Acorns, autumn leaves and woolly catepillars….

Written by Cheryl on . Posted in Cheryl's View.

I absolutely love autumn. I love everything about it, and I especially love autumn in Western Pennsylvania where I grew up. Over the years, I had promised myself that someday I would go back during this special time. Two years ago, I did just that. I went home for a ten day visit. The weather was beautiful, and the colors were glorious! I spent every morning and afternoon with my parents. But, when it got close to three o’clock I would speed dial my sister. “Hey, can I pick up the kids from school today? Can I take them to the park to play?” After all, I needed to get outside, and I didn’t know anyone else who was available at three in the afternoon. I also didn’t know anyone else who had the energy to keep up with me. I would race to the school and impatiently...

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I can see clearly now….

Written by Cheryl on . Posted in Cheryl's View.

Spring cleaning started a little bit early this year. Well, I have to be honest. This is only the second consecutive year that I have subscribed to the idea of spring cleaning. But that’s another story. Anyway, one of the first items on my agenda were my windows. I have cleaned them before, of course. Or at least, I’ve tried. Many times. But instead of getting them clean, all I’ve ever managed to do was to rearrange the dirt and grime. But I kept trying. Taking the windows apart to clean them was difficult enough. Putting them back together was a nightmare. And yet I kept trying, doing the same thing over and over with the same grime streaked results. Finally, I gave up. If my windows were gong to be dirty, at least I had the satisfaction of doing nothing about it. But...

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Surrounded by brilliance….and neuroplasticity.

Written by Cheryl on . Posted in Cheryl's View.

Don’t you just love it when the gifts keep coming? Just as I am still marveling at my Sensei’s brilliance two weeks ago in martial arts,  I got another blast of brilliance from my ballet mistress. Dancers are visual as well as kinestetic in our learning experiences. We use our eyes as well as our bodies to learn choreography in our technique classes. We look in the mirror to check our placement as well as our movement patterns. However, sometimes we depend on the use of our eyes and the mirrors too much. For example, if we know we can look in the mirror and follow the other dancers, there is less pressure to learn the combinations. We can become complacent, and fall into the habit of watching each other instead of paying attention to the choreography. Last week our teacher gave...

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Sense of smell. How neuroplasticity saved the day.

Written by Cheryl on . Posted in Cheryl's View.

A few weeks ago I was hiking in the mountains with my husband. I was in  a terrible mood. I was irritable, sad, depressed and feeling sorry for myself. It was Father’s Day, and the first Father’s Day without my Dad. This was only 6 short weeks after going through the first Mother’s Day without my Mom. Trying to hide my bad mood, I did what I do best….I put my head down and stubbornly forged ahead, placing one foot in front of the other and forced myself up the mountain, oblivious to the spectacular scenery around me. After about an hour we stopped to rest. The wind shifted, and  I caught the indescribable fragrance of clean mountain air, pine trees, melting snow and damp earth. As I stood there soaking in that incredible smell, my mood immediately began to shift....

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