Podcast Notes
Persistence U with Lizbeth Podcast
Podcast episodes are posted Wednesdays and include stories by and for survivors and strivers, all threaded together with a dose of persistence.
Want To Be a Creepy Stalker? There’s an App for That! Senator Al Franken’s Solution to Privacy Violation
Senator Al Franken knows that a parents dream has become a battered woman’s nightmare. Mobile phone tracking apps, marketed as a way parents can know where their children really are is being used instead by domestic abusers as a way to stalk their victims. In the post...
Swimming with Maya/Licking the Spoon/The End of Eve-These are a few of my favorite reads
What are you reading this season? I feel like I'm on a winning streak lately. May brought free cable (thanks to my kid's job at the utility company), new romance, and two new kittens. Even so, one of the best parts of any good season for me is enjoying a good book or...
Celebrating the Unexpected: You Can Find Love Online
How many times do we envision one outcome and end up with another? Lately, that’s all I’ve got going on. There are the little things. My long awaited Memorial Day weekend went wonky when a wildfire made breathing for all of us Alaskan’s a bit more challenging....
Dating in Alaska/Facing the Challenge
It's been so gorgeous out these past days, I'm behind in writing. I'm sharing a bit from my novel, Facing the Odds, One Man at a Time. Sometimes fiction perfectly mirrors real life. Complicating matters on the dating front is the place I live: Alaska. Arguably one of...
How I Met My Mother-The Sequel Starring Minka and Betty Jane
It's easy to take family for granted. I do it all the time. I read the story of Minka and Betty Jane this week, a mother-daughter pair separated by adoption for nearly 80 years before reuniting, and I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if I'd never...
The Truth About Leaving a Violent Relationship
Many months ago, the Anchorage Daily News reported a brutal stabbing. Fortunately, the victim lived. Her story wasn't so unique. Her former boyfriend, who didn't appear to harbor ill-will towards her about their break-up two months earlier, apparently did. He stabbed...
Love, Pistorius Style/The Pretty Faces Behind the Ugly Problem of Domestic Violence
With all the other things going on nationally, I had not paid attention to the Oscar Pistorius trial. Honestly, I thought Pistorius was a political figure. And then I stayed home last weekend and caught up with the news. What's not fascinating about a tragic...
Outsmarting First Date Jitters/A Few Rules to Bring to the Table
Do you believe in self-fulfilling prophecies? I do. I definitely do. When I wrote last week about a few reasons I stink at first dates, I mentioned my history with behaving badly on first dates, especially when it comes to answering what should be easy questions...
Zen-ing My Monster/How I Calmed My Nerves and Enjoyed a Date
Am I the only person who becomes a monster when it comes to matters of love and dating? Ask any of my friends and they'll tell you: I like people. I love their stories and quirks and cultures. I may not be consistently outgoing, but I always love me a new friend. I...
The Odds are Good But the Goods are Odd/Taming Alaska’s Wildest Life
Thanks for joining me for my first week at the WordPress site. Learning how to navigate my way around it won't be easy, but we'll get there. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling excited about a bunch of new beginnings. The snow here in Alaska is finally melting....
Confessions of an Online Dater/Three Surefire Ways to Scare Off Your Potential Match Before You Have Met
What have you been up to? These days, when I'm not at work, I'm nearly always working on my novel about a woman trying to find love. I've hired writing coach Brooke Warner, am listening to webinars and attending online classes, and am writing a teeny manual about...
Time to Talk with Teens/What Does a Healthy Dating Relationship Look Like?
Why is it that we don't talk to our young people about the ingredients to a healthy relationship? It's an important topic. More important than how to pick an apartment or good car, teaching our kids what a safe dating relationship looks and feel likes is critical to...
I Wish I Had Never Made Him Angry/Throwback Thursday Hits the Courtroom
"I just wish that I'd never made him angry!" I hadn't got the memo that Throwback Thursday had morphed into other arenas besides Facebook. Yet there I was that day, in the lobby at work after court with a battered 18 year-old girl, whose black eye and angry scratches...
Confessions of an Older Single Woman/ How Age Enhances the Dating Experience
You might think dating after middle-age is impossible for single women. Not so. I've been single (again) now for 24 years, so it's a topic near and dear to my heart. I enjoyed the slide show on MSN-Nine Ways Dating Changes After 35 by Denise Wolfe. I emboldened the...
My Funny Valentine/ Three Lessons of Love that My Cat Taught Me
This wasn't how I meant to spend Valentine's Day. In a perfect world, I would have spent it with the one I love, enjoying an appetizer and beverage by candlelight. The problem? I don't have someone that I love. Not like that, anyway. Instead, I came home and spent it...
Private Violence and APB/ Liz’s Monday Roundup
Greetings! My computer just returned from sick leave so I'll be brief. Lesson learned: If you get a pop-up saying Windows Advanced Security found problems on your computer, that is malware. Don't click on anything! Private Violence, or click on the safe link to see...
Deciding to Be Different/Leaving the Legacy of Domestic Violence
Have you ever had a chance meeting with someone that changed your way of thinking? My journey to Paris last month had been a long one. A five hour flight from Anchorage to Minnesota, a three hour layover, followed by an eight hour flight to Paris. By the time I got...
How Do You Measure a Good Vacation? My trip to Italy and France
How do you measure a good vacation? Is it the sights you've seen? The friends you've made? Or is it that you're positively thrilled to return to your own routine of work, chores, and friends? However I measure it, I had a great time. I'm tickled to be back. After...
Remembering Grace and Making New Memories/The Bright Spot of My Daughters’ Abduction
I'm in Italy this week, spending time with a cherished friend. Have you ever been the beneficiary of uncommon kindness from a random stranger? There is something special about going through a brutal time and finding that you have guardian angels who pop up out of...
Three Things I Loved About 2013 and My Top Three Blog Posts
Happy New Year! What are the top three things you're most proud of from 2013? I like reflecting on these each New Year rather than to make commitments to achieve new goals. My top three sources of pride in 2013? This was a first for me, given that I didn't meet most...
Adding to the Three Things I Know Something About
Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays! I'm revising one of my very first posts, written almost exactly two years ago. Though I will continue to be committed to reconnecting with lost loved ones, issues of child abduction, and domestic violence, in 2014 I'll be...
What Can Be Gained When Your Found Family Member Has Died? The Stories of Philomena Lee and Cynthia Phan
My worst nightmare was always this: I’d search for my kidnapped daughters relentlessly, and just before finding them, one or both would be killed in a fatal accident. I nearly missed finding my father in 1985. I found him when he was seventy and I was twenty, and...
Top Secrets for More Holiday Joy from a Reformed Holiday Hater
How are you doing during this holiday season? I’ll admit I’ve darkened a number of holiday parties and Christmases over the years. While others around me delight in their family connections and memories of holidays past, I’ve taken the time to revel in awful family...
Redefining Normal: The Headline Regarding Savanna Todd
There's something strange about this headline found in NBC news: Woman found living 'normal life' in Australia 19 years after abduction as an infant in SC. When an infant is taken from her home in the U.S. by her non-custodial mom and raised in another country, away...
The Tiffany Rubin Story/ New Solutions to International Parental Child Abduction
Q. What happens when your child leaves for a visit with their other parent and ends up on the other side of the globe? A. Nothing good. Just ask Tiffany Rubin, a school-teacher from Queens, New York whose son Kobe was abducted by his non-custodial father and taken to...
When Vacation Beckons/ Three of my Favorite Travel Blogs
What signs do you see in yourself when you need a vacation? I don’t know how much is the increasing darkness or the legitimate need to unplug and focus on rest and relaxation, but I’ve definitely seen the signs in myself. Sign #1) Small frustrations are out of scale....
New Tools to Tackle Domestic Violence
It’s already the end of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. By now, we’re aware of the sobering statistics. The inter-generational impact of domestic violence, that children raised with violence often perpetuate violence against their own partners when they grow up....
Are You Helping or Hurting? Test Your Knowledge on How You Impact Domestic Violence
It’s October again! Time for National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Did you know that · One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime? · 85% of domestic violence victims are women? · Witnessing violence between...
Just Another Modern Day Miracle – Siblings Cinday Murray and Robert Williamson Reunite
What does a miracle look like? Scroll down to see reunion of Cinday Murray and her brother Robert Williamson, separated since their parents divorce in the 70's and both actively serving in the Navy. "We've had all this time we could have been together."...
What Do You Do When You’re Fighting the Blues? Three Strategies That Help Me Every Time
I took a few comp days off work to savor the colors and smells of autumn. My plan was to return to a teeny cabin in Seward to write and relax before the first snowfall. I envisioned this. And then I woke up. Oops! Snow continues to fall on this 23rd day of September...