They are words oft spoken: “Count your blessings.” That’s easy, especially in times like these with an unsettled economy and a politically divided nation. Simply having a job or a home or a steady income are obvious blessings. But, what about the not-so-obvious ones? The aptly named blessings in disguise ... the events that seem so difficult only to later reveal a greater good? The experiences that make no sense at the time but that later unveil their true meanings ...

I’m a wife, mother and working woman. Oh, and I LOATHE trips to the grocery store, especially when I have the three monsters in tow. But I’m also a frugal shopper; I work hard for the money (props, Donna Summer!), and my food better treat me right! (So, right.)

Here we are in the fourth issue of Her Nashville (I know, right?), and this is the best issue yet because we’re getting naked. Keep your clothes on, girls. It’s all about removing the masks to reveal the real us. So often we hide behind what we wish we were or who we want people to perceive us as, and in that process, we lose sight of the true women we really are.

What does it mean to be the best? And, who is qualified to determine that? What features must be present to deem something so? Is it a quality thing? A popularity thing? What is it about something — a person, product, business — that makes people say things like, “Oh, that was the best movie!” or “That was the best meal.”? The word “best” is used casually every day, but in every usage, it’s a form of validation ... a stamp of approval ... that someone thinks something is primo, exquisite ... the best!

Sandwich Assistance
A friend of mine recently shared that her mother is in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s. She also told me about a great local resource of which I was unaware that helps adults who are caring for their parents. The Middle Tennessee Council on Aging has a resource guide that is reportedly a wealth of information for families caring for their elders. What was originally Caring Daughters, Aging Parents has been revised to include all family members and is now called Aging & Caring: Things Families Need to Know.

I come from a family of givers. My mom and dad are givers. My siblings and their spouses are givers. My husband is a giver, almost to a fault!

In 2007, more than 500,000 American lives were prematurely extinguished by cancer, a statistic that Nashvillian Sheila Bates knows well. “I call it going to Cancerland,” says Bates, whose father died of lung cancer at age 47; she was 23. “My life was irrevocably changed.”