After I forced Eddie to join a gym with me so I could get some running in during the winter months, my plan backfired. Eddie has a bad lower back and insists that yoga does wonders for his back muscles (he also makes me play raquet ball with him once a week and I wake up with nightmares of that stupid rubber ball shooting straight at my head). I have no doubt of yoga's benefits for the human body, I just prefer a work out that lets me use my iPod. At the beginning of the class, the instructor directed us to hang forward at the waist, allowing our fingertips to reach as low as possible towards the ground. Mine went to about mid-shin. I spent the next hour breathing, stretching, contorting, and bending into every unnatural shape imaginable. At one point, I looked like a sad little, messed up pretzel that wouldn't make it through quality control. Everything was painful and I couldn't even form the full poses like the rest of the class. At the very end of the session however...

On rainy days like today, I like to cozy up on the couch. I guess Emily the cat has her own place to cozy up. Having a dog and cat, I find animal hair in my carpet, on my clothes, and all over my furniture. The bathroom sink was the one place I thought was safe, until today... (Although, she might think it's raining inside , when I turn the water on...) The best kind of rain, of course, is a cozy rain. This is the kind the anonymous medieval poet makes me remember, the rain that falls on a day when you'd just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters or read a good book by the fire, take early tea with hot scones and jam and look out the streaked window with complacency.   - Susan Allen Toth , England For All Seasons

I rushed out the door one Saturday morning, worried sick that I would be late for work. If there is one thing I hate to be, it's late! I zoomed down the Garden State Parkway, forgoing my morning Dunkin Doughnuts coffee, and switching into "New Jersey Driver Mode" (it's not pretty, and I only do it when I have to). After I got off the Parkway and onto the residential streets that would take me to the ballet school , I noticed a police car hiding on a side street waiting to catch someone. I immediately slowed down, as I was going about 5 over the speed limit. Whew! He didn't get me. Once he was completely out of my rear-view mirror, I again sped up. I was almost to work and if I could just maintain this speed, I would get there exactly on time. I was in the clear! In fact, I could see my final destination, when all of the sudden...lights. My old buddy was right behind me. Sneaky little guy. Defeated, I pulled over. My clean driving record that I had worked so h...

I  have a lot to consider lately. I've been reflecting a great deal and  looking for signs  since I've been  accepted into a law school  on Long Island. To go, or not to go? How will this affect my music goals? Is this the path I want to go down? What kind of future do I want for my family? These are the things I'm considering. In the decision making process, I thought perhaps the first step would be to spend the day in the area where we would most likely move to. If only the ultimate decision was based solely on today. It would be an easy choice as the day was absolutely perfect.  Islip, NY has everything I could ever want: Wildlife The deer are so numerous, they're considered pests  near Fire Island National Park. This little red fox actually came to me when I called him. I'm not even zooming in on my camera. I've always been a sucker for geese. Love 'em. A hist oric, beautiful lighthouse I couldn't get enough of these giant reeds. Be...

One of the greatest bonding rituals among female kind, is the sacred act of uncontrollable giggling. It's not just a chuckle, or shared laugh, or even a knee-slapping, gut busting howl. No, a true giggle is much more complex. If you've been lucky enough to have one with a fellow sister, then you'll be familiar with these key elements that makes up a real giggle. First, you have to share the same sense of odd, quirky humor that no one else in the universe understands. Like when my best friend Deb and I find it absolutely hilarious to make goat noises within ear shot of total strangers. It's very tricky to make the sound in a way that people can't tell where it's coming from. When we're out together with our husbands and the goat noises come out, our husbands suddenly don't know us. They hide their faces in shame and deny their own wives. But they just don't get how funny people's faces are when they think they hear a goat noise just walkin' d...

I woke up this morning to a loud, familiar sound just outside my bedroom window. The low rumbling terrified me to my very core and in dreaded anticipation, I walked to the window silently pleading, Please don't let it be... The snow plow. A fresh layer of white had fallen on the the newly emerging patches of green on the ground. Now everything was again white. I love the snow, don't get me wrong. And it's beautiful too, it's just been... too white for too long.  I stopped by my husband's work where he was pulling a double shift on this President's Day. He told me that he wanted to show me something and took me to Thomas Edison's green house. I entered into a warm oasis of vibrant color amidst the never ending white. I couldn't stop taking pictures. I was especially struck by the shape the blooms made against the steamy, glass greenhouse wall. (Click on photos to enlarge)  One tiny orange, growing out of season. ...

When I tell people that my greatest musical influences are Dolly Parton, Bing Crosby, Patsy Cline, Randy Travis, Ray Charles, and Floyd Cramer, I usually get some puzzled responses, followed by, "How old are you?" What can I say? I grew up loving these artists and find myself inspired by their genius when creating my own music. I fell in love with Patsy Cline when I first heard the song "Crazy." And what I actually loved about that song at first, was not Patsy's amazing pipes, but the light, tinkling piano style of Floyd Cramer. After that, I was hooked on both of them. My repertoire quickly filled with their songs and became favorites among the crowd at Lee's Chicken in Lincoln, NE, where I played the piano all through college. Patsy's music became even more special to me because it was a shared interest for myself and both of my grandmothers. One of my Grandma Valencia's all time favorite songs is "Crazy" and whenever she came to Lee...