My Portfolio

Recently, my niece, Kim, decided to compile a collection of favorite family recipes for a cookbook she is creating and she asked my sister and me for our contributions.  We were happy to comply but neither Jackie nor I could come up with a single thing we could attribute to our...

Every day in my practice as a counselor, I see how our lives are defined by relationships with others. Relationships shape, sustain and strengthen us.  They give our lives meaning—our very identities. And relationships are still, as they always have been, enhanced by sharing our personal experiences and stories. Several years...

Growing up in the 1950s was a far different experience than that of children today.  We knew every family on our block, the names and ages of their kids and the names of the family pets. We knew what the fathers of the families did for a living, what time they...

    It was after 6:00 when my long day ended and the offices were quiet at last. I surveyed my overflowing desk, then stood and stretched wearily.  Alone in the silence, I could hear the snaps and crackles as I slowly rotated my neck to relieve the day’s tension.  I hoped...

The young man at the garage in Cork ambled over to our car.  His thinly veiled annoyance made it clear he saw us as an interruption in his day.  I put on my best smile and said, “I’ve had a blowout and need to get a tire repaired.”  He looked surprised...

I love animals and I love to travel so when the opportunity to combine these passions presents itself, I rarely pass it up. That is how my husband, Mike, and I found ourselves at the top of a mountain in Mexico surrounded by millions of butterflies in the winter of 2008....

We attended services at the Methodist church sporadically and we socialized with the minister's family who happened to live on our block.  We had friends from many walks and backgrounds but matters of faith were rarely discussed in my family of origin.  It wasn't that my parents didn't have beliefs--they just weren't a topic...

I love the holiday season. Family gatherings, food, friends, more food--I even love shopping and gifting. But as much as I enjoy the holidays my favorite month of the year is January. There's just something about opening a fresh, new calendar with all those days ahead that fills me with optimism...

Our accommodations at the whale camp were serviceable but Spartan. We were provided with cots and sleeping bags in small tents on the beach. Because it was a desert—and February—the temperature dropped sharply when the sun went down and how the wind howled! Each night I waited for our tent to...

The most enduring Christmas tradition in my family is our annual race—a race against time. It is the same every year, the result of a combination of procrastination and high expectations. Every year I swear it will be different but it never is. I start making my list early and even...

Recently, a friend forwarded a story to me about the 2005 rescue of a Humpback whale. The whale was spotted off the northern California coast, hopelessly tangled in crab trap lines that had begun to cut into her flesh. The divers who rescued her talked about how the 50-ton animal made...

My father was tougher than nails and rarely sick but that was before lymphoma took over. He fought it bravely for a long time but cancer inevitably wins. We lived 200 miles from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and made many trips there while he was undergoing treatment. At times...

“Wolf!  Wolf!” I shrieked, slamming into the house as fast as my four year old legs could carry me. Knowing my penchant for fantasy, my older and wiser sister calmly went out to investigate.  From safely behind her, I could see the “wolf” curled up asleep inside my red wagon was...

We were living in Houston in 2001.  Thinking our stay there would be brief, I temporarily stepped outside my profession and took a part-time job at a nearby travel agency. I had been an agent years before and thought it would be fun and good for a few travel perks. On the morning of...

The question posed was, "If you could visit with a deceased friend or family member, who would it be?  What would you do?"  This was an easy one--it would be my mother. Mother was extremely reserved and very proper. Although she was competent and capable she avoided leadership positions. She was...

My parents owned a small business and worked incredibly long hours. This was in the 50s when working women were still something of an oddity and most of the women on our block were stay-at-home moms. In our unconventional household, my older sister, Jackie, and I were expected to assume the...

You know how some people just love reminiscing about high school and never miss a reunion?  I'm not one of them.  In fact, I probably wouldn't attend a high school reunion if they held it in my living room.  It was three years of pure torture for me--an endurance event. It...

I was a shy and somewhat serious kid, the kind most people don't recall being in their classes because we were all but invisible.  I would rather have died than speak up or call attention to myself in any way.  In the fourth grade, all that changed.   Until that year, my teachers...