PeaceLoveBasketball Friday: TEDxSpokane 2014
I feel privileged to be joining an amazing group of speakers at TEDxSpokane this month. There will be oncologists, musicians, authors, entrepreneurs, and educators all in one room talking about ideas worth sharing. I would love to see you at the event!
Event: TEDxSpokane 2014 Connections & Intersections
Date: October 13, 2014
Location: Saint George’s School – Founders Theater 2929 W Waikiki Rd, Spokane, WA 99208
Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm
Reservation & more information
PeaceLoveBasketball Friday: Help
Sonya getting out of her hospital bed for physical therapy-1991
I’ve been fighting a bad hamstring for about three months now and I finally gave in and went for help. Fortunately our insurance didn’t make me see a doctor first for a referral, because I hate to pay to have them tell me something I already know, “You should see a physical therapist.”
The cost always discourages me to go initially, and I had good and bad news in that regard. The good: everyone in our family is relatively healthy. The bad: we have a big deductible, so since we’ve been healthy we haven’t used much of the deductible, which means, I’m paying for physical therapy. And it’s not cheap. But if anyone knows how important it is to keep your body moving and how much a physical therapist can help, I do. I’ve had sports injuries over the years and I was hit by a train and went through a lot of rehab. A huge part of getting and keeping myself healthy has always been physical therapy.
So I got off my wallet and picked up the phone. The first place I called was a location in my neighborhood that had alway intrigued me because of the name; BIOJUNCTION: Sports Therapy. I had always thought to myself, if I need some PT I’m going to check that place out. So I did. And when I walked into the place the first thing I noticed were some Eastern Eagle T-shirts hung with pride. I graduated from and played basketball for Eastern. This was the place.
My physical therapist (actually a DPT, “D” for Doctorate) played volleyball at Eastern. I had confidence that, as an […]
Monday’s Pen to Paper: My Writing Process Blog Tour
Recently I was asked by fellow blogger Lisa Gouldy, to join her in a Blog Tour. The idea behind a blog tour is to expose readers to new writers and to share information about their writing life. I have done one before and decided to jump right in.
Lisa and I met in a young adult writing class at the Hugo House last spring. When she introduced her book RELIVE, I was hooked. I can’t wait for her book to be published because I love the storyline’s unique twist on classic time travel. In her book, RELIVE, everyone can travel through time to the future, where they can watch recordings of their lives to see how the choices they’re planning to make will turn out. If they don’t like what they see, they can make different choices.
Lisa is an attorney by day and aspiring young adult novelist by night. Her blog Planning for Sun shares stories of her adventures as an aspiring novelist, experimental cook, and novice gardener who is always chasing the sun.
BLOG TOUR QUESTIONS ON MY WRITING LIFE:
What am I currently working on?
My heart is in YA right now and my current novel is a story of a young woman’s journey through a post-apocalyptic world.
“Dylan wakes in a post-apocalyptic world where a majority of the human species have died. With no friends or family left alive in her small town in central Washington, Dylan embarks on a challenging journey across the state in search of her sister, her strength and ultimately her future.”
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Often post-apocalyptic titles take place quite some time following the event that has changed the landscape and political structure of the world. My novel bridges that gap between the […]
PeaceLoveBasketball Friday: The Secret Life of Teens
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I turned on the Today Show during a segment about prescription drug abuse by teens when I was folding clothes this morning. I felt sick inside. I have two teens and I know many more as a high school basketball coach.
It was frightening to hear about the abuse that is going on. The life’s lost. There is such easy access to prescription drugs for kids. Some just reach into their parent’s medicine cabinets for pills, while others are GIVEN prescriptions from their parent’s bottles.
In the documentary “Out of Reach,” by 17-year old by Cyrus Stowe, a teen tells of parties where kids bring pills from their parent’s prescription bottles and toss them all into a big bowl. Then the teens reach in and take pills at random.
I told my husband about this and he said, “Why would they do that?”
It just scares me to think about it. Maybe that’s it? The danger. The thrill of the unknown. But perhaps the teens truly don’t understand how much danger is involved. Maybe some think, “Hey it’s prescribed by a doctor, my […]
Meet Sonya
Meet Sonya
Sonya Elliott’s memoir, Back on the Court: A Young Woman’s Triumphant Return to Life, Love & Basketball, is her story of finding hope in the wake of tragedy after she and her fiancé were hit by a train. She blogs about writing, basketball, and life and is currently working on a Young Adult Novel and a Non-Fiction Coaching book. Stories of her career as a fashion model are woven through her memoir, as both the Soloflex and Easy Spirit Shoes commercials were filmed during that time period, and this unique and intriguing business continues to be a part of her life.
Sonya played basketball at Eastern Washington University and was a starter for the Big Sky Champion team that went to the 1987 NCAA tournament. She coached for almost 25 years and was voted Seattle Times Coach of the Year, Seattle Officials Women’s Basketball Association Coach of the Year, and twice voted Metro League Coach of the Year. She loves the game of basketball and is thankful, not only for her husband and kids but for her ability to continue to get back on the court.
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Monday’s Pen to Paper: Guns – Know More. No More! – Be Heard
I was fortunate that my husband told me about the Umpqua College shootings last week (my daughter goes to college in Oregon), he saved me the moment of panic that he went through when he first got word that there had been another massacre at a college campus. What is happening in this country? Can we not see that loosing so many lives in this way is crazy?
The United States has more gun murders than other developed countries.
The United States has the highest rate of gun murders in a developed country and has had more mass shootings than days in 2015. These are frightening statistics. Of course I understand that there are many pieces of the puzzle, many issues involved when a person chooses to take another human beings life, let […]
PeaceLoveBasketball Friday: Peace
Yesterday my yoga instructor invited the class to choose an Intention for the day. I breathed in, my body and mind was tight, it has seemed that way for some time. Into my mind came the word PEACE. I thought, “How corny. Really? Peace is what you come up with Sonya?” But I closed my eyes, and again it was Peace that resonated for me. Peace that I needed.
As we all know, life is busy. I don’t think my life is any busier than anyone else’s, but I haven’t been able to find the peace and calm that is so important to me, especially in the midst of chaos. I write, model, chauffeur kids (well, now down to one), fix and manage rental houses and over the past twenty plus years I’ve been coaching as well. And during my […]
Monday’s Pen to Paper: Forget about the Perfect Word, First Capture your Thoughts
The thesaurus is my friend. Some may not need this crutch of sorts, this slayer of words. But I use mine (all three), a lot. I have one on my computer, as well as big thick hardback book that my husband bought for me years ago and last my husband himself, he is my personal thesaurus. If he is near and I’m searching for a word, I’ll holler out, “What’s another word for dive?” And with amazing consistency, he’ll pause for a second and then reply, “Plunge, plummet, drop…” and more useable words that hit the spot. (I have no idea how he does this, but it seems to work for me more often than not.)
However, he’s not always around, so if I’m writing away and I know what I want to say, but I just can’t pull a specific word […]
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