Maybe it would help me hang on to a little piece of him — Despite the sun playing peek-a-boo with the clouds all afternoon, it was hot for early June in the mountains. With the thermometer pushing eighty degrees, and the humidity not far behind, it wasn’t ideal gardening weather. But I felt called to plant — well, re-plant. As I pushed aside the…

Why I didn’t follow “the gold standard of treatment” and how my dog’s doing despite going against the vet’s recommendations — “Uh-oh,” my husband said, as Faith came in from her morning potty break. “What?” I replied. “She’s limping, again,” he said. We’d only been home one week from a trip to celebrate our grandson’s birthday. The first day of that trip we noticed Faith limping after she came in from…

What I learned from a dog who was a whole lot smarter than me — I got my first dog as an adult in the summer of 1988. I was twenty-six years old and my husband and I had just purchased our first house. It was a tiny, 700-square-foot bungalow on an oversized lot — a lot so large you could have built two more…

I’ve gone through three distinct stages in my memoir writing journey and I’ve yet to find my groove. Stage One: Enrolling in a memoir writing course. When I got serious about writing memoir — and when I say writing memoir, let me be clear, I mean writing a book — I decided I needed to prepare. …

The small but mighty pioneer who inspired me to start my own business — I don’t know much about her life before I knew her. From the little I’ve heard, it wasn’t easy. She never gave any clues to her past. I only knew her present. She gave me my first job when I was thirteen years old. She taught me how to make…

It’s an insidious disease that sucks the joy out of everything — I’m not sure when it started. I believe I can trace the earliest occurrence back to high school. Dad was a teacher and A’s were expected. Maybe that’s when my compulsion to always try harder and do better began. I’m also a twin, born five minutes after my sister. She…

She’s been my refuge ever since I walk downstairs and into the kitchen. My husband is sitting at the table with his laptop open and a big smile on his face. As I enter the room, he swings the computer around. A cherubic golden face fills the screen. “Oh my…

A heartwarming story about therapy dogs and Hospice patients — I’ve been a pet therapy volunteer for eight years. I have two certified therapy dogs, both golden retrievers. Hope is ten years old, Faith is eight. Hope has always been my steady, reliable, zen therapy dog. …

Between my husband’s addiction recovery, and our relationship recovery, sometimes I just need a break — I went hiking last week, something I haven’t done nearly enough the past few months. Hiking is one of the main reasons we moved from Southern California to the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’ve often quipped that being in nature, on a trail, is my happy place. When we relocated to…