Category: Empty Nest Tales
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10 At the End – January Gratitude
This is a list of 10 things I’m thankful to have enjoyed or accomplished in month one of 2025. The list below is less exciting than what I expected to share at the outset of this month. I was sidelined a bit with my back leading to more reading, less…
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The Season of Gratitude
Today marks the start of the 11th month of 2024. The season of gratitude, Thanksgiving, lingering leaves that eventually descend, reducing trees to barren branches. The first freeze often happens in November, and the frigid morning air is welcome against my face. I have always loved October through December. Though…
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Moving: The Finale
Wrapping up the moving tales today…Here are a few clips from the first days adjusting. Day 1 As we pulled the UHaul into the new temporary apartment complex, I watched mamas take first day of school pics of their little ones. These fresh faces are our new neighbors. Boxes piled…
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I Had the Time of My Life Fighting Dragons with You
Seated on the floor surrounded by moving bins, Taylor Swift’s music played in the background (randomly on my daughter’s Spotify) while I rummaged through my three kids’ middle school papers. My twins had just started sixth grade when we moved here and my youngest began fourth. Change is rarely easy…
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The Reminiscing
Most people merely laugh and cry while pouring over 1000’s of photos when packing up to move. This deep thinker took it to another level, wondering if Socrates would have included the usefulness of photographs and videos in his idiom that the “unexamined life is not worth living”. Do reminiscing…
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Texas Tuesday – The Backstory
The Summary In the last three years, I’ve been to Texas eight times. Last Spring, I stayed a month. My then-remote position made it possible. Though I have seen and stayed in several Texas cities and towns, the state is beyond enormous and I’ve barely scratched the hot soil. I’ll…
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Moving: The Stuff
We grow up and make a home of our own. Some of us buy houses, condos or apartments. Whatever the structure, we collect some STUFF. And, I’m not a collector. So, how did I end up with so much? Photos capturing all we have done as a family make me…
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Moving: The Highlight Reel
We finally moved last week. My experience confirms the myriad of lists claiming moving is one of the top five life stressors. I’m also grateful to God that it was only moving stress and nothing more serious. We made it out alive😉, relatively in-tact physically, and are giving ourselves the…
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You’re Middle-Age When…Morning Routine
During the morning routine at the kitchen island, you realize that the decades of kid-related conversation between you and your spouse has been replaced by aging-body questions. The conversation goes something like this… Me: “How is your shoulder this morning?” Husband aggressively grabs shoulder, massaging it, then moves his arm…
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And So She Flew…Again
I laid in bed, silently grumbling that I was awake at 5:30am and didn’t need to be on that particular Friday morning. My eldest daughter was getting ready for work upstairs and I wondered if her Shark hair styler woke me. I pulled the blanket up to my chin, hoping…
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When the Adult Kids Move Back Home, Must Mom and Dad Step it Back Up?
My husband and I were slow to adjust to the empty nest. When our third child moved out a year ago, we shuffled through the house aimlessly for a couple of months. Cooking dinner according to the kids’ various work and gym schedules was no longer necessary. Going out to…
Tales from a Mid-Lifer 