Dear Mom, Today is your birthday. It’s always been such a special and important day for me, because you have always been so special and important to me. I’ve been thinking about this day all week. It’s not easy to know you’re not here to celebrate it, and to accept that I can’t call you or Skype with you. I can’t hear your voice outside my head...
(by a Forty-Something) Growing up on the East Coast of Canada when I did was pretty great. Since moving to the United States and spending much time getting to know friends down here I’m realizing something that as a kid I’d hadn’t put together – we had available to us most all the same popular… Continue reading Some of the Best Things About Being a Kid
(“What Is-es” and “What is Nots”) Here is my little compilation of some commonly heard and easily recognizable misdirected, misappropriated and completely farcical fallacies. They are often perpetuated without malice, but once they’re out there they become akin to Urban Legends without the kitschy, horror-movie bent. If we choose to sustain and bolster these mistaken… Continue reading A Few Common Misconceptions
It has become somewhat painfully apparent that time truly stands still for no one. I had recommended that it slow down. It did not comply. I must accept that life goes on and things change, of course. Yet although it's incredibly exciting, it’s also overwhelming some days. And it's not that I'm in the twilight… Continue reading Reflectionology
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. – Emily Brontë It’s in the little moments. It truly is. And in the scheme of things...these are but a few snippets. “Life is not made up of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years, but of moments. You must experience each one… Continue reading Snippets & Moments
The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands. – Anne Frank I find myself noticing my left hand as I leaf through my old pictures from before I lost some of the movement and a lot of the dexterity a couple years ago. Photos from just before, from my childhood and… Continue reading These Hands
... I hear you laugh, my heart fills full up ♫♪♪♫♪ Sisters share the scent and smells – the feel of a common childhood. — Pam Brown Our Family Tree: So, my sister is about to celebrate a milestone birthday this week, and I wish that I could be there to celebrate her big day!… Continue reading You Were There with Me, Sister
An Open Letter to My Loved Ones Dearly Beloved, Without you, I’m not sure how I could have gotten through the last two years and as the anniversary arrives in just a few days, I don’t want to wait any longer to tell you how much you mean to me. Or to tell you how… Continue reading An Open Letter to My Loved Ones
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go. — Dr. Seuss Our youngest got his first college acceptance letter – well let… Continue reading Stand Upright and Be Strong
Recently it occurred to me that I too often am not living my life in a very Zen-like way. I hear my inner voice, or my inner critic, chastising me, “That’s not very Zen-like”, it admonishes, but the thing is: I want to be more Zen-like. I want to be more tolerant, more at peace,… Continue reading Everything Zen…I Don’t Think So
My life has spanned the Seventies, the Eighties, the Nineties, Y2K to today. At different times I’ve measured it in different ways; chronologically, in milestones, the "no kids-kids at home-grown kids" years, where I lived, from elementary school to college, before and after marriage, etcetera. This is a first though, measuring it, and I use… Continue reading Let’s Go to the Movies, Annie
It’s almost 2015, tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. I’ve started to notice articles about resolutions online and also shared on Facebook. And I feel that old familiar pull to better myself. Technically, it's really no different than any other day, but beginning a new year can seem like and feel like, at least in our… Continue reading It Seems Like, Yes it Feels Like a Brand New Day
To recap: It begs the question, have you ever wondered just how much the Universe is capable of conspiring to make something happen…to make something come true? To bring two people together… Part Four continued the story of a girl, and her journey to happiness. She’ll again be typed in this color and she’ll be known simply as the girl. As… Continue reading The Story of a Girl (Part Five)
To recap: It begs the question, have you ever wondered just how much the Universe is capable of conspiring to make something happen…to make something come true? To bring two people together… Part Three continued the story of a girl, and her journey to happiness. She’ll again be typed in this color and she’ll be known simply as the girl.… Continue reading The Story of a Girl (Part Four)
How well does anybody know anybody? What's TMI***? There is definitely such a thing! Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. – Daniel J. Boorstin I've shied away from writing here in what I've come to see as the dreaded (by some) listicle form. Listicle: a listicle is a short-form of writing that uses… Continue reading You Don’t Know Me
…And you will be happy, too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fznw-AGoENo Preface Sometimes I chalk energy and having lots of it, up to things like; adrenalin, a good night’s sleep, cardio, eating lots of nutrient-rich foods, spending time outdoors in the sunshine…because they are all proven. But happiness can bring energy up, and conversely unhappiness can bring energy… Continue reading Make Just One Someone Happy
Someone asked me how it feels having become the mother of a twenty-three year old today. How does it feel? Let’s see…it feels weird. I remember being twenty-three myself and it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago. So it also reminds me about my own aging, of course. That does, and my knees… Continue reading May Good Luck Go With You, And Happiness Too
As parents, one of our main goals is, [among the many, many goals], to keep our children safe. To raise and take care of them from before they’re born, until they are full-grown and thriving. Fresh in my mind are the journeys of three different sets of parents [all are people I do not… Continue reading It Seems Night Endlessly Begins & Ends
Being in high school in 1988 meant, yep, I was an 80's Girl! I believe this photo says it all? Not the Punk Eighties, the later years, closing in on the Nineties by this time...but still Eighties. Before deciding to blog about it, I was just visually dissecting it. How many things can I find… Continue reading …An 80’s Girl
Sunday was ‘National Grandparents Day’. The general public may or may not be aware of this. I can’t honestly say that I remember it every year, or even most years, and I’m fairly certain I only ever knew about it at all because of a few teachers who had their class celebrate it when… Continue reading I Can Smile at the Old Days
No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important. — Mary Kay Ash Life is generally a pretty busy balancing act of daily living. Sometimes things that are important to us, I mean really meaningful and precious aspects of our lives, can get pushed out of the… Continue reading Love Takes Time…
…Who'd give the world to stop the clock, and turn back the hands of time. — Merle Haggard Everyone has family, right? It’s a thread that ties you to another person or group of people that you don’t even necessarily know, have possibly never even met…but...they’re family! It means somewhere along the way someone you’re… Continue reading There’s Got to be Some Folks Around With Memories Just Like Mine
Don't let your life pass you by…Weep not for the memories… I have been remiss; I missed posting a blog last Tuesday, and believe me I felt kind of awful about it. I didn’t forget, not at all, but as I mentioned I’ve been traveling and spending as much time with family as possible. And,… Continue reading I Will Remember You, Will You Remember Me?
I’m sitting here lakeside today, our last full day here at the “compound”. My husband and much of his immediate family are scattered around enjoying this beautiful summer day. In a couple of cases there are three generations present. Currently two nephews, a niece and her friend are out playing together in the paddle… Continue reading In the Summertime When the Weather is Hot
According to the website dreammoods.com, “to dream that you've lost your wallet indicates that you’re possibly losing touch with your true identity. You are experiencing some anxiety over changes and uncertainties happening in your life.” Actually misplacing or losing your wallet is to actually lose your identity…well, at least your ID, and has been known… Continue reading I Left My Wallet…in El Segundo
Let me start off by saying definitively…this is neither an attack, nor a defensive. It is merely an attempt to describe something that I truly believe is done with good intentions. Recently I've read a couple of perspective pieces by you young, harried, stressed-out and overtired mommies, that specifically spoke about having older mothers, whose… Continue reading Good Intentions …or… In Defense of Mothers with Grown Children Who Make “Those Comments”
All my blogs [essays] have been titled with song lyrics. I just love lyrics, so much expression poured into an on average, two-to-five-minute poem, set to music. Love that. Today though, I'm feelin’ a song that’s quite possibly my favorite song…you know, if I had to pick just one song because my life depended on… Continue reading Never Be Again, Never Been Before
A Stroke of Good Fortune 