Posts Tagged: pain

Having A Thankful Heart

November 20th, 2017
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Door Decoration

As we slide into this holiday week of Thanksgiving, my thoughts turn to the simple idea of setting aside a day to show gratitude.

Yes life is crazy, messy and unpredictable.

Yes the holiday season can be painful and a stinging reminder of a terrible loss or a difficult family situation.

But you can sit yourself down and listen to your heart and acknowledge your limits.  Be aware of what you need before you join family and friends for any holiday event.  Express your thoughts and feelings to a trusted person.  Change up your expectations and instead focus on one … Read More

5 Great Places To Laugh

May 30th, 2017
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There are a handful of people in my life who can make me laugh so hard that I CAN NOT get my breath and one of them is my brother, Scotty. He has an unbelievable sense of humor.  I’m not telling tales out of school when I say that hands down he does the best imitation of our mother and the fact that he usually does it in front of her makes it even funnier.  Not to worry.  Our Mom thinks he is funny too and she always laughs at his skits, especially the ones featuring her! My brother can… Read More

Grief Sucks

April 8th, 2017
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My Dad At A Gonzaga Rally  Dear Faithful Friends: Excuse my French, but as the title of this post suggests, grief does suck. I haven’t been on social media very much lately though it’s not for lack of trying.  Since my Dad’s death in February, I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to sit down and write something but all the words get balled up. I know I am stating the obvious but it needs to be said.  When you call something what it is, you bring it out into the open.  Maybe it just sits in… Read More

Let’s Rise Up

November 12th, 2016
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  My late husband, Tom O’Toole, as a young boy   Good Morning Friends: So how was your week? I’m not trying to be flip.  I am genuinely concerned. We live in a topsy turvy world and you would have to be stationed in some unbelievably remote part of the globe not to be aware of the election results in this week’s U.S. presidential contest.  Seriously, it has been quite a freaking week and everyone I know (including myself) is still absorbing what happened. On top of the surprising election results, my family received some sad personal news that I … Read More

The Name Game

May 13th, 2016
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I am dating myself by asking you this question but it’s for a sweet reason so I’m going to go with it. Do you remember a popular song called The Name Game? It was a big hit when I was a young girl.  In fact, it was a huge hit that aired on the radio constantly.  My friends, siblings and I used to sing it ALL THE TIME because it was so absolutely silly.  We rode a big yellow school bus to elementary school five days a week from our house and I remember for a number of months we… Read More

5 On Friday

April 8th, 2016
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  What a freakin’ roller coaster of a week! Since I feel a bit spun around by the events of the last few days, it’s difficult today to put my thoughts into a few simple declarative sentences. Instead I found this dreamy picture. I really wish I were sitting in this car right now, smelling the fresh salt air and letting the warm ocean breeze play through my hair knowing that I could open the door, run to the beach and go swimming. But since I’m not really sitting in this car, I can do the next best thing:  imagine… Read More

Pat Conroy

March 11th, 2016
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Photo Courtesy of CNN The most powerful words in English are ‘Tell me a story’  ~ Pat Conroy In the midst of all the hurly burly reporting of election politics that’s boldly been crowding our daily headlines,  there was a sad piece of human news last weekend that I felt got lost in the shuffle: Pat Conroy, a courageous man and super talented writer, lost his battle to cancer and died at the age of 70. I say courageous because that’s the first word that comes to my mind when I think of him and his unusual ability to intimately… Read More

Lodro’s Ah-Ha Insight

January 15th, 2016
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    In the Oscar-award winning movie, Dream Girls, an insightful song is featured about practicing patience.  The lyrics (written by Henry Krieger and Willie Reale) go as follows: I know you have questions Same ones as me How long has it been? How long will it be? When will come the morning To drive the night away? When will come the morning Of a brighter day? Patience, little sisters Patience, little brothers Patience, patience Take each other by the hand Finding patience is something I struggle with.  Constantly.  I put it right out there.  Finding the patience to handle… Read More

Mermaid — A Memoir

January 8th, 2016
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My wonderful son and I share a love of reading all kinds of books.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s fiction, non-fiction, or biography. A good story always grabs us and we like to share books that we discover and enjoy so much that we can’t put them down until we arrive at the last word. As a Christmas present, he gave me a memoir titled, Mermaid, a book that neither of us had read but still his instincts told him that this would probably be a book I would enjoy. He was right!  I loved it and whipped right through… Read More