Brave Heart, Brave Soul. She who is brave is free.

“May we think of freedom not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.”  ~ Peter Marshall I am the daughter of a soldier. I was born into a family of those who serve. My life from the very beginning was one of love for country. From the time I could sit up my heart was wrapped in the red, white and blue. On this day, November 11, 2016 I wanted to say thank you to my dad and acknowledge the great man that he is. My dad was born and raised into the military. His dad was a pilot in the Air Force and served in the Navy during WW2. My dad being the rebel he was decided it wasn’t enough to fly those birds, no; he had to jump out of them. And jump he did. At the age of 17 my dad enlisted in the Army and never fully looked back. He was a soldier, and his life as a GI was carved into his dog tags. He trained hard, sending all his money home to take care of his younger brothers and sister living as modestly as possible. By the time he met my ...

“To be honest, I’m just winging it. You know…life, motherhood, my eyeliner, pretty much everything.” Yep that’s the truth of it isn’t it? And honestly it's pretty much life in a nut shell. I don’t know about you but I failed to get my hands on a how to book when I entered this world some 43 years ago. And I’m pretty sure I’m not going to find one anytime soon either. So yes, I’m winging it.  Seriously, have you ever had one of those days when you just walk in the door, drop your purse on the table, pull up a chair, sit down and just say, ‘huh’? Yep those days seem a little too familiar as of late. Not that anything is wrong exactly; nothing is bad or not going well. Everything is peachy keen so to speak, it’s just I have this ache I can’t squash. I’ve literally been waking up, and winging life. Not that it’s a bad thing mind you. I’m pretty much a fly by the seat of your pants kind of girl anyway. But sometimes you’ve got to ground yourself. Lately, that hasn’t been as...

“You were my favorite hello and my hardest goodbye. ~anonymous Grief is a strange thing. It affects all of us very differently. Truthfully, we all process our losses in our own times and our own way. Some of us cry until we can’t breathe while others seem distant. Losing a pet is much the same. For many of us when our fur-babies cross over the Rainbow Bridge we experience the same grief as if losing a child.  Something I didn’t fully understand until recently. Our pets become part of us, members of our families.  We care for them, love them, nurture them and grieve for them in the same way we do our own children. So when the time comes to let them go, it’s excruciating. Our sweet little fur-baby Oscar left us unexpectedly for the Rainbow Bridge on October 3, 2016. Even as I try and type this now, I can barely hold back my tears. I honestly find myself still falling apart out of nowhere. Sometimes I even think I hear him prancing into the room, his little ears fla...