Since moving to Kentucky, I fell in love with a program on the Style Channel. The program is called Clean House. If you've never seen it before, they take people who are clutter fanatics (and man there are some that are so nasty) and help them clean out the clutter, sell the stuff in a yard sale, and then give them a makeover in the rooms they cleared out. Well, they have a couple of shows that came from the original called Clean House: Search for the Messiest House in the Country and Clean … [Read more...]
Iris and Kristena
I sit here watching Mr. Holland’s Opus. I think this is one of those movies that just touches you to the depths of your soul. It has true meaning instead of what a lot of these movies out there today seem to lack. I think if you've seen this movie it's touched you in some way. I haven't really watched this movie in several years. As a matter of fact I don't remember the last time I watched it. It's a simple movie about a man named Glenn, or Mr. Holland, who had a dream and did teaching to … [Read more...]
Changes
I sit here in our car as Keith and I are driving to DeKalb one last time before we move to Kentucky. I have nothing to write on at the moment so I took some brown napkins from my glove compartment to use instead (I guess they're not just for wiping your hands off after all). Many things are happening right now in our lives. Many good-byes. The other day we attended our last Parent-only grief group. It was definitely bitter-sweet. I can say without hesitation that this group is beyond … [Read more...]
Touching Souls Bereavement Photography
If anyone can support this cause, it would mean the world to me. To find out why, please read what I have typed in below and my reasonings after: "At the heart of it all, what matters most is: Who has touched our lives and Whose lives we've touched. "Touching Souls Photography, supporting parents whose babies or children die, relies entirely on donations and gifts from individuals and organizations. Donated dollars are used to support direct expenses for the photographs made for … [Read more...]
Approaching 11 months…
We are now approaching eleven months that Mari's been gone. June 16 will be exactly eleven months. Whether we want it to or not, time just continues to carry on. I was going through this site a little while ago and realized that I'd not posted anything new since Mother's day. It's been hard this last month and I know as the day approaches the one year mark it'll continue to get harder. Then I was reading the comment that someone wrote anonymously. What the person said was basically that I … [Read more...]
Comments and Feedback
A friend of mine told me she comes to this website everyday to see what I have posted and is disappointed when there isn't anything. I am going to try something new. I want to try to post at least one thing a day just to let you all know how I am doing. Sometimes I will just tell you how my day went and other times I will write out something like I usually post. I hope everyone will like this. Please keep your comments coming as I love to hear feedback from those who care about me, Mari and … [Read more...]
Wonder and Confusion For What Life Brings Us
Today is a day of wonder and confusion. Earlier this week Keith and I had another tragedy happen in our lives. If you have been on Facebook, and you are one of my “friends” on there, then you know what has happened. The tragedies started 8 months ago and ended on Mari’s 8 month mark of being gone (February 16). In the past 8 months, we have lost Mari, we found out a little over a month ago that Keith’s dad has prostate cancer and then at the end of last month that it is moderately aggressive … [Read more...]
Two Weeks and Two Days
I sit here tonight doing some research for my Biology class. I am supposed to turn in six articles throughout the semester. The articles are supposed to be related to biology somehow. I found a website dedicated to biology a couple of weeks ago. The site publishes several articles every single week. I had printed off several of them so I would be ready when I had to turn them in. But tonight I decided to do some research on topics that were more interesting to me. I found several from the … [Read more...]
Posting Comments and To Those Who Care
I sit here just thinking about our beautiful little Mari and how much I miss her. My dog Cody is by my feet playing with my cat Bandit. He is growling while the cat is hissing (believe it or not they are actually playing and DO like each other). While I sit here listening to them I just think of Mari. I think of how much I miss her and wish she was here beside me so I could hear her playing instead of my animals. I went on Otrib.com today just to see if anyone had responded to her dedication … [Read more...]
Thoughts…
I have a friend from my high school youth group that has a blog. I have her blog listed in my "Blogroll". She wrote something on December 3, 2008 that I felt was really profound and I made a comment on her blog. I hope she does not mind but I not only wanted to share what she wrote but I thought those that read my posts might want to read the comment I had made. This is the link to her post: http://hvoeltner.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/thoughts/ And this is what her post said: Wow, as I sit … [Read more...]