Add my "perfectionist tendencies" to this mix, and now I'm cooking with a recipe for disaster. It's easy to tell myself, "You're never going to learn all that music." "You don't have the piano-playing chops you had in college, what makes you think you can play this now?" "These pieces aren't that hard. Why are you having so much trouble getting them?" "You can sing for comedy, but can you sing seriously?" "Your voice after that thyroid surgery 10 years ago isn't the same.

My to-do list at any given time has 150-200 items. With the holidays approaching, this goes up exponentially! My body needed a break. My husband, Doug, turned on the TV, and we were binge-watching Christmas movies before I knew it. We watched A Christmas Story Christmas (sequel to A Christmas Story with Peter Billingsly), Four Christmases (Vince Vaughan & Reese Witherspoon), and Candy Cane Lane (Eddie Murphy).

Thanksgiving is a holiday that has become synonymous with gratitude. But how did this happen? The tradition of Thanksgiving dates back to the 17th century when the Pilgrims celebrated their first successful harvest in Plymouth. They invited the Native Americans, who had helped them survive their first year, to join them in a feast. This was a time of giving thanks for their blessings, thus setting the stage for Thanksgiving to be associated with gratitude.

I'm in a Master Mind group that meets on Wednesday evenings. I may not actually "master" anything. Still, we discuss many unusual topics in this group that go well beyond hypnosis, hypnotherapy, and language patterns. Currently, we are studying an ancient Chinese system of self-protection that involves a series of hand positions and mudras.

Halloween is tomorrow, so let's take a few moments between parties and trick-or-treating to clear some of those "cobwebs" in your mind. Cobwebs are those memories that hide in the corners of our minds, collecting dust. Memories we don't let go of yet don't seem to do anything positive for us. Negative memories can often linger in our minds, causing distress and affecting our mental health. Every now and then, it's time to do a deep clean, so let's take a few minutes to clear these mental cobwebs and create space for clarity, creativity, and peace. While it's not possible to completely erase these memories, there are strategies you can use to manage them effectively.

Doug and I have sponsored the Paradise Lakes Golf Cart Parades for 2 years. We get the fun job of picking themes for the parades. For Halloween this year, I chose The Rocky Horror Picture Show…in honor of my parents, who grounded me for 2 months when I went to see this movie as a senior in high school. I have to laugh about the whole thing now. Let me paint the picture: I graduated 17th out of 433 students.

Last week was my birthday week. I have been feeling so much better health-wise since I got my old amalgam fillings out that I decided to try a piece of a yummy Costco birthday cake. I did not experience ANY pain. Woohoo!

I just completed my 54th trip around the sun last week. This birthday was a "simple pleasures" birthday. I took the day off of work and spent quality time with my husband, running errands. One of our "errands" was a trip to the Pinball Museum in Tarpon Springs. I love pinball! We played pinball for hours, did window shopping, and then headed home for a lobster and shrimp dinner. We had friends over Friday evening for a birthday party and cocktails. It was just perfect.

With my research on Hashimoto's over this past year, I discovered there may be a link between thyroid health and amalgam fillings. I checked in with my dentist and found I had amalgam fillings, one on each corner of my mouth. I remembered getting these fillings vividly, kicking and screaming the whole way. It definitely made a severe negative neural impression on my brain. I get reminded of my fear every 2-3 weeks when I get my nails done. I love how my nails look when I'm done, but sitting through the part where they drill the hard coating on my nails is torture.

Earlier this year, I found myself with 2 pianos. I tried selling one, but no one was interested after 6 months on the Facebook marketplace and another online dedicated piano listing service. I decided to keep it and moved the second piano to my home. What, exactly, does one do with two pianos when one can only play one piano at a time? You make musical lemonade.

In elementary school, my father would head out on Tuesday evenings to attend "Rotary." All I knew was that it was a businessman's organization, and they did businessman's organization things.

I am juggling a lot of projects right now, and most days, I feel like I can’t possibly get everything done. A few weeks ago, I went through my entire To-Do list on an excellent to-do list app called ClickUp and found projects I had given my assistant to do almost a year ago. He did them…but I found myself too busy to check on his work. Another project needed to be done…and it sat in my past-due box. I happened to glance at it and see that 300+ things were “past due.” Oops!