Happiness is not being pained in the body or troubled in the mind. There was a time not so long ago when I could barely walk or move easily at all. My livelihood was being taken from me and I was depressed and miserable. Doctors told me that my arthritis could be managed but that it wouldn't get any better. Well it DID GET BETTER. Because I did something about it. I educated myself, I learned to lap swim. I listened to my body and developed a bodyrolling technique. i experimented. I found myself out of necessity chasing arthritis relief nearly everyday. I also found that with out a doubt a ...continued...

i don't sing at birthdays I pedaled my Schwinn Autocycle along the gravel road beside the Waterman's south pasture. The rutted road rattled the front fender almost enough to drown out my rendition of Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Almost, but not quite. Four of Charlie Waterman's cows standing by the fence-line mooed in tune to my song. I switched to Christ the Lord Is Risen Today near the intersection of the gravel and paved roads. Two lanky, flop-eared, black-and-tan hounds crawled out from under the front porch and added their howls in accompaniment. They ...continued...

One summer afternoon when i was about (10) years old, I sat on the bank of the farm pond, daydreaming and listening to a red winged blackbird sing. While Dad fixed the door of the corncrib the wind had torn off, Sunny, our Australian Shepard, plunged into the water in front of me. Barking and biting at the sparkling droplets that splashed in front of his face, he swam toward a flock of Canada geese, herding them along as they honked and flapped their wings. About twenty feet from the bank, the geese seemed to realize they had Sunny outnumbered. They did an about-face, honking loudly with th ...continued...

Every single day we have to setup our camp and get the dogs settled. Every day we look forward to sitting in our cold tent for some degree of warmth and relative relaxation warming water for drinking and mixing with our dehydrated meals. We realize it is still below zero in our tent (our water will freeze overnight if left in something uninsulated), but warmth at this point is relative, funny how that works. To create our little slice of the tropics here we of course need a tent, and to set our tents up, we have to use an evil little device called an ice screw. See, we cannot use ...continued...

The big blow out! Mom entered my room, I can only imagine after grilling my sibling about her weight, spending habits and other things. She was on the war path and it just so happened that I was the nect victim. I heard a knock which lead to her helping herself into my room as though she owned it. To be honest, she pays the mortgage so every room in this house belongs to her. Immediately she went into the amount of pop cans that were all over my bedroom, and the garbage bag which she assumed was filled with crumpled up chip bags and empty pop cans. She wanted to prove that I wasnt as ...continued...

SURI’S HEART Kishinev, Moldavia A House in the Jewish Quarter December 1846 by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields “Yussel!” Papa pounded the table with his fist. & ...continued...

We are watching the entire United States, but particularly the border states of New York, Connecticut, Maine, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Washington, for any activity relative to banning pesticides. [Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment, 2005 (pesticide/fertilizer lobbying group)] What are the final pieces in America’s multi-billion dollar “grass” trade industry? Weed control ordinances started appearing in the mid-1940s, and over the next fifty plus years they arose in practically every metropolitan area of the U.S. Within a remarkable unif ...continued...