JOY With New Eyes

2022 - A Condo of our own - 292B - Pequot Ave

Add photo of logan painting his new room - if I can ever find it :(

Visiting Shabby

June 2022

2017 celebrating change and turning 21

Andie and you at Meredith

Birthday

Celebration with Andie, Julie, me off course, and Gram

Drove to Austin, TX for a con

Epic road trip to Austin, TX

Farrior Road

Goats!!

Happy 21st birthday to you at Habachi place

Incredible!

January 1 2017 we were still at Gram's from our Christmas visit

Logan's 21st Birthday celebration included a new birth certificate

Mythbusters LIVE "Brain Candy" at Carolina Theater

Name change official! Court house, Raleigh NC

Old Friends senior Dog Sanctuary, Mount Juliet, TN 37122 part of our epic journey

Jan 1, 2017

Return train trip photo

2 Jan 2017

Solar Eclipse

Trip to NC mountains August 21, 2017

source

Video of Misty walking Gram

EXtra special trip to the mountains for total eclipse

You continue to

amaZe me :)

2019 was quite the roller coaster

Amsterdam with Liam, but before that, apparently we needed another painful experience to prompt more prayers, more honest, and a request for help. Thank God, Lynette came through again and again.

Becoming "trans" parent? or have I always been?

Clearer and clearer to me every

Day now as I

Engage with this

Fabulous person who is sharing his journey with me

God, what would you

Have me do?

I will find us a place to live while you

July 10 romp at the point with Misty

Ken helped us get our "stuff" up those three flights of stairs!!!

Logan and Andie ... train into NYC and then subway to...

Mom and son reunite :)

Now we move... but!

Picking up Logan at Logan was one of our best days ever!!

Sept 19, 2019 we moved to our apartment in New London

Thank you for helping me find it, God, and thank you Lynette for helping us furnish it.

Video of Logan at Logan Airport

WhatsApp photos of Liam and Logan

eXcited to start fresh... again

Yes, again

2020 vision ie. clarity

Able to shift from admin/exec assistant to Finance assistant at CFECT when Kathy Duggan left and we hired a new admin, but then world shut down And everything started to shift...

Becoming "trans" parent? or have I always been?

Caroline and Andy had

Dylan James Roque was born on Aug 4th

Early in the year I was able to switch

From Target to Public Library of New London and at least get trained

Grateful to keep some house there and be the only one at the office.

Hostess at Water Street ended because everything closed

"In every season, through Sun or through storms..."

July: family still visited Michigan but Logan need me to

Keep my distance

Logan was struggling with heightened anxiety ... but we at least talked about what's best, and did get out some

Michelle and Kevin married 10/10/2020

New way of looking at the word trans.parent

Open heartedly Open to whatever is next, God, thy will be done

Purpose :

"Questions surround as you wander far from home.... your mind is

"Resolved. Your will is set, but your truest longings you haven't found yet... Your

"Steps uncertain, your way unknown, this heavy burden carried alone. For too long you've believed the lies: you don't have what it takes, but a mountain is calling, your purpose awaits."

Tracy and Andy were married 8/8/2020

Violet showing me around her garden

Watch the video by clicking here

Your moment, your testing ground, here to be forged, your purpose to be found...Your struggle is not in vain.

A Blending of Bits and Blogs - 2010

August 18, 2000

Butterfly Hand photo and poem

Captivated by this face. Then, now, always.

Don't know

Enjoying the entire process of growth

Finding joy in old journals led me to this post from March 2010

Gentle with the wings...

Hands

"In that moment, we both knew we would always be together. And for those first years, we were incredibly, terrifyingly, happy." ~ The Last Station

Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest. ~ Law of Attraction

"Keep walking, though there's no place to get to. Don't try to see through the distance. That's not for human beings." ~ Rumi

"Like a wild flower; she spent her days, allowing herself to grow, not many knew of her struggle, but eventually all; knew of her light." ~ Nikki Rowe

Making memories: "You are not just my heart but it's beating" ~ Shadow of Night

November 2010

"Our passion for life is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is wedded to the energy and excitement of life." ~ John O'Donohue

Poetry and pictures

"...Quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility and our hearts to love life. Without this subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearisome, and no horizon would ever awaken our longing." ~ John O'Donohue

"...Shy inner light is what enables us to recognize and receive our very presence here as blessing. We enter the world as strangers who all at once become heirs to a harvest of memory, spirit, and dream that has long preceded us and will now enfold, nourish, and Sustain us." ~ John O'Donohue

Thank you for sharing your youth and your desire for happiness with me... so young and pure...

Upside-down self portrait

June 5, 2010

Venerable: calling forth respect through age, character, and attainments; conveying an impression of aged goodness and benevolence

Words have tremendous power. for example:

eXcavating: always makes me think of Michael Morrone

"You have to connect your own dots..."

Zest-filled Summer vision/memory board

Flat Stanley, A First Grader's Love for Grandpa

Grandpa's grin says it all. You helped him have fun, feel useful, accepted and loved with this "simple" request: Will you please take Flat Stanley with you, and then send him back to me? My Dad had convinced himself, and nearly everyone around him, that he could neither read nor write. There were times in my life when he was so much fun to be around, yet his spirit had begun to fade... until his grandchildren began to arrive.

On January 10, 1977, John B. Law Jr became a Grandpa. He was 43 years old when he fell in love with his first grandchild, Kristen Marie. He had his struggles and frustrations with the noise level and commotion of parties and visits as the years went by and our family kept on growing. He was just shy of 63 when I gave birth to his 13th grandchild, and two months later, your cousin Amanda Kathryn Law was born. On his 64th birthday, he shared his birthday with his 15th grandchild, Matthew John Mitchell and then in Sept 2000, Nicholas Law became the 16th Law grandchild. Ten years later, we began welcoming the "greats" : Ava, Madeline, Ashlyn, and two days after his 83th birthday, Violet Mae. He adored each and every one, but I felt and witnessed his love for you, and I have no doubt that his abiding love continues to envelop us all.

This amazing 70 year old, your Grandpa, was thrilled that you asked him to participate in your class project. We lived more than 500 miles away, and during your school years, trips to Connecticut were fewer. Perhaps it was because he had worked so hard for so much of his life at a job he no longer loved, and now had one he enjoyed, felt useful and had friends. (Flat Stanley visited the Stonington Police Department, and came back to us with a patch to prove it!). It think it was simply because you asked. In doing so, you let him know you believed he could, which lifted his fears, and his heart, knowing you believed in him. You erased his disbelief in himself by believing. Thank you for being YOU! I adore and admire you, more than words can say, and am grateful for new eyes with which to view our lives from a new perspective. xoxo Love, Mom

2016 oh what a year it was

August seems a place to begin this post of transition: Grandpa made his transition Aug 10, 2016 ( I do have one photo of you and Andie from Aug 2016, but you probably don't want it "published."

Butterfly Hand is a poem written in August 2000, but I am including it here because I finally put the poem with the picture and LOVE it! and this human being so much!