The Resolute Woman

Author: resolutewoman

  • An expert?

    —

    by

    resolutewoman
    in ,

    My sister-in-law Linda and I were patiently sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, wondering how my brother-in-law Bob was doing. We had been waiting for hours to talk to the doctor who had inserted six stints in Bob’s heart when we met an expert on heart surgery. He was a short man with…

  • “Gentle and kind, principled, ever curious”

    —

    by

    resolutewoman
    in , ,

    I just finished reading Anthony Shadid’s thoughtful book House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family and a Lost Middle East. Anthony, you may remember from an earlier blog post, is the son of Fayteen’s cousin Rhonda. He also worked as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times before he died in Syria earlier…

  • Happy spring!

    —

    by

    resolutewoman
    in ,

    I saw some daffodils in the grocery store today and couldn’t resist buying them. I smiled and felt a little happier when I arrived home and put them on the kitchen table. As the Bible says in the Song of Solomon 2:12 (English Standard Version), “The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing…

  • How to keep those pounds off

    —

    by

    resolutewoman
    in ,

    I am happy to report that one of my weight-loss secrets is endorsed not only by Weight Watchers but also by The New England Journal of Medicine. What’s the secret? Step on your bathroom scale every morning. According to the October 2011 issue of Weight Watchers Magazine, a study from The New England Journal of…

  • What’s going into your mouth?

    —

    by

    resolutewoman
    in ,

    I often eat breakfast while reading the newspaper or making a to-do list for the day. I generally consume my lunch at my desk while I’m busy at work on a project.  And, I have dinner and conversation with my husband. Too often, I realized recently, I finish eating and I don’t even remember tasting…

  • Accepting your limits

    —

    by

    resolutewoman
    in ,

    How do you react when you fail or are disappointed? When something bad happens over which you have no control? I was sad when I heard of a friend’s friend who gave birth to a stillborn baby. I remembered my own sadness when I struggled with infertility for four years before my daughter was born…

  • The never-quite-satisfied

    —

    by

    resolutewoman
    in ,

    At the her brother’s wedding, the main character in Ann Packer’s short story Things Said and Done describes how, as a child, her father “conferred specialness” on her and how she “was to breathe only the rarefied air of the never-quite-satisfied.” It was, she concludes, not the best preparation for life or for her marriage.…

  • The cookie conspiracy

    —

    by

    resolutewoman
    in ,

    Why does it always happen? The day that I decide to be Resolute—to stop the overeating for a few days and the dieting for a few days cycle—that’s the day that my order of Girl Scout cookies arrives. And, Girl Scout cookies arrive only once a year. Wouldn’t it be wise to postpone my back-to-healthy-eating…

  • I apologize

    —

    by

    resolutewoman
    in ,

    I was not the perfect mother of two children. I confess that , more than once, I was not calm and reasonable. I yelled. However, whenever I lost my temper, I always tried to apologize. From a very early age, my son Jay learned how to make me feel even more guilty than I was…

  • What if someone is critical of you?

    —

    by

    resolutewoman
    in ,

    On my first date after my divorce, I went swimming with a handsome young man. Because I knew that I was still vulnerable and my self-esteem was low, I wanted to look my best. I wore a modest two-piece bathing suit. It was pink with lace, and I was sure that I looked my best.…