Love, Life and Everything

Memories of you escaped from my eyes and rolled down my face yesterday.  They say that time heals all wounds.  And maybe it does.  Maybe it's easier to be without you than it was then.  But sometimes it's not.  Almost 10 years. Wow.  That's hard to believe.  Sometimes it seems like it wasn't that long ago.  Other times it seems like it was a whole lifetime ago. Does time really make it easier?  Does time really even matter?  I don't cry as often as I used to, but sometimes, I cry harder and longer than I did then.  I still sometimes see something I think you would like or something that reminds me of you. Or someone will say something that reminds me of you.  Or even say I did something that reminds them of you.  Like yesterday, when I was looking for something.  It was the way I said it, the mannerisms behind it, that made him think of you.  He said I was acting like you.  And I was, in a way.  And I started crying, and I couldn't stop.  I couldn't keep

And this is why I don't make New Year's Resolutions.  If you can't start the new habit when you think of it, what makes you think you're going to suddenly be able to do it when the New Year starts.  In my case, I got the flu.  Ick.  But, just because I missed 3 days of writing doesn't mean I have to give up and wait until next year to start again.  No, I can just pick up where I left off, and start again now.

We went out to our property today, had a picnic lunch, and looked at all the cool tracks we found in the snow.  There were hundreds of different tracks everywhere.  From little burrowing critters to elk.  But the most fascinating one was a large mark in the snow, probably 2-3 feet long.  I had never seen anything like it before.  But I knew right away what it was.  Some poor critter had poked its head out of the snow and became a quick snack to a very swift bird.   It couldn't have been a very big critter either, because there were no marks where the bird landed. Bird print with wing prints  on either side Super Cool There were some just in front of it, but that critter made a straight line from one of our driveway poles to the other without looking like it had any near-death misses in its trek.   My guess is those tracks came later. These footprints are no bigger than 1 1/2 inches long Here you can see wisps of wing marks and the perfectly straight line f

A long time ago, when my son was a toddler and just learned to walk, he got some sort of respiratory virus.  The virus passed through his system, or so we thought, and he got better.  Then, he suddenly couldn't walk anymore.  He went back to crawling and was fairly grumpy when we tried to get him to walk.  We went to the doctor, and they sent us for x-rays.  They found that one of his hip joints had a huge amount of inflammation.   They did some bloodwork and discovered that his virus had decided to settle in his hip joint on its way out of his body.  They gave us some super scary sounding name for what it was called when viruses do that.  https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/toxic-synovitis.html  There are other causes, but viruses are the most common according to my son's doctor.  But then she said it was fairly common and viruses do that sort of thing all the time. Wait? What?  Viruses settle in other parts of the body after they cause you misery? Oh, yes, they do.  They do

And with change comes organizing and purging.  I've been feeling restless lately like I'm ready for something different in my life.  It's been a feeling I've had for about a month now.  So, I decided to act on it.  I've started in my kitchen.  I started with the shelf where I store the canned goods.  Then I went on to the medicine cabinet above the microwave, and then the food shelves above the counter.  My kitchen is micro tiny, a total of 10sq ft.  Space is limited in my apartment in general.  It's very hard for 3 people to live in a 1 bedroom 750sq ft apartment.  So, the majority of my food is not in the kitchen, there is no room in there. It's on a metal rack in my living room.  So, I started with one of the shelves on that rack.  I will work on the snack shelf soon.  But the kitchen must be tackled.  Tomorrow, I will go through the 4 utensil drawers and the one cabinet under the sink where I store all my pans. It's crowded and hard to organize with

Today, as I was leaving Walmart, I approached a car parked in the red zone where no cars are supposed to be, ever.  But, someone was in the driver's seat.  And in the passenger seat was a little boy, maybe 3, but not much older.  His eyes were locked on me with a huge awestruck grin and complete fascination in his eyes.  As I got closer, he moved so that he was hanging out the open window and his grin just got wider.  And the fascination in his eyes grew.  I said hi to him as I walked by and he grinned even bigger.  I seriously don't know how is face didn't hurt as wide as his grin was.  I glanced back to see him turned and still watching me.  I hadn't had such a thing happen quite like that in a very long time.  There was a time in my life when this always happened.  Babies and toddlers would just stare at me with complete fascination.  And if I interacted with them, their faces lit up like the greatest thing in the world just happened to them.  It always brightened m

I believe that the term gifted needs to be redefined in educational institutions.  Here's why.  Take two very different students, both with an IQ of 136.  One is outgoing, challenges herself, questions the teacher, steps out and makes herself known.  The other is quiet, shy, and an avid daydreamer who is quite content going with the flow in the classroom and doesn't want to draw attention to herself because she is shy.  Yet, they each are equally brilliant.  The minimum IQ to qualify for giftedness in schools is 115.  Yet, only the outgoing one is considered gifted.  Why?   The current federal educational definition of gifted is currently "Students, children, or youth who give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services and activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities."  Schools are not requi

Ok, I know I don't make New Year's Resolutions.  Because why wait until the new year to start a new habit.  But, I kept putting this one off.  I get in a writing funk, and I get writer's block and just stare at my blank screen.  Then I end up getting lost on Facebook or that game on my phone.  So, I have decided that I will make a huge effort to write every day this year, even if it's just for 5 minutes and I manage to only get 3 words during those 5 minutes.  I've got to do it.  It's the only way to build a habit of writing and finally getting my 2nd book written so I can start the publishing process with my 1st.  I've decided that it doesn't matter what I write, as long as I write.  With the exception that comments on Facebook posts don't count, even though I'm known for my lengthy replies.   Creating a habit of writing daily will help me channel my creativity, and possibly get more short stories written (I write them and publish under a pen na