Touchy Feet

My next toastmaster speech project is supposed to be a “touching speech,” It’s practicing how to convey emotion through storytelling. Instead of just saying “Billy felt sad because he wasn’t invited to Joey’s birthday party”, you’d tell the story of Billy watching his friends pass by on their way to Joey’s party and wondering why […]

September 25th

Today’s date is a significant one for me – it is Gram’s birthday, first and foremost. She would have been 95 today. If she was still alive, the McKelvie clan would have gathered together to celebrate with a nice dinner, and, more importantly, a nice dessert. I suppose we could have gotten together anyway, and […]

A Tale of Two Squirrels

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a Toastmaster speech. Last night I gave speech #3 from the Advanced Communicator Series – Storytelling. The project was to tell a story with a moral. The examples they gave were The Tortoise and the Hare and another one about mice and a cat. I struggled to think […]

Don’t Hate – Meditate

Learning to take care of myself has been a challenge, coming from a family and culture of “do-gooders”, but you can’t help others if you’re not in a good place yourself!

For me, meditation is key to feeling better both mentally and physically.

2017 NFED Family Conference Recap

The 2017 NFED Family Conference has already come and gone – in a flash, it seems. This year it was held in Falls Church, VA, which is right outside of our nation’s capital – Washington DC. The day before conference was Advocacy Day, and many NFED families went to Capitol Hill to speak with their […]

A Vermont Wedding

On July 1, 2017, my brother John married his longtime love Cara, in a beautiful Vermont wedding. The party began on Friday afternoon, when many of the guests began arriving at the Echo Lake Inn in Ludlow, VT. It was raining off and on, so we were mostly confined to the porch, where everyone was […]

Give me time…

Hello there, friendly friends! I have so much to write about and for some reason lately I have felt like I have NO time to blog. Or perhaps I just have no energy left, after all the adventuring we’ve been doing. Let’s see. My brother John got married to his longtime girlfriend Cara on 7/1/17. […]

Overheard on our Saturday Walk…

“She used to work as a dental assistant, but she had a workplace injury and hasn’t been able to work again…” Our curiosity piqued, Dave and I walk silently as we pass the pack of older women walking on the linear trail. I’m envisioning a drill gone rogue, or maybe a brutal severing of phalanges […]

Hello from Ontario!

Well, hi there! I am writing this from my bed at the Pillar and Post Inn in Niagara on the Lake. Not to be confused with Niagara Falls – it is NOT the same place. (Though the Falls are not far from here.) This is wine country.

Time to cut the crap.

Several things have happened lately that have inspired me to begin making some big changes in my life… (this is a humongous post, so I’ll wait while you grab a cup of tea or a snack to help you get through it). Captain Fantastic A few weeks ago, Dave and I watched Captain Fantastic and […]