Lea Michele & Cory Monteith

March 10th, 2014
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Songs are touchstones; expressions of personal thoughts, emotions or memories.  An outpouring of experiences.  Songs can transport and inspire and also energize.  Songs can also help the writer and the listener process emotions of loss or grief.
Actress and singer Lea Michele had been working on her new album, Louder, many months before the tragic and sudden death of her boyfriend, actor Cory Monteith, who died from a toxic mixture of heroin and alcohol.  Michele and Monteith also connected professionally, playing high school sweethearts on Fox’s award winning series, Glee.With the recent release of Louder, Michele is giving … Read More

Johnny Cash’s To Do

February 26th, 2014
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I write about the great American singer songwriter Johnny Cash today for two reasons: the first is it’s his birthday and if he were still here with us he would be 82 years old (Happy Birthday Johnny!) and the second is his infamous “to do” list. Cash’s iconic songwriting talents crossed over into so many different kinds of music that he is one of the few people to have been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Music Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.  Incredible right? Cash’s most powerful songs to… Read More

Getting In Gear

February 24th, 2014
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The calendar still says February but the warm temperatures this weekend offered me hope that Spring is close to arriving in my area of the world. I think my neighbors felt the same way because all weekend I saw them emerging from their homes of hibernation, waving hellos and walking around their yards picking up recently fallen branches and small sticks and checking out winter’s damages.  It was also nice to see the baby brigade out and about with strollers and young toddlers in tow.  While doing my errands, everyone seemed to be energized by the warm and shining sun. … Read More

A New Week

August 19th, 2013
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I am with you my dear readers as we begin a new week together!!!! I hope your weekend was full of exciting adventures and laughter and love and family and friends. Mine seemed to zip by in a blink. While I have many things that I want to tell you about, I ran out of time to sit down and put them in complete thoughts and sentences. There is definitely more to come but today I leave you with the below thought since change and more change seems to be the theme of my life these days: The only way… Read More

Within The Morning Light

August 8th, 2013
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I am an early riser.  I find the morning to be peaceful and so quiet.  I use my morning time to collect my thoughts about what I think is going to happen during that particular day and pray for other things that I hope will happen. So the morning is when a lot happens for me.  With my trusty cups of hot tea, I appreciate the solitude of the wee early hours of the day.  Quiet allows me to think and to breathe and pull myself together. I am always writing down blog ideas and collecting different points of view… Read More

Owen Danoff — On & On & On

July 9th, 2013
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A big shout out today goes to the multi-talented singer songwriter Owen Danoff for exceeding his Kickstarter goal of $15,000!!! Owen and his supporters raised $19,391 by June 30 and now Owen has the money to record his debut album this year!!!  In fact, he’s already started work on his album.  This past weekend, he and his rockin’ band went to NYC to spend time in a recording studio putting down music tracks.   I write about this today because it is truly exciting and yes, healing, to watch someone who I have know since he was a baby find … 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

I, Poet

May 7th, 2013
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When I was in high school, I used to write a lot of poetry.  I liked the deliberate way of choosing and using words and trying to find the right rhythm of each line.  I had a special notebook that I used to write down thoughts and words that I wanted to remember for images in future poems. I even entered a poetry contest in high school and surprisingly one of my poems won and was published in a national anthology of high school poetry.  That was a confidence booster! Then it was time to go to college.  My interests… Read More

Writing About Grief & Finding The Right Words

February 26th, 2013
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I think the hardest thing about writing is writing.                                                ~ Journalist, Author and Screenwriter Nora Ephron During Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony, tributes were paid to those in the film industry who passed away in the past year.  Nora Ephron was among the brilliant people in the entertainment business who sadly died last year.  She most certainly was a bright twinkling star in her own right and the producers of the show chose to display the above quote in her honor. Ephron was a keen observer of American culture and especially the stormy and romantic relationships between men and women. … Read More