There's a saying about when things are good, they're good and when they're bad they're horrid...let's just say that pretty much sums me up these days!

When I am organized I'm good. When I'm not...watch out! It's a scary sight, and chances are you will get sucked into my vortex as I pass you by!

I don't know much about football, which is one reason I don't watch the games on TV much. But my hometown San Francisco Forty Niners are playing in the Superbowl tomorrow and I don't want to miss out on the fun. It'll better if I know what the heck is going on. (A "tight end" isn't what it sounds like.)

I was recently reminded how tough it can be to change our behaviors.  When we identify something about ourselves we want to change, it can be difficult to sustain the new behavior in the beginning.  It may be that we want to be more tolerant, patient or minimize our need to be perfect.  This story is about my 14-year-old daughter wanting to act more like an adult.

Like most families we have our Christmas traditions.  For us, the Christmas tree is the first tradition of the season.  We go to the same tree lot every year on the first weekend of December to pick our tree and we decorate it that evening.  It is a special time for us to really connect and reminisce on past Christmases.

If I include myself in my immediate family, more than half of us, or three out of five are teachers, and everyone except for my mom spends at least twenty hours of his or her week at a school. Two of us, my father and I have been grazed by gun violence during the course of our teaching careers. Over the course of our careers, both my father and I have taught students who lived in close proximity to criminals and/or have engaged in criminal activity themselves. We have both been a witness to drug possession in our very classrooms.

We tend to react to familiar situation in familiar ways.  That’s clearly true any time we find ourselves back in a familiar situation – like celebrating a holiday with our family of origin or our in-laws.

I was recently on a business trip to Guadalajara.  On the return flight a young family was seated a couple of rows up from me.  They had a 2 and 4-year-old traveling with them.

Once the plane took off, the 2-year-old girl made it quite clear that she was not a happy camper with the air pressure in her little head and started wailing at the top of her lungs to the horror of her parents.

I was diagnosed with SLE (Lupus) ten days after the birth of my fourth and last child.  If you were to tell the story in one sentence, you could say, "She was a really nice person, with a really great life, and then she got sick."

SLE did not run in my family; however, vague autoimmune indicators did.  My aunt has subsequently had a liver transplant, and one of my brothers tested positive for the Lupus gene (he does not have active SLE).

I will raise my hand and admit.  I love to have my parents come in town AND I also love to see them go home.  I LOVE my parents.  I enjoy spending time with my parents; we always have a fabulous time.  Picking them up at the airport is a joy-filled event and so is dropping them off at the airport.

Why?

Taking vacation while  you are on vacation can be a challenge.  If you are anything like me, many vacation days are spent working from a different location, while your kids and husband actually vacation.  Sometimes this is really necessary, but other times it is habit or obligation that keeps me at my computer. How about you?