Some Personal Words About Meryl
Hi!
I’m Meryl Runion. I have a middle and a maiden name, but I won’t share those with you. My middle and maiden name are less spellable and harder to pronounce than my first and married name. I’m half Icelandic, and although I am proud of my heritage, “Meryl Runion” is more than most people can get right.
I get called Merle Runin and Merle Runyon and Merrill Runyan and Merly Reunion and Meryle Runyan. I get called other things too, but I won’t go in to that. My first name is the same as Meryl Streep’s name, and my last name is union with an R. My last name rhymes with onion.
I grew up in Minneapolis and moved to Nashville, Tennessee when I was eleven. That was a shock! Nashville has changed a lot since I lived there, but I can say I never quite cracked the cultural code. I didn’t know the rules and it sure seemed like there were a lot of them. I say that because I seemed to break every rule there was. Nashville became a major lesson in holding my tongue. It took a long time for me to unlearn that tongue-holding lesson.
I tell the story of how and why I stopped being silent in my article, Some Boats Need to Be Rocked.
Article Link
That article tells you a lot about who I am now and why.
I have a son, David, who is 26 now. Here he is standing for the first time. He was beaming with pride! He should have been proud - he was only four months old.
Here's David sitting in the dishwasher with his father, the late Mike Runion.
Here's David now.....
My, things have changed!
Now I live in Cascade, Colorado which is outside of Colorado Springs. Here's the view from my office window.
I live with my second husband Bob.
This picture is a bit more representative.....
We have a cat named Cindi. Bob didn't like cats when I got Cindi, but he's grown into a fan. He credits her with opening his heart. She's very popular around Cascade. She's good at catching mice, too.
Here's Cindi in her favorite spot - on my desk.
Here is a picture of my father and step-mom.
This picture is so them. My Dad is an absent-minded professor. My stepmom is the southern belle without the belle. I mean that in a good way - she's very down-to-earth.
My own mother died in 1989.
She was an actress. Pretty good at it, too. She was a Technicolor lady.
I have a brother and a half-sister. My half-sister is the normal one in the family.
My best friend is named Cindi. I named the cat after a different Cindi who died from cancer in 1999. My newer friend Cindi never seemed very impressed that my cat shared her name. But she was impressed with her Christmas presents last year.
Cindi liked her gifts until she tried them on and discovered they were too small. So I got them all back, which didn’t disappoint my husband any.
It’s bad enough that Cindi looks (and is) 15 years younger than I am. Does she have to spill out of a bra that fits me just fine?
I spend my days writing. I speak sometimes too, but my main focus is writing about how to say things in an effective way. It’s a great life, and I feel blessed to have been able to create it. Thanks for visiting my world. I hope I can enrich yours.
Sincerely,
Meryl
Meryl Runion's formal biography is Here
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Meryl Runion and Speak Strong (SpeakStrong) provides Power Phrases (PowerPhrases) and other tools to help you improve communication skills at work and at home.
She is the author of the books PowerPhrases!, How to Use PowerPhrases, Perfect Phrases for Managers and Supervisors and How to Say It: Performance Reviews. She can be reached at 719-684-2633 or by email:
