WESLEY'S BIRTHDAY
Wednesday, November 24, 2010

This is the Wesley that I met when I was eight years old and he was 10. Our son Hunter is starting to look more and more like him. Hunter's chin is narrowing and his eyes and eyebrows are looking more like a young man's and less like our little boy's.

People ask me what I would say to Wesley if I had one more chance to speak with him. Honestly, I do believe we said all there was to say before he died. I have no regrets about any of the time we did or did not spend together. We were the best that we could be and shared years of happiness and tribulations together, just as every marriage experiences.

He comes to me in my dreams sometimes. Not as often as he used to, but he does still come. Now when he visits, he says nothing. He just watches Hunter, smiles at me and shakes Hot Guy's hand. If he knows of us where he is, he knows we are happy and that it took years to heal from the loss of him, but Hunter and I are healing and living a good life. He would want that more than life itself, because that's the kind of man he was.

Happy Birthday, Wesley. Give your dad a hug for me, would you?

BUSY, BUSY DAY(S)

November 19, 2010

I am taking a break from a very busy, productive day, while listening to a three-year-old interview from a show I was on a few years ago. I found it on the Internet when searching for a clip on of me on The Rachael Ray Show. As I listen to it, I consider how much has changed since the interview. I have learned so much throughout this ongoing, rewarding journey.

Today's work will bring very delayed rewards. Everything that I am working on today and in the days to come will take time to develop. None of my efforts will bring overnight success. Book proposals. Article pitches. Promotion of a film premier. I am not complaining, because it's a good gig I have and it's a wonderful life I am living.

On my mind today, in addition to the things I am working on for my clients, is my determination to write a column. The Seattle Times said yes last year, then had to cut their online budget and there was no room in their print newspaper, so my column was cut as well. The Sacramento Bee said yes, then the newspaper was cut by six pages and my column was part of those six pages being cut.

How does a writer get a column these days? I must find out.

I better get back to work and finish out the day trying to help make the work of others a success, while carving out time to make my own dreams come true.

A HEALTHIER YOU

Monday, November 15, 2010

It's not easy to make a physical transformation. In fact, we spend our hard-earned money trying anything and everything to get us where we want to be but rarely succeed because our expectations leave us empty when the reality of what it takes to transform eludes us. I have seen very few people achieve a physical, mental and emotional transformation.

Kelli Barrett, a certified personal trainer and my dear friend, is one of the few people I know who managed to go from a more than 220 lbs. unhappy woman to a healthy, capable and rejuvenated woman who changed her whole life because she was tired of failing herself with every fad diet and unused gym memberships that had plagued most of her adult life. This time, instead of setting a goal weight or starting a crash diet when hitting the gym, she made the decision to just start with hitting the gym.

"I went to a group exercise class and almost threw up afterward because I was so out of shape!" Kelli said.

With her mind made up, she kept her commitment to showing up at the gym again the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Now, three years later, health and fitness is not only a way of life for her and a full time career, it's also her calling.

When Kelli made the decision to make significant changes to her diet, she enlisted the help of nutritionist Monica Bearden, author of The Baby Fat Diet, to help her cross over from eating "pretty well" to eating a whole food diet that changed her body and her mind about what she eats and why she eats it.

When asking Monica what is the one thing people can do to start getting healthy, she answered, "Eat breakfast. Eat cereal with at least 5 grams of fiber and add some fruit. Or have oatmeal and an egg. If you like yogurt, add some healthy nuts and a piece of fruit. Make healthy choices when breaking that fast in the morning."

Many of us struggle with the fact that our jeans don't fit or wonder how much weight we can lose in time for our class reunion or other special occasions, but what Kelli did that mattered most in her final transformation is worked on herself from the inside out. A benefit of her hard work just happens to be that she got rid of her fat clothes and her size 6 jeans fit nicely and consistently.

As soon as podcasts of the show are available on my blog, this show will be the first I post. For more information about nutritionist Monica Bearden, visit www.babyfatdiet.com.

HEALTHCORPS

Sunday, November 14, 2010

I first read about HealthCorps, founded by Dr. Oz, in AARP Magazine. I'd just finished working out at the gym and the newest issue was on the coffee table.

One of the things I absolutely love about doing my radio show is the ability to read about something in a magazine or hear about something in the news and make my best effort to share the message with my listening audience. After reading about HealthCorps for the first time, I invited Michelle Bouchard, HealthCorps president, on my show. Everything she shared with me during our interview about HealthCorps and its commitment to changing the lives of children one school at a time made me want to do more.

Fast forward two months and I am sitting in the conference room of the HealthCorps offices in New York City meeting with their team about how my show can help share their message with a larger audience. I shared my idea of airing HealthCorps minutes during my show and encouraged them to let me help get the produced messages on radio stations in every city they are currently working their program, as well as the cities they would like to move into. By the end of the meeting, we all became fast friends with shared visions for creating additional awareness about a program that will gets kids off the couch and on their way to living healthier, better lives. Currently, we are also working together seeking grants to bring HealthCorps to Washington state.

HealthCorps is about aiding the good health of every child, not just physically but also emotionally. What spoke to me most about their mission is the hope that by empowering the health of children, we will empower the possibilities of our entire country.

For more information about HealthCorps, CLICK HERE for a video about the program and visit www.healthcorps.com.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

My friend Heather Urich said she would be in New York to do the Today Show and wanted me to meet her manager, so I bought a plane ticket and booked a hotel, then I considered every possible avenue for success in promoting Just Earth: A Young Widow's Memoir, as well as insuring every effort was being made toward the success of my clients who have dreams of their own.

In addition to the book, there's The Life with Lisa Show and there's the work we have yet to do with The Gift of Hunter Foundation. I have no idea how everything is going to shake out but I know it's going to be a lot of fun trying.

While I walked the streets of New York after a meeting with a man I am certain is going to have an enormous impact on the outcome of our combined efforts, I came across the Simon & Schuster building, one of the largest publishing houses in the world. I was on a business call when I glanced across the street and first noticed the building. After I hung up the phone, I just stood in front of it and looked up as high as the building stood, noticing all of the windows and considering everyone in the building. Who in the window decides what gets published and what doesn't? Who decides if there are enough people in the world who would read my story to warrant them publishing it? Who in the building would fight for my project and who would tell me to go back home and find a new dream.

The theme of my life continues to be borrowed from Henry Ford. "Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right."

I'm the girl who will get on a plane and show up to follow her dream and to be able to say I did all I could. There are few greater lessons to teach our children than that.

JUST EARTH: A YOUNG WIDOW'S MEMOIR

Chapter 22: Thoughts from My Father

MY DAD'S CHAPTER

Saturday, November 6, 2010

I received my dad's chapter for my next book in the mail yesterday. He wrote it on yellow legal pad paper, just like he did for the first book. He didn't want to write a chapter this time. He said he didn't want to go back to that dark place. Losing Wesley left a gaping wound in all of us.

I've spent most of the evening preparing his chapter for my editor while my family plays loudly with excitement downstairs. Hot Guy is playing Wiffle ball in the family room with the kids. It's winter here now and gone are the summer evenings in the yard playing Wiffle ball until the sun goes down. We are a family that improvises.

When I was a kid, I always felt lucky to have the family I did. We didn't have a lot of money when I was younger, but we were always going some where, doing something. My parents are social people and we had BBQs with our friends and we went to my grandpa and grandma's house in the mountains nearly every Sunday. My brother Vance and I played sports and had birthday parties with all of our friends. My mom made us cool cakes and my parents saved their money to make sure we got what we asked for every Christmas, within reason.

The Christmas I remember most wasn't because of the gift I asked for and received. My brother was racing BMX bikes (and so was I, but that's another story entirely) and he was slowly building a bike that my parents could afford. For Christmas he asked for one alloy wheel for his bike. He figured he would ask for the other one for his birthday in January. My parents told him they couldn't afford to get him both at once for Christmas.

Christmas morning, they wheeled my brother's bike in from the garage and he hopped on with absolute delight as he marveled at the beauty of his front wheel, alloy just as he'd asked.

While he was sitting on his bicycle seat, still looking at and thrilled about his one alloy wheel, I noticed the back wheel looked just like the front one.

"Hey! Aren't both wheels the same?" I asked.

Vance looked at the tire on the back of his bike and started to squeal like a girl with excitement! Somehow, our parents had managed to buy two alloy wheels for Vance's bike.

I've never forgotten that Christmas and every year when I am preparing my son's gifts with little consideration to what they cost, I think about the many sacrifices my parents made to insure Vance's and my childhood was a good one. To this day, I refuse to spend much money on Christmas, because I know the presents won't matter to the kids when they grow up, but the stories they tell of their childhood will.

Below is an excerpt from my dad's chapter, which will be the second to the last chapter of my second book, just as it was in my first. I cherish it as much as I cherish my brother's alloy wheels on his BMX bike.

Excerpt from Thoughts From My Father:

As a man who has been married for forty-three years, the father of two wonderful grown children who exceed my own capabilities, and grandchildren who make it all worth it, the most frequent prayer I pray is for the safety and the happiness of my children and their children.

When Wesley got sick and wasn’t getting better, I knew that balance of happiness and safety that I prayed for my family every night would never be the same. I knew my daughter would never be the same. The story as we’d known it, was being rewritten.

There was nothing Wes wanted more than to marry my daughter and have a son. He took great pride in his family and the two of them together built a solid life. As time when on, and Wes got sicker, he got angry. As much as I hated to watch what he was doing to himself and to my daughter in his anguish, I knew it wasn’t his fault. And Lisa knew that too. He was just a man with a body that wasn’t allowing him to live the way he wanted to live and he knew he would never grow old and see his son grow up. He was only thirty-five years old. I can't imagine what that was like for him.

We were there for them as much as we could be. My wife Carmen did what she did when Lisa was sick, she selflessly showed up every day in every way she could. She was in Texas for days at a time, helping them with Hunter so Lisa could take care of Wes. I only visited a few times that year, because of work. As much as Carmen told me they were going through, it was worse to see it up close.

Carmen and I met Vance in Texas to spend the new year with Wes, Lisa and Hunter. We tried to celebrate New Year’s Eve, but hauntingly, in the back of our minds we all secretly feared this might be Wes’s last.

Late that New Year’s Eve, Wes and I sat in their Jeep after a few shots of whiskey. The car was parked in the driveway of their house and we weren’t going anywhere. Somehow I knew we were heading to an ugly, dark place. Wes was so incredibly angry and raging that night. He was venting his fear and disappointment. This young, driven family man was in a rage. He knew he was dying and he wanted no part of it. I would have let him beat on me if it would have somehow helped ease his despair. I just tried to receive his rage and would like to think that I was there for him. We took away some of the darkness that night and I would later realize that that was our own, private good bye.