What Are You Looking For?

Hello everyone: Recently, the singles group of which I am a member was asked “What are you looking for?” We went around the room, with folks mentioning their desire for a Christian mate, a non-smoker, non-drinker, no drugs, and the like. I was rather surprised by the question but then I realized that you have to know what you want, in order to avoid what you don’t want. Are you looking now? Are you ready? One thing I would caution against, in my practical mindset, is jumping into something too quickly. Are you really ready? Have you adequately mourned... Read More

Get it in Writing

May 6, 2021 Hello everyone: How many times have we heard the warning to “get it in writing?” I’ve heard it again and again and so I did. Kind of. Let me share with you my tale of wall building woe. My neighbor shared that my backyard was hard for his son to mow, so I suggested perhaps it would be nice to have a retaining wall.  Great idea! Superb! I knew just the fellow to do the job- a man from my church was dong some handyman work and would love to have the chance to build it... Read More

Join a Group and Meet New Folks

Hello everyone: Staying at home all the time might seem like the way to go but it can get boring. How many reruns of HGTV can you bear? As much as I love those decorating shows, having been a decorator for 23 years, there are only so many times I can watch the people painfully decide if they are going to “love it or list it.” (Note: I have it on good authority that the decision will remain the same, no matter how many times you view that episode.) Yes, it can be easy to make excuses (I need... Read More

The Long Goodbye of Illness

Hello everyone: It’s been said that Alzheimer’s Disease is “the long goodbye” but I have a good friend whose husband passed after battling cancer for six years. That could also be called “the long goodbye” because of the years they spent watching him get treatment. Her devotion to her dying husband was evident in every glance they shared and I really admire her for her “till death do us part” commitment that she lived out. In this day and age, it seems so easy to bale out when the rough times happen, but she hung in there until the... Read More

Be Adventurous in Your new Life

Hi everyone: Wow- if you had told me I would go kayaking in a river near my childhood home at the age of… well, never mind,… I would have said you were crazy. Really? Me? Kayaking? Folks, my idea of roughing it is the Hilton Garden Inn. My idea of fun is shopping at nice malls and picking up bargains.  I do not do things that cause me to become windblown or sopping wet, in public. I do not pull off to the side of the road, walk through weeds, and enter the river. I just don’t. Until I... Read More

Be Careful What You Sign

Hello everyone: I was talking with a gal recently who told me what could have been a very sad story. (Though it turned out well, I suppose you could say that it was still sad in many ways.) It seemed that, a few years before, her identity had been stolen when some crooks got a hold of her bank account number. They had rented an apartment in her name and then set things up so that their rent was automatically withdrawn from her account. Fortunately for her, she balanced her accounts on a monthly basis and discovered the theft... Read More

Overcoming the New Normal in Your Family’s Life

Hello everyone: So, it’s happened. You ex has replaced you. It didn’t take long, all things considered, and now you need to deal with it….and with comforting your kids. Whether your ex replaced you in two months or two years, you are going to face the new person in your family at all large or important family gatherings, so you need to decide how you are going to handle it. Like I used to tell my kids when they were little and had to do something they didn’t want to do, “we can do this nice or we can... Read More

Overcoming Being Alone

Hello everyone: We have been fighting this pandemic for ten weeks now- time flies, doesn’t it? Perhaps you are wondering how to get back into life, once things return to what they are now saying will be our new normal. How about starting a single group for folks in your age group at your local church? What better way is there than to start a group with folks of like-interests? In my case, I go to a church that (pandemics aside) seats 10,000 people on a Sunday morning. Out of that large a crowd, I know about ten single... Read More

Don’t Worry If You’re Talking to Yourself, Only Worry If You’re Answering Back: Oh, No!

Hello everyone: There used to be a saying “don’t worry if you’re talking to yourself, only worry if you’re answering back.” Thanks to the COVID 19 virus, I passed that a long time ago! One month is bad enough, but two months of self-isolation are even worse. At some point in time, I caught myself having conversations with myself. Full conversations. What’s a single gal to do? Here are some suggestions to help lift the fog and dissipate those clouds of conversational uncertainty. First, talk to Siri on your phone. I changed my Siri voice to that of a... Read More

Having a Male Friend If You’re Female Can be a Good Thing

Hello everyone: I met the most delightful widow today. We were both on a walk, headed in opposite directions, when I admired her sporty little hat. She smiled and, in the next few minutes, she told me that she is in her late seventies and has been widowed for four years. Her late hubby died of pancreatic cancer. She was alone and really feeling it, except for a daughter who lived nearby. One day, she went in to get her car serviced when the mechanic told her he knew a man who she should meet. She smiled but left... Read More