Dear Reader:

When I think back to 2008… it no longer makes me nervously push back scary memories of solemn doctors’ faces, a lot of head shaking and scary medical terms I thought I would never hear-malignancy, breast cancer and in-curable. Instead, today, I am filled with smiles of hindsight at the realization …Life Pt 2 was just about to commence… the best was yet to be… in spite of living with on-going metastatic breast cancer.

Out of the ashes of challenging diagnoses I was witnessing myself growing braver by the day. After all… what did I have to lose?

Fourteen years later… my faith grows stronger with each passing trip around the sun, my 5 grandchildren ( of whom I had none in 2008) are flourishing, I am in a constant happy hunt for new stories (my personal building blocks) and I get to share my daily ordinary life with all of you… and that is still unbelievably extraordinary!)

Hoda and Jenna had a life coach on their show yesterday. I only caught part of the interview but it made me stop and reflect on the challenges I just listed and how my dreams turned to reality when I answered one simple question-” What brought me joy?” Immediately I knew… reading, writing, and sharing stories of every genre imaginable including true inspirational stories, like finding St Jude’s Chapel of Hope … that turned my life upside down.

Author Kristen Glosserman, life coach, explains in her book that trusting in one’s gut is the most important catalyst in living the life we were meant to live. We should speak our dream out loud, give voice to it, and then write it out- turn dreams into active reality!

My best example for this process is my friend Anne! Since retiring from three decades of teaching, she has become a musician ( fiddle) and artist! Equally amazing at both and she brings such joy to both works of art with her own unique perspectives!

Earlier this week all her hard work paid off as an local art committee singled out Anne to display her pictures and crafts in our local gallery! In her own words:

” I am thrilled to have been accepted into the Carnes Crossroads Artist Cooperative-their gallery is housed at the Public Works Art Center on Richardson Avenue in downtown Summerville.

Here are some samples of Anne’s newest artistic endeavor-creating indigo designs on all kinds of cloth materials and clothing, ( Move over Eliza Lucas Pinckney-creator of the indigo trade in colonial South Carolina-Anne Peterson is moving in… making you proud! )

So until tomorrow… ” Life is either a daring adventure or nothing” Helen Keller

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

*** As children we were asked what we wanted to do when we grew up… now that we have ” done” what we did… don’t you think the more important question is ” Who do we want to BE!” No matter our age… it is never too late to find the answer in the mirror… “Who Am I?”