No one warned me I’d miss my oncology nurses, the radiation techs, and the feeling of safety I got from the routine of cancer treatments. But I did. I seemed to cruise through that part but then came year two. It was really hard. I didn’t go back to a full-time career or kids, just a loving husband who had taken such good care of me–even read to me at night. I floated aimlessly around–with a lot less money and confidence than I once had. I couldn’t focus or get things done. I even read and reread the same books over and over again. (I know Harry Potter really well.) I missed the closeness with my husband and the amazing clarity and gratitude I’d found in the mundane.

"Kathy Sierra is the author of Creating Passionate Users, and has been interested in the brain and artificial intelligence since her days as a game developer (Virgin, Amblin', MGM). She is the co-creator of the bestselling brain-friendly Head First series (winner of the Jolt Software Development award in 2004). She is also the founder of one of the largest programmer community web sites, javaranch.com. Much of the theory and practice behind "passionate users" began when she developed and taught the first Interaction Design and New Media courses at UCLA Extension's Entertainment Studies Department, and at the IBM New Media Center at Universal Studios Citywalk. A former master trainer for Sun Microsystems, she has spent the last few years helping others learn to apply brain-friendly techniques to inspire and maintain passionate users. Resources Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, by Salen and Zimmerman"

"Weaving a Life speaks to the human spirit as we explore with our hands those connections our inner values have with our daily actions, both in our spiritual life and with our world community. Weaving unites the human heart and hand in an unspoken language of pattern and symbol. Weaving the seven elemental keyforms on the Weaving a Life Journey Loom™ examines the nature of our daily actions (the horizontal weft threads) woven through our values (the vertical threads). “Our brain is an intricate loom of billions of neural pathways with a huge potential for weaving internal interconnecitons and connections out to the world.” --Arthur Auer, M.Ed, in Learning About the World Through Modeling While beginners will learn tapestry techniques, and seasoned weavers find new sculptural dimensions in their work, the essence of the Weaving a Life process is an experience of weaving the fabric of the self. Physical benefits of Weaving a Life..."

"We received hundreds of essays in response to our query about what anchors and unsettles our Catholic audience. So we asked some of you to speak about your tradition. The moving reflections we heard prompted us to depart from our usual format and bring you a fabric of voices from the Church itself."

"In 1775, Catholic settlers, mostly of English and Irish descent, began emigrating chiefly from Maryland to Kentucky, an outpost of the crown colony of Virginia. The first missionaries came around 1787. In 1808 the four new Catholic dioceses, created at the request of Bishop Carroll of Baltimore, included Bardstown along with Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The new diocese of Bardstown covered almost the entire Northwest Territory, south to New Orleans and as far north as Detroit. In 1811, three years after he was appointed, Bishop Flaget arrived at Bardstown, traveling down the Ohio River by flatboat and overland from Louisville by wagon, accompanied by a group of seminarians. Bishop Flaget was able to build a small brick church near Bardstown, named St. Thomas. Soon he was consumed with the idea of erecting a cathedral of majestic proportions. Since most of the settlers were very poor, people contributed their materials and their labor as carpenters and masons to build the cathedral. Architect and builder of the cathedral was John Rogers of Baltimore. Bricks were baked on the grounds, and solid tree trunks cut from the wilderness were lathed in a circular pattern to form the stately columns supporting the building. The Cathedral was consecrated in 1819, though the interior was not fully completed until 1823. When the Episcopal See was moved forty miles away to the fast growing city of Louisville in 1841, St. Joseph's became a parish church, hence, the title "proto-cathedral." In 1995 Bardstown was named a titular see by the Vatican for its contributions to Catholic Church heritage in America. Once again, Bardstown, only one of three titular dioceses in the U.S., has a bishop, though in an honorary capacity. St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral complex, which includes Spalding Hall and Flaget Hall of what was originally St. Joseph College, is on the National Historic Register. "

"My name is Matthew R. Enos or just Matt for short. I am an electrical engineer by training, but I exibit evidence of rightbrainedness from time to time. Railroads are a hobby of mine, as are electrical things. Right where these two hobbies overlap are railroad signals. I like them just as much if not more than the trains themselves. Railroads run on less track than they once did. There is a common misconception that railroads are a dying industry. This belief exists because railroads are no longer a direct part of most people's lives. Passenger trains have been replaced by automobile and air travel. Also, as the number of people employed by the railroad is much less, fewer people have family employed by the railroad. Finally, the caboose and its occupants have been replaced by later technology. Yet, on the remaining track, freight service has made the remaining railroads as strong as ever today. We live in an age which prides itself on appreciation for diversity. We don't like to see groups of people descriminated against or reduced to icons. Yet society has, to a large extent, reduced the Judeo-Christian community to such a condition. As a secular worldview becomes commonplace, we see people of faith represented by finatics, extremists, and hypocrites. Wrongly so! It has been the mistake of many sincere believers of these faiths to retreat from prominence in everyday life, that is, to demonstrate their value to society by living humbly and uprightly in accordance with their nature and beliefs while going about their daily lives. In much the same way as railroads suffer a lack of recognition and are yet a vital mechanism to our economy, so Christians, who have failed to vindicate themselves in the midst of post-Christian secularism, remain prominant in the fields of morality, integrity, and optimism. This is the second website of my creation, the first one being effectively destroyed by subjection to unfortunate technical circumstances. My new website is very similar to the first. While retaining some of the old articles, I have also introduced some new ones in an attempt to offer more original content. It is the hope of the author to present something that will be interesting or helpful to his readers. The content is arranged into the following few categories with corresponding links below. "