Social graces

Sometimes I’m happier when I abstain from watching the news. The senseless murders, the abduction of women and children, car accidents resulting in loved ones’ deaths from distracted drivers and all the other atrocities displayed across the screen, is beyond disheartening. But, the last couple of days I’ve lazily indulged in lingering over my morning coffee in front of the television. Surely, my blood pressure would be lower if I picked up my knitting rather than listen to the dispatching of crimes and meaningless nonsense over the air waves.

For instance, yesterday on ABC’s, The View, Barbara Walters was rebuking Her Majesty the Queen for her ‘sour face’ and dressing ‘like something out of the nineteenth century’ during the opening ceremony for the Olympics. While I didn’t agree with the Queen’s selection of accessories (black gloves, black handbag and black shoes) for her pink dress, I am appalled by Ms. Walters blatant bashing of the Queen’s attire. What in heaven’s name is to be gained from her dreadful diatribe?

My blog readership may be miniscule but it is an forum for self-expression and right now I’m so provoked if I don’t take advantage of this outlet and express myself, I’ll pop!

While Ms. Walters acquiesces that Her Royal Highness has a sense of humor she also criticizes her unsmiling face during the segment of the program when a children’s choir sang ‘God Save the Queen’. Yes, I too would have thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Queen smile approvingly while the children performed but we are not privy to the Queen’s thoughts. Her stoic face may not have accurately reflected her sentiments or what was in her heart. As much as we might insist we are all knowing when it comes to what others are thinking, the truth is, all we can legitimately do is speculate what’s on another’s mind.

The distress I feel over the commentary from Ms. Walter, who I have faithfully watched and admired down through the years, is from her lack of tact and unforgiving manner towards the Queen ensemble. What’s happened to the art of executing eloquence and respectfulness in our conversation whether we are speaking privately or in front of a national audience? My mother taught me that if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it at all. Didn’t we all grow up with that adage?

Several years ago I was introduced to the talk radio world as a “social commentator”. Perhaps my job is not done. As long as I can speak and type I pray that I will use my words honorably.

This morning’s indulgence of watching TV has rekindled my passion for keeping good citizenship alive. We have no control over other’s conduct or conversation and while we may feel let down by their behavior, more important is not letting my own self down from my conduct or conversation. Change begins with me. One person can make a difference.

With God’s help and influence, I will continue striving for excellence in my life so that my words and actions are edifying to others.

It’s been a good day. I hope to help make it a better tomorrow by keeping my own social graces intact and above board.

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you’ll revisit it from time to time and see what’s new!

My friend, Maxine

Maxine makes me laugh.

You know Maxine… she’s Hallmark’s cartoon character created in 2003 by John Wagner (yes, Maxine’s creator is a man) who speaks up for the older generation. She’s everybody’s favorite Crabbinista. With curly hair and various hats that she wears (I knew we had something in common) she is usually plopped in a chair with her chin resting in the palm of her hand and a besmirched expression on her face peering out from behind dark sunglasses and spouting off about some infraction. Such as, “I tried getting AWAY from it all. Most of it FOLLOWED me.”

But, Maxine speaks up and since my passion is teaching people the principles I’ve learned for speaking up for yourself (though still in process myself) I couldn’t resist referring to her in this blog entry.

Last month I had a birthday and received a small package in the mail from my Aunt B. who lives on the West coast. Aunt B. is known for her thoughtful gifts, so I couldn’t wait to open her present. It was a little book, Maxine Flips Out! Everyone’s Favorite Griper shares her signs for the times. Within moments of reading the quips I was in stitches laughing at Maxine’s practicality punctuated with petulance.

Initially, one might not think of Maxine as being practical. However, “Reach for the STARS! It keeps your CHEST from sagging,” is one of her sayings in the little book from Aunt B. See what I mean. Practicality personified!

At this stage of my life with being evaluated at Columbia University Medical Center for a possible kidney liver transplant and driving in weekly for patient education meetings, and doctor’s appointments for this and that test, I need to laugh. Often and out loud and with good belly laughs.

I've been taking my friend, Maxine, with me into New York City and is helping me to do just that.
Since I just celebrated a birthday I’ll end this post with one of my favorites, “Age has its ADVANTAGES. Too bad I don’t REMEMBER what they are.”

Please share my blog with your friends and check back again for what’s new! As always, your comments and thoughts are welcome.

Father's Day Tribute

Many memories of my father stem from my childhood. As a little girl, I loved when daddy would ask me if I wanted to go with him in his red pickup. I always did. Being with my father stirred a sense of safety and always made me feel like a princess.


A tall man with dark hair and very handsome, my father was a man who exuded strength and character. Daddy personified the actor, John Wayne, who was the “it” man of the day and was truly a man’s man! When I was growing up he raced an F Racing Runabout boat that required a deck rider to keep the boat from flipping. In 1948 he won the Regional Championship for his boat racing class.


He was also a hunter. Every September he and his hunting buddies flew in a small plane owned by one of the men, to Wyoming or Montana. I remember his telling me after one trip that Wyoming was the least populated state in the Union. He loved that! How could anyone love a state with few people? Now, over a half-century later and living in the densely populated Northeast, I understand. The tranquility of the Grand Tetons and buffalo roaming across the meadows spoke to his soul.


It’s been forty-two years since I’ve had my father to celebrate Father’s Day. In 1970 daddy died from heart disease at the young age of forty-nine. I was a young mother with a husband, an infant daughter and pregnant. I remember feeling I was way too young to lose my father. My mother was only forty-six years of age when she was widowed.


In those twenty-five years of knowing my father he evoked a range of emotions from our family dynamic. Life wasn’t perfect but still, it seems to be every girl’s dream to be the apple of her daddy’s eye. I was no different. I wanted his love, his approval, his affirmation, his support, his wisdom and his arms around me telling me everything would be okay.


I am blessed with many wonderful memories of picnics at the boat races, trips to Sequoia National Park, summers at the beach in Cayucos with the roiling waves of the Pacific Ocean lapping at the shore, trips to Disneyland, riding in the back of daddy’s pickup with my brother, Hugh, and helping daddy pick out yet another new blue bathrobe for mom’s birthday with my sister, Lezlie.


But, the banner day of memories was my wedding when my father walked me down the aisle. I’d never seen him look so proud; so handsome.


Thank you, daddy, for contributing a boatload of memories that fill my heart to this day.

Hope for today

It's been a long while since I last wrote a blog entry but I'm happy to report I'm back. This afternoon I attended a seminar at my local library on blogging. This entry is the result of leaving the workshop not only inspired but determined to write a blog post before the day ends.


Once back at my apartment I immediately kicked off my sandals and sat down in my comfy desk chair. Ignoring the stack of papers in front of me that need clearing I began pecking away on my keyboard.


Sometimes life throws us a curve ball that upsets our equilibrium. We flounder and become befuddled by our reality and everything takes a back seat while we seek to regain our rhythm. In that process our creative passion and other means of self-expression can get lost in the shuffle. Over these past eight months that's what has happened to me. A curve ball has been thrown my way that been bogged me down and raised questions about my quality of life for the future.


Last fall I was placed on a kidney transplant list and have been dealing with monthly blood work and frequent doctor's appointments with a kidney specialist. This past spring, I learned that I may have a liver problem and was referred to a liver specialist. The liver specialist sent me to Columbia University Medical Center in New York City to be evaluated for a kidney/liver transplant.


Dealing with chronic disease has affected my energy level and raised questions like how am I going to accomplish my dreams with all this kidney liver transplant business going on? I'd just as soon forget the whole thing! But, being foolish never did us any good, so I will forge on and face my reality but not let my circumstances define me. I am so much more than my circumstances and God is so much bigger!


I hope that you perhaps will pick back up a project or passion that you may have dropped due to a detour. It's never too late to fulfill God's destiny for our lives no matter what curve ball gets thrown our way.
And, in the meantime, please do drop in again for new postings, happenings, book reviews, and other serendipitous matters. You can find my column, Top Blonde…on the run! at www.northjersey.com/pascackvalley under “columnist” Jennifer Botkin Phillips




"There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow." Orison Sweet Marden

Speaking up with confidence no matter what

Have you ever tried to slither into a pair of jeans? Wrestling with getting a metal zipper to close at my mid-line, while down on the floor, is how I used up about fifteen minutes of my day this morning. Make that twenty-five when all was said and done. Somehow I managed to button the button closure at the top of the zipper. That resulted in an unbecoming protrusion out the opening between the top button and the bottom of the zipper. Getting the zipper to zip up was another story. I’d have to either pull out a tunic top from my closet or wear a long coat to hide my belly. With Indian summer upon us in the Northeast, donning a tunic or long coat wasn’t an option.

Perhaps more creativity is my ticket. So, once again I knelt down and splayed myself face up on the floor. After first wiggling this way and that way, I began lifting my buttocks up and down and then from side to side and then I began flinging my legs straight up in the air. Surely my acrobatic antics would help stretch my NYDJ (Not Your Daughter’s Jeans).

What does this have to do with speaking up for yourself? Let me put it this way.
I don’t know about you but my natural reaction to the challenge of zipping a zipper on a pair of jeans after wearing cropped pants, various styles of shorts, and skirts all summer is one of self-sabotage. Good gracious, I’m so fat; I need to exercise more; why did I have those cookies yesterday or that bowl of ice cream last night; Look at this muffin top; I’m such a sloth, and so on.

But, there is another way. In God’s eyes we are fearfully and wonderfully made and therefore made perfect in Him. It’s good to access our lifestyle and decide if we need to make changes to improve our health. But, if we don’t allow God’s hand in our lives and accept ourselves as His beloved child, the light we reflect, along with our voice, will be dim. You may not set out to make an impact, but people do pay attention and they watch to see if you are who you say you are. Whether we are a daughter, a sister, a friend, a mother, a cousin, a wife, a step-sibling or step-mother, we have an opportunity to brighten another’s day. If we are picking ourselves apart, we lose our influence.

It turns out that laughter was my ticket to getting my zipper zipped. While lying there in the middle of my floor struggling to get that zipper up, my only view was the stark white ceiling. There I was sprawled out like a limp lobster with my tentacles flailing in the attempt to stretch my NYDJ. I wanted every bit of my money’s worth of that 4% spandex I’d read on the label. As I lie there gazing at the ceiling, the absurdity of it all struck me as hilarious and the next thing I knew…I had the giggles. I started laughing unashamedly at my predicament. After the work-out of my abdominal muscles and my non-eloquent cackling subsided, I was breathless. Nevertheless, I tried one last time to pull my zipper up. To my astonishment, success!

I will be doing some accessing of my lifestyle so that the next time I try slipping into my NYDJ, I won’t have to roll around the floor again. In the meantime, I know I can walk out my front door today and speak up with full confidence that, in my weakness, I am made strong! That in God’s eye’s I am acceptable and beautiful just as I am. And, you are too!

Sunflowers influence in speaking up

Have you ever had a defining moment that you didn’t realize you had until later? Yesterday, that was my experience.

While driving to Western New Jersey and the picturesque farmlands of Sussex County to visit a Sunflower Maze, I was thinking about the invitation I’d just received while talking on my hands free cell phone. A longtime girlfriend I’d not seen since returning from vacation three weeks prior, invited me to join her and two other special girlfriends for a movie I’d wanted to see, The Help.

I told her that after going to the Sunflower Maze in Augusta, I was thinking of contacting a male friend who just lived down the road from the maze. But, after walking through the Sunflower Maze and absorbing the warmth and happiness that sunflowers convey, I decided to jump back into my Jeep, Madame Merlot II, and high tale it back to the suburbs and meet my girlfriends for the movie.

You may be asking yourself, “What’s the big deal?” However, for me it was freeing to alter my plan on a dime. It would have been nice to see my male friend, but he may not have been home, or available. I choose to do what I really wanted to do rather than do what I thought I ought. It made no difference to my male friend. At that point he didn’t even know I was in the vicinity. The good news is that I hadn’t called him yet to see if he was around for me to stop by for a visit.

Speaking up for yourself comes in all variations of our relationships. It’s my belief that you know in your heart how you want to handle a matter. Have the courage to speak up and change your life by changing your decision making process to one of honoring your core value.

I’ve read various meanings for the sunflower including loyalty and longevity. Samantha Green, of Pro Flowers writes in her article, History and Meaning of Sunflowers, “They are unique in their ability to provide energy in the form of nourishment and vibrance, an attribute which mirrors the sun and the energy provided by its heat and light”.

Yesterday, the Son shine showering down upon the sunflowers definitely influenced me. I made it in time to meet my friends. Though, The Help, was sold out we got into One Day with Ann Hathaway. We’ll see The Help another day. Over all, I was thankful that the sunflowers influence showed me I must have loyalty…even to myself.

Setbacks Pave the Way for Comebacks

June 2, I gave a presentation, “Setbacks Pave the Way for Comebacks” at the Montvale Library, Montvale, New Jersey. A few attendees asked for the Eight Principles I talked about for overcoming a setback, so I am sharing them with all of you on my blog.

No one is immune to the storms of life that appear suddenly in our lives and threaten to topple us. Setbacks come in all forms and typically cause major stress. These might include the loss of a job or a career, illness or chronic pain and/or a disease that creates cause for altering our life style, the broken promises of a spouse leading to divorce, the death of a loved one or child, or even the realization that we can no longer deny a reality in our lives. All of these scenarios, and a host of other calamities, can cause a setback in our lives of great magnitude and from which some people never recover.

But, I know that setbacks can pave the way for comebacks and that when you come back, you come back stronger. I know this because of my own setbacks and of the victory I embrace today from applying the eight principles you will find at the end of this blog entry.

In 1979, I was a victim of a violent crime. A hooded intruder entered my home, and I was blindfolded and raped at knifepoint while my two-year-old daughter was napping in the next room. My attacker was never caught.

So devastating was the pain and horror of it all that I questioned my faith and my purpose in life. How could a God that I loved and served with all my heart allow such an atrocity and physical assault to one of his followers? All these years later, I still suffer the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder.

When I was attacked I had already been diagnosed with a genetic, life threatening, potentially debilitating, and chronic kidney disease, PKD (polycystic kidney disease). This is a disease that has affected several family members as well. Two years after my attack, I learned that I had another genetic and life-threatening, chronic disease. This time, a heart muscle disease called HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy). Neither have a cure.

And now, thirty-two years later, my kidney function has decreased to where I am being evaluated for a kidney transplant or dialysis when the time comes, and my heart muscle disease has increased. Though my physical assault and chronic diseases greatly affect my life and life style, they do not define me. And, it’s through applying these Eight Principles that I have come back stronger…and am better.

It is my hope that these Eight Principles will help sustain you in whatever setback you face, or may face in the future so that you will soon also believe that setbacks can pave the way for comebacks...and when you come back, you come back stronger.


Eight Principles for overcoming a setback:

1. Commitment to your future – life goes on. The sun will come up tomorrow. Commit to overcome your setback in the best way you can for you, for your situation.

2. Opportunity – this is an opportunity to grow and stretch yourself. Setbacks can be a touchstone.

3. Moment by moment – sometimes it’s all you can do to just do the next thing. Routine can help us get through the dark places.

4. Explore your options – ask questions of yourself and how you want to live going forward.

5. Basics – have to look at the facts; this is where I am, this is where I want to be.

6. Advocate – Be your own advocate. There may be supporting people but you ultimately, with divine guidance, have to rescue yourself.

7. Celebrate – each and every hurdle you jump and how far you’ve come… even if it’s only since yesterday!

8. Keep to your commitment to grow, change, evolve, transform, blossom, shine, excel, be, and thrive, no matter how long it takes. And, then, one day you wake up and realize you have overcome your setback and you are stronger!

This is copyrighted and protected material and cannot be reproduced.