Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

At this time of Thanksgiving I am grateful for my family and the memories we have created together. It also is a good time for me to revisit my bucket list since many items involve my family. In 2011, my therapist (yes, I needed someone to help me get my head in order), recommended I do an activity called " 32 squares ". Take a blank letter-size sheet of paper Fold it in half and keep folding it  in half about 5 times Open it out, you should get 32 (not quite squares) Sit down and write every thing you would like to do/experience, every dream or goal you have They usually work out to be a mix of immediate, medium and long term, maybe even some things you may not ever get to. Welcome to your bucket list. The trick to this exercise, she said, was that the first 10-15 things were usually easy to write, but then by the time you get to 25-32 you really have to start thinking deeply about things you may have given up on doing many years ago. In writing your dreams down,

I have posted before about the education system and how I felt about public vs private school. After having my son in private school for 3 years, he is now back in public school. See my prior posts here: Path to Private School and My Education Rant. Was it worth it to have him in private school? Now there's a question. I think he would have done well in public school although there is no doubt he did get challenged in private school. It would seem that the question isn't so much public vs private, but more, who is the teacher? I've also taken a step back in my expectations and how I view education. I have always compared the kind of schoolwork that my son does with what I did when I was growing up. I came from a different education system, where we would spend hours doing homework and revision for tests and extra lessons was normal. My son? He is in middle school and does his homework in school and spends no more than 30 minutes at home doing work. If I don'

I recently had a birthday for which I was very grateful. You never know if you will get another birthday even without having had a cancer diagnosis. So I was pretty sad that my brother didn't tell me "Happy Birthday". I don't have an expectation that my sister-in-law (his wife), would remember, but my brother? He didn't even have to call, since I called him two days before my birthday - he could have said it then. He even had a built-in reminder - his wife's birthday was two days after mine. I never considered myself a needy person who needs encouragement and needs to fussed over unnecessarily, but I just didn't understand it - I still don't . My husband's family remembers every year. But it did get me to thinking about what other friends who have been diagnosed with cancer, have said: Friends fade from their lives, or avoid them. Some friends are so wonderful, they are the cream of the crop. Family get offended if they, (the diagnosed) are