Tag Archives: Health

The Winding Road, Journey of Survival – BOOK by MIRIAM HURDLE & PRIORHOUSE INTERVIEW

I’m so excited that Yvette Prior invited me for an interview on her Priorhouse blog. Yvette and I met and followed each other in this blogging community many years ago. She is enthusiastic and friendly. When I was formatting my debut publication, Song of Heartstring: Poems of Gratitude and Beatitude, she kindly offered to look at my manuscript and gave me valuable input. We helped each other to spread the word about each other’s books. She read my latest book, The Winding Road, and wanted to interview me, not only about this book but also about other aspects of my life.

I invite you to head over to the Priorhouse to read about this interview. While you’re there, check out her book Lady by the River: Stories of Perseverance, which is an anthology with Yvette as the author and compiler. This is a valuable self-help book with stories contributed by nine authors.

Today’s Priorhouse Interview features MIRIAM HURDLE 

MIRIAM: Hi Yvette, thank you for inviting me to share my book with your readers. I also hope to get to know your readers as they find out a little more about me. 

Hello everyone. I am Miriam Hurdle. I grew up in Hong Kong where I finished college and worked for several years before coming to the United States for my graduate studies. After my schooling, I worked two years as a rehabilitation counselor, then went into education, taught for 14 years, and was in administration for 10 before retirement. In my retired life, I enjoy volunteer counseling, reading, writing, blogging, gardening, photographing, and traveling. I’m married to Lynton and we have one married daughter. My older granddaughter, Autumn, was born on September 28, 2017, and my younger granddaughter, Nora, was born on March 22, 2020.

PRIOR: Congrats on your blessed grandchildren – and for those readers who already follow Miriam’s blog, you know how cute they are!

MIRIAM’S MEMOIR: THE WINDING ROAD

PRIOR: Many readers might already know about Miriam’s memoir, The Winding Road. I ordered a paperback copy of the book to read because I wanted to pass it along to a widow friend who lost her spouse to cancer in 2022. However, my second cousin’s wife, Nancy, was recently diagnosed with skin cancer and so I am going to gift her a copy of the book too. I think she will be encouraged by Miriam’s journey.

Can you tell us a little about The Winding Road? 

MIRIAM: I would love to share about my book, The Winding Road, Journey of Survival.

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It is a memoir of my cancer journey between 2008 and 2009. Four of my close relatives had cancer, and three died from it. Cancer affects a lot more people than we realize. What I had was something terrible, but it is also a common disease. Yet my cancer experience had several layers of impossibilities, which further complicated the disease itself. Each circumstance pushed and expanded my limit of patience, faith, trust, and gratitude.

My healing journey taught me to let down my guard, show my vulnerability, and accept my being rather than doing.

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Continue reading…

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National Gratitude Month – November

November is National Gratitude Month – Royal Threads by Erica

Yvette M. Calleiro reminds me of a Calm calendar for November. You can download it if you’re interested.

National Gratitude Month is celebrated every November. It was declared the month of gratitude in 2015 after author Stacey Grewal advocated for it.

“Gratitude is an essential ingredient of a happy, fulfilling life,” said Grewal, who wrote the book Gratitude and Goals. “Research shows that practicing daily gratitude can enhance our moods, decrease stress and drastically improve our overall level of wellbeing. This challenge is a great opportunity to see if you can improve your life by getting more in touch with gratitude.” Grewal pointed out that, on average, grateful people tend to be happier, healthier; more physically fit, have a higher income and have much more satisfying personal and professional relationships. – PR Newswire

“Gratitude – The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.” – Oxford Dictionary

Free Thankful Printable | Thanksgiving quotes inspirational, Thanksgiving  quotes, Happy thanksgiving quotes

I will take time to relax, reflect on things I’m thankful for this year, write, and be with my extended family to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.

I will focus on expressing gratitude in many ways :

1. Write a daily gratitude journal (could be brief)

2. Wake up filling my mind and my heart with thankfulness

3. Be grateful for health (good or not so good) and being alive

4. Be intentional to show appreciation to family members, friends, and people around me.

5. Stop and be thankful for the safe environment

6. Appreciate the natural beauty around me

7. Be generous in giving in a tangible way

What would you add to this list? I would like to hear it.

This means my blogging time will be reduced. I have two posts later in the month. Other than that, I’ll resume posting in December, in time to celebrate Christmas.

Pin by Alyssa McCool on Thanksgiving Joy | Thanksgiving quotes, Thankful  quotes, Happy thanksgiving quotes
Editor's Note: Living Grateful and Thankful – Wisconsin Conference of  Seventh-day Adventists

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Merry Christmas

It has been a challenging time for me since the beginning of November. I have an allergic reaction toward something, possibly medications. After having gone to the Urgent Care twice, Emergency Room twice, hospitalized for five days and seeing eight doctors, no doctor could pinpoint what happened to the constant inflammation of my skin. All they could say was to ask me to discontinue this and that medication. I will discontinue ALL my medications in less than a month. What a motivation for me to get rid of all the medications I have been taking. They gave me some treatments such steroids and antibiotics. I spent Thanksgiving in the hospital and was hoping not to miss all the celebrations in Christmas.

 

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Messiah Performance

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Messiah Performance

With great effort and determination, I gathered my energy and ensured a pleasant appearance; I managed to sing in one of the two performances of Messiah. I couldn’t sing in the first one because I was still miserable. Laying in my bed, I could hear the choir singing. My disappointment was no greater than my motivation. I quietly plead for good health the next day so that I could sing. Oh, what a miracle! I woke up feeling the coolness of my body. It was a great joy for me to spend hours to prepare myself. The photos showed my red face (with no make-up) from the inflammation. My friends in the audience were happy to see me.

 

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Retirees singing to the retirees

I also got to sing in one of the two chorale concerts. I missed the first one when the group sang in a retirement home. The second one was as fun when we sang to the fellow retirees.

 

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Precious group of ladies at the Christmas dinner

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Joy to the World celebration

There were two Christmas parties I was delighted to go and had fun seeing my friends of thirty years. One was the ladies Christmas dinner, and the other was the adult fellowship Christmas party.

I haven’t seen the end of the tunnel yet. I’ll still must take a blogging break until my health is fully recovered. Until then, I wish you all

A Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

SoCS 2019.10.05 – Healthy Taste

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “-tast-.” Find a word that contains “tast” and use it in your post. Enjoy!Linda G. Hill

For health reason, Hubby and I are on a low carbohydrate but tasty, healthy and balanced diet. When he retired in 2016, he said, “You have been cooking for me for twenty years. From now on, I’ll do all the cooking.” He has kept his words literally. We eat two meals a day. He makes a tasty and colorful brunch with eggs, fruit and vegetable. For dinner, he makes tasty salmon and different vegetables. Once in a while, he makes thin crust pizza and continues to improve on his secret recipe. Two or three times a year, we have barbecues with lean meat.

For dining out, I usually have seafood and he has steak. Basically, we stay away from fat and starchy food.

 

 

brunch 2017.08.28

Brunch – Hubby’s portion, half size for Miriam

2018 pizza 1

Thin Crust Pizza – Pepperoni for Hubby, Veggies for Miriam

2017 BBQ

Barbecue dinner with homemade potato chips

Crusted New York Strip

Dining out – Hubby’s dinner

Cedar Planked Salmon

Dining out – Miriam’s dinner

 

 

SoCS 2019.10.05 – Healthy Taste

 

 

 

 

 

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