A repost! Today during school pickup a little girl from the twins’ class ran up to me and started pulling at my jacket. As I was in the middle of hugging Charlotte, I didn’t pay her much attention. She kept pulling on my jacket as persistent as ever. So I looked down at her smiled […]
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Favorites Saved
I let go of something this week. I removed Tony from my ‘Favorites’ list in my contacts. For three years, every time I opened my phone to make a call he sat at the top of that list. A reminder that no matter the news, I could not share it with him. It was time […]
“Ruff” and Random Thoughts
Last week I wrote about the one year anniversary of the passing of my dad on April 29. Then I realized there was another milestone of sorts. April 28th marked the two and a half year point of my Widowhood. I guess it’s good that I wasn’t so fixated on this milestone, but it made […]
Going Home
My friend, Amy, sent me photos of the house and property she recently made an offer to purchase. It’s several hours removed from the city we both currently call home, located in the small town where she was raised. Amy’s mother died a year or two back but her father never left and resides there […]
An Eye Opener:
Worldwide Widowed Communities What took me to stories about widowed folk around the world? Just returned from a mini-vacay where I had no responsibilities other than showing up for the fun. Arriving home to my regular routine, settling into the normal challenges of my post-Dan-life, I found myself wondering about the lives of […]
Sea of Serendipity
Whew! It has been a hectic few weeks. I feel like I’m always in survival go-go-go mode where I’m just going through the motions of doing things without really being fully present in what I’m doing. I guess it comes with the territory of being a solo parent. Lately, I’ve been trying to remind myself […]
A Heart for a Smile
My parents received an extended family photo session for Christmas. The plan was to have the pictures taken this spring. The session would include my parents, my brother and his family, and my boys and me. However, finding a spring date that aligned with all five grandkids extra-curricular activities was not easy. Admittedly, my kids’ […]
Conversations and Flowers
Sometimes in life, when things are feeling overwhelming or extremely hard, a conversation with a friend can be very healing and validating, and buying yourself some pretty flowers can really brighten your space and the walls around you. This week, I did both of those things. A widowed friend of mine offered to take me […]
Recalling My Dad
Monday, April 29, marks the one year passing of my father. At times it seems like it was just last week that he passed in his Assisted Living Facility in Georgia. I’d been an advocate for my father since he’d moved south from New Jersey to live with my late husband, Rich and I, in […]
The Importance of Downtime
I was listening to a podcast earlier today about how to be “unstressed”. The general gist of it was that you are always going to have stress, so it’s not necessarily about eliminating stress from your life but that stress isn’t what happens to you; it’s how you handle what happens to you. I’ve had […]
Every Picture Tells a Story
After Lee died, I was left with the photographs and paintings to lift me if I needed to see her. To this day, for example, I will take a moment to look at her images when I go down to the basement kitchen to fetch spare food items from storage. Regarding the painting shown […]
Facing Ambush
Part of the Work of Grief Sometimes your feelings are right. You need to take a chill pill, slow down, hang out with friends, and cry your heart out. Other times, they need to be corrected. What you need to do then is examine your emotions, separate false from truth, make a plan for refreshing, […]