After four years in Florida, this Jersey Shore girl still loves her fall and winter traditions. Homemade soup, comfort food, and a cozy house never go out of season—and this cooler, crisp morning is fitting right in.
Today I’m making homemade chicken bone broth soup, finishing the Christmas tree, and settling in with a Christmas baking show. A little grace, a little Christmas joy, and feeling content with the simple things. Wishing you a Sunday filled with love, peace, and something that makes you smile. What are your plans today?
They’re reassuring words, but what happens when someone hears them and quietly wonders, “When?”
It’s something we don’t always talk about: how a person can be loved and still struggle to feel considered.
It’s a difficult conversation to have with someone you love. You worry that you’ll sound demanding or jealous, so you explain yourself carefully. You understand that there are other people to love, responsibilities to handle, and places to be. You have a life full of those things, too.
But somewhere along the way, you’ve started wondering where you fit.
You watch plans come together for other people. Time gets found. Arrangements get made. And you remember a moment when you needed that same effort—when you would have given anything for someone to recognize that you needed them and find a way to be there.
Those moments stay with us. Sometimes a new disappointment brings back an old one we thought we had put away. We find ourselves trying to explain today’s hurt while carrying something that never quite healed.
I think feeling like a priority lives in ordinary things. A call because someone wants to hear your voice. Being considered before a decision is made. A promise followed through. Someone remembering that you’re having a hard day and checking on you without being asked.
It also lives in how someone responds when you say, “I’m hurting.” Can they listen long enough to understand? Can they be curious about why their reassurance hasn’t reached you?
Because being told you matter and feeling that you matter can be two very different experiences.
Most of us don’t need every hour. We don’t expect every plan to revolve around us. We have our own work, our own dreams, and people we love. But we want to feel considered in the life we share. We want to know that when something matters deeply to us, it matters to the person beside us, too.
There can be a loneliness in having to keep explaining that. Eventually, a person may begin to wonder whether they’re asking too much, when what they’re asking for is care they can recognize.
Maybe it’s a conversation worth having in our relationships: What helps you feel like a priority? And have I shown you that lately?
The answers may be different for each of us. What feels like care to one person might not be what another needs. That’s why listening matters—and why those conversations deserve kindness.
We all want to hear that we matter.
We also need moments we can look back on and say, “That’s when I felt it.”
There’s a Christmas tree in my living room with lights on it and no ornaments. There are decorations waiting to find their places, things that need to be put away, and a list of things to do that seems to grow whether I’m working on it or not.
And today, I’m tired.
Of course, my first instinct is to tell myself all the things I should be doing. I should go for a walk. I should clean the house. I should finish decorating. I finally have some time to myself, and surely I should be making the most of it.
But somewhere in all those “shoulds,” I forget to ask myself a simple question: What do I need today?
I love my home. I love the people in my life. I love traveling, getting together with friends, and having things to look forward to. But I’m learning that even the things I enjoy can leave me needing a little quiet afterward. And when one thing runs into the next, it’s easy to keep going without ever giving myself that time.
Then, when the quiet finally comes, I fill it with chores.
I’ve caught myself doing that lately. Looking at an empty day as an opportunity to catch up on everything, instead of an opportunity to catch my breath. Apparently, I can give everyone else permission to be tired, but when it comes to me, I want a good explanation and an estimated time of completion.
I’m working on that.
I’m learning that I can leave a few things unfinished without letting anyone down. I can sit with my coffee a little longer. I can enjoy the lights on my tree while the ornaments stay in their boxes. I put that tree up because it brings me joy, and I’d like to leave a little room to actually feel it.
There are still things I want to do. I want less clutter and more room to breathe. I want to move my body more and take better care of myself. Those things matter to me, but I can begin with one small thing, on one ordinary day, without demanding that I change everything by dinner.
Maybe giving myself grace starts with listening when I’m tired, being honest about what I have the energy for and with speaking to myself the way I would speak to someone I love.
Today, the tree has lights. The house is a little messy. I have things to do, and I’ll get to them.
For now, I think I’ll sit here for a while and I’m learning to let that be okay.
Yesterday was November 1, and yes, I put my Christmas tree up. There isn’t a single decoration on it yet, but just seeing it there makes me happy. The ornaments will come, along with the memories tucked inside the boxes. For now, I’m enjoying the beginning of something I love, without feeling the need to get it all done in one day.
And putting up a Christmas tree doesn’t mean I’m rushing past the season of gratitude. There’s room for both. I’m thankful for a home I can make cozy, for the people I love, and for the little things that give me something to look forward to. Some days, gratitude comes easily. Other days, we have to look a little harder. Yesterday, I found mine in an undecorated Christmas tree and the thought of all the mornings I’ll spend enjoying it.
“Ignorance is not bliss, and bliss is not found through ignorance.” —Anne Dennish
My ignorance almost cost me my life. Those words carry a different weight when I think about my breast cancer journey—a journey I shared in my book, “Waking Up.”
I’ve also written, “If you should find yourself getting hit hard with the truth, at least let it knock some sense into you.” Breast cancer was a hard truth in my life, and today I’m using my voice to remind you: please don’t put off taking care of yourself. If you’re due for your mammogram, make that appointment.
You matter. Your health matters. Make time for you.
As we begin Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I find myself thinking back on my own experience twelve years ago. Breast cancer brought fear, uncertainty, treatments, physical changes, and emotions I had never felt before—but it never became the entirety of who I was. It didn’t own me. It shaped me. I have often said, “Chemo healed the cancer, but the cancer healed me,” because that is truly how I felt. It taught me gratitude, grace, strength, and how precious an ordinary day can be.
While I was going through chemotherapy and radiation, I did my best to incorporate breast cancer into my regular life instead of allowing it to become my whole life. I had a wig that I absolutely loved, and wearing it helped me feel like myself. I went to work, out to dinner, and to happy hours. I laughed, spent time with the people I loved, and continued living. That didn’t mean I was never frightened or emotional, and it certainly didn’t mean every day was easy. It meant that beneath the diagnosis, the treatments, and the wig, I was still me—and I was determined not to lose sight of that.
Every woman’s journey through breast cancer is different, and there is no single right way to be strong. But if you are going through it now, I hope you remember that cancer may become part of your story without becoming your entire story. My experience gave me the opportunity to mentor other women, share what helped me, and eventually include my breast cancer journal in my book, “Waking Up.”
Today, twelve years and counting cancer-free, I remain deeply grateful and blessed. Breast cancer didn’t own me. It shaped me. Chemo healed the cancer, but in so many unexpected ways, the cancer healed me.
Sometimes life seems uncertain. We feel like we lost control and don’t know what our next step is. I have moments like this and it’s at those times that I remember the words of someone that had been very special to me. She said, “When you feel like that, remember the Beatles’ song, ‘Let It Be.” And to this day, I do.
There are things in my life that are beyond my control and it’s during those times that I have to take a step back, lean on my faith, kiss it up to God and hand it to the Universe.
When I lived in New Jersey, I couldn’t wait for that first spring day when I could turn off the heat and open every window. Fresh air would move through the house, and suddenly I’d be ready to dust, clean, and let winter go. I loved that feeling.
Now that I live in Florida, I wait for it in the fall. After months of air conditioning and closed windows, the first cool day makes me want to open up the house and tackle all those little cleaning jobs I’ve been putting off. It’s funny how moving south turned my spring cleaning into fall cleaning.
The season has changed, but the feeling hasn’t. There’s something wonderful about fresh air coming through the windows and a house that feels ready for a new beginning.
Embrace that feeling of opening the windows wide and letting the sweet smell of the fresh air of a new season in!
Isn’t it amazing to think that some of the people who mean so much to us today were once complete strangers? Our paths may never have crossed if not for one decision, one unexpected moment, or one change in direction that brought us together.
I believe God and the Universe place certain people along our journey for a reason. Some come to teach us, some to encourage us, and some simply arrive to remind us that we are not alone. We may not always understand the timing, but the most meaningful connections are often the ones we never saw coming.
As this new week begins, keep your heart open to the people who cross your path. A simple conversation, a shared smile, or an unexpected meeting may become something far more meaningful than you could ever imagine.
Some people enter our lives unexpectedly, but their presence is no accident. Trust the souls God and the Universe place along your journey.
At 65 years old, I make my own hours. I write, I work, and for the most part, I decide what each day will look like. You might think that without a traditional Monday-through-Friday schedule, all the days would begin to blur together.
But they don’t.
Saturday and Sunday still feel different to me. They seem calmer, quieter, and more peaceful. There’s a softness to the weekends—a feeling that the world has slowed down just enough for us to breathe a little deeper and move a little slower.
Maybe it comes from raising five children. Monday through Friday meant alarm clocks, school lunches, homework, schedules, and getting everyone where they needed to be on time. The weekends meant no school, no lunches to pack, and no rushing out the door. They were our lazy days, our fun days, and our family days.
Later, when I worked full-time, Saturdays and Sundays became the days I cleaned the house, went food shopping, ran errands, and tried to fit in everything I couldn’t do during the week. They weren’t always restful, but they were mine. Even with a long list of things to accomplish, the weekends carried a sense of freedom.
Life looks very different now, yet that feeling has stayed with me. There’s still something special about waking up on a Saturday morning and knowing that the weekend has arrived. The air feels different. The pace feels gentler. Even an ordinary cup of coffee feels a little more enjoyable.
Perhaps our hearts remember the rhythm of the lives we once lived. Mine still remembers weekends as a time to exhale, reconnect, and simply enjoy being home.
And after all these years, Saturday and Sunday are still my favorite days.
