Years ago, my mother taught me an easy embroidery stitch to create one-of-a-kind card stock tiny houses. Designed as gift boxes, I stuff socks, winter gloves, or chocolates in them to create smiles. I use my Nana Millen’s postcards from the early twentieth century of which I have hundreds. She was the one who taught my mom. How do you like this one?

Countdown to Uranus Retrograde In these final days of Uranus direct, it is prudent to note the many ways in which our lives are enchanted by all that was built before we got here. Usually, what seems like immediate magic is actually the result of a long stretch of work that included hits, failed experiments and predictable wins. Keep this in mind as you go forward creating what someone in the future is likely to experience as immediate magic.

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Is the constant desire to eat and a love of food considered addictive? How do people get relief from their obsessive food thoughts, which can lead to dangerous weight gain? What types of treatment are available?   

Although unlisted in the manual of psychiatric diagnoses, the concept of food addiction has gained a toehold in medical literature according to WebMD.

In 1972, a Stanford University psychologist conducted a study in which young children, individually, were offered either a small but immediate reward (a marshmallow or a pretzel) or a doubled reward if they were able to wait for fifteen minutes. In follow-up studies, researchers found that children who were able to postpone gratification experienced better life outcomes as measured by such things as SAT scores, academic achievement, and body mass index.

I have long maintained that well-done research in the so-called social sciences does nothing but confirm common sense, and it certainly seems commonsensical that impulsivity and difficulty delaying gratification have a negative impact on life outcomes. The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, as it is known, bears significantly on childrearing attitudes and approaches. Simply, teaching a naturally impulse-driven child to exercise restraint greatly increases the child’s chances of success.

Always enamored with U.S. history, I could have been knocked over with a feather when I met my husband Chuck in 1979. He told me he was from upstate New York and how his hometown, Seneca Falls, is known as the birthplace of women’s rights. One of my best visits there was in the early 80s when hundreds gathered around the main plaza at the National Park Service Women’s Rights National Historic Park for opening day. We got to cut one very long ribbon at the site of the 1848 Women’s Declaration of Sentiments Convention, which was a big thrill for me to be part of!

Pain is part of living. Biologically, it’s the part that keeps us alive the best. If we weren’t always running from it, we’d be much more vulnerable to predators and other threats to survival. As much as we like to think we can rid our lives of pain, we can’t, and even if we could, it wouldn’t work to our advantage. The sun/Jupiter opposition from July 12-19 suggests we ascribe a meaning to our pain that will make it easier to embrace.

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We asked two of our wellness panel experts to share their Top 2 most popular non-surgical rejuvenation treatments for their patients—ones considered most popular for many reasons, including producing fantastic results. Here’s what Dr. Diane Bowen and Dr. Harold Kent had to share:

I have come up with a new psychological diagnosis, one that I won’t, however, be submitting for approval to the powers that be: simply, odd. My “odd” is to be distinguished from ODD, the acronym for oppositional defiant disorder, an invention that enables mental health professionals to obtain payment from insurance providers…but that’s another column entirely. Stay tuned!

Odd is what all human beings are. Starting from the top down, all adults are odd. I am odd, you are odd, Bill Gates is odd, President Trump is odd, Barak Obama is odd (must have diversity, you know), and so on. Most people, by early adulthood at the latest, begin to identify their personal peculiarities and realize they must be concealed from the general public lest they cause social and employment difficulties. Adults who fail to conceal their oddities are prone to becoming known as “jerks” and other equally hobbling nicknames. Or, they become mental health professionals, politicians, and famous actors who win Academy Awards.

Welcome to Paisley Magazine’s #Ms.Independent July issue! Meet KayLee and Hashondra Smith, Mayor Kizzi Knight, Tara Heaton and July cover artist, Georgia Lobo. And it’s time for our annual PET Issue of “purr-love” on three pages; 22 - 24. Plus, there are a couple of community events that you don’t want to miss.

The sun and Neptune are like a couple with an annual appointment with a marriage counselor to check in and make sure all is on track. In a safe space, these two air their grievances and attempt the sort of communication style that will allow conflicts to surface in a healthy, productive way. As it goes with these things, feelings are on the line. What’s said and done cannot be unsaid or undone, so go gingerly and with compassion.

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Maintaining optimal brain health gives us lifelong cognitive power.
Not only does the human brain control bodily functions, it is the most powerful “computer” on earth,
which helps us to understand and grasp the world around us with a full range of thoughts,
feelings and emotions. Keeping your brain in tip top condition is imperative for quality of life.

Think about it! Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to the brain.
Meet our panel of local brain health and wellness experts, as they give us the facts on protecting
our beautiful bustling brains and discuss needed tools for maintaining optimal
levels of brain clarity and function.

Psychologist B. F. Skinner, the formulator of behavior modification theory, was attempting to prove that the same principles that govern the behavior of amoeba, planaria, rats, dogs, and monkeys also govern the behavior of human beings. A very Darwinian proposition, indeed.

What my graduate school professors conveniently “forgot” to tell me: Skinner failed to prove his hypothesis, and no researcher has ever succeeded where Skinner did not. Some have claimed success, but all they’ve succeeded at proving, really, is the fact that human beings are economists by nature. From a very early age, humans weight benefits versus costs and make logical decisions, if not always rational ones.

Happy Mother’s Day, and to our nation’s caregivers and essential workers, we thank you. It’s been quite a shared human experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve read your heartfelt stories on social media and been honored to share some of ours. Together, we’ve got this.

If the month of May 2020 were a movie, the week of May 10 would be the action sequence. Mercury enters Gemini. Venus retrogrades. And then Jupiter copies that. The omens suggest excellent and fast communication, which we’ll need as relationships and passions swing in an assessing and introspective direction. It’s review time for love, and this will be graded. Then Jupiter backs up, too, which will be felt more strongly in weeks to come.

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Your health is your greatest wealth. No doubt, no one wants to be sick, and people with great
wealth have never been able to pay their way out of death. Great health is the foundation of our quality of life; a strong immune system is the foundation of great health. It is the your frontline defense against illness, so the stronger it is, the stronger you are. Let’s find out more on how to boost your immune system to Herculean strength.

One website is titled “How to Cope with Kids During Coronavirus.” Another, featuring a staged photo of an obviously frazzled mom with a toddler on her lap, tells the reader that “Parents are losing their minds having kids at home during coronavirus!” There’s yet another, advising on “How to Keep Kids Entertained During the Crisis.” On and on it goes, website after website counseling parents on how to deal with being confined at home with one’s kids.

The early Twenty-First Century may be remembered as the “Age of the Personal Soap Opera.” A person makes a soap opera out of a life situation, claims victimhood, garners sympathy, manufactures more soap opera, garners more sympathy, and so on. Soap opera begets soap opera. Forty-plus years of counseling experience has taught me that once a person becomes caught in the soap opera loop, it is harder than hard to get out.

Happy Mother’s Day, and to our nation’s caregivers and essential workers, we thank you. It’s been quite a shared human experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve read your heartfelt stories on social media and been honored to share some of ours. Together, we’ve got this.

What’s pinker than pink? The super pink moon that is the astrological feature of the first week of April. No, it’s not the official moon of Victoria’s Secret (or Pink Magazine). Rather, the pink moon is named for the flowers that bloom this time of year, specifically the phlox, which comes in other colors besides pink with an impressive intensity of hue. Other names for this moon read like a cosmic menu and include sprouting grass moon, egg moon and fish moon.

Aries (March 21-April 19). Though you have natural abilities and that special X-factor quality that draws people in, these gifts have little to do with long-term success. Wins are contingent on behaviors, habits and routines. The right daily actions are far greater drivers of performance than a flash of ability in the absence of those behaviors.

Angela Donaldson is an Investigator with Department of Defense with Kings Bay Naval Station. “I do background investigations for anyone in Federal Government who needs a security clearance: Navy, Army, Marines and DOD civilians.” Angela continued about her background, “I’m half Japanese, then German, Irish and English. I get my thick brown hair from my mom’s German/Irish background. I love sushi, and when I was growing up, we had white rice for dinner every single night!”  

Two years ago, at age 55, Angela upped her skincare regime adding facial appointments every six to eight weeks at Golden Isles Center for Plastic Surgery on St. Simons Island, an easy ride from her Southport Brunswick home.

Brunswick Downtown Development Authority Executive Director, Mathew Hill, and I, are practicing “social distance waving” as Photographer, Mike Force, cleverly photoshopped us into this downtown mural project. Located in the parking lot at Reynolds and Mansfield Streets and titled “Welcome to Brunswick”, it joins the series of downtown murals associated with the Community of Hope and Glynn Visual Arts. Created by Jeff LeMieux and Crew, I like to think of it as Brunswick’s timeless postcard.

While working at Uniform Issue at FLETC, I found a $50 bill in a pants pocket after checking about 150 pairs of pants finding mostly nasty mouth pieces or ear plugs. Whoop, whoop!

Getting a date with my wife, Hilary, was the best luck I ever had­—all the worst luck I ever had led me to her. Karma—God’s plan—you can’t change or escape it!

I have had both. I was married 22 years and my husband committed suicide. Two years later, my 16-year-old was killed in a car accident with his best friend. Now I have been with the love of my life for 14 years.

The supermoon in Virgo is an oxymoronic lunar phenomenon, a mix of ego and humility that shines the light of publicity on often unsung virtues. The path to connecting with others this month will be through such soft and self-less states as gratitude, modesty, empathy and patience. To subvert one's own ego-drives in order to really observe what's going on for others will bring about a great unfolding of magnificent spiritual gifts.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). When someone says, "Let's unpack this..." what they mean is that they care enough to really understand you, or that they are ready to judge you, depending on the person. This week, you're ready to open yourself up to the right people, and you're paying attention so that you'll know who those people are.

What an interesting time we live in as we celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the League of Women Voters formed just six months before the passing of the 19th Amendment, in which American women finally won the right to vote on August 18, 1920.

I love exploring history, especially women in history, so when my husband, Chuck, introduced me to his hometown of Seneca Falls, New York, back in 1980, I was totally captivated with it being the birthplace of Women’s Rights  and the site of the first Women’s Rights Convention in 1848. On our July, 1982, visit home, as part of a humanity circle of one-hundred, I got to “cut (a portion of) the ribbon” opening day at the Women’s Rights National Historic Park located down the block from my in-laws’ home. What an honor.