Community Embraces Charity Events to Help Cancer Patient Cherokee County is no stranger to wrapping the community in love and generosity when a need arises. And the community has so artfully illustrated this generosity during the past few months with an incredible, wholehearted initiative called Cherokee Gives A _____. (The blank was added as a politically correct alternative to the real name of the organization, leaving folks to use their imaginations to fill in the blank.) In May, a handful of community members learned Allison “Allie” Chambers, wife of Jonathan Chambers (community manager of entrepreneurship for the Cherokee Office of Economic Development) was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. This is Allie’s second round of cancer, after fighting stage two in 2016. This …
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Rewrite the Narrative
"Rewrite the narrative," a friend reminded me this morning, after I spent 20 minutes on the phone with her recounting my somewhat self-inflicted shitty day prior. I had gone down a old email rabbit hole, and spent my lunch break reading emails from 8 or 9 years prior, when I was having a particularly rough period in my life. Yeah, I know. Dummy. When she told me this, my thoughts immediately went to a place of, "But! But! The injustice! The heartache! This happened! These things happened to me!" And they did. And they were terrible. And for some inexplicable reason, I am, dare I say, addicted to reliving these feelings. I am addicted to reliving terrible things that have happened to me. There. I said it. But WHY? I know I'm not the only one, and I'm not even the first …
Will Work (Tweet?) for Tacos
We've all heard that quote that's mis-attributed to Benjamin Franklin about "beer being proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy," but I'm fairly certain the same can be said for tacos. In fact, I'd argue that tacos > beer. (Keep your pants on, beer drinkers. I love a good craft beer, too.) But have you ever seen an unhappy person eat a taco? Like, really unhappy? If the answer is yes, in the words of Garth Algar, "Gee, I feel sorry for whoever that is." My love affair with tacos started when I got married. Oh sure, I'd had Mexican food before, and growing up, taco night was a regular in our dinner routine. But they were hard-shell tacos with ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream and some shredded cheddar on top. DELICIOUS, mind you, but not a true, authentic …