“I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my … [Read more...]

Life is not a dress rehearsal. Stop practicing what you’re going to do and just go do it. In one bold stroke you can transform today. -Marilyn Grey In one blink of an eye, Tucker was gone.  The same was true with our corgi Sophie and basset hound Rocky. I have known the same … [Read more...]

We had several names for him — Tucker Boy, Big Boy, Big Man.  But no matter what the label, he was, bottom line, our Tucker.  130 pounds, give or take a few, he would have turned 13 this December.  Unfortunately, he did not get that far. When my husband Jim and I started dating, … [Read more...]

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” ― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934 Before Merlin arrived in our lives, my garden was just a garden. Well, it was more … [Read more...]

              Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty … [Read more...]

Looking at the vast array of animals needing a home, you always will encounter heartbreak.  Losing two animals recently surely brought its own kind of trauma to our home, but it evolves into newer territory also -- some of which is not unfamiliar – to find another creature, maybe … [Read more...]

"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are." - Marcus Aurelius Foes are not just humans, they are the challenges we face daily in our thoughts.  Self-doubt for one, evident in those nagging internal … [Read more...]

  Rocky could not help his basset instincts. He loved a good sniff.Rocky was our problem child.  He didn’t want to be our problem child, but it is what it is.  He came to us by accident, if there is such a thing. Rocky struggled to find a home where he was accepted.  His … [Read more...]

A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them. Liberty Hyde Bailey Nothing comes for free.  It may seem so at times, but the truth is, the things … [Read more...]