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I feel so blessed to know him....
With a gentle smile and kind heart I always seem to melt a bit when I see him. He is soft spoken, hard working and always smiling. His flannel shirts hang loose on his small frame, with stray particles of straw and other outdoor materials clinging as if they belong there. Whether the climate is in the low fifties or high 90's, he looks comfortable in his usual...

Yesterday I really wanted to talk to my dad, so I stopped at the cemetary...
As he walks in the door you already know its a good day by a few significant sounds, the change in his pocket is jingling and he is whistling a tune. 
We could talk for hours, even more, once I was grown and had my own children. Especially when you touched on a subject he believed in or were in a crisis. Always available...

Filled with insane heartache and intense joy...
Such an adventure we are on, one that either has us looking in the rearview mirror, or running full speed ahead, ready to take on the next challenge or experience the next joy that comes our way. 
It is the heartache that teaches us about the joy, in which we learn to relish and appreciate. It teaches us how delicate life is, and how pure and romantic...

I began comprising  a list of 50 new things that I want to do, see, accomplish, eat or conquer during my 50th year, and have already gotten to cross a few off!
Isn't it funny how turning 50 lights a fire in you to start "really" living!
Go up in a hot air balloontravel to a new destinationspend time writing each morninggive up social media (facebook, instagram) for 48 hrsrandom acts of kindnesssnow...

A common question I am asked about my sister...
and yet there is no easy answer to the question. How she is can differ from day to day, but mostly things stay the same... a snails pace would better describe it.
It will be a year in August since this all began, and while there have been many positive changes, many things are the same, or perhaps worse?
I'm not sure if anyone truly knows a timeline...

Recently I've taken my photography and favorite quotes and combined them with these results...
 

and you try and respond in a way that she will realize she just told you the same story... only she doesn't, it is a new thought for her that she is just sharing with you.
Sometimes the stories make no sense at all, she thinks something happened to her as she describes the scene but then mentions she did not see it happen? It is confusing for us both as I try and keep up with our conversations and...

While I've thought about doing this and wrote about doing this in a future blog post, I did it first hand, cold turkey, no warning!
8.5 hours with no cell phone! Yep, you read that right, no phone! At first I was alarmed... not only did I have lots of information on my phone, but I was spending the day with my mom and sister! At least I knew we'd have Debs phone, so we are covered for emergencies....

Marriage is not easy...
Owning a house, having children, paying your bills are just some of the everyday struggles we all go through in a marriage.  The odds against us already marrying so young, I just turned twenty and Joel twenty-two, stands out even more now when I look at my own children in their 20's.

Hilton Head Island 1992
After 30 years together you are bound to let each other down....

Recently I've noticed the chatter that  50 is the new 40...
and maybe that's because I'm here...
And funny because back in my late 30's and early 40's I felt my worst, still smoking and over weight, I knew I needed a change. Nobody ever told me I needed to quit smoking or lose weight, but I knew... Not for anybody else, but for me! 
 
We are constantly trying to improve ourselves, whether...