Tag: life
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Life Finds A Way
Today’s almost-daily dispatch comes to you with sore muscles and dirt under my fingernails. I have spent the better part of the day working outside. This post is also outside of my normal blog schedule and a bit of a side quest. But aren’t the side quests often better than the final destination anyway? Grab…
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2.5 Hours for a 1/4 Mile
Today’s almost-daily dispatch comes to you from my back deck. This space is one of the home improvements I am most proud of. In 2022, we had our trusty home improvement team install a sliding glass door and a small 10×10 deck that allows me to enjoy the morning sunrise and the hallelujah chorus of…
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Come As You Are
In 2001, a locked minivan and a porcelain angel changed my life. From the Mojave desert to the grit of Aberdeen, this is a story about soul contracts, shouting obscenities at God and making peace with the signs we’re given.
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Chasing Nirvana
No booth? No problem. Navigating the waves on the Coho with my laptop on my knees and a story that’s been waiting years to be told. Today’s dispatch: Chasing Nirvana. It’s about the “math of life” not adding up, the heat of the desert, and the whisper that changed everything.
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Baby, Assault Charges…. Bad
I’ve spent 44 years as a caregiver, but today I failed a state “feeding” test and almost caught an assault charge at a gas station over a pizza. In 2026, we’re all running on empty. New on the blog: “Baby, Assault Charges… Bad”
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Finding Joy in the Inches
Part 3: The Peace Treaty September 2012: I found myself a widow at forty years old. When something this unexpected happens—leaving a gaping void in the daily existence you once knew—there is no standard playbook for moving forward. My previous ten years had been a focus on raising three children, completing my education, and establishing…
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Swimming in the Gray
A work in progress… Today’s dispatch departs from my usual musings and wanders into a private, protected part of my soul: my creative writing. I started this blog with a few purposes in mind: Today, with shaking hands, I present a first draft of a first chapter. It is raw, and it is unfinished, and…
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The Goldilocks Express
Ding! The Spark app flashes a new offer. It’s an Express Shop with a delivery address about ten miles away. I quickly scan the shopping list, checking my “Hard No” criteria. My eyes dart down the screen: I glance at my watch. The time needed to complete this shop fits perfectly into my morning strategy.…
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IBS – Getting my shit straight, literally and figuratively
The aforementioned ambulance ride from a McDonald’s restroom in Belfair to the ER in Silverdale culminated in a very unyielding, very humbling diagnosis: Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). An IBS flare is one of the most leveling experiences a person can endure. The intestinal pain can send you to your knees. As someone who has gone…
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“Quitter”
The sirens on the way to Silverdale were a screaming reminder that the math just wasn’t adding up anymore. For eleven years, I’d been calculating my life in “years to retirement,” like a prisoner marking days on a cell wall. But while my brain was focused on that 20-year “sweet spot,” my body had started…