A year or so before my husband John retired in May of 2024, we started watching YouTube retirement videos. Our favorites are Joe Kuhn; Happy on Monday; Holy Schmidt; Erin Talks Money; Retire This Way with $500K; Merit Financial Advisors; Streamline Financial; Think Retirement; Retire Early $500K; James Conole, CFP; Ari Taulieb, CFP; Tae Kim […]
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Tradition, Tradition… Tradition!
If you’re not a fan of Fiddler on the Roof, you may not get this reference, but regardless, the thought of traditions came to mind at a women’s luncheon that I attended in December. We were doing an ice-breaker event at our table, and one of the questions was, “Does your family have any holiday […]
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Thanksgiving Memories
Today I saw a post on Facebook, asking readers to submit their Thanksgiving memories. Thinking back, my Thanksgiving memories may be different than most people’s. My dad was in the military, so we lived on or near Air Force bases until I was a junior in high school. That being the case, the closest we […]
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The Eulogy I Never Gave
Maybe it’s because of my Irish roots, but I feel I have the ability to be a professional mourner. When someone close passes away, or even someone I don’t know personally, but whose life story touches my heart, I don’t just cry, I weep — in genuine sorrow — potentially for days. I’d make the […]
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It’s Been Quite the Year…
For some reason, I jumped on the cool mom bandwagon in January and chose a word to focus on for 2025. I generally don’t do this, but the word SERVE kept coming into my line of sight, so I thought it was a nudge from God that this should be my word for the year. […]
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Reunited, and it feels so Good
Here’s a bit of trivia about me. If I ever get famous for my books or movies, maybe someday it’ll become a DJ Trivia question. I went to three high schools. No, it wasn’t because I was expelled for poor behavior; it was because of job transfers for my dad. My dad was in […]
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Sisters, Sisters
“Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters…” Anyone else enjoy the movie White Christmas as much as I do?” Before I ever had a chance to see the reruns of that holiday classic on TV, I had the pleasure of being in the presence of sisters — as in religious sisters — on a daily basis […]
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It’s the End of A World, As We Know It
It’s the end of an era, the Civil War era, to be exact. Earlier this week, I emailed the copy-edited version of the sixth and final book in my Heaven Intended Civil War series to my publisher. A Hero Such as Heaven Intended is slated to be published this fall. It’s surreal saying goodbye to […]
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The Unexpected Joy of a Funeral
It was a challenging winter. My stepmom Mary had surgery on January 6, 2025, and things went downhill from there. With no recovery in sight, she was admitted to hospice on January 31 and passed away on March 9. Due to various circumstances, including weather, travel, and the impending birth of Mary’s great-grandson, we […]
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Acts of Kindness Add Up
We’ve all heard the expression, “It takes a village to raise a child.” There is truth in that, but recently I’ve come to learn that it takes a village to care for the elderly too. The Emergency Situation My 86-year-old dad had a fall while stepping out of the shower at the end of January. […]
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