About 3 years ago Marie Osmond arrived in Los Angeles with two of her seven children to visit her best friend and speak to a group of young girls. She had brought her youngest of girls along only because she had this annoying intuition that she HAD to bring her, even tho’ it was going to be very inconvenient to bring a toddler on a business trip. Awaking to the morning news, she quickly saw WHY her intuition kept demanding she bring the child–her home in Utah had caught fire in the night destroying their garage, Marie’s office and the bedroom of the two girls with her–everyone else survived. If she had NOT brought her two little girls on this trip, chances are they would have died in the blaze. This is how this book of memories from Mare’s life opens. All of Marie’s journals she had faithfully written over the years sadly burned in the fire. So when the publishers asked her to write this book she had to sit down to reminisce afresh on memories that helped shape who she is today. The results an endearing look into a real person we can all relate to. She encourages us all to pay attention to our “gut” and intuition as it can prevent us from disaster (i.e. the fire) and to listen to the lessons we come upon at inconvenient and unexpected times to help us make the right choices (i.e the encounter she had with a bitter drunken Shelly Winters, the Oscar winning star, about how she wished SHE had spent more time with her own daughter). There are several mystic encounters Osmond shares which you have to take her word for. She is a woman who passionately believes in her personal faith in her God and has charming stories to share of parenthood, midlife and womanhood.This is NOT an autobiography of her entire life, rather it is glimpses of her life since motherhood , including her divorce from her 2nd husband, with a lot of emphasis on her time on Dancing with the Stars. A throughly fun read–I read the entire book on a cross-country flight and was left wanting even more.

We’ve just put our house on the market and have been shopping around for another house. There were certain changes and improvements we wanted to make on the old house and figured it would be easier to trade it in for a new, smaller, more “perfect”-for-us home. After collapsing on our couch back home after a Sunday of looking  at new homes, my husband and I had to laugh. Nothing compared to the wonderful layout and space of our current home and in fact, any of the changes would have to be done on the other homes we looked at if we move…and get this…it was my husband who then made the following analogy (hmmm, maybe he would make a good relationship coach too)… Will (my man) pointed out that our disenchantment with our current home is so like many married couples who get caught up in what’s NOT working and decide to look elsewhere into “greener pastures” rather than realize it’s so much wiser to fjust ix what you’ve got. because no matter who the new love it, the relationship still includes YOU. 

It’s amazing that it took us looking at other homes to realize how good we’ve got it. Luckily we didn’t sell ours first. I hope you don’t rush out and dump your current relationship the minute times get tough because hard times happen to EVERY person and EVERY relationship because relationships include people!

In 2009 may you count your blessings in your life and love and work on what you can do to appreciate and improve what you’ve got rather than rushing out to exchange your flawed love for someone else. Chances are many of the difficulties your relationship are things that can be worked out if you just try and see both sides of the problem. Afterall, there are two perspectives to everything–yours and his. He may be wrong, but at least try and understand how he came to that conclusion or behavior.

Of all the marriage counseling I did last year, 95% of the problems were common problems in every male/female relationship and not marriage ending conflict. Sadly we are all a bit too narcisistic for our own good. Sure your man may be being a brat right now, but he may just be reacting to you being a needy, unreasonable or just plain nagging. So take a step back, count your blessings and TRY and see his side before you lash out that your needs have not been met. You may find yourself with a remodeled man just by how you change your automatic responses to him! Now that’s an home improvement worth making!

Late last night I just finished Trish Ryan’s book HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT. Wow, this is a must read for ANY WOMAN who has ever made even one bad decision at love, even more so, for any woman who has ever searched for the meaning of life or love. Not since Lauren Winner’s GIRL MEETS GOD have I loved a writer’s “voice” and style so much. This is the kind of book you will want to grab and cuddle up with on your couch, at your poolside, or any place you can be alone to enter the author’s world and devour its pages. You don’t have to love memoirs to love HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT. Sure, you will see portions of yourself, but more importantly, if you’re looking for God, you will find him here! For ladies still searching for God, Trish will show you to way to find him. For those of you who already met God, you’ll be humbled to see how our words and deeds affect those around us for good or for evil–yikes. I look forward to many more books written by Trish Ryan. In the meantime, I hope millions of you pick up this book and continue on your own journey to love and to God.

I am in the middle of reading Barbara Walters autobiography AUDITION which I must say I am thoroughly enjoying. After reading her 600 page memoir it will be a shocking day for anyone to accuse her of being one of high moral standards (her multiple affairs are just one example), yet she seems completely unaware that she is lacking in that arena.

The reason for this post however is to bring up the reality that we, as humans, are prown to make impulsive decisions in the midst of tragedy or national crisis which is why doctors and hospital administrators always have you read and sign a document that basically says you will make no legally binding decisions during the next period of time while you recouperate. Barbara Walters had broken up with her longtime boyfriend just 3 months before President Kennedy was shot. Two weeks after that tragic day her exboyfriend showed up saying life is too short, let’s get married and in the midst of emotional and national insecurity they wed. We all remember the reality TV show about the then newlyweds Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey on MTV. But what probably missed much of the public’s attention but certainly not Jessica’s was that she didn’t really love Nick. In fact she had broken it off with him and was in the “getting over him stage” when the planes hit the Twin Towers on 9/11.  In an emotional panicked state she pulled out her phone, called Nick and said “I love you let’s get married.” and they did. Neither marriage worked. (I’m confident, at least at this moment, that Tony Romo is happy it didn’t work out).

How do we prevent making life altering impulsive decisions in the midst of an insecure world? Stay focused on what you want for your life. Stay close to God. And please, don’t run down the aisle and wed on impulse after any national disaster or personal crisis for that matter. Any marraige can wait six months after the engagement, when emotions have settled down and hopefully rational thinking has returned.

Christie Brinkley appears to be a classy and lovely lady that is simply unlucky at love. Afterall, this is her FOURTH marriage. And her divorce trial with Peter Cook is the uglilest of them all. Check out what the psychiatrist had to say on the stand today during their divorce trial: CNN Report on Psychiatrist at Brinkley divorce .

How could her choices have gotten worse each time for Christie and even perhaps for you? The sad thing is, unless you take the time to really look at where you’ve been and ponder all your past relationships to see the similarities and patterns you are falling into, you will continue to attract the SAME type of man over and over, even tho’ each looks different on the outside and perhaps different in livelihoods.

Ahh, but there is hope for Christie Brinkley and there’s hope for you. Love yourself enough to look inside, find out where you’ve been and decide exactly where you want to go–write it out even! If you know what you really want in a relationship, you will recognize him when he shows up and more importantly you’ll see the red flags on the next WRONG guy early enough to save your heart. Afterall, I promise you’ll get hints of some kind early on if your guy has similar problems Peter Cook apparently has–”a “narcissist who constantly needs to have his insatiable ego fed or has a $300 a month porno addiction.” The signs are ALWAYS there if you just pay attention to what you get and not get swept up in the emotions of chemistry.