I took a few days off this past week to spend some time with some very good friends in New England. I am posting from the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport on a cool overcast morning. While up here I’ve loved viewing the beautiful older homes surrounded by gardens filled with native flowers and hard wood forests, […]
Compassion Burnout and Enduring Hope
For the past 15 years I’ve blogged and authored books on the topic of the positive effects of the dog-human relationship. My dog Quint came into my life just seven weeks after my late husband’s passing and has been my quintessential companion since the earliest days of my loss. It’s hard to believe that Quint’s […]
Happy Re-New Year
Good morning. Here I am again writing on a Saturday that happens to be a major American holiday; this one celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA. As many of us who are widowed know, weekends coinciding with holidays can often prove to be draining instead of festive; delivering a double emotional whammy. I still […]
Planting Hope With the Tree of Life
Tuesday, June 30th, would’ve been the 66th birthday of my late sister, Manette. Each year, I recount the story of how my horse-loving sister magically acquired a lovely, but feisty, Arabian Quarter Horse mix in 1973 when my family spent 9 months living in Boulder, Colorado. My essay, The Year of the Dream Horse, a […]
Welcome Summer and Happy Paw Dad Day
Tomorrow is the official first day of summer, the longest day of the year. Abundant sunlight often extends the hours of our days long after 6:00pm with those bright rays lingering even three hours later. This has always been my favorite time of the year. I think for some people that are grieving the […]
Creative Inspiration and The Path Forward
Typically, around mid-week, I start to focus on writing my post for Widow’s Voice. Most often, I have an idea of what I’ll write about, but sometimes, I really don’t know until I open the proverbial blank page and just write in the moment. I was actually going to write about my art and literary […]
Tree-silience
June has arrived, and most people up north are experiencing warmer and longer sunny days. Now, I can share without feeling badly that it has felt like summer here since early April. There were some days not too long ago, even in May, when it was near 90 degrees here, but only in the high […]
A Gift of an Unlikely Place
I know it’s a good “problem” to have, but maintaining three homes and four dogs can put a nice hurtin’ on the balances of ‘ye old credit cards. When I got a nice offer from a credit card company recently with a no interest balance transfer for 18 billing cycles I was all in. After several […]
A Meaningful Memorial Day to All
Weekends are often difficult and long for widowed people, and holiday weekends are especially challenging. So many of us have distant, and not so distant, memories of holidays gone by. For me, the Memorial Day Weekend holds many. Places like the New Jersey Shore, embrace the unofficial beginning of the summer season even though summer […]
“Winn” Some, Lose Some
It’s been a productive week all-round. One day seems to blur into the next lately until it’s just about Thursday when I ask myself what I might write about for Saturday’s post. It’s been a busy week on many fronts. Our local Winn Dixie will be closing in a few weeks, to be taken over […]
Paw-sing to Thank the Dog Moms
Happy Dog Mom’s Day (always the Saturday before the human version) and Mother’s Day Weekend. I don’t have any human kids of my own, but I do have four sweet K-9 Kiddos for which I’m grateful. And I’m not the only one who feels that way. I spend considerable time on sites for the […]
Alternate Routes
It was an eventful week filled with emotional milestones. I spent most of the week up in Georgia again to ready my home for a new tenant. As I’ve shared previously, I put my house up for sale two months ago and in doing so, invested considerable energy and funds to make it shine. I […]