You know I’ve been through all of this before … nearly 16 years ago. The years of heavy caregiving leading to the loss of my love, the emotions, the disappointments, the sadness, the loneliness, the missing. The grief. And now all of that is on repeat. 8 months out. Some think this should be […]
Widowed and Healing
Success Isn’t Final
Last week I got to take an all-day class on hand lettering. The session is meant as a way to get in touch with your creative side. I knew when I saw the class description it was one I wanted to take. During the wedding years of my 20s, I addressed my own and wedding […]
Checking an Item Off the To Do List after 11.5 years
11.5 years after Lynn passed, I (finally) switched my home’s water bill from her name to my name. Normal?! Ehhh, I thought it was pretty nuts that it took me this long. This un-fun task was never on my “urgent do now” list. In the back of my mind, I thought THAT was the strange […]
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 […]
Repeat After Me…👩🏻🏫
I’m a Bad🤨$$, you’re a Bad🤨$$, we are ALL Bad🤨$$es!!! The past few weeks have left me exhausted and depleted, once again. Yes, there has been some joy and fun, but between planning my daughter’s 13th birthday party, surviving another Mother’s Day, my daughter’s trip to Puerto Rico, and a few other energy-consuming events, this Memorial […]
Do You Believe in Life After Love?
Love songs hit different now, for many reasons. Lately, I have been touched by what would be categorized as “love songs,” but I take them in as me talking to myself… Two songs have really taken my breath away lately, and are on the soundtrack of my current chapter and whatever-life-transition-I-am-in-now. Adam Lambert’s rendition of […]
The Regalos 💝 of Grief
I am not going to lie, this one is a tough one for me to write, like I really had to think about it long and hard. Before the massive earthquake that decimated my life, AKA the death of my husband, I was the eternal optimist, the happy-go-lucky (most times 😆), borderline toxically positive person, […]
A Dating Methodology
Over the last few years, I’ve dated on and off. I’ve primarily used dating apps because I don’t find myself ‘in the wild’ where there are other single people. Dating as a widow, after a marriage I was happy in has been a challenge. While I can feel broken and discombobulated, I also know what […]
Once Upon a Time…👑
…In a Far, Far Away Kingdom 👸🏻 In the kingdom of Washington, DC, there lived a beautiful, brave, brave princess. She had just entered teenagehood, and she lived with her loving parents, the King and Queen, her older brother, the Prince, and the royal pet, June, the collie-lab mix. They lived a lovely, chaotic life, […]
Mother’s Day with Boys
Another Mother’s Day has come and gone; six to be exact since Tony died. It is still weird to wake up on a day like Mother’s Day without him. I always take myself back in time to the last one he was alive for. He and the boys picked up the house, emptied the dishwasher, […]
What do Cinco de Mayo 🇲🇽 and Mother’s Day 💐 have in common?
Nothing, except everything. Yesterday, May 5th, the grief hit me out of nowhere, yet not entirely unexpectedly. We loved turning nothing into something, any excuse into a celebration. Take Cinco de Mayo, for instance. Not Mexican Independence Day 🇲🇽 and not a widely celebrated holiday in Mexico, but after nearly 30 years […]
Ya gotta feel all the feelings
… and I’ve sure been doing a lot of ‘feeling’ lately. Feeling Jim’s absence here in our home as the days, weeks, months pass. Feeling my age … in my brain and in my body. I just don’t have the energy to “people” – to put on that happy face for others. I have a […]