Every now and then something will spark a memory that makes me laugh really hard.  I know how lucky I am that I get to say that!  And when that laugh comes from way deep down inside, causing me to throw my head back, and then have to catch my breath and immediately phone someone in my family who will "get it," well - that laugh usually involves my Dad! Today was one of those days. My cousin Jo Ann in Nova Scotia used to come to Detroit and stay with me for long, fun visits.  Some fun we still enjoy laughing about, and some fun we will never breathe a word about.  To anyone.  So don't try to make us.  Our lips are sealed. Dad loved Jo Ann - he loved her just like one of his own daughters.  And Jo Ann loved him too, ever since a very early memory in her childhood when Dad ... View Post

  See this little bank?  It sat on the window sill of in the tiny little kitchen of the 800-square foot bungalow home I grew up in for as long as I can remember.  There were never any pennies in it - just dimes and quarters.  Mum saved as many as she could, and that provided some of the gas money we used to drive to and from Nova Scotia each summer. My brother, sister, and I would use a kitchen knife to get the coins out because there was no cork in the bottom.  The phone number on it made me chuckle because I can still remember phone numbers beginning with letters, and remembering mine by singing it! "KE3-4053, KE3-4053, KE3-4053, that's my telephone number!" Well that little bank was in Mum's throw-away pile recently, but I just had to have it.  So now it's sitting on my ... View Post

  "There must be millions of people all over the world who never get any love letters... I could be their leader." ~Charlie Brown A year ago I took a random, spur-of-the-moment trip and volunteered for a week at Voice of the Martyrs in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  My task for the week?  I hand wrote scripture on the bottom of donation receipts with several of the sweetest women I'd ever met for eight hours a day.  It was one of my most favorite weeks ever!  I have stayed in close contact with a few of the friends I made there, and in particular one little 11-year-old girl named Hannah from England who was volunteering with her family the same week as me. Hannah wanted so badly to have pretty handwriting.  So she sat with us for a few hours a day practicing.  She was silly and she ... View Post