I have always looked forward to when these beautiful flowers bloom. They only last for a few days. This year I decided to do a little research about these flowers and was quite surprised with what I found! This flower has a special pollination system that uses strong odor to attract a fly down it’s narrow tube. Once inside, long hairs that line the tube prevent the fly from escaping . Unlike insectivorous flowers, it…
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In May of 2019 I met Ken, a very gifted Chinese Medicine doctor with a focus on energy. We became friends, and slowly he would throw tidbits out to me. Sometimes very subtle like when I was drinking a Coke and he casually said “You know Coke is not good for you.” I haven’t had a Coke since. I just stick with my ice cold water. Then he brought me an energy net. Suggested I…
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April 2020 Which road will we take when we open the world again? We are living in the midst of a global crisis that is crumbling our financial security while disrupting our daily lives with a real threat of illness, or for some, death. New information comes out daily, but there is no final solution in sight. The bottom line is before the world fully opens up again and risks another wave of COVID-19 we need…
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When I first moved to Thailand my youngest son was living here. He had fallen in love with the country and invited me to come over when my husband passed away. Seemed like a good idea, a chance to head in a new direction now that my life had dramatically change with the loss of my best friend and husband. My son and I shared time here together for around 5 years, then he decided…
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I am still stunned over Trump winning the election. I had no idea how many Americans clearly do not see the bigger picture. My first reaction was disbelief, it simply could not be. How? Why? I blamed it on stupidity and ignorance, greed and a high dose of intolerant people. Those people make up almost half of the population, which is a scary thought all by itself. No matter what nerve Trump’s sideshow reverberated in…
Read moreGrowing up in my family was always a little confusing when it came to names. Both my parents had two names. Family called my father Tommy, but he was known to his friends and co-workers as Cliff. My mother’s family called her Betty, but at work she was always Joyce. Turns out she did not know her name was Joyce until she graduated from high school, and discovered her full legal name was actually Joyce…
Read moreAh, Grandma Martha. She was the epitome of what a grandmother should be. She was very down to earth, loving and fun. She was the type of person who was always helping other people. She was non-judgemental, would keep your secrets to her grave. Perhaps part of that came from her being left to raise 4 children on her own. My grandfather, again someone I never met, did the proverbial disappearing act while going to…
Read moreMy two grandmothers were on the opposite sides of the spectrum as far as grandmothers go. Elizabeth was my maternal grandmother. The impressions I carry of Grandmother Elizabeth are of a distant, self-absorbed haughty woman. Her head had a slight jiggle to it, much like Katherine Hepburn in her old age. I always felt like it was a sign of her judging life, and nothing ever met her approval. We didn’t see her that often,…
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Dragonflies have always intrigued me. They are fanciful creatures that share this world with us. Catching a glimpse of a dragonfly has always been special to me, like enjoying the beauty of a rainbow, or catching a remarkable sunset. Dragonflies start off life as a tiny egg, not much larger than the dot of a pencil. Once the egg hatches, it is in a larval stage, called a nymph. The dragonfly Nymph lives underwater, hunting…
Read moreEveryone is affected differently by Fibromyalgia. When I was first diagnosed with Fibromyalgia I also had carpal tunnel in both hands. Surgery helped relieve the burning sensation in my hands, but my hands remain very weak and are often my main source of pain and discomfort. Other symptoms come and go. A pain here, a pain there, but I always know it will disappear at some point. The hands? A constant, you just learn to…
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Photography has been a passion for me for a long time now. Ever since I put my hands on my first digital camera. What really spurred it on was a road trip my husband and I took in our 5th Wheel. Everywhere we went we found beauty, traveling through Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho. With such wonderful landscapes it was hard not to take a good photo. My passion for photography developed into a passion for…
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A couple of friends talked me into going to a dance club one Saturday night. I was 15 years old, very shy, definitely did not know how to dance. Little did I know that night would have an everlasting effect and change the course of my life. The first guy to ask me to dance was Peter. We danced a few songs, then talked the rest of the night. Peter was visiting from Germany. He…
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Tomorrow Jake and I move into our new house. While I am happy with my decision to move, again, I am still trying to understand it. I wasn’t really looking for a place, but the photo of the pool caught my attention and I decided to check it out. As I delved into it further, by going out to see the house, then weighing the distance vs. convenience, it became apparent that this house would…
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Sometimes I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the reality that I am living in Thailand. It is at those moments when I really look around me in awe and tell myself “Yep, you are in Thailand”. (I think I talk to myself more than before, perhaps as a way to keep from forgetting English through lack of use.) Sure, I have given up a lot of minor conveniences, I have no…
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I was walking with my dog Jake the other day, and I heard a cat crying. Now we are out in the middle of nowhere, so I am figuring this cat must be lost, or abandoned. I am looking all around to see if I can find the kitty, wondering if I would be able to coax it to come to me. From the cry I was hearing I figured it was calling for help.…
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I have been scrambling my brain trying to figure out what I really want at this point in my life. The answer came when an opportunity arose. In my heart I visualized living by water so Jake could swim everyday and lose weight. I imagined living in a natural setting among beauty to seed my hungry soul. A place where I might rekindle my main passion in life, photography. With this new opportunity a clear…
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Television was a daily part of my life growing up in Los Angeles during the 60′s. Friday nights were always special at our house. We would all gather in the living room and watch the Flintstones, followed by Rawhide, and finishing with Route 66. My mom would make popcorn, and bring out a large bar of Hershey’s chocolate. Felix the Cat and Gumby were my cartoons. My sesame street was Sheriff John (learned about red…
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As a webmaster, hoping to get traffic to my site, I followed the Social Media craze, signed up for MySpace, then Facebook, and Twitter and Pinterest, Google+, and who only knows what else I have signed up for. Now that I have plastered myself all over the internet I have regrets. If I were to do it all over again I would join Facebook under a different name, a nickname, and I would have avoided…
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One of the perks of living in Thailand is the opportunity to visit Immigration every 90 days to check in. To be quite frank, I didn’t use to see it as a perk, but as a bothersome nuisance that I was obligated to do if I wanted to stay in the Country. But today was different. I arrived at 7:45 and received my first number. It is an interesting system they recently started using that…
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