It’s officially holiday season! That means it’s time to revisit the delightful diversion known as Dysfunctional Family Bingo created by author Martha Beck. If I’d known about this gem when my family of origin was still in tact, I would have had tons more fun…and I would have had a good chance of winning every …
Continue reading It’s Time To Bring Back Dysfunctional Family Bingo
Once again, it’s time to celebrate! Today is the anniversary of the world being gifted with the presence of this very good man. It’s been a tough year. He endured more than most…surgeries, complications, a 23 hour stint in ER prior to being admitted, hospitalization, medication reactions and chronic pain that is not well controlled…it’s …
It’s Thanksgiving Day and I’m in shock. My friend died unexpectedly last night. We had an hour long conversation in the afternoon and we talked about the next time we would get together. At 10:30 PM our mutual friend called to tell me that my dear sister-friend had died at 7:30….just a few hours after …
Today, a piece of my heart was healed by a song. I’ve always stood in the margins, wondering why I was there. The fringe didn’t seem like a choice. It’s simply where I was. Was it because of my biology? After all, I wasn’t really his daughter. But I have clear memories of him demonstrating …
Photo by Dinah 💜 Another family story…. November has always been birthday month. My husband, several friends, my mom and my brother John are/were all November babies. My brother John was 6 years older and the closest to me in age. My other 2 brothers were 8 and 10 years older. In 2007, John was …
Hello and thanks for stopping by. These virtual coffee chats are a nice way to check in. How are you? If you’re in the US, are you planning to do anything for Thanksgiving next week? Holidays can be such a mixed bag of emotions and expectations. I can say that, for me, the holiday that …
Photo by Don (c) I wanted to get this into your hands early so that you have time to plan to use it this gathering season… The holidays are upon us. Whether you love them or whether you hate them… They come with their own special brand of stress. So this post is designed to …
Continue reading Dysfunctional Family Bingo Revisited…Day 20/30
Photo by Dinah (c) Remembering I’ve spent a good deal of my life, choosing to forget, to release to move on Remembering was unproductive at best… Damaging at worst. But remembering has once again become important, a necessity now So I’m choosing to remember… who I was before I became who I am I’m recalling …
I was the youngest of fourI had three older brothersI always wanted a sisterFamily was always a challenging subject for meI was the one that didn’t fitEver We were the proverbial rock and hard place meeting and refusing to yield As strange as it may sound….I'm actually proud of thatI didn’t compromise myself to gain …
The tree he planted 20 years ago has This is the 4thu year of my blog and of my involvement in Nanopoblano. So it’s also the 4th year of me doing a Happy Birthday post for my husband, Don. Today is his birthday, an opportunity to celebrate him! Don is…. -A strong, quiet presence that …
Photo by Dinah (c) Life is getting ahead of me.I’m woefully behind in everything…You name it…I’m behind in it And I’m realizing that, before I was behind, I was numbAnd before I was numb, I was overwhelmedAnd before I was overwhelmed, I was hurt, deeply hurt Hurt was never valid in my family of origin. …
Photo by Dinah(c) I never met her. Didn’t even know she existed until six years ago. But Kelly, the DNA Search Angel, found an old newspaper article about her. She was widowed young and raised three kids on her own by managing the local hardware store that she owned. The article said she raised money …
I remember when I was young, I was thrilled by every single morning. I always woke up, excited and hungry! I would get out of bed and go from one family member to another, trying to wake them… at whatever ungodly hour it was. No one shared my enthusiasm or my need for food! They …
I had started the month of April fully intending to try and join the Poem a Day for 30 Days Challenge. I made it one week and then caught a pretty nasty cold that lasted 2 weeks. I was just starting to feel like I was on the other side of it when my husband …
Photo by Dinah (c) When I was five, I wanted a pet lion. My mom told me lions were not legal pets. I wanted her to call the police and ask.My dad traveled often. When I was 6, I asked him to take a vacuum cleaner on the plane and suck up a cloud and …
Photo from Unsplash Lemons They remind me of my mom… There are reminders that are concrete… like a Post-it note on the refrigerator…. and there are reminders that are less tangible, more ethereal…. like a cobweb that just barely grazes your hand. Lemons have that wispy, fairy wing kind of feeling for me. I can …
It’s Thanksgiving here in the US. That means different things for different people. For some people… It’s a welcomed chance to get together with family from near and far. It’s an opportunity to continue family tradition.For others…. It’s a reminder of family dynamics that didn’t/don’t work or of family lost… Either physically or to dysfunction…or …
Photo by Dinah (c) I’m sharing this for all of us. I’m sharing it for myself because I want to internalize it. I want it to move from my head to my heart to my bones so that it’s not just a memory. I want it to become a knowing, a truth that my body …
Photo by Dinah (c) I’m looking forward to miracles the same way a child looks forward to Saturday morning. When teachers and schoolwork choreograph most of every week, there’s a kind of deliciousness in reclaiming the openness of the weekend…an excitement that comes when you can make time your own. That’s what I’m looking forward …
Photo by Dinah (c) In honor of my mom’s birthday…. She loved Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach…. Photo by Dinah (c) Photo by Dinah (c) Photo by Dinah (c) Photo by Dinah (c) Photo by Dinah (c) I’m glad you’re here💜 This post is part of the November Nanopoblano challenge. A group of us …
Photo by Don (c) Can you feel it? It’s in the air. The HoliDAZE are coming! I decided to write about this earlier than usual because I wanted to be able to share author Martha Beck’s ingenious holiday coping game in time for Thanksgiving. And I want to be sure to stipulate that this is …
Continue reading Dinah’s Chat About Dysfunctional Family Bingo -Day 17/30
Photo by Dinah (c) HAPPY BIRTHDAY DON!Usually, on my husband’s birthday, I write a post about some of the wonderful qualities that make him who he is. But today it’s a different kind of day so it merits a different kind of post. Today, he enters a new decade… That makes this day even more …
Photo by Dinah (c) I’m the keeper of our family photos and family stories. In my family, we didn’t have a lot of positive stories. Dysfunction steals the good stuff. I guess that makes the good ones even more precious. So, periodically, I’ll tell one of the few stories that I remember here. Good things …
We are all such mosaics, aren’t we? Within each of us lives all of the versions of ourselves from all of the years we’ve been alive. In addition to that, we also carry pieces of all of our friends, family and even strangers who somehow impacted us significantly. As I age, I’m becoming increasingly aware …
Procrastination has been my companion for my entire life! We’re seemingly inseparable. The sad part though is that, even though we’re lifelong companions, we really don’t understand each other. If procrastination truly understood me, she’d realize that constantly putting things off isn’t doing me any favors. In fact, it’s actually quite anxiety provoking. Facebook Meme …
Continue reading Exploring Procrastination-Day 3/30 (Dinah’s Wkend Chat)
Photo by Francesco Baistrocchi This will be the last official coffee chat of 2022. Our host is taking the next two weeks off. I hope to continue posting but… Just in case… I thought I would leave you with a Christmas gift of music. I’ve never had a sophisticated pallet in ANYTHING! The food I …
With Angels and Elephants 