Gratitude – Suzy Cornflakes

Can’t Find It? Write It

Posted on January 19, 2026January 19, 2026 by momoftenplus

I am lucky enough to have a trusted professional to speak with regularly. Dr. P is about my age and she has great experience. I mentioned in my last post that my friend Bev is encouraging me to write, and now Dr. P is also. I told her that as I watch YouTube I find myself hoping to discover someone in my stage of life who discusses multiple topics–not just makeup, or clothes, or a specific illness, or even health, but a variety of the things I find interesting, and the types of things I struggle with. I’d like to feel less alone and more inspired.

Not that I am without companionship. I am happily married, I still have three teenage children living at home, and a twenty-year-old who just moved back home to finish college online. I have friends but they are still busy with their careers or good health. I do not want to join a group; my energy and health are still too up and down to commit. So I watch YouTube and period dramas, and news. The latter is very divisive so I won’t get into that. I get things done around the house in bits, and struggle with the fact that I am so seriously less productive than ever before.

Someone I’ve recently heard about and watched on YouTube is a Harvard Business Professor named Arthur Brooks. Perhaps you know of him. He has lectured and spoken throughout the United States (and maybe the world), not about Business, per se, but about Happiness. The tie-in is that in order to be an effective leader and to have satisfied employees, one needs to know about the keys to happiness. Gratitude is essential.

Taking a tip from him I have instituted a practice of not just making a list of what I am grateful for, but very specifically choosing five things per day and really meditating on them, ideally as I walk. With the frigid temps these days I may not walk every day but whether I do or not, I spend some mindful time on five things. Three are supposed to be obviously good things, and two must be borne from suffering. Suffering? Yes. And for each, one meditates on three specific aspects of that gratitude.

So for example, today my obviously positive things were: 1) our family went out to dinner after church yesterday and I was grateful for the laughter, the precious time with family, and the means to do this (wow, dinner for six at a nice restaurant is pricey these days–we won’t do this regularly); 2) just the fact that I was out walking, I was grateful for the sun on my face, that my back could handle it, and that I could walk independently when there are others who have lost the ability to do so; 3) for my two new kittens, that Bruce allowed me to get them even though he pays for it and usually takes pets to the vet for me, that they are sweet and purr and are quite therapeutic, and that they are hilarious to watch.

The suffering-related things were: 1) I still have pain in multiple places every day, but the pain has drawn me closer to God, has allowed me to see how much Bruce truly loves me, and actually has pushed me to exercise more consistently; 2) my face was literally freezing in the bitter wind at that moment, but that discomfort forced me to think back to the many winters with frigid temperatures when despite them we got out and rode horses (the memories precious like gold) and I remembered riding a ski lift happily in Colorado high above the ground in the wind when the temperature was recorded as 18 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit!), and finally that I was grateful to be one step closer to home, and another, and another.

On other days I have had more profound thoughts regarding suffering, but those above were appropriate to share. A few years ago I created a post in which I later regretted sharing too much, and I do not want to that again; so, if you consider reading any more of my blog posts in the future, I promise–nothing awkward. Dr. P said if I don’t want to create a YouTube channel with the content I would want to see (I do not) then consider writing about it. A sixty-something-year-old taking some of Arthur Brooks’ advice is my first post. I will continue to learn about whatever else he suggests, and I may write more on it; however, there will be other topics. I am happy to hear your suggestions.

It feels good to write again. Thank you for reading!

Not A Concept

Posted on June 15, 2024 by momoftenplus

I had no idea that the last time I posted was January of 2023. Not that anyone has perhaps noticed, but I’m surprised. I thought it had been a year, since about the time that we moved in June of 2023. We bought this house because it was so close to one of our daughters. As “city” as it gets for me, but it is really a beautiful suburb.

We continued to live on Fort Leavenworth in early 2023, while the kids finished school. It has been quite the change from a farm in rural Atchison, but it makes sense and it is good. We were here when our sixth grandchild was born. And in truth, our daughter has been here for us during my health challenges. I think I’m on the upswing now, it’s been two years since my cancer diagnosis, and a year and a half since surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation. It took a lot out of me.

Anti-hormone therapy and a chemo-like pill took even more. I tried the medicines for a year and it seems I’m in that third of patients who quit them due to debilitating adverse effects. I won’t call them side effects because for me, they heaped more damage on my body and deteriorated any quality of life. It’s ok, my family is supportive and well, I tried the “gold standards.” I’ve a greater chance of cancer returning than someone with Stage 1 or 2, but I have no metastasis. At Stage 3 there is no known cancer in my body and I’ve changed my eating habits and am exercising more. I even joined a gym!

My goals are living each day as best as I can, and living in the moment with gratitude. I think I am honestly succeeding at these more than ever before. Like every person, I’m here on this Earth to better it somehow, especially for my family.

Hoping not to take a year and a half to write again. With love, Suzy.

Corny

Posted on August 30, 2022August 30, 2022 by momoftenplus

I’ve been asked, “Why Suzy Cornflakes?”

While I do live in a household full of Dad-jokes and corny jokes (thanks to my witty hubby and sons), the reference is actually to a cereal box from the early 1970s. I’ve searched online to find images of it, but with no luck.

Before even that box, in the 1960s the cereal called “Wheaties” became very popular. Full of whole wheat goodness, it was dubbed “The Breakfast of Champions.” Many may still remember the great sports heroes featured on the front of the boxes over the years. Prior to the famous folk, the boxes held images of cute little children because the cereal was marketed to parents who wanted a healthy breakfast for their kids. One of the children pictured was a cute little strawberry blond girl with freckles. The resemblance to me was not missed by my brothers, and one of my very first nicknames in life was: Wheatie.

A few years later we moved to Northern Baltimore County in Maryland, a very rural area with thousands of acres of farmland. One of our neighbors (I have mentioned him before) was Mr. Ballard. We went to the same church as his family, and worked together on the local, church-organized horseshows. His children were excellent riders and older than me. When I was a teen, and they were grown or in college, I helped clean Mr. and Mrs. Ballard’s house each week. At 16 I had sold my own pony, and by 18 I began to exercise his hunters. That subject is book-worthy, for I will never, ever forget the many experiences riding horses for and with “Mr. B.” He was more than an icon; in many ways he was my hero.

In the 1980s with Spindrift, Rathkeale and Justin

Back to cornflakes. Generic products became prolific with inflation of the 1970s, and big-name brands became too expensive for many household budgets. The market flourished with identical products, but in plainer packaging and cheaper pricing. Sometimes the manufacturer was one-in-the-same with the name brand, as is common today with store-brands. Popular “Kellogg’s Cornflakes” was rivaled by a generic box that I only remember as light-blue on the front, with the face of yet another adorable, strawberry-blonde, freckled little girl. Mr. B immediately nicknamed me: “Suzy Cornflakes.”

Halcion days, walking to and from the bus with my brother.

My brothers still call me Wheatie from time to time, but no one calls me Suzy Cornflakes anymore, since Mr. Ballard passed away several years ago. He was close to the age of 90 and I smile to think that he was probably on horseback not long before his passing. I will always remember him, grateful for the rides and the advice and support that only a very special and sage human being can gift to another…to a talkative, freckle-faced, strawberry-blonde adolescent.

Suzy Cornflakes will forever remember Mr. B.