We’re all guilty of armchair quarterbacking. We see someone doing something that may not be a good idea and we watch while shaking our heads.

We do it with family, friends, and even strangers. Nothing good has ever come out of, “Here, hold my beer and watch this.”

How we live our lives works for us for the most part. We’ve developed systems and habits that make our days flow.

But…there’s always a but.

A family I know with two young children are about to make, in my opinion, a mistake of monumental proportions.

For a little background they are financially successful. Successful enough to afford a gardener, pool boy, nanny / housekeeper. The kids are in several activities, have many friends and weekly playdates, get together with the wife’s family every Friday night for dinner, and usually have no less than two or three kids birthday parties every weekend.

To say they have a hectic schedule is putting it mildly.

Now, it’s a good thing they have all the hired help they do because with a schedule like theirs, how would the grass get mowed, the laundry done, the pool get cleaned, the house cleaned, etc. You’re all aware of what it takes to keep up a house. And their house is a very large sprawling ranch.

Because the kids activities are after school, early evenings, and / or on weekends, they generally don’t get to eat dinner until about 7pm.

Because the kids go to school, bedtime is between 8:30 and 9pm.

Are you exhausted from this schedule? You probably live it but don’t have the hired help they do.

Now for added excitement, exhaustion, or entertainment, depending on how you look at it….

Drum roll please!

They are adding a puppy into the mix.

If you’ve ever had a puppy, you know it’s a lot of work, chaos, mess, frustration, etc. They are cute and once they get past the puppy stage you tend to forget the headaches you had early on.

It’s not my business. It’s not my problem. However, when I found out about this puppy yesterday, I actually cried…for the puppy. That lasted about two minutes and then I broke into hysterical laughter that lasted about fifteen minutes.

All I pictured was the added chaos, stress, and the kids saying they are not going to pick up poop in the yard when asked to. Or walk the puppy when asked to. Or give up screen time to play with the puppy when asked to. Or to feed and water the puppy when asked to. The list is endless.

So from my armchair perspective, the decision to get a puppy at this time is a mistake of monumental proportions.

However, they can always hire someone to take care of this puppy!

According to AI, this is the definition of the snowball effect:

The snowball effect is a process where a small initial action, event, or problem grows in size, significance, or intensity at an accelerating rate, much like a small snowball gathering more snow as it rolls downhill.

For some time now it has dawned on me that the snowball effect in relationship to elderly people is going to cripple this country.

I got hit in the face with another snowball yesterday. Here’s what happened.

Four years ago I retired. Like anyone who retires, we apply for social security, Medicare, and Medicare Part B.

So I chose to go with Humana for my Part B. My husband retired about 8 years before I did, chose Humana, and had been satisfied with it. I simply jumped on that bandwagon per his suggestion.

One of the perks of choosing Humana was a seventy-five dollar quarterly spending allowance for supplements and over-the-counter items. Anything from bandages, personal items, toothpaste, etc.

You simply go on their app and choose what you want, at the beginning of every quarter, and they ship it to you. It’s a nice little cost savings for frequently used items.

Remember, this was exactly four years ago this month that I jumped on that bandwagon.

Since then, that seventy-five dollar quarterly spending allowance went down to sixty dollars, then fifty dollars, then forty five dollars, and yesterday it dropped to thirty-three dollars.

Being that yesterday was the first day of the new quarter, I went on the app to ‘purchase’ a few items and noticed it dropped to thirty-three dollars per quarter.

That’s just one of many things that affect senior citizens.

Many members of the medical community are searching for the fountain of youth so that we can slow down aging and live longer.

So where is all of the extra money for social security payments, disability payments, etc., supposed to come from to support an increasing elderly population in addition to all the new retirees?

Then, let’s talk about staffing. Let’s face it, very few people want to work in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, memory care facilities, etc. So that means that while more of these facilities are being built to handle the elderly population that continues to grow, the more difficult it’s going to be to staff them.

Almost fifty years ago my grandparents were put in a nursing home because my grandma had Alzheimer’s and my grandpa was limited due to a stroke. For a little background on them, they never owned a home. They did own a tavern with living quarters in the back. After they sold that, they moved to an apartment, on a bus line because they never owned a car. Being that they lived during the depression means they knew how to get blood out of a nickel.

Their children, my mom and my aunt, had no idea how much money their parents had until they went into a nursing home and had to disclose their assets. $265,000 (the equivalent of almost one million dollars today) went to the nursing home until they passed. There was nothing left.

Some cultures believe in taking care of their own. Great in theory until the cared for can’t be left alone which could mean the end of date night for you and your spouse, the end of weekend get-aways, the end of family vacations, or attending their children’s activities for the evening. There are sacrifices to be made all the way around.

I’m not trying to make this sound like the elderly people should be disposed of after a certain age, but, the folks that had a decent retirement are having their funds eaten up by rising costs everywhere across the board. Which means if they end up in an assisted living facility, when their money runs out, some government agency is going to have to come up with funds for their living expenses and health costs.

My mom is currently in assisted living but because she can feed, dress, shower, and toilet herself, she’s at a Level 1 care (the least expensive) and that’s running $5,000 per month. She is private pay due to an inheritance she received but in two years she will be out of money, will need to go on Title 19, and move to a studio room from the one-bedroom unit she currently has. She will be ninety-six next month.

It’s simply snowballing with no end in sight and honestly, I have no suggestions on how to solve this. Jobs in the medical field are growing by leaps and bounds…faster than nurses and doctors are available.

My husband had a procedure done at a nearby hospital about two months ago and the nurse who was taking care of him told me she’s a traveling nurse. She said she makes great money and travels to wherever she’s needed due to a nursing shortage. There’s another expense…covering her growing salary and travel expenses. And we’re all paying for that.

In the meantime the senior citizens of today will continue to exercise, take more supplements, eat healthier, and enjoy their lives until they no longer can.

I won’t lie…this situation scares me to death.

I jumped onto the sourdough bandwagon for the first time about two years ago. I compare the time and effort of sourdough to that of babysitting a hyper-active toddler…they both must be watched constantly.

So I gave it up for about a year and decided to try it again. So far it’s much better.

I’ve had more successes than failures. There are two recipes that turn out amazing each time so I stick with those.

Trying other items like sourdough crackers, scones, cookies, and muffins has had some successes and failures also.

The one thing that I personally think is amazing is my sourdough pancake mix.

My oldest granddaughter, who has successfully set up a sourdough ‘bread shed’ at her home, actually developed the recipe for the pancake mix.

The first time I tried it I announced to everyone around me that it makes the best pancakes I have ever eaten.

My husband, without prompting, said the same thing.

I think we have a winner here.

So I decided to make several batches of the pancake mix, designed labels and purchased Kraft bags from Amazon with windows for the packaging.

I chose about twenty different friends and family to be my guinea pigs. All I asked was that they make the pancakes as directed and to let me know one way or the other how they liked them. I wanted honest feedback.

It’s been crickets ever since.

Maybe three friends got back to me with feedback and they absolutely loved them.

Not a word from the rest. I’ve texted, emailed, called, and when pushed they have responded with ‘it’s good’.

AND?

And nothing.

If someone, anyone, gave me something for free, with a simple request for feedback, they’d have that feedback within twenty-four hours.

First, I don’t procrastinate. I’m one of those that when I receive an invitation in the mail for an event and it requires a RSVP, I do it immediately before opening any other mail.

Second, I believe in helping out anyone who’s trying a new venture. Remember, word of mouth is the best advertising.

So now I’m second guessing my new pancake venture. I’ve got a small investment in this project so I wouldn’t be out a ton of money if I shut Nana Bakes down.

Please try to support any one and every one who’s trying to make a difference.

I’m not talking about the dreams you have when you’re sleeping. It’s more along the lines of wishing.

If you’ve ever purchased a lottery ticket or a scratch off, it must momentarily cross your mind what if this is THE one?

The few times I have purchased lottery tickets, I don’t check the numbers until the next morning. I really want and value a good nights sleep.

If I checked the numbers before bedtime, I will be disappointed that I lost and might have a difficult time falling asleep. Mentally I have to return everything I mentally purchased on the assumption of winning.

If I checked the numbers before bedtime and I was even a minor winner, I’d have to call everyone I know and then nobody would get any sleep. 🤷‍♀️

Everyone has wishes, and dreams, and it’s not our place to judge others about theirs. One of mine is to have the wedding of my dreams…because I never did. I talking about the whole enchilada.

I want the wedding dress that people will talk about for weeks and months to come. I want to be the center of attention for one day. But seeing that I’m pushing seventy years of age, it’s not going to happen.

But…what infuriates me is that anyone I’ve told about this dream, which has been several of my girlfriends, has only been met with less-than-encouraging responses.

Responses like, “What a waste of money” or “You’re too old to have a wedding like that.”

Plus I’m already married. In my mind that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have a vow renewal. So I stopped wishing for that…or telling anyone about that ever again.

I have been blessed beyond words to travel to Europe multiple times. My favorite destination is Greece.

My husband is Greek and has several first cousins who live there, so in addition to visiting with them and other islands, I have fallen in love with the people, the culture, the food, and the laid-back way of life.

We are visiting Greece again this year and it will be my eighth trip there. So my dream of living there isn’t just because I went once and had a good time.

Anyone I’ve told about Greece and casually mentioned how magical it would be to live there, has drawn responses about the state of their economy, their socialized medicine, their poorly run government, etc.

Well I’m here to tell you that although those are very good arguments for not living there, my argument would be how warm and friendly I have found the people. And how delicious the food is. And how beautiful the village squares are where friends meet for coffee and talk for hours. And how blue the water is. And how you have not lived until you ate one of their tomatoes or apricots. The list is endless.

So I may walk through this very short existence we have on earth looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, but these are my dreams.

If someone shares their dreams with you, please don’t squash them like a bug on a sidewalk.

Dream with them.

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably scrolled and have seen a string of Reels for viewing.

A lot of them are confusing because you have no idea what you’re supposed to be looking at.

Many are of babies / toddlers eating a new food for the first time, learning to walk, crying, and a million other things children at that age do. Note to parents: you may think your kid is cute and is the only kid on the planet that has ever made a face while trying new foods, but I assure you that Adam and Eve’s kids did the same thing.

And if I see one more video of a gender reveal, I may petition Congress to sterilize every female in this country. Whoever came up with this idea should be tarred and feathered.

Ok, admittedly I’m older than dirt. When I was bearing children over fifty years ago, the only thing I did to advertise my pregnancy, other than a protruding belly, was a shirt I wore that said Under Construction with an arrow pointing down to my stomach.

My mother thought that was in poor taste.

Let’s make this even more interesting. My mother’s generation didn’t have pictures of pregnant women. The pregnant women, in a family photo, stood in the back behind other people so as not to show anyone that they actually had sex and got pregnant.

Ok, back to the Reels on Facebook.

There’s TON of Reels showing viewers how to ‘reset’ their house. That means that they do the dishes, throw in a load of wash, wipe down the counters, mop the floors, pick up toys, fold blankets, take a few gulps of water / wine /coffee in between these tasks, and then they present a tidy house to the viewer.

Really? This is not newsworthy. Since I was five, including today, I made my bed every morning. When we’re done eating I do the dishes. When it’s Tuesday the floors get mopped, the rugs get vacuumed, and the furniture gets dusted. The bathroom gets cleaned daily.

I don’t need to ‘reset’ my house every Sunday night. Never did. Not even while working full time, raising kids, cooking meals from scratch at least five nights a week, took the kids to their activities, coached little league, and put on the best performances for Christmas and birthday’s that I could afford.

The women in these reels act like they just invented cleaning a house. How did this get to be headline news?

If you stop making ‘how-to’ reels, editing them, and posting them to Facebook, you just might have more free time to do things that don’t annoy the rest of us.

New technology never stops. It doesn’t even slow down.

Look where we are today with computers, cellphones, GPS, cameras catching our every move, and a million other things.

I can open my garage door, change the temperature in my house, and several other things right from my iPhone.

My oldest son is a huge fan of technology and runs his entire life using his iPhone. When I visit him, I’m shocked at what he’s capable of operating with that device.

But, last week I had the biggest shock of my life, from Mr Technology himself, my son.

In 2013 he bought a Tesla car. By today’s standards it’s way behind the current Tesla models. He takes good care of it, replaced the battery once, and it painted three times, and he loves the car.

Two weeks ago he needed to have his car in the shop for a couple of issues. The dealership gave him a loaner. Not just any loaner but a brand new self-driving car.

I heard these things may exist someday but I didn’t know they were already available. Could have something to do with the fact that I haven’t watched the news, read a magazine or newspaper in almost six years. I’m sure I’ve missed a few other things also.

Anyhoo…he FaceTimed me the other day and mentioned this loaner car and how it drives itself. He was explaining what this car can all do while he’s not controlling it.

For added excitement he took ‘me’ along for a ride. He didn’t have to touch the steering wheel, the directionals turn themselves on and off, the car knows the speed limit but if you’re in a hurry, there’s some button you can push to move things along, and any destination you enter into the GPS, it takes you right there.

I simply cannot imagine that my Type-A, be-in-control-of-everything personality will be parking a car like that in my garage any time soon.

Out of curiosity, and knowing how much my son is like his mom, I asked him how he likes the car, and how he is freely giving up all control to a piece of computerized metal with four wheels.

And by the way, my son lives in Miami. Many times I have experienced their bumper to bumper, five to seven lanes wide, people darting in and out, horn-honking traffic. Now let’s see how that fancy-shmancy car handles that!!!

The first day he had to drive it home he could not give up 100% control. He tried. He was jumpy when the car was driving itself.

The second day he said things were a little easier giving up control.

The third day happened to be Valentine’s Day. He took his wife and kids out for a nice dinner and the car got them to the restaurant and home without him touching the steering wheel once.

Here’s the kicker. The fourth day he had a really rough day at work. It’s about a thirty to forty-five minute ride home. He got in the car, tapped the screen for his home address, and sat back.

He woke up from a sound sleep in his driveway.

I have no words.

Without fail, every time I travel somewhere new, I fall in love with the place, start looking online for property to buy, read the history, and spend my time immersing myself with the locals.

Pine Island, FL is no exception. It’s near Cape Coral and my son suggested I go there.

We spent January in Cape Coral and rented a four bedroom house through VRBO. That’s a whole story in itself.

Anyhoo, we rented the house with the idea that we would invite family to come for a week at a time and share the sunshine away from our Midwest winter.

The first week our visitors were both of my sons and their families. My youngest son and his daughter went exploring one day and when he returned he said, “Mom, go to Pine Island…it’s got your name written all over it.”

Since it was only about ten minutes away, my husband and I drove over there. From the moment we drove over the first bridge and into the village of Matlatcha (pronounced Mat-lashay), I knew I was ‘home’.

This has happened to me several times before when I have visited somewhere I’ve never been before and a feeling comes over me that feels like all is right with the world.

My husband on the other hand did not share that same feeling…and never has.

That first visit to Pine Island was just a quick drive through to see what there was available to residents and tourists. As I was oohing and aahing at everything, my husband was trying to set a new world record for speed. He couldn’t get off that island fast enough.

I knew that if I really wanted to enjoy this new found treasure, I’d have to do it myself. Or with my sister who was arriving the following week, and would find this place equally as amazing as I did. Her husband would be less than tickled pink.

As soon as we got back to the house, I called my sister and shouted, “Guess what I found?”

So for the next several days when I needed groceries, I headed to the island by myself.

Sure, there was a grocery store closer to the house but I wanted to get as much island time as possible.

After some research I found out that there are nine-thousand permanent residents and that number doubles during tourist season. The island suffered a lot of damage from Hurricane Ian, including the loss of two bridges, which are on the same road, and the only way on or off the island other than a boat. Some damage was still visible.

The island is self-sustaining with everything from doctors, lawyers, physical therapists, schools, two grocery stores, a VFW Post, Moose Lodge, and Elks Club…and bingo on Friday nights at 6:30! There are several churches, gas stations, farmers markets, several nurseries with amazing tropical flowers and colorful pots, boutiques, and so much more.

Yup…I could live here!

The other thing I noticed, and could really get into, is that there are sidewalks everywhere and each time I visited the island, people were walking or riding bikes. It just seemed so simple and so peaceful.

When my sister and her husband arrived, they were barely unpacked and I said, “Let’s go to the island.” She ran to the car. Her husband wanted to go along so my husband rode along also. BIG mistake. We were back to the house in under an hour.

The next morning my sister and I went back alone! The main roads are like a ‘T’. You drive onto the island from the bottom part of the T and after a bit you can only go left or right. From those major roads are many side roads…and of course they all needed to be explored. Right?

It was stone crab season so several places were selling those along with shrimp and other seafood. We found a seafood store that was amazing with scallops, shrimp, seafood dips (the best crab dip ever), and a variety of fish so we bought some fresh grouper.

I could keep going on and on about how much I fell in love with this little community but I hope I’ve painted a picture that you can envision.

I wish everyone could experience this magical, peaceful place.

When Ancestry first came out, just like lottery numbers, many people thought they’d send in their DNA and poof, they were going to find out they are related to someone famous.

I never thought I was related to someone famous and I’m not. I sent in my DNA for a personal reason.

It was interesting to find out that although my mom’s side of the family is 100% Polish and my dad’s side of the family is 100% German, I am not half Polish and half German.

Somewhere along the ancestral trail someone strayed…to the UK. I’m 25% British.

I found this out about six months before William and Catherine got married. I told anyone and everyone that since I am now British, I was expecting a wedding invitation…and shockingly it must have gotten lost in the mail.

I’m sure there have been many surprises in the last almost forty years that it’s been around. It’s made some people happy, sad, angry, caused fights, a few divorces, etc.

The one thing that I love about this world-wide DNA search tool is the number of cold cases it’s solved. Since I love watching true crime shows, I’m seeing more and more law enforcement agencies use this tool to solve new and old crimes.

Ancestry has not had any impact on me or anyone I know. Until two days ago.

I was on the phone with my oldest granddaughter discussing recipes. We both love spending a lot of time in the kitchen and we both bake in competitions.

During our conversation she blurted out, “Oh my.”

I asked what happened and she said that her husband’s DNA match results just came to light on Ancestry. Turns out his dad is not his biological dad.

He is an only child of a couple who did not have him until they were in mid-forties. He knew he was an invitro baby and was told by his parents that they went that route because of their age and that his mother had trouble conceiving naturally.

My granddaughters husband is in his early thirties and I’m sure this was a shock to find out.

Turns out that bio daddy is on Ancestry so they were able to look him up and see what he looks like. Also found out that he has at least two half-sisters.

Bio daddy might be a serial sperm donor. Time will tell if anyone else crawls out of the Ancestry woodwork.

So a day later he called his mom to tell him of this discovery. She didn’t deny it, explained that they used a sperm donor because of the reasons previously mentioned, and that they were hoping he would never find out.

It’s their choice how they handled it but I don’t know that I would have kept it a secret. He’s not mad but probably has a lot of thoughts running through his mind. Knowing him, I don’t believe this will affect his relationship with his parents.

Me, on the other hand, may never recover from that lost wedding invitation from Will and Kate

As most of you know, there’s a saying that says, “Rules are made to be broken.”

But which ones?

Parking in a Handicapped parking space because you have to run into the store for a minute? Speeding? Driving after a few cocktails when you probably shouldn’t have? Didn’t tell the cashier she gave you too much change? Bring a pen home from the office? Printed out personal documents at work? Almost everybody does some of these things but the bottom line is, are these breaking the rules and / or stealing?

Years ago I was a checker at a grocery store. Occasionally there were meetings and in one of the meetings it was mentioned that if we see someone eat so much as a grape from the produce department before paying for the grapes, it was stealing and should be reported. Even prior to that I have never eaten anything while shopping until after I was checked out and in my car. But I see people do it all the time.

From little on I had the fear of God instilled in me. My parents sent my sister and I to a parochial grade school. Church every morning at 8am. Everything we learned was religious-based.

There are Ten Commandments and probably almost everyone has broken at least one. But to this day, as old as I am, I still try to follow the rules, dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’.

What prompted this subject is something that happened yesterday. It’s not the first time this has happened but since it was fresh in my mind, I wanted to talk about it.

My husband smokes. Never in our house or anybody else’s. He smokes in his car but after all, it’s his car.

We’re on vacation and have a rental car. There are two stickers in the car that say No Smoking. And until yesterday he hasn’t.

Yesterday morning we left our vacation rental to drive three hours to my son’s house to visit for a couple of days. Three times he smoked and I reminded him that it specifically says ‘No Smoking’. He said he didn’t care. I mentioned that when he returns the car, they may smell the smoke in there and charge him extra for that. He didn’t care.

Him not caring about a potential extra charge also surprises me because he is very conservative with his money.

For those of you who are concerned about my health in the car while he’s smoking, I used to smoke, grew up in a household where both parents smoked, and I crack my window to get fresher air.

There have been times in the past where we were driving somewhere and I had a headache or wasn’t feeling well and asked him not to smoke…and he wouldn’t.

I think most of the things I’ve mentioned are just so common that we don’t think about it. And besides, everybody does it, right?

I’m just wondering where we draw the line, what do we report to management, or is it ok because everybody does it?

Take a moment and think about something you may be doing that would be considered stealing or breaking the rules.

I’m old school. Raised to be a housewife and nothing more. My folks NEVER mentioned the word college.

My mom taught us to cook, clean, wash, iron, bake, hang laundry, sew, remove stains, etc. That was my entire childhood.

Since that’s all my sister and I know, that’s who we’ve become. We did have jobs outside of the house…me an Office Manager for almost thirty years and my sister a waitress for over forty years.

Outside of those jobs, our life was our homes, husbands, and children.

We cooked and baked from scratch, always looked for new products to clean with, new ways to remove stains…you get the idea.

When we were kids we hated living like this because in our small neighborhood all the other kids were playing outside while we were held hostage as indentured servants by our mom.

Today, both of us almost seventy years old, are glad we have the skills we do because we don’t know many others who can do what we do.

Who do friends and family call when they need a seam repaired, a button sewn on, a recipe, or a helpful household hint? Yours truly.

Many years ago I was driving somewhere with one of my sons, who by the way possess the same skill set as me, and he saw a pretty girl walking down the street. He made a comment about how beautiful she was and I replied with my usual reply, “But can she cook and clean?”

His reply was that it didn’t matter as long as she continued to look that good for the rest of her life. He said that if he married her and she continued to look that good, he would work full time, do all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, etc.

In reality, how long do you think that would last I asked. He was young (late teens) with no concept of what it would be like to actually live like that.

My sister and I raised our sons to be self-sufficient. We both have friends with adult children, married and single, who don’t know how to boil water. They do, however, know how to call for carry-out, drop clothes at the dry cleaners, and to ‘call the guy’ for any repairs that need to be done around the house.

I’m blessed that both of my sons are successful. The oldest, although completely capable of doing anything, prefers to hire out for everything. He’s got a gardener, pool boy, housekeeper, nanny, etc. His children do not and will never possess the skill set he was raised with. His choice.

My youngest son, prefers to do everything himself. He will clip coupons, cut his own lawn, shop for bargains at the grocery store…but has not passed any of those traits and skills onto his sixteen year old daughter.

The one thing I know with one hundred percent certainty is that if both of my sons lost everything, they would know how to survive.

Those beauties they see walking down the street will not survive.

I got up every morning and the only thing I thought about was going to bed at night. Eight o’clock couldn’t come fast enough.

It happened about twenty five years ago when I was in a very dark place in my life.

Right now it’s happening again. I’m not in a dark place (mentally) but in a dark place (physically).

Most people would think I’m crazy for feeling this way considering where I am. I am in a warm climate for a month…away from the cold Midwest winter.

My husband wanted to come here. Initially I was onboard and for the first time in my life, I was not involved in the planning of a trip.

He found a VRBO rental. We’ve used VRBO many times in the last twenty years as we’ve traveled to various places. I’ve always done all the planning because when I travel, I want to be as comfortable where I’m going as I am when I’m home.

When my husband found the rental that we are staying at, I looked at the pictures and thought it looked nice. The listing had everything we always look for…a pool, multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, washer/dryer, etc. We want the extra room for family when they visit.

Several months before our travel date, I did a little online searching of the area to see what there was to do while we were here.

The first thing that popped up online about this community was that since a hurricane went through several years ago, this community has not rebounded as quickly as others. The all-knowing Internet said that poor local government, poor water quality, and a few other things are the reason there are over 25,000 homes for sale in this county. Whoa, that’s a lot of for sale signs.

The more I read, the less I wanted to come here. I put my ducks in a row before I approached my husband with my concerns. He didn’t seem concerned. As long as we had a roof over our head, a car, access to groceries, restaurants, and attractions, everything would fall into place.

His reassurance didn’t ease my concerns. So much so that I didn’t start packing for this trip until about two hours before we needed to leave for the airport. Maybe I was setting myself up mentally for failure.

Travel day went smoothly. Rental car pick up went smoothly. I was starting to feel better.

Until we arrived at the rental. Then I wasn’t feeling better.

The exterior of the house we rented looked NOTHING like the exterior in the picture on the VRBO site.

This was the first time this has happened to us in twenty years of renting like this.

It should be noted that all the other times we rented through VRBO, we dealt with the owners directly. They were at the rental when we arrived. They showed us around the house, had binders with phone numbers, restaurants, attractions, churches, etc.

This time we were dealing with a management company and a lock box code to get into the house when we arrived.

The concrete driveway and sidewalk were almost black and in desperate need of power washing. The white front door was filthy. The welcome mat was so filthy, the word ‘welcome’ was illegible. The doorbell was hanging off of the wall. The landscaping was nothing but mud. Overgrown bushes, lawn ornaments with paint peeling, and very dirty windows.

If this is how the exterior looks, what awaits me on the other side of the door?

The interior is sparsely decorated, dirt along the baseboards and in the corners, and patio curtains that are stained.

The bedspreads and bedding are old and dingy. To say the least, I am not happy. My husband thinks everything looks fine.

It should also be noted that the only thing in the kitchen besides very old peeling Teflon pots/pans and dishes, is salt and pepper. Any home we’ve ever rented has a welcome basket of fruit, cookies, foil, paper towels, toilet paper, etc. This place was stripped bare.

I contacted the management company and spoke to a woman, Christine, who appeared to be responsive and understanding. She was going to send over new curtains the next day if I wouldn’t mind hanging them. That was eight days ago and still no curtains. A power washing company showed up two days later to clean the driveway and sidewalk. Five days later two housekeepers showed up to clean all the baseboards and corners. The washer that leaks and the ice maker that doesn’t make ice still aren’t fixed.

Since we are here for a month, I assumed someone would come once a week to clean since there are no cleaning products here. Any rental we’ve ever stayed at for more than a week included weekly cleaning services.

I called Christine and she said we are responsible for cleaning the house each week while we are here. She said if I text her a list of cleaning products I need, she’ll have someone deliver them. That was two days ago and still no cleaning products. We are being charged over $800 for cleaning services so it must be for a final cleaning after we leave.

Now let’s talk about the heated pool that was advertised in big bold letters in the VRBO listing for this house. I called the first day about the pool being cold and was told it would require an additional $1,000 for the month to have the pool heater turned on. My husband never saw that in the listing and when I questioned it, it was pointed out to me that it’s at the bottom of the listing, in a paragraph with other miscellaneous items, in a very small font.

I want to go home. He doesn’t. I’m counting the days until we go home instead of counting the minutes we get to stay.

I’ve been in this dark place for over a week now and can’t seem to pull myself out of it. My sister and her husband arrive tonight for a week. Maybe that will help.

I follow Mel Robbins and have been using her words as inspiration for myself, as well as saying the Serenity Prayer ten times a day. Maybe this is deeper than a dirty rental house.

Thanks for listening…

The picture is what we were supposed to get…and didn’t.

This past week Rob Reiner and his wife were found murdered in their home.

The first report I heard was that two people were found murdered in Rob Reiners house. Hmmm. Odd. Was he out of town and someone broke in? That was my first thought.

A couple of hours go by and we find out it’s Rob and his wife. Possible suspect is their son, Nick.

A few hours later it’s confirmed it was Rob and his wife, Nick is in custody, charged with murder, and is being held with a $4m bail.

I felt bad about all of this because the few times I’ve seen a movie he directed or saw an interview with him, he seemed like a nice down-to-earth guy.

Like many others, I read the updates on Facebook. I don’t watch the news.

I recently celebrated my five year anniversary of not watching any news. I don’t read the newspaper. I don’t read magazines. I listen to Sirius in my car where there are no news interruptions.

Have I buried my head in the sand? Yes. And proudly.

I used to be a news junkie. Had to know everything going on, everyday, everywhere. COVID changed that.

I have a small TV in my bathroom. In January of 2020 when COVID was first becoming a ‘thing’, I watched the news in the bathroom every morning while getting ready for work. EVERY SINGLE MORNING, first thing at the half-hour, our local news started each of their half-hour morning news show announcing that yes, COVID was a pandemic and yes, the news anchors were practicing safe distancing by staying six feet apart.

EVERY SINGLE MORNING I listened to that from January until November…and then I had enough. I turned off the news permanently. Andy Griffith reruns made me happier.

Anyway, back to Rob Reiner.

I am retired but have a part time job two mornings a week at an auto repair shop about ten minutes from my house.

Yesterday morning I went to work and during the course of the morning I mentioned to one of my male co-workers how bad I felt about Rob and his wife.

He replied, “I have a different point of view on this.” I asked what that was.

He said it was fine with him that Rob was murdered because he didn’t agree with his politics.

I had to pick my jaw up off of the floor.

Are you serious? It’s ok for someone to be murdered if they don’t agree with your political point of view????

Again, because I don’t watch the news or much TV at all, I had no idea what Rob’s political affiliation was. By end of day yesterday, I knew.

With everything going on in the world and in this country, how can anyone justify a murder by a political affiliation.

Just when I thought I’d heard it all…I hadn’t.

Yesterday I was at a children’s birthday party while visiting my son and his family in Miami. Friends of theirs have twins, a boy and a girl, who turned seven.

The party was from 11am to 2pm at the children’s house.

From past experiences with other children’s birthday parties, I knew what to expect. Each party is a dog-and-pony show to try and outdo the last party.

Being from the Midwest and having my last birthday party as a child about sixty years ago, I can tell you there is an enormous difference between my birthday parties and the ones my grandchildren go to.

The Miami parties don’t serve hotdogs, Koolaid, a home-made cake, or play pin the tail on the donkey!

The first time I attended a child’s birthday party in Miami was for my grandson’s first birthday. They invited about one hundred adults and children, the food was catered, the largest bounce house (until yesterday) that I have ever seen, a large tent with tables, chairs, and linens, hired entertainers to keep the children entertained, a face painter, and a line of coolers with every imaginable soft drink, beer, wine, and water. And let’s not even talk about the decorations! When I heard that the helium tank to fill hundreds of balloons was $750, I about had a stroke. All in all, the total price tag was about $7,500. FOR A KIDS BIRTHDAY PARTY.

After my blood pressure returned to normal, I justified this dog-and-pony show with ‘it’s his first birthday and they got carried away’.

Nope. They repeated this performance every year, and when my granddaughter came along, they did it twice a year! Thank God my son and his wife are successful. But all of their friends do the same thing for their kids.

Ok…back to the Stepford Wives.

One of the things I noticed about all the mom’s of my grandchildren’s friends is that they all look alike. The only difference is hair color.

They are all a Size Zero, toned bodies, tan, long hair parted in the middle, HUGE engagement / wedding rings, designer aviator-style glasses, and clothes you won’t find at Penney’s.

The husband’s aren’t far behind. Nicely pressed shorts, designer polo shirts, leather loafers, and designer glasses.

Now that my grandson and granddaughter are seven and five, I’ve seen this many times. It never changes.

Oh, and let me tell you about the birthday presents. The majority of the gifts are ordered and sent to the residence. God forbid you show up carrying a wrapped present when it can be sent in an Amazon box!

And if you’re lucky enough to be the brother (s) / sister (s) of the guest of honor, you may also receive a gift because today parents don’t want children to be disappointed or left out.

When I heard that, I almost stroked. Are you supposed to wait to be an adult before you experience your first disappointment and then try to navigate thru that with no prior experience?

As a point of reference, there are anywhere from one to three of these dog-and-pony shows almost every weekend. You simply pick and choose which ones you want to attend.

When I first experienced all of this I wanted to know how you manage to go to all these parties AND get your house cleaned, laundry done, and get groceries.

It’s easy…they all have housekeepers and Instacart.

There you have it!

I’ve lived in my house about twenty five years. The house to the west of mine has had three different families live there during that time.

Shortly after I moved in, a middle aged couple moved into the house. It was evident from the get-go who was in charge of that household. He was. His name was John. From the neighborhood grapevine I found out he was retired career military. His favorite past time was to put on his bib overalls, tuck both hands inside the ‘bib’ portion of said overalls, and walk the neighborhood telling every homeowner and contractor what they were doing wrong with their house and / or yard.

He did not endear himself to anyone to say the least.

At the time my son owned a landscape company. As a gift to me he wanted to update my backyard with landscaping and new plantings. It didn’t take John long to walk across that lot line to point out the errors my son was making.

Without skipping a beat, my son told John to turn around and look at his own yard which hasn’t been mowed in over a month. John returned home.

John’s wife was a very mousy woman who didn’t talk much. I never approached her for conversation while I was outside at the same time she was because John was always close on her heels. Talking to her would mean engaging in conversation with him and he knew EVERYTHING.

They stayed over ten years and then sold to a young couple. The new folks immediately put new siding on the house, did some landscaping, but like John, they rarely mowed their lawn.

They were friendly if we were all outside doing yard work but weren’t overly excited to engage. Found out they were both in the medical field and this home was kind of a ‘layover’ as they tried to get their dream jobs in another city / state.

About a year after they landed here I noticed she was pregnant. As a friendly gesture I crocheted a baby afghan for them and gave them my phone number in the event they needed anything with winter approaching.

Spring came and so did a baby boy. Their families from out of state came to see the new grandson so I baked some muffins and took them over.

One day she brought the baby over and a hanging plant to say thank you for everything and to tell me they were moving to Ohio. They were here about three years. The house was sold to a woman who bought it as a place for her son to live while he was in medical school.

I thought it was odd that she was buying this house for her son considering there are four bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Turns out that there are at least four medical students living there. They are quiet. I can see them studying at the dining room table almost daily. They had a party once and came over to let us know, in advance of the party, that if the music gets too loud, we should let them know.

Found out what they didn’t know was that they needed to mow the lawn, clean the leaves out of their gutters, and that they are responsible for shoveling their sidewalks when it snows.

They were surprised to hear all of this. I find it odd that these gentleman, who are going to be doctors and will be in charge of making medical decisions that could mean life or death, have no idea how to maintain a lawn or shovel snow.

It scares me to think that someone’s life is going to be in their hands when they have no common sense.

In the meantime they’ve lived in the house next door for over two years and their lawn, with their invasive weeds, are spreading into my well-maintained yard.

I’m ready to try a new family who knows how to take care of a home and yard.

Should there be an annual driver’s road test for elderly people? If so, starting at what age?

I work two mornings a week for an auto repair shop near my home doing bookkeeping. It’s a family-owned business that has been around since 1975.

Last Thursday morning one of the guys said, “Come take a look at this.” I looked out of the window and there’s an elderly gentleman getting out of the drivers side of the car.

It took him several minutes just to get his feet on the ground, get his balance, and while hanging onto the car, he opened the drivers side rear door.

At that point he pulled out a walker from the back seat, closed both car doors, and slowly made his way into the office door. All of this took about eight minutes.

He was bringing his car in for an oil change and something else. The service manager asked him if he needed a loaner car and he replied that his girlfriend was picking him up as soon as he called her.

After all the information was given, he pulled out a cellphone and called his girlfriend. She would be there in about fifteen minutes.

In the meantime he was talking to the service manager and mentioned that his birthday was coming up and he will be ninety-seven years old.

It’s a good thing my back was to them when he said that because my jaw hit the floor. In my opinion, with his age, coordination, and reaction time, there’s no way in hell this guy should be driving.

Ahhhh…but it gets better.

He mentioned that his girlfriend is also in her nineties. This I gotta see.

She pulls up, he shuffles out the door, puts his walker in the rear seat, and gets in the front passenger seat.

Just for reference, our parking lot is long and narrow. You can pull in the lot but in order to get back to the street you have to do a Y-Turn to turn around.

We didn’t think anything about this when they left and we all got back to work. Ten minutes later one of the mechanics came in and told us to look out of the window.

The girlfriend is doing a “Y-Turn” but moving forward and backing up in six-inch increments.

One of the mechanics, per the elderly couples request through the car window, guided her until she could pull straight out of the lot.

As I’m writing this my blood is boiling just as it did last Thursday when I witnessed this in person. These two elderly drivers are a car accident waiting to happen.

Fast forward to Friday night. On the local news is a story about a car accident. Two cars involved. Head-on collision. Two people in one car died at the scene. The other driver was taken to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries.

The two people who died were a husband and wife who turned into oncoming traffic and hit the other car head on. This accident happened about 7pm and it was dark outside thanks to daylight savings time.

The husband and wife were about ninety years old, well-known and respected in the community.

Driving at night is difficult enough for a lot of people. Then you factor in age, reaction time, distractions, glaring headlights, and a host of other factors.

So, should elderly people be required to take a road test each year after the age of seventy-five? Eighty?

None of us want to give up our license and driving privileges. Me included. I struggled with my mom to give up driving at ninety. Why? Because she couldn’t walk without a walker, refused to go over thirty miles per hour no matter what the posted speed limit was, and she was diagnosed as profoundly deaf. If there were emergency vehicles with sirens or someone beeping their horn, she couldn’t hear them.

Is it the responsibility of the driving public to turn in elderly drivers that appear to be a danger to themselves and others? We call in drunk drivers, impaired drivers, reckless drivers…why not elderly drivers?

My twenty-five year old granddaughter FaceTimed me last night. I was thrilled to see she was calling. That is until I accepted the call.

She was crying. This can’t be good.

The first words out of her mouth were, “I got fired.”

I’m thinking to myself, how do you get fired from a job that you just started a week ago?

Bella is my oldest grandchild, is married, and lives in a very small town a couple of hours away. She is very articulate, artistic, tenacious, and private.

Her previous job was in a city about a half-hour from her home and recent management changes encouraged her to look for another job.

This new position was about two minutes from her home. It was in the medical field, she went through several phases of interviews, and was thrilled when they offered her the job.

The salary was the same, PTO was non-existent, she’d have to work for a year to get any type of vacation days, no benefits but her husband has her covered, and she has Fridays off.

I left her alone last week, meaning I didn’t call her to see how things were going, but I did send a text message wishing her luck and telling her to contact me when she can.

One of her concerns was learning medical coding but she found a book online that would help her. It was $200.

Now, if you only knew how frugal Bella is, she would never buy that book.

So instead she was writing down the codes every day at work and in the evenings she was making ‘flash cards’ to take to work to learn the medical codes.

She also read their company handbook cover to cover so there would be no surprises. Example: the company handbook stated that there can be no visible tattoos and because she has some, she went to buy new clothes to make sure they were always covered.

During our conversation last night she was telling me through tears that she liked the job, thought she was doing a great job, everybody seemed friendly, etc. Then out of the blue on Monday night she receives an email from her boss telling her they are going in another direction and are letting her go.

Her husband came home from his second-shift job and found her crying. She cried herself to sleep and the next morning her husband went to the clinic to retrieve a couple of items Bella left at work and proceeded to tell her boss that he needs to provide her with a better reason than ‘you’re going in another direction’.

So yesterday afternoon she received another email stating that they are a family type office and that she didn’t fit in. I don’t know the exact wording but he also said that she appeared to not be interested in sharing things about herself when the other gals asked her.

Bella explained to me that they asked her lots of questions and at one point one of the questions was if she was planning on having children.

Personally I think that’s gray area but it didn’t come from management, it was girl talk…the other girls in the office chatting and trying to find out about their new co-worker.

Her reply was that it was a personal question and she keeps her personal life private. Apparently they didn’t like that answer, reported back to her boss that she ‘wasn’t sharing’, and he mentioned that in his ‘cowards-way-out’ email explaining why they were letting her go.

I understand co-workers wanting to find out about the ‘new kid on the block’, but Bella said she felt that they were firing too many questions at her and she wanted to keep her nose to the grindstone and learn this new job. That’s what I love about my over-achieving granddaughter!

Trying to stay neutral while listening to her story through lots of tears, I mentioned that she may have come across a little snobby when she told them that she preferred to keep her personal life private. She said it was said in a very professional manner. I knew no matter what I said after this, she was going to stick to her guns and not admit that just maybe she had a little part in how she was being perceived by her co-workers.

So her first day of unemployment was spent crying, sleeping on and off, searching online for another job, getting two appointments for interviews in totally unrelated fields than she’s ever worked, and with my encouragement to put this behind her and move forward. I’d be willing to bet my 401k that she stayed up all night, cried, she scoured the internet for another job.

I love that girl to death and wish I could help her in some way, but she has to work this out for herself.

I’m sure we all have a least favorite word or two, and it changes for all of us each time we hear a word that’s over-used.

For a while the word ‘whatever’ was painfully over-used and occasionally I still hear myself saying it. To be honest, it is a convenient word.

“What do you want for dinner?” Whatever!

“What movie do you want to watch?” Whatever!

Almost everyone under thirty (and I’m being generous with that number) inserts the word like into every single sentence. Sometimes as many as ten times in a sentence if they forget to take a breath.

“I’d like to like go to the mall.”

“Where are you like going and can I like go along?”

How in the world did that ever start and is there anything we can do about it? If you’re one of those who use that word all too frequently, I am sure you’re unaware of it because it has simply become part of your vocabulary.

By now I’m sure the suspense is killing you about my new least favorite word.

Drumroll please. The new least favorite word of the day appears to be cute.

Cute can describe many things. Things like a puppy. Or a kitten. Or a baby. Or a dress. Even guys and gals are cute.

What cute doesn’t apply to is dishes, pots, pans, bakeware, new siding on a house, a car, and the list is endless.

All of a sudden that word is popping up all over the place to describe things that simply aren’t, or cannot be, cute!

My niece recently got married so of course there was a wedding shower. Since my favorite room in the house is the kitchen, and I do lots of baking and cooking, my gift to her was a variety of bakeware, pizza pans, pie plates, cookie sheets, etc.

Each gift, including mine, she opened and gushed, “Isn’t that cute?”

From where I’m sitting, there’s nothing cute about a bread pan or a pie plate or a cookie sheet.

Last week I sent my daughter-in-law a Christmas cookie cookbook. She has small children and I’m sure she will want to bake Christmas cookies at some point with them.

I got a text from her thanking me for the cookbook…saying it was cute. This particular cookbook doesn’t have a single cute cookie in it…you know like cut-out cookies that are decorated really cute?

My sixteen year-old granddaughter is covering all bases. She’s using cute and like in almost all of her sentences.

Oh how lucky am I to have a conversation with her…

With the holidays right around the corner, the annual tradition of sending Christmas cards to friends and family, near and far, just might include a Christmas letter.

Some folks include a letter with their Christmas cards. It’s sort of a recap of the year…highs and lows, births, deaths, marriages, etc.

About thirty years ago a friend of mine shared a Christmas letter with me that she received in one of her Christmas cards.

The letter was broken down by months, starting with January, and each for month there was a sentence or two about something that occurred within the family who sent the card.

I had to read it twice and was dumbfounded how many bad things happened to this family in one year.

Thinking it must be a joke, I asked my friend who received this letter if she knows for a fact that all of these things happened. She assured me they all happened and followed that up with ‘if it weren’t for bad luck they’d have no luck at all’.

Here’s just a few things they shared with family and friends:

~Someone had two surgeries for glaucoma and both were unsuccessful

~This same individual had another surgery due to complications from the first two glaucoma surgeries which then caused an eye to collapse and left him totally blind.

~There was a wedding in the family and apparently it was for a more mature couple. The groom had already had five open heart surgeries, forty catheterizations, and numerous angioplasties. The pastor officiating the ceremony made a comment that they were lucky it was a wedding and not a funeral.

~Another relative had heart surgery and had complications with her legs.

~Another relative was stabbed over two hundred times by her housekeeper of twenty years. Fingers and nose almost cut off, heart nicked, lung and liver punctured, and numerous other injuries. The housekeeper was found in another city three weeks later.

~The woman who was stabbed, her husband had a benign tumor the size of a grapefruit removed from his sinuses.

~And last but not least, another relative is receiving chemo for pancreatic cancer.

The letter is closed out by the writers thanking God for all their blessings.

Now, that my friends, is called faith and optimism!

Personally I would not have sent a letter like that in a Christmas card but obviously these folks felt comfortable sharing all of that. I respect that.

It’s a little early but Merry Christmas!

A few minutes ago I saw a picture on Facebook of a vanity license plate that read HATEPPL.

I don’t hate people…I just prefer to not engage with people. It’s not all their fault. A lot has to do with me and my low tolerance of people.

Being that we live in a country that has steadily gone down hill since Covid five years ago, it’s easy to understand the people we come in contact with everyday and everywhere.

I purposely use the self-checkout at the grocery store whether I have one item or forty items. Self-checkouts weren’t created so we wouldn’t have to interact with others but that is why I choose to use it.

That hasn’t always worked in my favor. First of all, my regular grocery store that I’ve been going to for over twenty-four years, has hired some middle-aged over achievers. All I want to do is check out and go home. But one OA (over achiever) insists on coming by when I’m looking up produce codes. She just rattles them off. It’s great that she has them memorized. I say thank you and thirty seconds later she’s back to offer me another produce code. Then she asks about my husband because she adores him and unlike me, he loves idle chatter.

So as you’re reading this you’re thinking to yourself, why don’t you just go to a full service checkout so you don’t have to be bothered? The answer is simple. The full service checkers, unfortunately due to lack of employees these days, are elderly, semi-retired folks who like to make idle conversation while I’m trying to get out of the store. I don’t want them picking up my bag of dried green peas to scan and asking me if I am going to make pea soup. Next thing you know we’re exchanging pea soup recipes.

You’ll never have to worry about running into me at a party or event where I mindlessly tell you all about my life and experiences. First, I’ve become a private person and share very little about my life with anyone…including my mom or sister.

Just to be clear, I wasn’t born this way. When I was younger you couldn’t shut me up for love or money. I’d talk to lamp post if it would listen. And then all of a sudden over the years it dawned on me that while I’m sharing my mindless dribble with people, they were scanning the room for the exits to get away from me. Took a few years to figure that out.

I went from that stage of my life to the stage of shutting up and listening and realized there’s a whole world of stuff I probably missed while I was flopping my jaws! It’s very interesting when you go from Chatty Cathy to a version of Helen Keller.

Now my sister who obviously has known me all my life recently asked me why I don’t call her as much anymore or tell her things like I used to. I explained that there are two kinds of people in this world…those who listen and those who are waiting to talk.

If you’re waiting to talk, that means you’re not listening. So if you’re not listening, why should talk? I discovered this by friend’s and family asking me about a particular event or date, etc. Now as I recall I’ve already told them about this at least once and if they didn’t listen or put it on their calendar, that’s not my problem.

This isn’t just me. I’ve had this conversation with friends who tell me the same thing. People don’t listen anymore, which in turn makes us (me) frustrated, which makes us (me) shut up.

The second part of this relates to people who interrupt constantly when someone is talking. I’ll save that for another day.

Now ask yourself, are you a listener or are you someone who’s waiting to talk? There’s a huge difference.

We all know someone, or several someone’s, who did everything right. You may even be one of them.

By ‘right’ I mean you listened to your parents, never caused them a moment of worry, hung out with the right kids, excelled in school, excelled in college, got a good job after college, met the right guy, planned the perfect wedding, and lived happily ever after!

I know lots of people like that because they’re all on Facebook boasting their perfect lives. It’s what they want us all to believe.

And then there are the rest of us.

I don’t boast the perfect life on social media because it’s not perfect. Yes, I post pictures of my perfect grandchildren and pictures of amazing vacations, but that’s where it ends.

My childhood was great growing up in a very small farming community but life at home wasn’t great. My parents fought a lot. At age eleven, my dad left the house for good…on Thanksgiving morning.

Appearances was everything to my mother. She wanted to make sure everything still looked picture perfect. She went from housewife to part of the workforce. None of our friends moms had to work. We kept this hush-hush…for as long as possible.

This isn’t what I signed up for. I didn’t want to come home from school and make supper…or do a load of wash…or vacuum and dust. But in order to keep things as ‘normal’ as possible, I did what I was told.

So as we become adults from a broken home versus an in-tact family, are there really differences?

I’m going out on a limb and say yes.

There was no college in my future. It didn’t even pay to try and get good grades. My future back in those days (early seventies) was for me to scrape by the rest of my life. At least that’s how I looked at it.

So while looking for love in all the wrong places to fill some void in my life, I was pregnant and married at seventeen. No money. Blue collar work for my then husband. A baby on the way.

My friends were making college plans or backpacking thru Europe the summer after high school. I was in a dingy apartment with second hand furniture and very little food. But those early years of being responsible for making the meals and doing housework after my dad left paid off. I knew how to cook and keep house.

I worked my way up to office jobs, cleaning houses, and whatever it took to make a better life. There were hiccups along the way but I’m a pretty strong woman.

Today I’m retired, own my own home, travel several times a year, have two successful sons, and have four amazing grandchildren. And I have a husband who has loved me for twenty years…and it hasn’t always been easy living with this strong-willed woman.

My life may not have started out the right way, but it sure is ending up the right way. At least I’m living my truth and don’t have to boast on social media about my perfect life.

Just me knowing how I got where I am today is just right for me.