Loving Your Family

Keeping Love In Your Heart

May 29th, 2013
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The best and most beautiful things in the world
 cannot be seen or even touched —
they must be felt with the heart.
                                    ~ Helen Keller
The human heart is an amazing organ isn’t it?  We fall in love, break up, and then perhaps fall in love over and over again, testing the resiliance of our courageous yet vulnerable hearts.
Somehow, throughout our lives, we ride this emotional rollercoaster and our hearts manage to survive the ride and keep on beating. When a relationship doesn’t work out, we are sad but eventually we pick ourselves up and carry on until … Read More

A Friend’s Good Bye Letter

May 28th, 2013
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Last week a childhood friend of my father’s died.  They had known each other since they were in grade school and met each other while playing recess games on the black top when they were about seven or eight years old.  They both went on to attend the same high school, playing basketball, and later both went into the insurance business working for different companies.   Over the years, they stayed in touch with each other as best they could.  They both worked very hard while trying to raise large Irish Catholic families.  My father and mother had six children… Read More

Heaven

May 23rd, 2013
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There’s a place where we all want to end up. We know it by name but where is it?  Where is Heaven? I was thinking about Heaven yesterday while attending the wake of a man who was one of my father’s best friends. This man was a good man, worked hard, had a wonderful wife and children and tried to do his best for others.  I’m sure he is in Heaven, wherever that is. I’m also sure that other people that I knew and loved are in Heaven: my husband, all of my grandparents, my aunt and uncles and some… Read More

Celebrity’s Healing Breakfasts

May 21st, 2013
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When I was a young girl in elementary school, my favorite breakfast was a cinnamon twist doughnut and orange juice. My father was the “Doughnut Man” on Sundays and would ask me and my five siblings what kind of doughnuts we wanted and then he would bring them back for us warmed up in a large white baker’s box.  I still have a thing for cinnamon cake doughnuts but I hardly ever indulge in those bad boys. Here’s the funny thing: after my father would get us doughnuts he would then make himself a cereal bowl full of Total cereal,… Read More

Angelina’s Health Decision

May 15th, 2013
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Angelina Jolie made a powerful decision.  It’s not a decision that every woman has the opportunity to make, but I stand and applaud her courage and wish her a future of wellness. Faced with medical information from her doctors that she had an 87 percent risk of developing breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of developing ovarian cancer because she carried the BRCA1 gene, she decided to take control of her health and be proactive.  She decided at the young age of 37 to have a double mastectomy which means she had both of her currently healthy breasts surgically… Read More

Grief In the Office

May 13th, 2013
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Even though your world probably stopped when you lost a loved one, the world around you has continued  with its usual routine. I know it’s kind of a shocker to find this out but it’s true. You are racked with pain but unfortunately, that doesn’t stop the bills and other responsibilities that need your attention from smacking you in the face.  What kind of responsibilities you may ask?  Well, for some it might include feeding, clothing and housing children, continuing to work full-time and managing to keep your wits about you as you try your best every day to stick… Read More

Being A Mommy

May 12th, 2013
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On June 25, 1990 my life changed forever. I gave birth to a magical baby boy and I discovered a kind of love I had never known before. A fierce, unconditional and wondrous kind of love that continues to take my breath away! I say surprising because I was totally unprepared for the depth and the size of this love for my son.  As the oldest of six children and one of 35 first cousins, I grew up constantly surrounded by babies and toddlers.  Also, there is only seven years separating me and the youngest of my siblings, who are… Read More

Moving Day

May 6th, 2013
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I received a couple of texts over the weekend from a friend who lives in another city about how he now lives in a new place. I didn’t know he had moved from his home of almost 20 years so I was surprised by his news but I also knew that there was more to the story than just a regular heave-ho move from one place to another. My friend lost his wife to cancer a number of years ago and she was a wonderful and talented person, but she also was the kind of person who kept everything.  She… Read More

Aer Lingus — Take Us Away

May 2nd, 2013
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Ireland’s Scenic Coastline You know when you discover something for yourself and you can’t wait to share it with your friends? Well, that’s the way I feel about Ireland. I haven’t been back to Ireland for years but I will never forget the trip that I made with my husband.  Fantastic and magical from beginning to end.  I was very sad to leave. And now one of my sisters and her husband are flying to Ireland today and I’m so envious! I am also excited for them for I know that once they land in Dublin tomorrow they will forget… Read More