Category Archives: Writing and Reading

Things I have written, or read about that inspired me and that I hope will inspire you.

Christmas Garland

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When I was a little girl, my mom and dad bought this beautiful garland for our tree. Well, I was eight and I thought it was beautiful. It was red with a red and white gingham check pattern in the middle. It wasn’t like all the other garland that everyone else had and I loved it. On Christmas morning that year, I don’t remember the presents that were under the tree at all. I remember how beautiful it was, I remember that Santa had been there and turned on the lights and made everything look like magic. I remember the awe and the wonder and believing that miracles could happen.

I think I might have gotten a cabbage patch kid that year.

The presents are not important to my thirty something year old mind. I remember the magic the wonder and the love and how the tree was really all about that.… [Read More]

Love and Laughter on Thanksgiving Day

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There is a certain joy to be had in celebrating Thanksgiving with one’s family. For 16 years, I have celebrated it apart from my parents and my brother and my aunts and uncles and cousins and extended relatives. I have celebrated it instead, with my two children, my husband and my dog, this year… there is an additional dog in the mix.

Thanksgiving day here is a rather quiet affair. We buy way too much turkey. We have yams and green bean casserole and pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce because these things are required, and I think someone always wants mashed potatoes with turkey gravy too. It’s a lot of food for four people. Generally speaking, the dog gets a fair portion of the turkey, or at least, the previous dog did. Miss Lucy is allergic to turkey. I think we can give her some of the mashed potatoes and a few of the green beans as long as we carefully remove the french fried onions from the casserole before applying it to her food bowl.… [Read More]

Old Dog

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There is a certain peace and serenity that can be found in the company of an old dog. I experience this every Saturday morning when Miss Lucy wakes me up before the sun comes up to take her outside. I step outside with her and watch her run around the yard and she smiles and I smile and then she comes inside, taking her time up the stairs leading to my deck so that she doesn’t fall. Then we come inside and she curls up on the family room sofa and I sit down with her and we just… stay like that.

Sometimes, it’s really nice to just… be.

I love old dogs. They have a wisdom and a knowledge that comes with an entire lifetime’s worth of experience. They have the most beautiful souls. There is nothing more wonderful in my world than the quiet, constant, companionship of an old dog.… [Read More]

Like Magic

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So it’s been crazy this last week.

I started NaNoWriMo.

The basement smells like Axe, so I can’t go down there to hide and write. On top of all of that, I’ve had the flu, hubby passed his written FAA exam, one of my NaNo friends finally, after 29 hours of labor, gave birth this morning at 1:45 am and I was miserable that I could not be at the hospital with her because I’m contagious. She texted me frequently and sounded so scared, but I know that I was scared too when I was having my first child, I did my best to keep her calm via text message and be supportive. I’m surprised that no one took her phone away from her. I just wish I could have been there to hold her hand. I hope she knows that I was there in spirit.

This gal amazes me. I can’t believe she’s still intending on participating in NaNo this year, but she has done it every year for the last three at least.… [Read More]

Argh! That was my FACE!

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So.. Lucy is feeling good.

She’s feeling so good that my fears and concerns and negativity about her cancer have just melted away.

She is barking at tweedle dee and tweedle dum across the street. She’s chasing squirrels. She’s plotting the inevitable end of the neighbor’s schnauzer and is STILL attempting to exit our back yard so she can go into the OTHER back yard and play with our other neighbor’s dog, a brittany, whom Mugen intensely dislikes and yet… Lucy wants to make a great friend of. It’s almost as if she’s trying to play with this dog to spite Mugen.

She is also doing this, while rolling my butt out of bed at 6 am, because Daddy’s awake and this means that Mom must be awake shortly thereafter. In spite of the fact that it is summer and we are NOT going to hop in the car and go to Starbucks because I have the robo-espresso that saves me 5$ a day on lattes and feeds my caffeine addiction with a continuous stream of body, heart and crema.… [Read More]