Life rafts can come to mean so many different things to different people. For me, my life rafts come from my Heavenly Father. He knows when I’m about to drown. It’s in these moments He gives me a life raft, in other words, He carries me through whatever is happening in my life at that time. When Mari got sick and we started on our very long sixteen day journey that felt like the worst roller coast I’d ever been on, and I love roller coasters. It’s like I couldn’t wait for the terrible ride to … [Read more...]
Happiness and Finding It within Yourself
I can honestly say that life is good right now. I’ve got everything transferred from my paper planner to one on my computer for the upcoming school year. I’m getting read to start writing my book again. Athena is doing great both in school and personally. We’re happy. Alaska is a beautiful place to live. There are mountains surrounding you everything with the ocean in places they aren’t. It’s finally getting fully dark here by around 10pm at night compared the all day light basically of the … [Read more...]
Laura Story
I sit here this morning doing homeschool with my niece/daughter. I have KLove on in the background. I just started doing this yesterday. It’s nice to have uplifting, encouraging music in the background during the day. As I sat here moving my paper planner for the school year into a program on my computer, a song came on the radio that I have heard played many times before. I know the words and almost always sing to the song as it flows out through my speakers. The funny thing is the words … [Read more...]
Starting up again
Well, it has been a couple of months since doing my 365 day writing quest. It was a much-needed break. Mari's five-year mark for being gone has come and gone. It's hard to believe it's already been five years. Time certainly does slowly begin to dull the ache that once felt like an open never-ending bleeding wound. I know that for the rest of my life I will continue to mourn the loss of my daughter. There will still be those days where the hurt rears its ugly head as I ball my eyes out. But … [Read more...]
Birthdays
Birthdays. When we are young, a child, we can’t wait until that next birthday comes. The day after we have one we start counting down the days until our next one, just like Christmas. However, when we get older, typically after 21, birthdays just become another day where we turn older. They don’t mean as much. Well, two days ago it was my birthday. It was one of those significant ones. I turned 40. I was holding onto my thirty’s as long as I could. In fact, here is a little funny story. … [Read more...]
Day 117: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Writer
I love this. Here is what the author said about loneliness: “Writing can be a lonely business. But gradually your characters, or the scenes and people from your past, begin to rise up around you, and you find yourself writing your way out of loneliness, writing your own company. And you’ll find yourself at dinner some evening telling your family or friends, “Well, Natalie really made a mess of things today” or “I can’t believe what John said about Kathryn’s dog.” And everyone will look at you … [Read more...]
Day 115: Writing the Tree
In life we usually learn by either example or making a wrong decision. This is how we better ourselves. I love this because if I never learned from any of my mistakes what good would that be. My writing has benefited from this. If I had started to write and then didn't get any feedback/critiques on my writing, I wouldn’t have learned how to become better at writing. It has become stronger as a result of the time and effort I have put in. My hope is that those who have been helping me will be … [Read more...]
Day 111: Authors on Pedestals
I really like this. As writers we have so much at our disposal to write about. Every life today is different from someone else’s life. Think about it. We all have our own unique way of looking at things. We can look at two people and think they are living the exact same life. However, if you were to step into the shoes of each one you’d find out that while there are some similarities their lives are different. Think about identical twins. When I was growing up my mom became friends with a … [Read more...]
End of Another Month
It's hard to believe that another month on my quest to write for 365 days has gone by. This month has been so different for me and my family this month. We have officially moved to Anchorage, Alaska, from Fort Knox, Kentucky. For those who don't know, my husband is currently serving in the Army. Last August my husband was offered a position at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station). His order came in September and thus started the countdown until we moved. We started our cross-country … [Read more...]
Day 108: Aunt Boo’s House
My grandpa passed away exactly one year and one month to the day after my daughter passed away on August 16, 2009. Since I can remember Grandpa told me stories about his time in the Navy in World War II. When he went to basic and his job school (which is the equivalent of AIT in the Army), everyone put down there preference of where they wanted to be stationed. They could either choose the East Coast or The Pacific in Hawaii. Since he was from the west coast he choose The Pacific and since … [Read more...]