The first week of March brought a strong sense of nostalgia. When I was prompted to grab my phone and to access my archived memories on Facebook early Monday morning, I realized that on that day, 8 years ago, my sister passed after a long illness. Today was her Service I’m also reminded. I remember […]
Miscellaneous
Birthday Week
A long time ago I decided I would never be upset if I couldn’t do something super special ON my actual birthday. Oddly enough, Mario and I were kind of on the same page with that, but he was even worse in that he didn’t like to celebrate his birthday at all. In hindsight, as […]
Paean to a Pup
I recently saw an article in the New York Times that posed a provocative question: whether dogs help people live longer? Dogs are rightly counted among Man’s best friends, yet, despite citing research suggesting that owning a dog can make us healthier, this article left me unconvinced of its teased central premise. I have limited […]
Fever Nights
Wow, last week was ROUGH. When I wrote on Monday about being sick, I had no idea what I was in for. I was down for seven days with a fever of 102 I couldn’t keep under control and exhaustion. Every night, I woke up every hour or two either chilled to the bone or […]
Embracing My Inner Outlier
Tomorrow begins the first day of the month that contains the first day of spring. For those in the Northeast and elsewhere, spring can’t come too soon. Even here, in Northeast Florida, we’ve endured extreme cold for this region killing off plants and trees that usually withstand milder winter temps. As I thaw, I’m also […]
Finding My Gold Mettle
Two years ago today, my mom passed in New York while I was enroute to see her from Florida. She’d suffered a stroke three months earlier in November, just seven months after the passing of my father. She passed peacefully in the presence of family. She also passed knowing of the “bold” move from my […]
Old Connections
I’ve spent the week hanging out with an old friend who I haven’t actually hung out with in person for over 30 years. I think that probably happens to a lot of us though with good friends we knew early on in life. Life happens, but you keep in touch over the years. We’d been […]
The “Ruff” Road Forward
I’m mindful that the major holiday for celebrating love occurs on my day to post for Widow’s Voice. It isn’t an easy one for the widowed population to say the least. The other day I imagined a Timeline of Personal Love Stories. A visualtion that might help those who still have their spouses and partners […]
The Fool
Mario was a very talented and highly creative artist. Out of all of the visual art he created in his lifetime, none was such an undertaking and reached as many people as his tarot deck. It started like many of his personal illustration projects, as a stand alone “character” that came straight from his imagination […]
A Win-Win Situation
I begin this post with a disclamer. I do not, nor ever have, been employed by the supermarket chain Winn Dixie, nor did I write the book Because of Winn Dixie, although it’s a great dog story. That honor belongs to the incredible children’s author Kate DiCamillo. I am, however, the loving dog mom to […]
Moving “4”ward Year by Year
It occurs to me that yesterday, January 30th, was the 6th anniversary of the closing of the home my late-husband, Rich, and I purchased in 2020 in St. Marys, GA. It was an exciting time with the promise of a happy future. It also happens to be Rich’s birthday next week, on February 4th, the […]
School Daze
While here in Tucson, I’ve enrolled in several adult education courses, which started this week. *** On Tuesday, I attended my first session, where a member of the University of Arizona Department of Linguistics presented a talk on artificial intelligence. He had an interesting take on the economics of this new technology. Without getting into […]