Ground Zero This year, 2026, had already presented me with many more challenges than I expected by the time summer rolled around. For months, my husband and I had been looking forward to a two-week vacation in Kauai in early January. Good friends joined us for the first week and we enjoyed the last week…

The simple answer to this question is yes but it’s not what you think. According to the most recent reports from both the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and Mental Health America the rate of serious mental illness in both adults and teens is rising. In 2024, mental illness was experienced by 23.4% of…

In early January I was delighted to return to Kauai.  My husband and I love this island.  We were last there in the spring of 2019. At that time, he was four months post-chemotherapy for stage 3 non-Hodgkins diffuse B cell lymphoma. We did not know what his recovery would hold and we had not…

A glance at the news headlines can be a stressful and depressing way to start a day. Whether it is the Epstein files, the economy, ICE, Russia, Ukraine, The Middle East, Venezuela, China, Greenland, mass shootings, or destructive weather, gloom and doom dominate. For the average American, tension is high and confidence in the current…

In late November, the Department of Education’s (ED) Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) committee spent several weeks discussing regulations for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) loan-related provisions. They proposed higher loan limits for students earning professional degrees including “Pharmacy (Pharm.D.), Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.), Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.), Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.), Clinical…

As we hit the one-year mark of the second presidential election featuring a woman candidate and a second Donald Trump presidency, the question of whether a woman can lead the United States demands answers. Despite two exquisitely qualified women candidates whose credentials and performance in public service outshined their opponent, neither was elected. A deeper…

The relationship between mothers and daughters is complex.  As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I have studied it extensively.  The last 20+ years of my career I have worked with teens and parents, witnessing numerous mother-daughter dyads in various stages of relationship.  As a daughter I have lived it. Mothers have a significant impact on their…

Over the summer, Pete Hegseth, the United States Defense Secretary (recently renamed Secretary of War), reposted a videotaped interview of Doug Wilson, Pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.  Doug Wilson Interview The interview begins with Pastor Wilson stating, “Women are the kind of people that people come out of”. The statement was shocking.  The…

Adam and Eve. In this creation story from the primary religious text that many people in this country embrace, everything was rosy for the first couple until the woman destroyed it. Adam and Eve lived a simple and blissful life in the plentiful Garden of Eden until a serpent enticed Eve to eat fruit from…

A Man’s World Scientific estimates place hominins (our ancestors) on the earth approximately six million years ago. Since the dawn of time, humans have lived in a man’s world.  Men protected women and children from predators and hunted to provide food.  Women prepared food, gathered roots and berries if available, fetched water, raised children, sewed,…