Today I went shopping for the first time for a homecoming dress with my 14 year old daughter, Mary Mac. Yes, my baby has a date to a homecoming dance. What a day! Mary Mac loves to shop. She could spend hours in a mall just trying on clothes. It takes her a long time to make up her mind. I, on the other hand, don’t shop for more than an hour at a time, usually...

met my daughter, Lindsay, at IKEA today to get her the kitchen table she wanted for her birthday. This was my first trip to the massive retail store. IKEA is a Swedish based company. This strikes me as really being out of whack since the Swedish are not mass consumers. I think I wrote about the Swedish concept of “lagom” meaning “enough” or...

 I grew up in the South. Not the deep South depicted in the movie “The Help” but the South nonetheless. I was born in 1962 so I was just a baby during the era in the movie. I went to see it tonight with 2 of my children and it has me reflecting back on my childhood growing up – what I saw and didn’t see or maybe didn’t want to see....

We have dinner at 5:30 with the final instructions on tonight’s climb. Eric says there will be three groups. We are surprised that he doesn’t assign people to groups rather letting them select for themselves. This leaves us with only Sarah in our group as everyone else selects group B or C. At first we are a little sad at our small group -there are people...

I just went to the specialty meat market to get some steaks. I always ask them to cut my filets because I like the smaller than they come pre-cut. Its way to much meat for a person to eat an 8 oz filet. So I asked the guy for 2 – 6 oz and 3-4 oz. filets. So as far as my math goes that’s 24 oz. which makes 1.5 pounds. He hands me the package and I go up to...

Yesterday I came home to my Dad’s house for the first time without him here. It was hard. A dear old friend of mine who has been through the same experience came with me so that I wouldn’t have to be alone. She and another friend of ours were with me. They have both lost both of their parents so we are are the “Dead Parents Society”. Rather...

On Saturday December 15th I delivered my father’s eulogy. Before it started we played “When I get Where I’m Going” with Dolly Parton and Brad Paisley and “Go Rest High on the Mountain” by Vince Gill. Here is basically what I had to say – though I ad libbed a bit. We are here today to celebrate the life of my father, Richard...

My father passed away this morning at 4am. He is finally at peace in heaven with my mother. Visitation will be Friday night at the Rogers Funeral Home in Frankfort, Kentucky with services on Saturday morning. I have never been so drained in all my life.

After the difficult start to the day I called Father Chuck and asked him to come. He spent some time with Daddy. Daddy was calm and peaceful. Father Chuck said that he could tell it would not be long. Daddy had already seen my mother and he was ready he just needed to stay relaxed and peaceful. Then he said that though he wasn’t sure he felt that my presense...

I think my brother and I are reaching our breaking point. I don’t know how much longer we can endure this process. My Dad keeps trying to get out of bed and he is too weak. My brother isn’t strong enough to lift 185 pounds of dead weight. He is going to throw out his back. My Dad isn’t making any sense and we can’t reason with him about...