"Life" Books
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Pain.
“Even the tide retreats, not in defeat, but to gather its strength. You are allowed to pause. You will return stronger.” Dipendra Tamang I took a bit of an unexpected pause the past two weeks. And for those of you who are not on Instagram, I had a little toe procedure that knocked me off my feet. Yes, it didn’t affect my hands, but between the balancing of elevating my foot and trying to balance a computer on my lap, I decided that wouldn’t be the best choice. Especially since this toe had gotten in the situation it had gotten in- due to dropped bowling balls, laptops, fully loaded grocery…
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Care for All Noggins
Jumping right in to it this week… Behavior, communication… all depends on the way our brain is wired… Mental Health. It’s real. It is something that if it hasn’t touched your life, in some way, I would imagine it is hard to grasp the severity of the moment we are living in at this moment. It’s one of those health avenues you either completely ignore and disassociate yourself with (red flag!) or you live it, watch it, and/or advocate for better. Real tragedies, current and resurfaced/documentaries, have sparked my interest in why state mental hospitals were closed. I read a couple of books about Dorothea Dix in the past couple…
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Speaking From Experience …
Laughter. Tears. Speechless. Frozen. Numb. Want to Scream. Want to hide. This week my life experiences have felt like a mess, a wreck of emotions, or is it that my experiences make me pay attention? I believe it’s all the above 😊 It’s all happening at once. I know ya’ll just love when I write about vaccines, but the so called “recommendations” coming out of the CDC this week, are something I have experienced before vaccines were available for two of these viruses and I will not stay silent. When children are literally dying from diseases that have been almost non-existent and hardly ever fatal, because of “grown-ups” not getting…
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Cheers to a Broken World
God of peace. God of sound mind. Not confusion. Not flustered. I have this picture posted on my desk, and can see it as I write. I look at it often on my phone. For me, it’s the glimpse of Christmas: swaddling cloths, born into a weary world, yet with great hope. This past year it has been a struggle for me to have a sound mind. I don’t know about you, but it seems like there is a circumstance, or situation, or issue at every turn that either makes the next step more difficult than it already is, or makes it impossible. Don’t get me wrong, there have been…
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“Hope is My Favorite Thing to Have”
Let me pause before I start todays post… I must say my heart is deeply grieved for the many who have had their lives completely shattered- by violence, by policy, by “well-educated” people who have no clue what their “self-educated” counterparts are going through, by unacceptable and nasty comments and remarks. The cruelty is at a level that is beyond I could have ever imagined, and I don’t know where or when it will hit the peak for enough of us to shout STOP! So until then, I am just letting you know if you are out there thinking, “am I the only one yelling at the tv?” Let me…
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Volume Up!
There are so many reasons this videos is on my phone all the time. 1. My niece is adorable. She now has much more hair than her adorable blonde strands of hair in this video. Her blue eyes have not changed, they still take my breath away, as someone once told her, “I can see the ocean in your eyes.” And of course, she still can give us this “sneaky” look/laugh once in a while. 😉 2. You can hear my mom, my Paw-Paw, and I laughing. The best laugh in the background is my Paw-Paw’s. Of course none of us knew at the time what the months ahead held,…
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Family Moments
“Family moments are the best souvenirs.” Moments. Maybe a split second decision. A window of time that surprised you, and allowed you to spend time with family. A car ride conversation. A road trip. A stay-cation. It’s the moments within in these times that we remember, that children remember. There is a five year gap between my brother and I, which to some seems like a lot, but honestly, I love it and always have. It’s one of those things, as a kid, you didn’t really think about unless somebody pointed it out. We have always been best friends, partners in sneakiness, and have always loved family. Family trips and…
- "Life" Books, Children, Children Come, Consider This..., Family, Friends & Neighbors, GRANDparents, Grief, Let's be Real, My Little, Pass it On...
Children Grieve Too
“There’s a stillness about grief. A process. An overwhelming hush. Some days it screams about the one I miss. Some days it’s a peace that there is more. Some days it’s a silent mending as tiny broken pieces are put back together. In any form, I don’t mind the quiet — it’s a sign of an endless love, a richness, an undying hope. I’m learning that the quiet is part of the sacred mess of grief, of aching, of mending, of becoming whole when part of you is gone. It’s sacred and holy, and because of that it makes me feel just an inch closer to him. I don’t want…
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Thoughts from a Maker of Lists
Be honest, how many of you just chuckled or said Amen to the above image? There have been so many nights that I have been sound asleep, and wake up so quickly, because my brain decided it was time to remember what I forgot to do that day. If I don’t write something down right away, or type it into my phone, it leaves me the moment I walk away from a conversation or the thing that reminded me to do whatever needed to be done. In the past, I have tried not looking at my phone during the night, which limited me from putting things into my to do…
- "Life" Books, Aunt-ing, Children, Chronic Illness, Consider This..., Family, Friends & Neighbors, GRANDparents, Let's be Real, Memories, Pass it On...
When “Showing Up” Looks Different
“I’m learning to love the pauses, the quiet stretches, where nothing much is happening, but everything feels okay.” -Unknown The man in the picture above, my Paw-Paw, is the closest thing to being a “show up” legend for his grandchildren and even other children he loved! He wasn’t perfect, and he wouldn’t want to be seen as such. But when he started to get to weak to make his two a day visits to my grandma in the nursing home, it was a huge sign that he was extremely tired and his body was giving out. He worked in human resources for quite a while at the end of his…
