After months of anticipation, the morning of Wednesday, September 11, 2024, finally arrived. I was awake before the 3:45 am alarm rang. By 4:40 am, John and I were at my dad’s house to pick him up for our 6:30 flight to Baltimore. My dad, Kieran Purcell, who served in the Air Force from 1956 […]
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The Art of Retiring
The decision was made about a year ago that my husband would be retiring in May of 2024. John, being the planner and critical thinker that he is, began studying the topic with the goal of us making the best decisions in retirement for our finances, health, and mental well-being. He’s been learning about retirement […]
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The Perfect Note
Last week our youngest daughter was in town to attend her godson’s First Communion. She was still asleep when I headed out to Bible study and Mass Friday morning, so I asked my husband to let her know what time I planned to return. I figured he’d just mention something to her before he left […]
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Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Easter was especially memorable for John and me this year. We had all eight of our grandchildren (ranging from 5.5 months to 11 years old) with us the week after Easter Sunday. Between them and their parents who were able to make it into town, there were 15 of us eating meals together every […]
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Can We Talk?
This is really going to show my age, but the first memory I have of a telephone was the party line that we shared with a handful of other families in our neighborhood when I was young. Any time you picked up the phone to make a call, you might break into someone else’s conversation. […]
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Grandma Bootcamp
Thirty-nine years ago, when we enlisted in the parenting corps, I went through mama bootcamp, and being on duty 24/7 those first few weeks, the lack of sleep erased most of those memories from my mind. So much so that my husband and I went through it again three more times over the course of […]
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Investment Advice That Worked For Us
When my husband and I started dating 44 years ago, I wouldn’t say that either of us was financially savvy. We were good with handling money but really knew nothing about investing. Of course, what 17-year-old and 18-year-old would? That being said, when things started to get serious between us and we began speaking […]
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Taking the (Education) Road Less Traveled
If a person would’ve looked at the numbers on paper, they would’ve said that my husband John and I were crazy to consider sending our four children to Catholic schools. To put it in perspective, this is how things all began. John and I met—believe it or not—at a disco when he was 18 […]
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She’s Nice
“You’re so nice!” I’ve been the recipient of that compliment more times in my life than I can remember. While I treasure those words at this age, I wasn’t always so excited to hear what I considered to be a generic accolade when I was younger. I can remember a distinct incident involving that […]
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The Christmas Letter We’re Not Sending
This is the version of our 2023 Christmas letter that we’re not sending. It was turning into a novel. Our friends and family got the condensed version! You’re welcome to read it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you… Looking over the 2023 calendar, it actually wears me out! What a year we had! […]
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