Like a chicken with its head cut off, I'm running around this morning getting ready for several things going on this week, beginning with a funeral I need to leave for in an hour. This blog could wait.  It should wait.   But, here I am! Name change papers, name change papers......   I've got to get those out and make a copy and get them in the mail for Ian.  Laundry on the steps waiting for me to carry up and fold....... Where are those papers??? Well, I found them.  But in the process of searching, I also ran into my grandmother's will.  That is a picture of her on the front of this blog.  I have kept and cherished this will for many years.  I loved that it was her handwriting.  Isn't it beautiful?  I wish I would have really known her.  I wish I could have sat as an adult at ... View Post

  There's not a day that goes by my body doesn't remind me of the fact that we don't live forever.  Sometimes I hurt from head to toe. Come to think of it, most mornings I hurt from head to toe. I'm an empty nester, looking forward to hopefully retiring one day (with dreams of becoming top sales associate at the Vera Bradley store! ;)    This year on the tippy top of my priority list was seeing a financial advisor to find out if retirement is even a word that should be in my vocabulary.  And then I made some changes to my will, my trust, etc.  That involved documents regarding what my end-of-life wishes are. Yeah, that always brings up some crazy conversations. Fortunately, they are conversations I'm used to having - but mostly with the family members of my patients.  I ... View Post

  The #1 question I've been asked recently by friends, family, & acquaintances is, "Are you going to quit nursing now?" The answer is no.  I will still be working 3 days a week as an RN. So why did I spend the past eight months studying real estate and then cramming for the licensing exam?  Well, yes it was on my bucket list.  In fact, several decades ago before I had children I had taken an informational class because I'd been interested back then, too.  But my son recently made a go of it, has been rather successful, and so I thought.......  Why not???   After all, the more skills you have, the better, right? So let's go way, way back..... In 1993, just two months prior to having Ian, my youngest son, I became a divorced, single mom.  I spent five months living in ... View Post

  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