Railroad Wife, Railroad Life

It has been 9 years since my grandma breathed her final breath on the face of this earth.  I think about her almost every day; what she would have thought of her great-granddaughters, what she would think of....well every thing.  While in the shower this morning a song came on that always makes me think of her.  To be honest, this years theme is song titles.  Every blog title from 2020 has been a song title.  This blog is no different.  Fittingly, this song is from the soundtrack of a movie based on the last book my grandma ever read.  The Shack. I loved my grandma with my entire being.  She was there for me when literally no one else was there.  When I was young, she made all my pageant dresses and stage clothes when I began to sing.  Before I'd go on stage, she'd always smile at me and say "Sparkle, sparkle, sparkle, pizzazz, pizzazz, pizzazz."  It didn't matter how things turned out, she always thought it was the best.  She even taught me how to sew and even

Anyone who has battled with anxiety and depression knows the feeling of dread when the anniversary of certain events creep up. The dread just creeps into your stomach and balls it up. Sometimes you almost want to will the past to change, because it's so sad or traumatic. Everyone knows the past can't change, but I would be lying if I said I hadn't willed it to change a few times in my life. I know I have a bad habit of looking through old journals, watching for memories on Facebook, and my mind of an elephant, to remember things that happened in the past. My husband usually gives me a hard time about this because I spend too much time focused on past events. This year is a little different for me though. A year ago I was about to embark on one of the best weekends of my life. So many friends and family were able to come together to celebrate my grandma's 85 years on this earth. This was a milestone weekend for her because for the first time ever all of her grandkid

I think it's only human nature when living the railroad life to accept that you are never in your forever home.  Thus there's a lot of "in our next house..." talk that goes on.  This house that we are in has been a wonderful house for us.  We've made countless memories and when the time comes to move into "the next house" we will be leaving behind a chapter of our lives that will never be duplicated.  However, that still doesn't stop the "in our next house...." discussions from time to time.  Something occurred to me though as I was sitting in church today.  When it comes to anything in our lives, whether it's house, situation, relationships, etc. we have a choice when it comes to growing or scrapping these parts of life.  We can either scrap it or make the best of the space we are given. When we lived in West Virginia, our house was the closest thing to perfect we've ever lived in. The people who built the house made great use of