5 years ago today we moved from Tulare to St George Utah. Just because it’s easier to look in the rear view mirror after life has happened, if I had to do it over again I would have waited another year. I would have worked longer and given myself more time to adjust. There were reasons we did it when we did but it was so rushed. I lost Randy, retired from a job I loved, sold my house of 25 years, bought a house and left my hometown of almost my whole life to move out of state

I HATE that I don’t have a husband for many reasons but today it’s about feeling like every time someone is servicing something, selling me something (other than my realtor and the guy who sold both Erin and I our cars), or giving financial resources or advice, they are taking advantage of the fact that I’m a widow, alone, without a man to accompany or support me with these decisions. And it makes me mad!!! There may be times this is not their intent but I go with my gut and

I feel so validated to see this word finally describe what has been an insanely frustrating characteristic of mine. This is also more common than I thought, but 6% of those with it have it to the extreme, which I’m sure I am one of. As I have aged I know my hearing is not as good as it used to be but in addition to these repetitive noises I used to have such a keen sense of hearing. For example, once when my husband and I were sitting in our family room I told him I could hea

I recently lost my last living aunt, Margaret Jensen. She was married to my mom's brother. She worked at Cherry Avenue School for years. Her husband, my uncle, owned Cave's men's clothing store in downtown Tulare for those who have been around awhile. She was 94. She had Alzheimer's in past years but she lived a full life before Alzheimer's robbed her and her family. I wrote the following to post on her obituary page. Then I came across a Facebook post with me wearing one of

I know I repeat this story every year. I wrote it about 10-12 years ago for a newsletter at work. But on this day I am reminded how important friends are and how blessed I am to have this woman as my dear dear friend. Love you Linda! “I was a single mother with a five year old daughter. Without going into a lot of detail as to why, I ended up moving to another state with my daughter. I had no family and no close friends. I had been there six months and was pretty homesick a

I have had old VHS tapes for up to 30+ years, mostly Christmas and birthdays and silly church talent shows. I haven’t watched them in years. I knew my mom and dad were embedded in the tapes and I didn’t think my heart could handle seeing them. I lost my mom when I was in my 30s and my dad in my 40s. They were amazing parents and grandparents and I have felt their loss every day of my life. My daughter recently had all the tapes digitized. The day they came we watched a couple

Erin had this made for me out of Randy’s old shirts and T-shirts. This is him all wrapped up in one. The things he loved….NCIS; he loved this show before he got sick but the years he was sick he (we) watched it over and over. It’s like Gibbs was part of the family. We ventured out and watched Hawaii Five-O and loved that one too He was an avid BYU fan….football and basketball. Go Cougars! Two of our daughters graduated from BYU-Idaho so we spent a lot of time in that part of