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The heroin addicts discovered the pastor's house. Now it's boarded up. The 20 minute Mayor had the City buy the church so he would have front row seat in heaven. Now it's a total liability. People actually have yard signs to elect this guy. It's disgusting.
Wednesday, August 05, 2026
Tuesday, August 04, 2026
Sandra Oh
“Spending time with friends and family, growing and nurturing relationships—that’s what fills my cup,” Oh says. “It’s also about doing work on yourself so you can show up for people. Nothing changes in this world until you decide to treat someone better, and that person could be yourself.” Article
"Let every workout be the best therapy for your life" Franklin Ortega GLADIATOR GYM Alausi Ecuador
We miss you all!
Luz Franklin Frank Matteo
YOU ARE A MACHINE, MOTIVATE YOURSELF EVERY DAY, WORK ON 100% EVERY DAY CHANGE YOUR ROUTINE AND EXCEED YOURSELF GIMNASIO GLADIATOR ALAUSI- ECUADOR
Monday, August 03, 2026
Sourdough Waffles, Vietnamese Coffee and Pumpkin Ice Cream
Playing in the kitchen on this Monday morning while I wait for the dentist to call me back.
“Pity the dark: we're so concerned to overcome and banish it, it's crammed full of all that's devilish, like some grim cupboard under the stair. But dark is good. We are conceived and carried in darkness, are we not?”
―
Findings
Sunday, August 02, 2026
Saturday, August 01, 2026
The person who was punished for expressing anger learns not just to manage the expression but to suppress the experience itself
Dr. Judy Ho
Most of us were taught to manage emotions, perform them, suppress them, or explain them away. Almost none of us were taught to actually feel them.
Friday, July 31, 2026
they are broke and you can’t fix them
Not my circus, not my monkeys: How to deal with a toxic parent, sibling, or other family member
“You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family.” This quote from “To Kill a Mockingbird” is universally recognized, but it didn’t hit home until recently. When I got married, I began to subconsciously distance myself from my party-loving girlfriends.
When I changed careers, I learned the importance of spending time with people that champion my endeavors.
And in my 30s, I realized that time is too precious to pal around with negative people. So I mustered up the courage to part ways with a few toxic friends.
Cutting people out of your life is never easy but you’ll find you are much better off for having done it.
But what about when the person bringing you down is blood-related?
Growing up, I wanted nothing more than to be close to my brother. My mom says when I’d go to birthday parties, I’d return home with a crumbled cookie I’d saved for him. In high school, I never told on my brother when he snuck beer from my parent's fridge. And when he landed a job after college, I flew out to help him settle into his first apartment.
But then things went south. My brother lost his job, turned bitter, and began to take his frustrations out on everyone around him. He’d complain incessantly yet would bite your head off if you tried to offer him advice. He was a constant source of tension within my family and would manipulate me to distilling tidbits of information to my mother so she’d pay off his debt. My brother became, in every essence of the word, toxic.
Still, I tried to maintain our relationship, clinging to the notion that we might one day be close. I justified his actions, thinking, “he’ll be happier when he starts to figure out his life.” But one swanky salary, supportive girlfriend, and upgraded living situation later, he was still the same volatile person. I finally sought help from a therapist who explained the dangers of further engaging in this toxic relationship. I’ve since learned a few things about how to handle a difficult family member. Whenever I feel bad about putting myself first, I resort to these seven techniques.
Decide your role in the relationship The first thing my therapist said to me was, “You have to figure out what role you want to play within this relationship dynamic.” She explained that I was stuck in a family triangle as the piece holding my brother and parents together. “This is a tough place to be and is a lot of pressure to put on you,” she noted. After much thought, I decided I didn’t want to be the middleman anymore. If my parents and brother wanted to talk to each other, they had to do it on their own terms. Set (and stick to) boundaries To reinforce my newly defined intentions, I realized I had to set boundaries. I told my parents I no longer felt comfortable discussing and analyzing my brother with them. Then, I told my brother if he had anything he wanted to relay to my parents, he should do it directly. It’s OK to take a time-out from a family member
During one session, my therapist asked, “What do you need right now in this situation?” Without giving it too much thought, I replied, “a break.” I took a step back and concluded that talking to my brother was only causing my stress level to go up. With everything going on in my life, that was the last thing I needed. I decided I needed to pull back from the relationship. I established that if he called, I would answer but I wouldn’t go out of my way to make contact with him. I was sick of him making me feel guilty over my personal achievements (and failing to acknowledge I’d worked my butt off for them). So I decided to block him from my Facebook updates. If he wasn’t able to see photos of my husband and me on vacations and updates about success at work, then he had nothing to hold above my head. Family drama is inevitable “Remember no one has the ‘TV family,’” says Susan Trombetti, relationship expert and owner of Exclusive Matchmaking. In deciding to back away from my brother, I was reminded that, for many years, my father didn’t speak to one of his brothers. My mother has had issues with her sisters all of her life and engages in the bare minimum of contact with them. I realized that it doesn’t make me a terrible person if my brother and I don’t become the closest people on Earth, especially if I’ve given it a fair attempt.
Don’t let your boundaries turn into fear My initial concern with cutting my brother off was that he would get mad and pull away from me indefinitely. But at the end of the day, I reminded myself: 1) If that happened, it wouldn’t entirely be my fault, 2) He’ll likely come back around when he gets his life in order and works on himself. And as I've implemented these changes, I’ve found the latter to be true. My brother will disappear from my life for six months at a time, but then I’ll receive an out-of-the-blue text or email from him. During those six months, I’m happily drama-free; when he comes back around, he’s gentler in his approach, as our relationship has had the space that it needed. “They are broke and you can’t fix them. You can only operate from your own moral compass.” Their issues are not your fault No matter how much my brother has tried to blame me for his shortcomings and our lack of a relationship, I’ve had to remind myself that he is in control of his own life. Trombetti stresses that it’s important to remember that “they are broke and you can’t fix them. You can only operate from your own moral compass and not get caught up in their anger, drama, or toxic behavior.”
Not my circus, not my monkeys After years of dealing with the back-and-forth aspects of my brother’s negativity, I’ve learned that it’s his drama, not mine. I have since realized that, as a family, we can care about my brother and offer support, but at the end of the day, it’s not healthy for us to absorb the stress associated with his day-to-day issues. “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” my mom once told me. I have since uttered that Polish proverb to myself when I begin to feel my brother’s issues creep into my life. Salvaging a damaged relationship with a member of your family can be a difficult journey. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. The main thing to remember is that taking a time out from a toxic relative, setting boundaries for the relationship, and stepping away from their drama doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s great to be a support system for your family but it’s equally as important that you are taking care of your own needs in the process.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel Quotes
“To know how to suggest is the art of teaching.”
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―
“Life is short and we never have enough time for the hearts of
those who travel the way with us. O, be swift to love! Make haste to be
kind.”
― Amiel's Journal
― Amiel's Journal
“Destiny has two ways of crushing us - by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.”
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“Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not. ”
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“The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings.”
― Amiel's Journal
― Amiel's Journal
“A belief is not true because it is useful”
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“Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up
your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a
little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may
bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place
in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for the unknown God.
Then if a bird sing among your branches, do not be too eager to tame it.
If you are conscious of something new - thought or feeling, wakening in
the depths of your being - do not be in a hurry to let in light upon
it, to look at it; let the springing germ have the protection of being
forgotten, hedge it round with quiet, and do not break in upon its
darkness.”
― Amiel's Journal
― Amiel's Journal
“Women wish to be loved not because they are pretty, or good, or
well bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are
themselves.”
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“You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.”
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“The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he
decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.”
―
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“It is not what he has, nor even what he does, which directly expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.”
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“all appears to change when we change”
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“Dare to be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace
all that you are not and to believe in your own individuality.”
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“At the bottom of the modern man there is always a great thirst
for self-forgetfulness, self-distraction; he has a secret horror of all
which makes him feel his own littleness; the eternal, the infinite,
perfection, therefore scare and terrify him. He wishes to approve
himself, to admire and congratulate himself; and therefore he turns away
from all those problems and abysses which might recall to him his own
nothingness.”
― Amiel's Journal
― Amiel's Journal
“He who floats with the current, who does not guide himself
according to higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions – such a
man is a mere article of the worlds furniture – a thing moved, instead
of a living and moving being – an echo, not a voice.”
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“What we do not understand we have no right to judge”
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“Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.”
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“I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel.”
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“Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers.”
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“Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it
means pushing back a boundary line and adding to one's liberty.”
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“Time is but the space between our memories; as soon as we cease to perceive this space, time has disappeared.”
― Amiel's Journal
― Amiel's Journal
“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the
completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words.
Gratitude is shown in acts.”
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“Any landscape is a condition of the spirit.”
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“I begin to realize that my memory is a great catacomb, and that
below my actual standing-ground there is layer after layer of historical
ashes.
Is the life of mind something like that of great trees of immemorial growth? Is the living layer of consciousness super-imposed upon hundreds of dead layers? Dead? No doubt this is too much to say, but still, when memory is slack the past becomes almost as though it had never been. To remember that we did know once is not a sign of possession but a sign of loss; it is like the number of an engraving which is no longer on its nail, the title of a volume no longer to be found on its shelf. My mind is the empty frame of a thousand vanished images.”
― Amiel's Journal, Vol 1: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel
Is the life of mind something like that of great trees of immemorial growth? Is the living layer of consciousness super-imposed upon hundreds of dead layers? Dead? No doubt this is too much to say, but still, when memory is slack the past becomes almost as though it had never been. To remember that we did know once is not a sign of possession but a sign of loss; it is like the number of an engraving which is no longer on its nail, the title of a volume no longer to be found on its shelf. My mind is the empty frame of a thousand vanished images.”
― Amiel's Journal, Vol 1: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel
“Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven. ”
―
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“What is it which has always come between real life and me? What
glass screen has, as it were, interposed itself between me and the
enjoyment, the possession, the contact of things, leaving me only the
role of the looker-on?”
― Amiel's Journal
― Amiel's Journal
“Charm is the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves.”
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