My Portfolio

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Sometimes life can be complicated. My Father deserted our family shortly after I was born. My two sisters were seven and eight years older than me and were upset and, at my Mother’s wishes, they were not to discuss this with me until I was older. In grade school, My sisters...

Success in the workplace can sometimes be measured in sales, upward mobility, specific accomplishments or a body of work.  It can also be defined by the intangibles such as personal development, education or consistency and reliability. Success is a Journey, Not a Destination My workplace has been in the classroom spanning...

To answer this week's story prompt about having been fired, laid off or firing or laying off an employee I offer this story among many. Except for jobs in my teen years I have always been self-employed. With that comes great freedoms and opportunity. But, there are many downsides too. I've...

My recollections of the years I spent being a hospital nurse jumble together in a very mixed bag of memories, some wonderful and others hideous. Being a tenderhearted sort of person, I always found it difficult to divorce my emotions from my work. If my patient was suffering, then so was...

Sometime in the early 1990s, maybe '92 or '93, I used a software called Tapcis, which was an access program for the Compuserve Information Service. Tapcis was an automated utility that sped up access to and management of CompuServe email accounts and forum memberships for PC users. Through Tapcis, I participated...

When America was attacked on 9-11, I was in my office, Suite 217, 600 Granby Street, Norfolk, Virginia, at the United States District Courthouse. Sharon Borden, a fellow court reporter, stuck her head in my office and said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We ran upstairs to...

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Northwest of my little home town a lonely hill stood guard over the murky waters of Cheyenne Creek, the Santa Fe Railroad tracks, and the swampy liquid of the Caney River as it moved lazily southward towards Bartlesville. A rutted, rocky, road that...

My dad really did not like cats!  However, he let his little girl have several over her childhood.  I have a photo of my sister and me where she is behind me holding a ball and I am not quite two and on a kiddie car reaching out to a kitten! So...

Carroll E. Adams, the son of Delos and Hannah Peterson Adams wrote this poem and it is descriptive of the generation that was born about 1910-1930.  The anecdote given here shows the humor as well as the wisdom of this generation.  Carroll's father and my grandfather, William Albert Adams were brothers...

Who knew my Great Grandfather born in 1867 had a scar on his abdomen or that his eyes were gray.

I have been extremely fortunate throughout my work life and career.  I have never been layed off or fired from a job.  Although my chosen profession is teaching, it has never been financially lucrative and has been supplemented by doing family history and genealogical research.  However, there have been many choices...

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The past few years I've tried to start my own tradition of going to visit Shelby & co. in September. It's just about the perfect time to be in New England - at the tail-end of summer, starting to get cool and fall-ish, and time for apples in the orchards.

Today I taught week #2 of my 6 week 'Unlock Your Personal Stories' workshop at my local library, near my home nestled in the foothills of the Mt Lofty Ranges in Adelaide. I was tired this morning, having sat up until 1.30am to participate in a webinar with colleagues in the...

I am a Personal Historian and I am passionate about my work helping others to gather, organise and preserve their life stories to leave as a precious legacy for future family generations. My passion for life stories began as a wee girl, snuggled on Nan's generous lap, when I constantly requested...

I envy those people who have always known what they wanted to do when they grew up. The only occupations I remember feeling passionate about as a youth centered around horses and ballet - not too promising for a city-dweller with two left feet. Reading was always my favorite pastime, so...

Various jobs and careers were had from the time I was out of high school until the present time.  My first paying job was working at Thiokol where solid rocket fuel was made and tested for the NASA rockets.  I worked in the rocket propellent casting can cleanup.  I liked the...

When I finished my college education at Utah State University in 1968, I had to wait until graduation in 1969 since there was only one graduation each year and I had a summer class to take before I could meet graduation requirements.  My first assignment was in Mountain View, Wyoming on...