After spending umpteen hours researching blogs, looking at lay-outs, getting a feel of  what is interesting and what is not, and trying to get a few minutes without having a very spoiled rottweiler bring me a toy she has gutted every few minutes (she doesn't 'cotton' to the idea of me putting much time into anything but her).....here I am, at Inspiration Point. I guess this is where it all begins for each of us, right?  I am by nature a very organized, methodical person. I think things through. And analyze everything to death!  Everyone has told me, "just get to the keyboard-that's the hardest part. The rest is fun .....just begin typing." Beginning a blog feels like walking to the end of the high dive, looking down at the world before you, then realizing you are terrified of heights......and there is nowhere to go but down. One, two, three....
JUMP!!!!!

We live about twenty-five minutes outside of town, down a winding little country road, second house on the left. I've lived here since May, 1976. I'll bet that seems inconceivable to most of you, doesn't it? I guess I kind of grew up in this house. I was still a honeymooner...married a year to my Prince Charming.....had a three and a half year old son from my first marriage, and the three of us moved to the little house in the country. Has there ever been a time in your life when all the planets were aligned in perfect excellence, that the best karma ever had come to roost on your shoulder? That's how it was for me in that space and time. Life was perfect in Camelot....two years later we were bringing home baby girl to her nursery in the little house in the country. Now we were the perfect family. More love than the little house could hold, days filled with the life of a stay-at-home-mom and her children, dad coming home at 5:00. Dinners at the dinner table, with everyone happily discussing their day...with Daddy sitting in the "boss's chair." My son used to beg to sit in that chair, and we told him that was a very special chair that only Daddy's could sit in. What allure that seat had for a little five year old!  Nights were spent playing together as a family, building homes and cars and cities with Leggo's or Lincoln Logs, watching favorite television shows. Fast forward to December 1980. The tides turned.....an ice cold wind blew in from the north, and Prince Charming was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. In that year he founded New Kent Little League, and umpired ball games for those boys until I didn't think his poor body would last to finish the game out. Eleven months later, we buried my Prince, the day before our sixth anniversary.

Life was dim at the little house, but we somehow persevered, and we made it. The "boss's chair" remained empty. My son was ten, daughter four. I didn't know much at that time, but I knew that I wanted to remain single and raise my children in the way that "we" would have wanted them raised. And I did. Now in between that time and now, there is a lifetime of memories and we will talk about them throughout this blogging experience.
Seventeen years after burying my prince, I remarried. Don't ask me how this happened, but the queen of the south married herself a man from up nawth! Well actually I will tell you how that happened. I was working two jobs at the time, and I met him while at my second job. He was a tour bus driver and brought a group from Boston down to Williamsburg to visit for several days. And that was that. We were together a year, and have been married 13 years now. He left the snow and the cold, family and friends and everything that was familiar to him, and packed up his things in his car and made his residence in Virginia. His northern attitude and accent are in tact. And we live in the little house down the winding country road, second house on the left.  His children/my children/our children are all grown. There have been weddings, there have been divorces. We are the fortunate recipients of wonderful, darling grandchildren. And we have two grand-dogs. Our first grand-dog was a boxer puppy named Samuel. We call him Sam-Sam. Our newest grand-dog is a harlequin Great Dane, named Parker. He is the baby at six months. Parker is a little spoiled, and "delicate". Our rottie-girl "Ladybug" or "Bug" as we usually call her, is totally and hopeless enamored by Parker. When they open their mouths to play, Parker's mouth is so large it can almost wrap 'Bug's head inside it! We are not certain whether 'Bug loves Parker like a child, or she is head over heels hopelessly in love romantically with him. 'Bug is four years old. Her birthday is September 7th. We adopted her from the Heritage Humane Society last October 31, 2010.......and it's one of the best things we've ever done! Glory! I love that girl. She has me so wrapped around her little finger....well, in her case I suppose it would be paws! 


'Bug is a little wide in girth.....we thought if we bought a large fence for the back yard, she would have room to run and play and be active. We debated committing to the expense, went ahead with it because we are both wrapped, and find it astounding that she has NO interest being out of doors, unless at least one of us is, as well. Running? Um, not so much. Has she lost any weight since we've purchased this prison yard fence for her? I don't believe she has lost a pound. However, it is nice to go outside with her knowing that she is safe,  walking around with her, at least getting some fresh air and sunshine. Never mind what the neighbors think of a six foot, black vinyl coated, chain link fence. With a chain that can resist seven thousand pounds, held together with a Brink's padlock attached to each of the two gates that enter into her compound. With the nation's all time high dog-napping going on, nobody's coming after our girl. She is registered with Smith & Wesson:)

And by the way, nice to meet you!