Airport terminals with rows and rows of connected seats are filled with people wearing headphones, or earbuds, or chatting on their phones each time I'm at an airport for travel. Few people make eye contact. Excited children are playing on Mom & Dad's phones or playing video games on I-pads. Usually I'm the one with a book. I'm also often the one who talks to total strangers, a lesson I never learned as a child NOT to do - but I've sure met some interesting people in airports, and I remember them, even decades later! For example... There was Linda, the RN who volunteered to sit by me in the last row next to the lady who admittedly had COVID and coughed all the way to Denver. The gentleman who was assigned to that seat didn't fit in that added row of seats because he was ... View Post
Only If You’re Irish
The last couple of hours here at the kitchen table, I've been trying to straighten up my calendar for the months of February and March. I always look forward to turning the page and seeing a "clean slate," but that's not what awaits me for February 2023. Tomorrow is February 1st, and the entire month is already a hot mess of scribbles and even some white-out. It's all good stuff, but seriously - YIKES! Getting my St. Patrick's Day events on the calendar and looking forward to seeing faces from the Irish crowd I don't get to see as often as I'd like to, I sat back and remembered this time of year growing up. I have some really, really fond memories! And then I started to laugh remembering those good old days when my boys were young - the same time of year. I hope they cherish them as ... View Post
You’re Not Your Hair
Coming out of a crowded bathroom after seeing Winnie the Pooh Live today, I told my daughter-in-law about a little girl named Lyla, that our very own Lyla and I had met while washing our hands. Her middle name was Song, to honor her Korean grandmother, and her maiden name. Lyla shared her middle name with the little girl, and they both giggled, fascinated that they shared the same name. Holly laughed because she couldn't believe Lyla and I had participated in that long of a conversation with a stranger in such a short time in the bathroom. But we did! People are interesting, and it's not uncommon for me to talk to everyone, everywhere. Just ask my mother. She says I haven't changed a bit since first grade when the nun at school said I talked too much, and promised to put a star on ... View Post
Last But Not Least, December!
Last, but not least... December Realizing how very, probably even less than ordinary my life is, I am still not sure why a year ago I committed to blogging about each of my month's activities. I've always kept journals, since I was young and got my very first diary for Christmas one year, complete with a lock and key! I like to periodically go back and read through them, reminisce, laugh, and sometimes shed a tear (or ten). This, however, will be the 12th, and the last blog about 2022. Each of the last 12 months I've skimmed through the month and remembered all that I'd accomplished, or fun things I've done, friends I've spent time with. Today, I'm flipping through December, and then I'm shopping for a fun new planner! Here we go... Got snow tires put on the Outback early ... View Post
Remembering Our Babies
Just one week from tomorrow will mark what would have been my daughter's 32nd birthday. Her name was Jacquelyn Anne. She was my first child, my daughter, and was born with a neural tube defect called "anencephaly." We found out one week prior to her birth, that her neural tube never closed, and this resulted in severe spina bifida, and her brain never forming. She was stillborn on January 11, 1991. An ultrasound the week prior to her birth alerted my physician, and she quickly called in another physician to have a look. "Should I be worried?" I asked her, but she reassured me and said not to worry until she told me I had reason to worry. Then, she handed me a piece of paper, a referral to an OB GYN with "rule out anencephaly" written on it, and sent me 150 miles away to Loma Linda ... View Post
Everyone Loves A Whale??
Up North. As a kid growing up, I always wondered where this mysterious place was. Neighbors hooked their boats on to the back of their station wagons not long after the last day of school, and then left for what seemed like an eternity. For many summer vacation weeks I missed my friends, and all I knew was that they had a cottage, and we didn't. They went up north, and we went to Nova Scotia. I had no idea where this "up north" place was, and neither did I realize Nova Scotia was wayyyyy more north than their up north! Late August it was so much fun when suddenly, out of nowhere, we'd be in the middle of playing outside, and down Hemingway Street we'd see the Poison Family station wagon with it's boat in tow, headed home. "The Poison's are home! The Poison's are home!" And ... View Post
Eat the Frog First!
There are 14 days left in 2022. That's 14 more days to get that one dreaded thing on my to-do list done. That THING that I keep moving over each week to NEXT week's to do list. But now I'm running out of weeks, & running out of days. I should just eat the doggone frog and get it done, right? Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhh! I don't want to! "Eat the frog first," my daily motto at a former job, made days so much easier, giving me something to look forward to pretty early in the day when I'd tackle the biggest projects (the frogs) first thing in the morning. Well, if only I'd have eaten December's frog before now... But I haven't. I haven't eaten that stupid frog. And that's okay. I'm actually hoping not to have to eat that frog at all. And speaking of the last two weeks of ... View Post
Papa’s Pocket
Do you ever wonder how many miles are on your shoes? Or pick up your grandchild's feet, tickle their toes, and wonder where they'll take them some day? Or buy a piece of clothing from a thrift store, and wonder who it belonged to? Where they wore it to? What they're doing now? Do you wonder about all of the people in the background of the photos you've taken of loved ones over the years? Or touch the pages of an old library book, and wonder who else turned those pages? I do. I wonder all sorts of things that most people might think are quite odd. But I wonder. I suppose I wonder a lot. A few years after my Dad died, my mom started going through some of his clothing. I came over one day, and I found his old light blue jacket that he wore for many years in a stack for the ... View Post