbor in the valley whose house I pass each time I go to town. The family had moved into the single level home six months after the man of the house had suffered a major frontal lobe stroke that put him in a nursing home and made it unable for him to return to their multi level house only a few miles away.
Matt and I had stopped by one day and offered our assistance when we saw them moving in. Jane told us the whole story about her husbands stroke and how he was unable to return home to her and the kids until they moved into a house that was better suited to a wheelchair.
When we left I couldn't stop thinking about how I could serve them better. What could I do to help out?
Drop off a meal? Ugh! No offense to any kind soul who serves meals in love but I always cringe at the Christian cliche, "Just serve them a meal!" Although this common practice is how I was introduced to one of my favorite meals to date (so I had better not frown too obviously) it's just not my cup of soup.
I could babysit the kids but anyone who knows me IRL knows that I am not the gal for that job! While I love my kids and have an absolute blast with each and every one of them I'm not the little kid type. Please send me all your teenagers but not your babies! Only one of Jane's children would fit my category so I didn't think that would be my job either.
"How then Lord, how can I help?"
Have you ever asked a question and promptly found you regret the resulting answer?
I did get a clear answer. Not in the form of actual words but a vivid and real epiphany complete with the thought process behind it, none of which I came up with on my own.
For months the Lord has been preparing me to stop and present His harebrained plan of which I am supposed to happily facilitate. I've prayed many times since then, " let me know when it is time Lord," and yet even when he made it distinctly evident, I didn't want to go through with it.
Imagine an intelligent and mature man who had spent a lifetime pursuing a successful career as a doctor, a family practitioner. He has a beautiful wife many years younger than himself, loving and devoted to him, his three darling children and his time consuming job and passion. They live in a grand custom home on a private lake and lead a life of ease. The family entertains many friends and attends church every holiday. They are the ideal American family.
Now imagine you are that man and one night after you lay your head to rest you awake to the bright lights of the ER. The smells and sounds as familiar as your jobplace.
Wait… you can not turn your head, you can't sit up and reach over to turn off the monitor beeping in your ear. Your heart begins to race, your eyes dart from the lights on the ceiling to the IV in your hand. The blue coats rushing around are not your nurses, but you've seen them before while attending surgery at the local hospital. Why can't you speak? You want to ask "Why am I laying here?"
I thought about these things and I imagined myself in Dr. Smith's position. I feared the inability to move myself, to express myself, to learn. When I climbed into his shoes I was terrified and lonely.
It's been a year since his stroke but mobility has not returned, speech continues to allude him. People come to the new house to wish him speedy recovery but most of them don't know what to say, they talk to him like a child. He can't lift his hand to shake theirs, he can not assure them he is still as sharp as ever in thought. He can only sit alone with his thoughts hoping to either get well or die.
If I were in his shoes I can only imagine the struggle I would have pondering the apparent either/or.
Armed with compassion I would not have mustered on my own and the harebrained plan that made me blush each time I explained it to those who were praying, I drove up the driveway to the new house and parked reluctantly at the barn.
I was really hoping this was another practice run since I'd parked there once before (another time when the butterflies made me do it) only to find that Jane was not home. This time she slipped out the back door almost immediately and strode confidently toward my Suburban. A lump formed in my throat. I conjured up a front for my visit and began to converse about our kids, 4-H, the Mariners (not really) until finally the swirling, fluttering, shaky feeling could no longer be ignored.
"Jane, uh er, I uh…," I took a deep breath then spit it all out, "the real reason for my visit is to see if your husband would like if I was to read to him on a regular basis."
I didn't look for her reaction before I continued, "I have a book in mind that I have not read yet, it's a supernatural thriller that honestly sounds a little scary."
Then I took another breath and tried to blur the next sentence into an unrecognizable muddle, "It has a faith based component, so I believe it ends well."
To my surprise my lovely neighbor whom I barely know anything about latched onto the whole idea like I was sent by God to help ease her burden. Imagine that! 😉
Before blurting out the whole plan I had thoroughly convinced myself of the stupidity of reading to an intelligent man, like I was Mr Rogers. The Lord told me clearly to read to a scholarly doctor who despite his medical condition I was convinced could certainly read on his own.
After I had settled my fluttering friends, I confided in Jane as to how stupid I felt for even suggesting the idea. The only read aloud forums I would let myself imagine were juvenile gatherings; the library story hour, Saturday nights as a kid listing to my dad read "Little House on the Prairie" and visions of my own children nestled around reading "The Indian in the Cupboard." What in the world would a full grown man think of me READING to him. "I'm sure he can read on his own, maybe he would prefer to borrow my book!" I explained.
"Oh, no," Jane grew solemn "He would not be able to hold the book."
The stroke had been severe enough that even a year later the doctor is still unable to sit fully on his own or steady his hands for anything other than a squeeze or a meager wave. His speech is nearly non existent and if he stands at all it is only with the help of a strong adult. Most of the time she said he doesn't even lift his head to watch the TV. "He just listens," she assumed aloud.
At the mention of faith (a word I had used hoping to avoid the subject of Jesus all together) a whole new conversation emerged and I spent the next hour sharing a spiritual connection with Jane. I learned that she is a believer herself and concerned about her husbands salvation. Before the stroke, he had been successful and preoccupied, not the one to persue Christian gatherings but never in the way of her endeavor to educate the children on "religious" matters. She told me about how more and more people have been pursuing him and telling him that Christ wants to be a part of his life.
She told me, with an embarrased but mischievous glint in her eye that she had been reading her Bible to him and dragging him out to church every Sunday.
As she described it, they had recently had a discussion where she told him that he needed to give his burdens to the Lord and allow Christ into his life. Things that day had been really bad, he was weak and unhelpful when she tried to get him up, she had struggled to lift while he resisted and in the end he had fallen. She knew that her prayers could only go so far since the Lord will not make a person believe so she urged him to pray and ask God for assistance. The next day his strength was back and his face a little less ashen.
The Lord hears and the doctor is beginning to ask!
There was an urgency in Jane's mind in regard to her husband knowing the Lord's healing. We talked about the possibility of the Great Physician bringing total healing and she insisted it won't happen until Dr. Smith allows it.
I invited them to a bible study at our house and she said they would be sure to come.
Through obedience to the Lord, I have made a new friend, been given a new prayer, and am a participant in the healing process of the doctor in heart and health! I am confident this won't be the end of the story.
Click here to read what happened next.
Entry filed under: Faith First, My Goofy Life and Motherhood Uncensored. Tags: Bible study, christian faith, christianity, family, life, short story.
10 Comments Add your own
I love you! You are so sincere, so honest. You follow where you are led in spite of misgivings. So many of us convince ourselves that such leading is a "brain fart" or some such.
God bless you. Bless your new friendship & your time together. I'm sure you were a blessing from the Lord & an answer to prayer for Jane. 🙂
Wow – good for you for listening to the Spirit – it sounds as if God is and will use you in their lives!
sometimes god gives us missions we don't really understand in full. it is good that you obeyed! you have a kind heart and more people should think about humbling themselves to do small but important tasks for one another.
Great job, Jessie! Way to be open to helping this man, and may God bless your efforts.
How did I miss this post??? Anyway wow! What a great read this was. I made a post last week about praying & listening. I have had that butterfly feeling and God wanting me to stop 1hr away from home with my kids in the car to help this old man mow his lawn. Im embarrised to write I didnt. I pray Im giving another chance to hear his word to help again because now ~ Im ready~
[…] friend whom I met with in regard to God's harebrained plan about reading to her husband the doctor, was glad to see me and optimistic about our arrangement. Unfortunately […]
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The Little Trick to Make Any Moment Better: Zen Habits
There are lots of ways to relax when we are stressed: meditation, yoga, tea, massage, exercise, talking with a friend, taking a hot bath or shower, sex. And I highly recommend all these. But none of these actually relax you unless your mind approaches them with a relaxed attitude, and lets go of tightness. These things happen to trigger the release of tightness for most of us, but in truth, you can let go of tightness without any of these relaxing activities, no matter what you're doing.
Follow @checkmedaily
Solution 19: Get Rid of Stale Conversations
Eliminating stale conversations will take practice at first, but eventually it will be second nature to you. Perhaps you will even become a leader at setting the tone for refreshingly productive conversations.
Solution 18: Celebrate Every Good Moment
Feelings are the most powerful magnet for getting what you want, or more specifically, to get more of what you are feeling. When you celebrate each snippet of time that provoked good feelings, you'll bring about more 'feel good' situations. Thus the importance of practicing the ability to celebrate every good moment.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
A bad cold wouldn't be so annoying if it weren't for the advice of our friends.
Kin Hubbard
A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book.
Irish Proverb
A great many sick persons are allowed to drift into a critical condition when ill-from which many never rally, because they are not fed-not furnished with such nutritive material as their enfeebled powers can digest.
King Chambers
A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.
Tom Stoppard
A healthy body is the guest-chamber of the soul; a sick, its prison.
Francis Bacon
A sad soul can kill you quicker than a germ.
John Steinbeck
Adam and Eve ate the first vitamins, including the package.
E. R. Squibb
After these two, Dr. Diet and Dr. Quiet, Dr. Merriman is requisite to preserve health.
James Howell
An imaginary ailment is worse than a disease.
Yiddish Proverb
As a people, we have become obsessed with Health. There is something fundamentally, radically unhealthy about all this. We do not seem to be seeking more exuberance in living as much as staving off failure, putting off dying. We have lost all confidence in the human body.
Lewis Thomas
Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.
Bacteria keeps us from heaven and puts us there.
Martin H. Fischer
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Mark Twain
Confidence and hope do more good than physic.
Despise no new accident in your body, but ask opinion of it… There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic. A man's observation, what he finds good and of what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.
Francis Bacon
Disease is somatic; the suffering from it, psychic.
Martin H. Fischer
Disease is the misery of our belief, happiness is the health of our wisdom, so that man's happiness or misery depends on himself.
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
Diseases crucify the soul of man, attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, rivel them up like old apples, make them as so many Anatomies.
Robert Burton
Diseases of the soul are more dangerous and more numerous than those of the body.
Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are the more often successful.
Denis Diderot
Doctors don't know everything really. They understand matter, not spirit. And you and I live in the spirit.
William Saroyan
Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. They come to us now knowing this truth. We are at our best when they give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work.
Albert Schweitzer
Eat right, exercise regularly, die anyway.
Unknown Author
Every man's disease is his personal property.
Alonzo Clark
Every one is made of matter, and matter is continually going through a chemical change. This change is life, not wisdom, but life, like vegetable or mineral life. Every idea is matter, so of course it contains life in the name of something that can be changed. Motion, or change, is life. Ideas have life. A belief has life, or matter; for it can be changed. Now, all the aforesaid make up man; and all this can be changed.
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
Everyone should be his own physician. We ought to assist and not force nature. Eat with moderation what agrees with your constitution. Nothing is good for the body but what we can digest. What medicine can produce digestion? Exercise. What will recruit strength? Sleep. What will alleviate incurable ills? Patience.
Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.
Susan Sontag
First need in the reform of hospital management? That's easy! The death of all dietitians, and the resurrection of a French chef.
Martin H. Fischer
Fresh air impoverishes the doctor.
Danish Proverb
From the bitterness of disease man learns the sweetness of health.
Catalan Proverb
Gold that buys health can never be ill spent.
Thomas Dekker
Good health and good sense are two of life's greatest blessings.
Publilius Syrus
Good health is not something we can buy. However, it can be an extremely valuable savings account.
Anne Wilson Schaef
Half the modern drugs could well be thrown out the window, except that the birds might eat them.
Martin H. Fischer
Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
Albert Schweitzer
Happiness lies, first of all, in health.
George William Curtis
He who can believe himself well, will be well.
He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything.
Arabic Proverb
He who takes medicine and neglects to diet wastes the skill of his doctors.
Chinese Proverb
Healing comes only from that which leads the patient beyond himself and beyond his entanglements with ego…
Carl Jung
Healing comes when the individual remembers his or her identity-the purpose chosen in the world of ancestral wisdom-and reconnects with that world of Spirit.
Malidoma Patrice Somé
Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.
Health and cheerfulness naturally beget each other.
Joseph Addison
Health and disease don't just happen to us. They are active processes issuing from inner harmony or disharmony, profoundly affected by our states of consciousness, our ability or inability to flow with experience. This recognition carries with it implicit responsibility and opportunity.
Marilyn Ferguson
Health is a large word. It embraces not the body only, but the mind and spirit as well;… and not today's pain or pleasure alone, but the whole being and outlook of a man.
James H. West
Health is a relationship between you and your body.
Terri Guillemets
Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit. When one is free from physical disabilities and mental distractions, the gates of the soul open.
B. K. S. Iyengar
Health is like munny, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.
Josh Billings
Health is merely the slowest way someone can die.
Unknown Author
Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind.
Mary Baker Eddy
Health is not so much a state, but a force: the power to resist and overcome threats to one's well-being.
Gregory P. Fields
Health is not valued until sickness comes.
Thomas Fuller
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.
Lao Tzu
Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say.
W. H. Auden
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
Redd Foxx
Health of body and mind is a great blessing, if we can bear it.
John Henry Cardinal Newman
Healthy people are invalids who don't know it.
Jules Romains
Healthy people are those who live in healthy homes on a healthy diet; in an environment equally fit for birth, growth work, healing, and dying… Healthy people need no bureaucratic interference to mate, give birth, share the human condition and die.
Ivan Illich
Healthy people live with their world.
Anne Wilson Schaef
How do I stay so healthy and boyishly handsome? It's simple. I drink the blood of young runaways.
William Shatner
How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man's self to himself!
Charles Lamb
Human misery universally arises from some error that man admits as true. We confound our fears with the idea feared, and place the evil in the thing seen or believed. Here is a great error, for we never see what we are afraid of.
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
I am at the moment deaf in the ears, hoarse in the throat, red in the nose, green in the gills, damp in the eyes, twitchy in the joints and fractious in temper from a most intolerable and oppressive cold.
Charles Dickens
I am convinced that unconditional love is the most powerful known stimulant of the immune system. If I told patients to raise their blood levels of immune globulins or killer T cells, no one would know how. But if I can teach them to love themselves and others fully, the same changes happen automatically. The truth is: love heals.
Bernie Siegel
I am pretty sure that, if you will be quite honest, you will admit that a good rousing sneeze, one that tears open your collar and throws your hair into your eyes, is really one of life's sensational pleasures.
Robert Benchley
I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.
Unknown Author
I have come to understand that some of the deepest and most effective healing is not found at a doctor's office or a hospital, but rather from inside ourselves. Our bodies are designed for self-healing, and we are capable of both boosting and blocking that ability.
Daju Suzanne Friedman
I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.
Samuel Butler
I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.
John Mortimer
I suspect that we are all recipients of cosmic love notes. Messages, omens, voices, cries, revelations, and appeals are homogenized into each day's events. If only we knew how to listen, to read the signs.
Sam Keen
I think you might dispense with half your doctors if you would only consult Dr. Sun more.
Henry Ward Beecher
I'd love to live to 120 years old and be really healthy.
Kelly Slater
If by gaining knowledge we destroy our health, we labour for a thing that will be useless in our hands.
John Locke
If I had my way I'd make health catching instead of disease.
Robert Ingersoll
If I'd known I was going to live so long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
Leon Eldred
If man thinks about his physical or moral state he usually discovers that he is ill.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If ones bowels move, one is happy; and if they don't move, one is unhappy. That is all there is to it.
Lin Yutang
If the pain wanders, do not waste your time with doctors.
Mignon McLaughlin
If you do everything you should do, and do not do anything you should not do, you will, according to the best available statistics, live exactly eighteen hours longer than you would otherwise.
Logan Clendening
If you have health, you probably will be happy, and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need, even if it is not all you want.
Elbert Hubbard
If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer; it just seems longer.
Clement Freud
If you start to think about your physical or moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you wish to keep as well as possible, the less you think about your health the better.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Illness is the most heeded of doctors: to goodness and wisdom we only make promises; pain we obey.
Marcel Proust
Illness is the result of imbalance. Imbalance is a result of forgetting who you are. Forgetting who you are creates thoughts and actions that lead to an unhealthy lifestyle and eventually to illness… Illness can thus be understood as a lesson you have given yourself to help you remember who you are.
Barbara Brennan
Illness tells us what we are.
Italian Proverb
In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.
In minds crammed with thoughts, organs clogged with toxins, and bodies stiffened with neglect, there is just no space for anything else.
Alison Rose Levy
In order to change we must be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Unknown Author
In the face of such overwhelming statistical possibilities hypochondria has always seems to me to be the only rational position to take on life.
John Diamond
It is a lot harder to keep people well than it is to just get them over a sickness.
DeForest Clinton Jarvis
It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.
Mahatma Gandhi
It is part of the cure to want to be cured.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It may seem strange to those in health that our beliefs affect us. The fact is, there is nothing of us but belief. It is the whole capital and stock in trade of man. It is all that can be changed, and embraces everything man has made or ever will make.
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
It seems as if pain were the prayer of the nerve for healthy blood.
Moritz Heinrich Romberg
It takes more than just a good looking body. You've got to have the heart and soul to go with it.
It's bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician.
Meryl Streep
It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like.
Jackie Mason
Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.
Just because you're not sick doesn't mean you're healthy.
Unknown Author
Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way; she better understands her own Affairs than we.
Michel de Montaigne
Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.
Doug Larson
Life is like a tree and its root is consciousness. Therefore, once we tend the root, the tree as a whole will be healthy.
Deepak Chopra
Life is not merely to be alive, but to be well.
Marcus Valerius Martial
Like everybody else, when I don't know what else to do, I seem to go in for catching colds.
George Jean Nathan
Love is not as important as good health. You cannot be in love if you're not healthy. You can't appreciate it.
Bryan Cranston
Man is made of opinions,-of truth and error; and his life is a warfare like all other lives before him… Man goes on developing error upon error till he is buried in his own belief… It is the office of wisdom to explain the phenomena in man called disease, to show how it is made, and how it can be unmade. This is as much a science as it is to know how to decompose a piece of metal.
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
May you live as long as you are fit to live, but no longer! or, may you rather die before you cease to be fit to live than after!
Philip Dormer Stanhope
Medicine sometimes snatches away health, sometimes gives it.
Men make use of their illnesses at least as much as they are made use of by them.
Aldous Huxley
Men that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabric hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once.
Thomas Browne
Mens sana in corpore sano. (Your prayer must be for a sound mind in a sound body.
Most of the time we think we're sick, it's all in the mind.
Thomas Wolfe
Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Kahlil Gibran
My fat scares me – it's a ticking time bomb.
Carrie Latet
My own prescription for health is less paperwork and more running barefoot through the grass.
Terri Guillemets
Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.
Nearly all men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses.
Jean Baptiste Molière
Nothing is more fatal to Health, than an over Care of it.
Benjamin Franklin
Now, I stand alone on this rock, fighting the errors of this world, and establish the science of life by my works. What is my mode of warfare? With the axe of truth I strike at the root of every tree of error and hew it down, so that there shall not be one error in man showing itself in the form of disease.
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
One thing is certain: the time will come when the opinions of priests and doctors must give way to the science of life; for their opinions lead to death and misery, and the science of life is health and happiness.
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies.
Leo Tolstoy
Our Creator has given us five senses to help us survive threats from the external world, and a sixth sense, our healing system, to help us survive internal threats.
Bernie Siegel
Our illness is often our healing.
People who are always taking care of their health are like misers who are hoarding a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy.
Laurence Sterne
Personal healing on all levels-physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual-comes when we get in touch with our disowned energies… Through integrating all aspects of ourselves, we become whole.
Shakti Gawain
Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.
Lord Chesterfield
Physick, for the most part, is nothing else but the Substitute of Exercise or Temperance.
Joseph Addison
Poor health is not caused by something you don't have; it's caused by disturbing something that you already have. Healthy is not something that you need to get, it's something you have already if you don't disturb it.
Dean Ornish
Preserving the health by too strict a regimen is a wearisome malady.
Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that's bad for you!
Tommy Smothers
Sickness comes on horseback but departs on foot.
Dutch Proverb
Sickness is poor-spirited, and cannot serve anyone; it must husband its resources to live. But health or fullness answers its own ends, and has to spare, runs over, and inundates the neighborhoods and creeks of other men's necessities.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sickness is the vengeance of nature for the violation of her laws.
Charles Simmons
So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health.
A. J. Reb Materi
Sometimes a headache is all in your head. Relax.
Terri Guillemets
Sometimes I get the feeling the aspirin companies are sponsoring my headaches.
Terri Guillemets
Stretching oneself too thin is the disease of modern life – letting oneself get too thick, the other.
Terri Guillemets
The appearance of a disease is swift as an arrow; its disappearance slow, like a thread.
Chinese Proverb
The cause is within us. The cure is within us. When we know this our concept of disease is no longer that of something fixed upon the body cells which must be purged, cut or burned away. It is not something coming in from the outside which we cannot prevent. Rather it is a change from within, and we must find the reason why the body changes its perfect pattern to vibrate to discord rather than to harmony.
Rebecca Beard
The cure of the part should not be attempted without the cure of the whole.
The deviation of man from the state in which he was originally placed by nature seems to have proved to him a prolific source of disease.
Edward Jenner
The doctor of the future will give no medicines, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the causes and prevention of disease.
Thomas A. Edison
The existence of illness in the body may no doubt be called a shadow of the true illness which is held by man in his mind.
Hazrat Khan
The first wealth is health.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The great secret of medicine, known to doctors but still hidden from the public, is that most things get better by themselves.
Lewis Thomas
The greatest leverage for healing is found at the subtlest levels of function.
Rudolph Ballentine
The greatest wealth is health.
The hospitals and graveyards are filled with those who refused to acknowledge the virtues of physical morality.
Ron Spallone
The I in illness is isolation, and the crucial letters in wellness are we.
Unknown Author
The longer I live the less confidence I have in drugs and the greater is my confidence in the regulation and administration of diet and regimen.
John Redman Coxe
The marvelous pharmacy that was designed by nature and placed into our being by the universal architect produces most of the medicines we need.
Norman Cousins
The mechanisms of vis medicatrix naturæ-the most healing power of nature-are so effective that most diseases are self-terminating.
René Dubos
The mind has great influence over the body, and maladies often have their origin there.
Jean Baptiste Molière
The miracle of self-healing occurs when the inner patient yields to the inner physician.
Vernon Howard
The most important thing in illness is never to lose heart.
Nikolai Lenin
The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd druther not.
Mark Twain
The part can never be well unless the whole is well.
The patient should be made to understand that he or she must take charge of his own life. Don't take your body to the doctor as if he were a repair shop.
Quentin Regestein
The physician who teaches people to sustain their health is the superior physician. The physician who waits to treat people until after their health is lost is considered to be inferior. This is like waiting until one's family is starving to begin to plant seeds in the garden.
Unknown Author
The power of community to create health is far greater than any physician, clinic or hospital.
Mark Hyman
The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around… Throughout history, "tender loving care" has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing.
Larry Dossey
The root of all health is in the brain. The trunk of it is in emotion. The branches and leaves are the body. The flower of health blooms when all parts work together.
Kurdish Proverb
The scientific truth may be put quite briefly; eat moderately, having an ordinary mixed diet, and don't worry.
Robert Hutchison
The stars swirl downward from the blissful heavens, energy of the universe heals around me, exploding into life, drifting into calmness, and nothing else matters.
Terri Guillemets
The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.
G. K. Chesterton
The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.
Cyril Connolly
The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years.
Deepak Chopra
The wish for healing has always been half of health.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
There are some remedies worse than the disease.
Publilius Syrus
There are two things in life that a sage must preserve at every sacrifice, the coats of his stomach and the enamel of his teeth. Some evils admit of consolations, but there are no comforters for dyspepsia and the toothache.
Henry Lytton Bulwer
There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood.
Charles Dickens
There's lots of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven't the time to enjoy it.
Josh Billings
They claim red meat is bad for you. But I never saw a sick-looking tiger.
Chi Chi Rodriguez
Those obsessed with health are not healthy; the first requisite of good health is a certain calculated carelessness about oneself.
Sydney J. Harris
To avoid sickness eat less; to prolong life worry less.
Chu Hui Weng
To feel keenly the poetry of a morning's roses, one has to have just escaped from the claws of this vulture which we call sickness.
Henri Frederic Amiel
To get rich never risk your health. For it is the truth that health is the wealth of wealth.
Richard Baker
To heal is to touch with love that which we previously touched with fear.
Stephen Levine
To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.
To live without love, compassion, or any other spiritual value creates a state of such severe imbalance that every cell yearns to correct it. Ultimately, that is what lies behind the onset of disease; the body is sending a message that something lacking in the present-an imbalance existing somewhere-has given rise to highly visible, unarguable, physical symptoms.
Deepak Chopra
Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished.
Og Mandino
Water, air, and cleanliness are the chief articles in my pharmacopoeia.
Napoleon Bonaparte
We drink one another's health and spoil our own.
Jerome K. Jerome
What health is to the body, even that is honesty to the soul. Develop your spirit that it may gain strength to control the body and follow the natural laws of nutrition and hygiene.
Kemetic Proverb
What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.
Henry David Thoreau
What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.
George Dennison Prentice
When a man is ill his very goodness is sickly.
Friedrich Nietzsche
When an illness knocks you on your ass, you should stay and relax for a while before trying to get back up.
Terri Guillemets
When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no "I'll start tomorrow." Tomorrow is disease.
Terri Guillemets
When the head aches, all the body is the worse.
English Proverb
When you are young and healthy, it never occurs to you that in a single second your whole life could change.
Annette Funicello
With every pill we have prescribed for us we should also be given a creative prayer, a suggested way to correct our destructive patterns of thought.
Ernest Holmes
Without discipline in spiritual pursuits, the central nervous system doesn't have a chance to adjust and grow with the increased demand. It would be like putting a high voltage into a small bulb-it is bound to explode.
Swami Sivananda Radha
Without health life is not life; it is only a state of langour and suffering – an image of death.
You are as important to your health as it is to you.
Terri Guillemets
You can learn to follow the inner self, the inner physician that tells you where to go. Healing is simply attempting to do more of those things that bring joy and fewer of those things that bring pain.
O. Carl Simonton
Your body hears everything your mind says.
Naomi Judd


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Everyone already knows how much I love Mexico. I travel there whenever I get a chance and it is always an adventure. There is so much to see and do there and I am feel fortunate that I have avoided the all-inclusives and have seen a lot of real, true Mexico. At this point, I have traveled to about thirteen states here which is only a third of the country. I have been wanting Josh to visit here for a while. It was kind of a test for him as he had never been before. If he didn't love it there as much as I do, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. A piece of my heart lives there. We began planning this adventure a couple of months prior, just after I returned from my last adventure to New Zealand and Australia. The plan was to take two weeks and see as much as we possibly could within that time. We would include family time, booze time (Josh is a bartender after all!) and beach time. Throughout it all, we would eat awesome food, drink great drinks and see new things. We would visit four different states in these two weeks. I was pumped.
First stop was family time in Querétaro. Here we would spend four nights: two near El Pueblito where my sister lives and two in El Centro. My niece Vannya was celebrating her third birthday and my nephew Owen was being baptised so we thought this was a great place to begin our adventure. For this trip, we flew into Mexico City via Houston and flew out of Puerto Vallarta via San Francisco (this was a long day that had us arriving at 6:30am the next morning but it was totally worth it). Our flights cost about $1100 CAD for both of us. Incredible. We arrived in Mexico City on a Thursday morning, collected our luggage, bought some water and a couple of snacks and within a half hour, we were on a Primera Plus bus on our way to Querétaro. Riding first-class buses in Mexico is the way to travel around this beautiful country. They are safe, efficient and allow you to see some pretty awesome landscapes (hello mountains!). Our one way tickets cost 350 pesos each (that's less than $30 CAD!) and took about 2 1/2 hours to get to Querétaro. When you buy a ticket for one of these first-class buses, you choose your assigned seat and they give you food – a small ham & cheese sandwich, a drink and a snack. The buses are air conditioned and there are tv's. Hello luxury!
The first hotel – the Hilton Garden Inn – that we were staying at was chosen because of it's proximity to El Pueblito where my sister lives plus we could walk to the church from there. To get to the Hilton, we took a taxi from the bus station in Querétaro. Taxis are awesome in this city as they work on a zone system. From the bus station, you purchase a chit for your taxi ride. You tell them where you are going and they charge you according to the zone that you are traveling to. I love this system because then you know that you are paying the right fee and not getting ripped off. To get to the hotel, we paid only 55 pesos (that's only $4.60 in Canadian. In Toronto, it costs you that much the second you step into a taxi). The Hilton Garden Inn is a brand new hotel so it is gorgeous. So gorgeous, that I forgot to take any photos of the room. Basically, what you see on their website is what you see in real life. I did take a photo of the view from our room which you can see above. Everyone that worked here was super friendly and their English was great. We paid 1,813.05 pesos ($150 CDN) for two nights stay here. The hotel was situated beside a plaza that had some bars and restaurants (we may have had beers and snacks at the Wing Factory on the first night, maybe). Our favourite spot that we hit when staying here was down the street called Cafe Amadeus. Mexican breakfast is basically one of my most favourite things and my sister had told us that Cafe Amadeus was where it's at. Amadeus is a bakery as well as a cafe. It's a little German and a lot Mexican. Josh had his favourite breakfast on our trip here: Huevos Oaxaqueños. (Again, no photos because it was that good!)
After two nights at the Hilton, we headed to a new hotel in El Centro. I wanted Josh to experience this gorgeous part of the city which is designated at a UNESCO heritage site. I wanted a place that was within walking distance to spots that were familiar to me. There are tons of options for places to stay in the historic district. I chose based on price and free wifi and ended up booking a room at Meson de la Merced ($2,062 pesos for two nights or $170 CDN). This hotel looked super cool as it said that each room had three floors plus it was old so it had character, I was sold.
Once you are checked in at the concierge you walk down the stairs to this beautiful courtyard. It was filled with potted plants, lemon and orange trees and umbrellaed tables. Each room opens onto this courtyard and each room has it's own table and chairs.
The room was, by far, one of the coolest hotel rooms that I have stayed in. Because of it's layout, it was hard to capture in the photos. When you walk in, there is a seating area and bar, complete with a mini fridge. You walk up a flight of stairs to another seating area that overlooks the first floor. We opted to keep our suitcases on this floor, rather than lugging them up another flight of stairs.
The third floor had the bed, seating area, sink and bathroom, as well as a little balcony that looked into the courtyard. There was a tv with all of the channels that you would want plus wifi was accessible in every room. I loved the character of the place and all of the little details in the decor. It was a much different vibe than the Hilton Garden Inn and I felt it was a much more Mexican one.
My brother-in-law and his sister took Josh and I on a bar run on our second night in Querétaro. Wanting to impress bartender Josh, he had asked his coworkers what places we should visit and what exactly we should drink while there. Our first stop was a mezcal place called Maria y su Bici. There we had a drink called Chaman (translation: Shaman) which was a fruity number served in a coconut shell topped with a grapefruit slice and some crickets. Yes, I said bugs. The bartender came out wearing a mask, did a ritual and made you sip mezcal from a glass in his hands before dumping it in your drink. Besides mezcal, this bar seemed to also specialise in insects. Bencar and Liz ordered us the Botana Alebrijes which included chapulines (grasshoppers), chicatanas (ants), sal de gusano (worm salt) and gusano de maguey (Maguey worms, as in, the ones you find in the bottom of the mezcal bottle). I have not had meat since I was sixteen and only started eating fish about five years ago. Josh has been vegan for twelve years and only started eating meat a couple of weeks before we left in preparation for the trip. But we thought, why not and we ended up making bug tacos. They were crunchy and didn't really taste like much. About halfway through a taco, Josh and I looked at each other with a look that said it all and politely finished what was in our hands. He later said that at that moment all he could think about was the movie Beetlejuice and all I could imagine was bug legs stuck in my teeth (the first thing that I did back at the hotel was floss!).
The second bar that we visited on this run was Don Amado – a cantina that was exactly as Josh imagined a proper Mexican one being. A paper sign on the door with the name written on it was barely visible. Inside, it was a bright white room with a tv playing soccer and a bunch of men sitting at the bar. Here we were told that we had to have the Hernandez Amargo. I had no idea what it was but we were given it in a shot glass with a glass of water. I took a sip and nearly choked. Amargo is a very herby liquor, like Jaggermister but way stronger in taste. After that first sip, I actually liked it, I swear.
Our last stop for the night had just drinking Derrame Cerebrals (Brain Hemorrhage – Peach Schnapps, Bailey's Irish Cream and grenadine) at Bar de Cortes. After that, we decided that it was safe to call it a night.
The following night was our first one staying downtown. One of the things that I have always wanted to do when in Querétaro was to sit at one of the cafes in a square and people-watch. On this trip, we finally got to do it! We chose a place with an outdoor patio that had optimal people viewing potential. There we had 1 litre Micheladas (see above cheesy photo that we asked the waiter to take in full tourist fashion) and guacamole. I love Micheladas (30 pesos) and drank them at every opportunity that I got on this trip. A Michelada is made with beer, spices, lime juice and ideally tomato or Clamato juice. Delicious.
After the Micheladas, we ordered some tequila – our first for this trip. When you order a shot of tequila in Mexico, they often ask if you want it as a flag. Throughout the trip, we were served this Mexican flag in various formats. Sometimes you will receive a shot of tequila, a shot of lime juice and a shot of sangrita (sometimes a tomato-y liquid, sometimes a more fruity one). On this night, the tequila came in a nice glass and the lime was served in slices. Yes, Josh brought his
hilarious awesome coasters along on this trip and we used (and left!) them everywhere.
When sitting outside basically anywhere in Mexico, you will have a constant flow of people coming up to you trying to sell something. They will sell anything from gum (Chiclets) to flowers to jewellery to performing a song or two. On this night we were approached by an adorable girl in her Girl's Guide uniform, accompanied by her GG leader. She was about ten years old and asked us in Spanish if we spoke Spanish, English or French. We told her English and she then proceeded to tell us who she was and that she was selling us cookies for ten pesos and that the money would go to the Girl Guides. We then asked her to say it in French and she said it all again, perfectly in what would be her third language. Naturally we bought two – and look how cute they were all wrapped up!
We spent the last morning in Querétaro walking around the historic district. We were about to travel on a bus for four and a half hours so I thought that a little exercise was probably wise. I could not resist the awesome morning light. I wish the light in Toronto was like this all year long.
Our Lonely Planet Guide told us about a church called Templo y Convento de la Santa Cruz which was built between 1654 and 1815 that we decided to walk to it. What made this place significant is that Emperor Maximilian had his headquarters here in 1867 while under siege in Querétaro and after his surrender, he was jailed here until the firing squad was ready for him. There is so much history here!
Sometimes, my timing is not the best. While wandering around in our last few hours in Querétaro, we stumbled upon the opening ceremonies for Photofest Querétaro. There, a public figure was speaking and I realised that there was photo displays being hung everywhere. Above is the work in progress for the National Geographic display on a cobble-stoned pedestrian-only street. I wish that we had of had another day to explore it all but alas, we had a bus to catch – Guadalajara and Tequila were calling!
Read more about our Mexican Adventure!
Part 2: Guadalajara & Tequila
Part 3: Sayulita, Nayarit
Part 4: Puerto Vallarata, Jalisco


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There are so many unique places that you can have your engagement session. The couple in the engagement session we are showcasing today chose to have theirs shoot in Cherokee Ranch & Castle. Jho'leen and Ethan are a beautiful couple and their elegant castle engagement in Colorado was photographed by Fernanda Rite Photography.
Read below what Fernanda Rite had to say about this lovely couple and their engagement session.
"The couple chose Daniel's Park Castle for their engagement shoot. There we could capture a beautiful sunset and magnificent views of the mountains of Colorado's Front Range. The Castle's architecture features wooden arches and intricate cut-stone walls which gave the session an European feeling. The couple have a fairytale love story! He is in the military and she is a nurse and they have been together since middle school. After few years of dating Ethan planned a hot air balloon proposal ride. Jho'leen literally felt on top of the world! Their connection is so deep which made the session a true bliss. They are getting married this coming June and I can't wait to capture their big day."
Thank you so much Fernanda for sharing this stunning and elegant castle engagement session! To see more work from Fernanda Rite Photography, visit her website at www.fernandaritephotography.com or her SnapKnot profile here.
If you loved this engagement session, here are a few others you may enjoy:


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Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'gameplan'.
Found 4 results
Blaming Strategy? Or Execution?
iacas posted a topic in Swing ThoughtsBob Ross, a 14-handicapper is 240 yards out from a par five after his tee shot. There are some greenside bunkers, from which the player is average for his handicap level, and little other trouble except way to the right and left where the usual group of trees and bushes separate holes on this lovely golf course. He chooses to hit his three-wood, which normally travels about 220, and promptly slices the bejeezus out of it into the happy trees. Was this a failure of strategy? Or execution? We can't say. Not without more information. If we knew that Bob normally hits his 3W 180-220 yards within an area about 40 or 45 yards wide, we can say that his strategy was fine. He simply failed to execute as he normally does. If, on the other hand, he normally hits his 3W poorly from the fairway, and only really hits it well when he can tee it up a little, then it was a failure to plan or strategize properly. Perhaps, if this golfer has a hybrid that he hits well, or a 7-wood, that would have been the better strategic choice that follows "The Rule" from LSW. Like the old "I'd be a much better player with a better mental game" excuse, golfers are quick to blame strategy when their execution is actually what deserves the blame. I concocted this chart relatively quickly to describe what I see from players: As you can see, pros have almost no execution mistakes (they double-cross themselves or fat a wedge now and then, but they're good, so they don't do it very often). They also make strategic mistakes infrequently - they're good at shooting low scores, after all - but they do still make them. On the high end of the handicap range, the execution errors start to vastly outnumber the strategic errors. Yet think back to Bob. Most likely, most of Bob's 3-woods match the first description: they go 180-220 yards into an area 40-50 yards wide. Had he pulled that shot off, he'd have been fine. He failed to execute. Yet far too often, average golfers blame their strategy. Why? I think for the same reason that they're often quick to blame "their mental game" or some other distraction like "Oh, I rushed that one" or something. Again, why? Because it's easier. Strategy is something you can change in an instant, which requires no actual work. It softens the blow and feeds the ego. It's much easier to think to yourself "I could have made birdie there if I'd just chosen differently." But be real with yourself: if you're not breaking 80 or 90, your execution mistakes vastly outnumber your strategic mistakes. You're not making bogeys and doubles because you're choosing poorly, you're simply not hitting good shots, and you can't shave 50% of the strokes off your handicap just by making better choices. Yet golfers love to seek the quick fix. They love to think that a big improvement is just around the corner, whether it's by buying a new driver or putter, taking a few quick-fix type lessons, reading a tip in Golf Digest, or, often, by flipping a magical switch so that every decision they make is the perfect one every time. It's not like that. Good golf, and improving at golf, takes work, and that work should be directed toward hitting better golf shots. I've added a poll to the article. I chose 1-2 shots. On a 35-footer downhill, Nicklaus would advise the player to hit the putt softly and look to cozy it up by the hole… but the average golfer already thinks that type of thing. They're not going out there ramming those putts (on purpose, anyway). Nicklaus can say "hit the middle of this green from 150 yards out," but the average golfer isn't trying to chunk it into the front right bunker… and he'll do that with Nicklaus advising him all the same. If Nicklaus was allowed to watch the golfer play ten or twenty rounds, the number could go up to 3, 4, even 5… but that's about the limit.
The Importance of a Trouble Shot
iacas posted a topic in Swing ThoughtsGood golfers don't always hit good shots. But good golfers often have a knack for getting out of trouble. The other day I faced a shot that could have resulted in bogey or worse for many players, yet I was able to save a relatively easy par. I didn't do this by pulling off some impossible shot, but I did have the knowledge, ability, and foresight to pull off a shot that many would tell you "pitch out to the fairway and wedge on to try to save your par." Here's the shot on GAME GOLF: http://www.gamegolf.com/player/iacas/round/1883025?shot_id=114887180&hole_id=35139599. As you can see, I came to the ninth at one under par, and pulled my tee shot just a hair, where it caught a slope and rolled to the bottom. It looks like this: What did it look like from where I was standing? The yellow line marks the approximate location of the flag (which was pretty far back-right on the green), and the red - the center of the biggest window - is marked on the overhead map. It's near the parking lot (which is OB), the cart path, a bunker, a big slope to the right of the green… just bad stuff in general. I had roughly 120 yards to the flag, or 114 to the center of the green. The tree on the right edge of the photo is the first tree in that direction. Many "game planners" would tell you to hit a shot in that direction, leaving a 120-yard wedge or something to a green for a potential par putt. After all, the window is too small, and you can't guarantee you'll pull it off, right? Bah. What did I do? I hooded a 9I. aiming it at the left-center of the opening (clubface is the majority of the ball's start line, but it isn't 100%), with my feet out to the right. I played the ball back in my stance, took a 2/3-ish swing, and played a fairly big draw for a 115-yard shot that landed on the front of the green and bounced and rolled up to the middle of the green, from where I had a relatively straightforward two-putt. It was the best option available to me. I figured, best case, I do what I did: hit the green and have a putt. I actually clipped a low leaf on the tree in pulling off my shot, but even if I had clipped a little more, I'd have been fine. Worst case, my ball gets to the top of the hill. Average case: I'm in an nGIR situation, pitching or chipping for birdie. I'd never practiced this particular shot before. I'm sure I've goofed around on the range hitting big hooks, or hitting low shots, or some combination, but I've never set up this scenario specifically and tried to do it. I just figured that getting near or on the green was WAY better than pitching back to the fairway, and that I had the skills to pull it off. What about you? What would you do? Let's say you're not comfortable hitting a 30-yard draw with a 2/3 9I from a not great lie. Maybe you think you should just wedge out to the right? You should almost never wedge out to the right. There are other options, still utilizing that window. Could you grip well down on a 5-iron and punch something up the hill? So long as you get past the trees 15-20 yards in front of you, and stop short of the bunker, the resulting shot is going to be easier than wedging out to the right. No hook required - just punch something through the window. If you can turn it over a little, great. Do that. But don't just wedge back to the fairway. Don't give up the 50-100 yard advantage. Even advancing the ball 30 yards makes your next shot easier. The lesson here? Trouble shots are an SV② skill mainly because they're rare. They have a high "S-Value," for LSW owners, but a low "O-Value." The high "S-Value" means that when you're in a trouble shot situation, you can save a stroke or two, right then and there. Now, I'm not going to give you some formula to figure out what shot you should attempt. I can't generalize that, and I understand that there are sometimes shots you try in a fun round that you wouldn't try in a tournament (FWIW, this is one I'd absolutely have tried in a tournament). It's on you to weight the risks (minimal, IMO for me, here) versus the rewards (quite big here). If the risks outweigh the rewards, and you've weighted both properly, go for it. Otherwise, evaluate the next most risky shot (maybe that punched 5I back to the fairway but though the same window). And, now and then, with your last five balls on the range, hit some trouble shots. Punch a hybrid and see what it does. Hook an 8I. Chip a 5I 80 yards just to see if you can do it. SV② doesn't mean never practice it… it just means don't spend much time on it.
Cody Gribble's Losing Shot
iacas posted a topic in Instruction and Playing Tipshttp://www.golfdigest.com/story/watch-cody-gribble-lose-a-webcom-tour-even-in-the-most-brutal-way-imaginable Answer below to share why you voted the way you voted.
AMCC Championships All Came Down to GamePlanning
iacas posted a blog entry in Instructional DropletsMy men's golf team won the AMCC Championship this past weekend with a two-day score of 637 (keeping the best four out of five scores). That works out to 79.625 on a fairly difficult layout at Avalon Lakes Golf & Country Club. ALGCC is a Pete Dye course that, like many Pete Dye courses, is very target-golf oriented. Dye seems to love to use visual trickery to goad players into going for more than they can handle. Sure, it rewards the long drive into the very narrow alley way between water and bunkers, but it punishes a slight miss more heavily than the reward of being 20 yards closer to the green for the approach shot. So, my guys worked their butts off during the practice round(s) to learn a few things: How far was it to the various hazards and things.What lines should they take off the tee that kept them short of those kinds of things.Which side of the hole do you favor with your second shot, even if you're going for the green.How did the greens react to shots:From around the greens.From the fairway.From the rough.That's all we did. We didn't keep a score. We didn't talk about which pins to attack, or which holes to attack. In our minds, every hole presented the same opportunity: a chance to get a Green in Regulation (GIR is King, after all) and a chance to make a two-putt par. Occasionally they'd hit one close (even if aiming for the center of the green), and occasionally they'd reach a par five in two, and sometimes they'd make a longer putt for a birdie. When they were out of position, I stressed getting an nGIR and playing to give themselves a reasonable par putt. Sometimes reasonable was 30 feet. Other times it was four or five. I don't think that my team necessarily hit the ball too much better than the other players on the other top two or three teams. I got to see a fair amount of their players, and they hit a lot of good shots, too. They certainly weren't 21 strokes worse (nearly three shots per player per round), or worse - the winning margin the men created for themselves. I think it came down to the GamePlan, and that is the only credit I'll take in helping them win their fifth straight AMCC Championship, earning an automatic bid to the NCAA finals in May (in Rochester, NY).


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Wilkesville Mayor Calls Post Office Not Closing A "Blessing"< < Back to
The mayor of Wilkesville says it's a blessing the village's post office won't be closed.
A United States Postal Service plan calls for fewer operating hours at thousands of post offices across the county, including dozens in southeast Ohio.
"I realize we are a small, small village and to have had a full-time post office this long, we've been blessed," said Mayor Catherine Bowles, who oversees the village of 150 people. "And we're still going to be blessed that we've got it four hours a day."
Under the plan, Wilkesville's eight-hour-a-day operation would be reduced to four hours.
Other post offices marked for reduced hours include those in New Marshfield and Stewart in Athens County, as well as the New Straitsville office in Perry County.
Dave Van Allen is the spokesman for the Postal Service in Ohio.
He says they had to find a way to cut half a billion dollars.
"We do support the rural communities," he said, "but at the same time, we are in dire financial straits and need to make adjustments according to how America is using the post office."
Van Allen says they backed off on plans to shut down 3,700 post offices nationwide.
Instead, they want to reduce hours at 13,000 post offices.
A regulatory commission now has to approve the plan.


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Saving money can start early!
Part 3 of our blog series for tips on how to educate youth!
We are always looking for ways to educate our Kirby Club Members with saving their money. These were successful lessons the Behrends taught and carried thru with their kids. When I asked Cynthia B. a couple of questions for her to share on how she approached saving money with her kids she had this advice:
When they earned money did they put a certain % in their savings?
"For our family, at least 50% of any birthday or Christmas money needed to be deposited into their savings account. I then showed them how they made money by not spending it on toys they would grow tired of. They began thinking before purchasing items they really didn't want or need and before long they were making the decision of putting 100% of birthday and Christmas money in the credit union because it became a competition between them.
Also, once they started working part-time and summer jobs, they began direct depositing their paychecks. The money was out of sight therefore; it was out of mind."
What lessons do you feel stuck with them the most?
"The lesson that stuck with them the most was to carefully consider before making an impulse buy. Many times their decision changed to saving when they thought about how much they really wanted the item.
A second important lesson that stuck with them was to save while you have no expenses. Showing them our mortgage payment, utility bills and cell phone bills was a surprising visual when compared to their part-time income. Kids have no idea the extent of expenses parents incur on a monthly basis."
Thanks Cynthia, I think its a great lesson to show kids what the monthly expenses in the household are so they get a real sense of cost of living. Leave your comments if you have taken steps to educate your kids on saving and spending!
Category: Kids


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Historic Preservation Frequently Asked Questions
What is Marshfield's Historic Register?
It is a listing of property that have historical significance. This significance can be based on its architectural standards. It also can be based on the significance of a former resident, the designer, or builder.
Being listed on the city's register does not automatically confer listing on the state or national registers. State and national listings can provide tax incentives to property owners who list their home or business.
What does it mean to list my property on Marshfield's Historic Register?
Listing your home or business helps preserve our heritage. Once listed, changes to the exterior of the property must be approved by the city's Historic Preservation Committee through a certificate of appropriateness. Through this process the committee will help you choose improvements that are in keeping with the historic nature of your property.
Does the committee have to approve changes to the inside of historic properties?
No, the committee only reviews changes to the building exterior.
How do I list my property?
Complete an application and submit it to the City's Development Services Department. The Historic Preservation Committee will consider the application at its next meeting. If it is approved, the City Plan Commission and Common Council will consider the application.
Under Marshfield's Municipal Code, Section 18-131, to be designated as "historic" the structure, site or district should:
- Exemplify or reflect the broad cultural, political, economic or social history of the nation, state, or community;
- Be identified with historic persons or with important events in national, state, or Marshfield history;
- Embody the distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type or period, style, method of construction or of indigenous materials or craftsmanship; or
- Be representative of the notable work of a master builder, designer or architect whose work was influential.
Can I change my mind?
Once a property is listed, you may apply to have it removed from the register if you find it is a hardship to follow the rules of the listing. Many people find that there are benefits to owning a historic property. For properties on Marshfield's Historic Register, these benefits include improved resale value, protection of property investment and eligibility for plaques and markers. State and national listing may confer additional benefits including eligibility for state & federal income tax credits for rehabilitating historic properties; eligibility to use the state's Historic Building Code; property tax exemption; assistance with meeting ADA requirements; and other technical assistance.
How do I get started?
For research into the historic value of your property, the public library, your property deed and the North Wood County Historical Society can provide a good start.
Contact the Development Services Department at the City of Marshfield at 715-486-2074 for an application. They can connect you with a member of the Historic Preservation Committee. The Development Services Department also has information to help you get started.


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The US economy may not have turned a corner yet, but Americans' mood seems to have improved.
That's the assessment of the Federal Reserve in its latest take on the economy, published in its "beige book," which was released Wednesday. The report – based on findings from the Fed's 12 district banks – painted a picture similar to other recent reports showing an economy declining at a slower rate than in the first quarter of 2009.
"Contacts from several Districts said that their expectations have improved, though they do not see a substantial increase in economic activity through the end of the year," the Fed's report concluded.
Among the more positive signs:
•Manufacturers' outlook had improved despite falling sales.
•Eight districts reported an uptick in home sales, partly based on seasonal factors but also due to lower prices and interest rates. Much of the increase was in the lower end of the housing market.
•Seven districts said new-home construction had stabilized. The Kansas City, Mo., district reported an increase.
In particular, the Richmond, Va., district, covering the area from Maryland to South Carolina, reported a number of positive events, including: better sales activity for a number of manufacturing industries; higher demand for information-technology workers; higher import/export activity; a rise in resort bookings; and a slowing in the deterioration of credit quality among borrowers.
Nevertheless, these positive signs were laid against a background of economic conditions that "remained weak or deteriorated further during the period from mid-April through May," the report said. Among the gloomier signs: "Labor market conditions continued to be weak across the country, with wages generally remaining flat or falling."


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A new couple has moved in to the arroyo across the street from our apartment.
I keep seeing them when I'm out with my iPhone, but someday I'll have to stalk them with my telephoto lens, in the hopes of getting a better picture.
They look like young creatures to me – full grown but not quite filled out, with that semi-adolescent lankiness. But then, maybe all coyotes look like that. These are certainly the first ones I've got this close to. And they seem at home in the arroyo – this is my fourth sighting in probably as many weeks.
They're lovely graceful creatures, with their low loping stride, slipping into the invisibility of the long grass and sand that lines the arroyo at a moment's notice. They worry me, though – the arroyo is in the middle of a city (admittedly not a massive one), surrounded by homes and a semi-industrial/warehouse patch. The coyotes probably shouldn't be as at home here as they are, if they want to stay here.
I'm told that the arroyo was fixed up by the Department of the Interior not long before we moved here – it used to flood every monsoon season, so it got graded and drained and whatever else you do to arroyos that flood. Apparently it used to be much wilder and overgrown, and home to much more wildlife. I've seen javelinas out here (but only once), tons and tons of birds, lots of little lizards, and once a bearded dragon-type creature. But these are the first coyotes I've seen.
Interior also built a nice walking path around the arroyo, with landscaping making it all pretty, and a huge draw for the neighborhood. There are people I regularly see walking the path in the morning when I go to work, and in the evening when I walk myself. I've learned to recognize people by their dogs. I'm sure the coyotes aren't going to mess with the largest German Shepherd I've ever seen who lives a few blocks away (he's like the size of a Newfoundland), but there's a yippy Shih-Tzu that regularly slips its leash, and lots and lots of cats that roam free.
There's also a bike park, with human-built obstacles, like a skateboard park but for BMX bikes. That's where the coyotes are in the picture above. The one is sitting on a dirt obstacle, and there are a bunch more obstacles to the right, out of the picture. At the very far end of the circuit was a kid with his bike. Clearly he could see the coyotes, because he stood next to his bike, just watching them, waiting to see what they would do. In coyote v. BMX, it's pretty clear who's going to win.
It's a little unnerving, though, to see the coyotes quite so close. You know they don't want to mess with humans, but you also don't know whether they could get aggressive, or if they're just fragile enough that encountering us could harm them – the way that touching butterfly wings is so tempting, because they are so beautiful, but cripples the butterfly if you can't resist.
I love seeing the new neighbors, at the same time that I want to tell them to run far, far away.


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Divetechnoservice LLC is a leading company in Russia that specializes in design, manufacture, comprehensive supply, contract supervision, starting-up and adjustment, warranty and post-warranty services of all kind of professional diving equipment and technical support of diving job, wrecking and underwater works, deck equipment and tooling.
Today our company is a team of more than 90 professionals committed to their job: diving specialists, operating, maintenance and service engineers, ROV and manned subs pilots, certified engineering systems designers, industrial engineering and production management specialists. Our production facilities are placed in a workshop of 1500 m2 where we manufacture more than 20 hyperbaric chambers or hyperbaric systems per a year. Our warehouse of 1000 m2 always contains a product mix of more than 5000 positions for operational response on our clients needs.
Nowadays Divetechnoservice LLC propose the following products of domestic manufacture:
◢ Single lock diving decompression chambers of "RBK" series: RBK-1000, RBK-1000U, RBK-1200, RBK-1400, RBK-2200 (1000, 1200, 1400 and 2200 mm inner diameter accordingly)
◢ Twin-lock diving decompression chambers of "RBK" series: RBK-1600, RBK-2200 (1600 and 2200 mm inner diameter accordingly)
◢ Mobile containerized diving systems of MKVK-60 series with decompression chambers (single-container, twin-container, triple-container)
◢ Ship inbuilt diving systems
◢ Onshore stationary diving systems
◢ MKV-1000 containerized pumping system
◢ Self-contained umbilical diving units
◢ Professional gas mixers
◢ Wide range of soft PVC pontoons and buoyancies
◢ Underwater cameras and lights
◢ Underwater communication systems
In year 2015 we started production of 2 state-of-the-art units:
◢ "Hermit" mobile multipurpose supercompact LARS (watch video)
◢ UUCU "Sledge" self-contained underwater ultrathermic cutting unit (watch video)
During past 15 years Divetechnoservice manufactured and supplied:
◢ More than 130 decompression chambers
◢ More than 100 diving systems, incl. ship in-built, containerized and onshore stationary ones;
◢ More than 35 underwater vehicles (ROV and manned)


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Flash Focus is our new series that explores the work of up and coming models, stylists and photographers. This week, we take a look at Naziré Reed (@miss_nazire), an Australian model, stylist and florist now living in London. She was shot in Brighton by photographer Matt La Roche (@_visualeyes_). The shoot ...
Through the lens of: Camille Sonally
The story behind the lens… Bio : Born in 1987, Camille Sonally studied and graduated from the Montpellier School of Fine Arts and the National School of Photography, in Arles, France. Her work has been shown in La Friche Belle de Mai in Marseille, in the CRAC (The Regional Contemporary Art Centre) in Sète, ...
Through the lens of: Thomas Moen
Through the lens of: Cara Friedman
Through the lens of: David Mirete
The story behind the photos… This series called "Tierra de huesos" (Soil of bones) is a non-premeditated portrait of a village called Ossa de Montiel, in La Mancha, Spain. It's a subject that really moves me: rural depopulation in Spain. This little project is not ambitious enough to observe and ...
Through the lens of: Shannon Darby-Jones
Through the lens of: Dylan Thomas
Through the lens of: Natasja Martens
Through the lens of: Damian Borja
Through the lens of: Julia Donka


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I've been very busy with freelance- all table top RPG stuff. It's really fun work. Here are some examples (I'll stick to drawings with monsters in them):
Here's a doodle I did while on jury duty (we did nothing all day and got sent home):
And that's it for now. I headlining my first gallery show- small gallery in NYC- so I'm busy prepping illustrations for that. I want to produce some new work for it, but it's on October 3rd, so I don't have much time. I probably should have figured out how to get 60+ drawings framed before now. Never had to do this for a show, so I'm pretty clueless. Also, working on the Firefly RPG. Bye for now!


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DUBLIN, Ireland—Hilton Worldwide announced that it has signed a franchise agreement with Martinez Hotels & Resorts to bring its upscale DoubleTree by Hilton brand to Ireland. Since opening its first European hotel in 2008, DoubleTree by Hilton now has almost 60 properties trading or under development across the region.
The deal will see Dublin's renowned Morrison Hotel reopen as The Morrison Dublin, a DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in early February, following an extensive $9.3 million refurbishment featuring a new interior design from Dublin-based Nikki O'Donnell Architects (NODA).
"DoubleTree by Hilton is one of the fastest growing upscale hotel brands in Europe, and we are confident it will be a hit here in Ireland," said Patrick Fitzgibbon, senior vice president, development, Europe & Africa, Hilton Worldwide. "We've been eager to secure the right opportunity and believe we've found it in The Morrison. This deal also is indicative of a renewed buoyancy in the Irish hospitality market, visible both in the strong performance of our other Hilton brands and the confidence of owners and developers to invest."
The hotel will feature two restaurants and a bar. Guests will also enjoy access to a 24-hour business zone and split level fitness center. Event space totaling 4,400 square feet will be available with a range of capacities capable of hosting from 2 to 240 guests.
Recently appointed general manager Patrick Joyce will oversee the running of the hotel, having joined from his previous position as general manager of the Lyrath Estate Hotel in County Kilkenny. Patrick's hospitality career spans more than 15 years with experience in the U.K., Thailand, and the Maldives.
"We are delighted to be working with Hilton Worldwide to bring the DoubleTree by Hilton brand to Irish shores for the first time," said Stephen Mulligan, UK & Ireland director, Martinez Hotels & Resorts. "There were many aspects of The Morrison's identity we wanted to maintain when making the decision to convert to a branded hotel. DoubleTree by Hilton hugely impressed us with its track record of converting established properties to its globally recognized brand, while ensuring a real sense of individual flavor in every location."
Hilton Worldwide currently operates four hotels in the Republic of Ireland, all located in the capital city of Dublin. Its flagship Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand has a strong presence in the city and its surrounds with three hotels, whilst the luxury Conrad Dublin completes the portfolio.