Most folks are shocked when they read what I write. They're even more shocked when they attend a reading. Out of the corner of my eyes I see people shrink back or hear a soft "ooh". I admit to writing some dark stuff, but I'm mostly a bubbly, optimistic gal with an innocent demeanor. Truly I am (just ask my friends!).
I do try and look for the positive in things. Whenever something terrible happens or just a bump in the day I believe it's fate and that it happens for a reason.
That reason may Read more [...]Optimist vs. Pessimist: Do You Find the Light in the Dark?
Most folks are shocked when they read what I write. They're even more shocked when they attend a reading. Out of the corner of my eyes I see people shrink back or hear a soft "ooh". I admit to writing some dark stuff, but I'm mostly a bubbly, optimistic gal with an innocent demeanor. Truly I am (just ask my friends!).
I do try and look for the positive in things. Whenever something terrible happens or just a bump in the day I believe it's fate and that it happens for a reason.
That reason may Read more [...]
I said “Thank you” to my mom today. I spoke it aloud and it hung in the air, a gift to her – now gone five years this month.
For in passing away my mom gave me her own gift – the gift to follow my dream of finding the stories inside me to be told. And with her death I discovered what forever really is and that our time here on Earth truly is brief. In that moment I knew I had to carve out my own happiness.
So in my grief I began writing and my grief turned to peace and then joy at discovering 
“The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.” — Sam Levinson (quoted by Audrey Hepburn)
Today I'm participating in the Beauty of a Woman Blogfest. It's designed to celebrate beauty, however you define it, by the lovely (inside and out!) August McLaughlin. Visit her blog and read stories of beauty that are 
My Dearest Joshua,
This is how I’ve started each letter in my journal to you for over ten years now. Happy 10th birthday today Joshua.
January 17, 2003. Ten years. A time for a baby to grow into a youth. A time for a woman to grow gray, to lose loved ones, to know total despair–and total bliss.
Here is my first letter to you as a newborn.
“My Dearest Joshua.
I’m sorry to say I didn’t like you much when you were inside me. In that waiting place I couldn’t attach to this being