Time. It's a strange thing. Sometimes it seems as though time goes on forever and in others it feels like there is never enough. For me recently, it seems like time is just slipping away. We now have less than three months until our official move to Alaska starts. The Army will come to pack up our home (tentatively) April 15. Keith's final day of clearing will be on April 19. And then we start on our long adventure as we drive across the United States, stopping along the way to either visit … [Read more...]
Reflecting on Mari’s posts…
It’s amazing to me sometimes how I can go days, weeks and sometimes even months without posting anything on Mari’s site and then I will go several days in a row where I have lots to say. For me Mari’s website isn’t about having a specific number of posts or trying to attract hundreds of people. Now don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have hundreds of people visiting her website to learn more about her and where I am with my grief journey as all of this helps her memory continue to live on. But … [Read more...]
Featured Book: Rodeo Ashes
Rodeo Ashes is written by Shannon Taylor Vannatter. Back cover blurb: It’s never too late to start over. Lacie Gentry, a young widow and mom, is struggling with the aftermath of her husband’s tragic death. When she bumps into former classmate Quinn Remington, her future is undecided. She accepts a job teaching kids to ride at Quinn’s neighboring ranch, hoping to revitalize her life with an old pastime but soon sees in Quinn a chance to move forward with new love. . .if she’s ready. It’s … [Read more...]
Starting to work on Mari’s book again
I think many of you know I had put off writing Mari's book for a little while but I may not have gone into why I did so. Through different writing forums I became apart of I found out the book I had completed would be a great one for family and friends as long as that is where it ended. But if I wanted it to be read by more than just people I knew then it needed to be done in a completely different way. One thing I kept being told is I needed to add fiction elements to her book. At first … [Read more...]
The Unsung Hero of the Army, Part 2
This is the second part of the interview from yesterday, June 27, The Unsung Hero of the Army Part 1 A recruiter will typically work five to six days a week “and generally speaking probably a good 12 to 14 hours in a day.” In the Army they typically have regular 9 to 5 work weeks with doing PT[1] first thing in the morning. The reason they work 12 to 14 hour days is “it’s a part of being set up in the civilian area. We have to work around other people’s schedules. In order to sit down and … [Read more...]
The “Softening”
In a month, Mari will have been gone for four years. I have talked several times over the last four years in how the day she died is not an anniversary as this signifies happiness to me. My eighteen year wedding anniversary was this past February. That is a happy time. Mari’s death, anything but. However, I have come to call it the mark. When Mari died I became wrapped up in the utter sorrow and sadness of it all. My heart felt like it had been ripped open and a gaping would left in its … [Read more...]
Writing Fiction
I’ve been writing my first fictional book ever. It has been quite the experience. I will tell you writing fiction is so different than writing a college paper. A year ago when I started this journey, let’s just say, I was a little green behind the ears. I was so naïve to the proper rules and etiquette of fiction. Like the dreaded passive verbs (was/were/had) and ‘ly’ words. These are a big no-no in fiction (who would a thunk). I can remember growing up reading romance novels (starting … [Read more...]
Joy
Joy can mean so much to so many different people. For me I felt pure joy last night. I spent the day determined to write write write in the fictional book I am writing. I actually wrote 8,472 words and finished the first draft of my novel. Talk about exciting. I think back to how I began writing. It was to keep my friends and family abreast of what was happening to my little baby girl. I started a Care Page. Those first fifteen days of writing were while she was a live and the last day, the … [Read more...]
It’s kind of amazing…
It kind of amazes me how I started writing. It has taken me a while to even admit that I am writer (out loud). It sounded so foreign to me yet now it is the exact opposite. I am about to write something that for some may come across the wrong way. I need everyone to understand that I truly love my daughter and I would give anything to have her back. She was my pride and joy and that will never change. However, God didn’t plan for her to stay on this earth longer than her eight and half years … [Read more...]
Becoming a Writer
What has writing done for me? Well more than I ever thought even possible. I remember sitting in my high school English class and being just a “C” student. It was hard for me. To get into college I couldn’t even test into English 101. I would have had to go three below and start with English 097. I mean, you really can’t much lower. So for years I have always thought of myself as a terrible writer and that my English writing sucked. By the time I was around 22 or 23 years old I was … [Read more...]
